How to Be a Princess

How to Be a Princess ( 1 )

* This cover, or the one on the side? *

Chapter  1:  Just One Wish

Everyone has dreams.  Something we wish for. It can be a small thought, a tiny “Oh, it’d be cool if my eyes were blue instead of brown.”  Or it can be something so wanted, so desired, we’d do anything for it.  Then again, “I’d do anything,” is just a phrase, it’s a simple flow of words that inconsequentially fall out of our mouths without a second to pause and realize what we’re about to say.  You can’t take back words; you can’t take back thoughts.  

I’d like to say I was wise.  I’d like to say that I was completely aware of the workings of the universe.  But that’d be lying, and lies can’t be revoked, either.  

I’d like to say that I knew what I was up against when I let longings take over my mind.

And that’s what happens when you make an unrealistic wish.  You challenge life to throw all it’s got at you, and hope that you can avoid flying debris.

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The ice cream trickled its way down my chin, almost dripping onto the picnic table with chipping brown paint. Painting brown wood brown, real creative. I quickly dropped my hand onto the hard surface, slapping around frantically until I found a napkin.  Wiping the sticky chocolate, I searched the area to see if anybody noticed my mishap.

“Got a hole in your lip, Andi?” Oliver smirked, sitting across the table from me, sunlight illuminating his golden hair at just an angle to make any girl swoon.  Well, one that hasn’t been stuck with him for their whole life.

Sighing and rubbing the napkin over my face again, I replied, “How many times do I have to tell you, Oli?  I go by Alex.  I’ve gone by Alex for four years.”

“Whatever,” he replied.

“So, Alex, Oli,” Ally, my best friend, said in her naturally high pitched voice, turning to look at me, then glancing at Oliver.  “I found a penny on the ground yesterday, and it was heads up!”

“So?” I stared at her like she was crazy.

“It means good luck!” Ally said, returning my facial expression.

Laughing, I replied, “Silly, that’s all old wives tales.”

“Really, Alex, just believe in something unusual for once!  It won’t hurt you, I promise,” she smiled, looking innocent.  Looks can be deceiving, that’s for sure.  Once, Ally put fishing line at the bottom of every door in school, trying to trip as many people as possible.  Of course, she forgot to take into consideration that the line would cut someone, and felt really bad afterwards when forty-two people ended up in the clinic with bleeding ankles and bruised knees.

“Yeah, Andi, it’s a dare!” Oliver added, simultaneously tapping away at his phone.

“Seriously, Oli!  I tell you literally thirty times a day to call me Alex!” I fumed.

“That’s true,” Ally murmured, dark blue eyes not seeing anything besides the local all-boys private school cross country team circling the oval-shaped park.

“I hear what you say, I just don’t agree.  With a name like Alexandra, there are so many things I can call you.  Lexi, Lexa, Alex-” Oliver stopped midway due to an interruption.

“Yes! That one!” I cut him off.

Ignoring me, he continued, “Ally.”

“My name, idiot,” Ally averted her gaze this time, glaring at Oliver.