A Royal Adventure [Ongoing]

One

The airports had completely shut down, which put my travel plans in jeopardy. I had logged onto the check in for my flight the next day, but had found red messages flashing at me and warnings that nothing would be flying out of the country until the next week. 'Oh no,' I muttered, as I clicked around the site. I groaned, tempted to throw the computer out the window so that I didn't have to face the truth.

I thought of my half packed suitcase abandoned on my dorm floor, my carefully thought out plans and agenda. That was all over now.

'What?' my boyfriend, Charlie, who was lying on the sofa reading a book, asked.

'Airports have all shut down. There's an airstrike – nothing's flying. I can't get home.'

'Nothing?' he kept on reading.

I rolled my eyes and resisted the temptation to throw something at him. But then the reality of the situation hit me and I groaned, trying to stop myself thumping my head on my desk. 'My brother will kill me.'

'If you can't get there, you can't get there.'

'You don't understand.' I clicked through the site once more before conceding defeat and closing my laptop. 'It was a condition of coming here. I was only able to come if I promised that I would be at his wedding this half term. If I don't make it back, he'll never speak to me again. It's tomorrow. And there's no planes flying.' My brother had been planning his wedding for nearly a year, and I had actually been looking forward to it. At least having it over so that we could return to normal. Plus, I hadn't been home since Christmas, and it was now May. It would be nice to see home in the spring. I was beginning to miss it and had been counting down the days until this brief trip back.

'You're in another country, he can't do anything. Not even your brother can make planes fly again just so you get home for his wedding.'

'You don't know my brother. It's tomorrow,' I repeated for effect. 'Tomorrow.'

He finally put down his book and pulled himself up into a sitting position. He pushed his glasses back up his nose – they were forever sliding down but I still found it endearing. 'So. We'll drive there,' he said simply.

'We'll drive there.' A smile twitched at my lips. 'Really.'

'Really. Saunders has a car.'

'And he'd drive across most of Europe to get me to my brother's wedding on time.'

'Sure. Road trip. It's half term. Isn't that the sort of thing we're meant to do?' Before I could respond, he leapt to his feet. 'Look the route up online. And finish packing.'

I again had that funny feeling shoot through me –the feeling that someone else knew me better than I thought anyone ever would. I hadn't even mentioned my case, but clearly we had spent enough time with one another that he knew I wouldn't have finished packing.

And that was that. Despite the sinking feeling in my stomach, hours later we had a car full of stuff, a route printed, and myself, my roommate Penelope, Charlie, and his best friend Saunders were crammed into the car.

And I knew that I could easily have said no to them – told them all that I could sort something out myself, but somehow – this sounded more fun and they were enthusiastic. I had never seen my friends so excited about something in the nine months that I had known them. And I didn't want to leave them – not yet. I knew that if I told them no and sorted things out the way that I should have done, then it would have been the end. I would slip away, as I had always planned, and they would be none the wiser. This was much riskier, but I was being pulled towards it.

I hadn't expected this – not the friends, nor the road trip - to be the outcome of my heartfelt plea to my brother to go and study abroad. And because he had been busy – because he had a job to do, a wedding to plan, and I was only in the way, he had said yes.

I debated ringing him before we left to let him know what I was doing but my flight wasn't due until the next day and if I told him now, he would panic and stop me. It would be easier to tell him when we were half way across Europe and there was nothing he could do. So instead, I ignored everything that had been done for me over the past year, and just got in the car.

I just hoped that he appreciated the effort I was putting in. One thing was certain - I had an awful lot of explaining ahead of me.

I had grown up in a small obscure country plonked right in the heart of Europe that nobody had ever heard of. And that had suited me perfectly well this year. It added an extra air of mystery, along with my strange, undefinable accent and I hadn't done anything to correct people's assumptions that they had made over the last year. But now, all those months of mystery were not so good.

And now, I was faced with a nearly twenty four hour drive across the continent. I had never driven across Europe and I didn't think that any of my friends had either.

'Are you sure about this?' I repeated for the hundredth time as I swung my rather large case into the small battered car that was already crammed full of odds and ends.

'Yes – now shut up and get in,' Saunders said. He was studying the route, leaning against the roof of the car, his sunglasses casually balanced on his head. He was so effortlessly cool and relaxed, I still marvelled at the fact that he had wanted to be friends with the uptight foreign girl.

'But it's going to be so much driving,' I insisted, trying to stall the trip a little longer.

'We know. Come on or we won't make the channel tunnel. Charlie and I will share the driving.'

'But,'

'Alexandria, get in,' he said impatiently, using my full name, which surprised me and made me stop for a moment. I was so used to being Alex these days, but Saunders said he liked the way the name sounded. I didn't tell him that if he knew why I was called Alexandria he might not like it anymore. 'We need to leave or we won't make it.'

Have you got passports?' I asked, my hand hesitating on the car door.

'Of course. Who do you think we are?'

Charlie looked up from checking the oil level and beamed at me. 'Come on,' he said more kindly and rubbing his hands on his jeans, strode over to me and kissed me.

'Your mum is going to kill me.'

'It's half term. In now.' I looked down at the oil marks on my dress and shook my head before obeying him and climbing in. all the same, I mourned the fact that Charlie's mum, who I had liked, would hate me from this day onward.

My roommate, Penelope, came bowling down the stairs then, her arms full of plastic bags and shoes. 'Isn't this exciting?' she exclaimed, attempting to stuff everything into the boot of the car, with little luck.

'Pen,' Saunders came round to chide her. 'Get in the car, I'll sort it out.'

Pen flung herself into the car next to me and I wondered once again how I come to be such good friends with this loud and exuberant person who had managed to carry me along through the last nine months. 'Well. This will be an adventure,' she said cheerfully.

'You don't have to come.' My stomach was tightening at the thought of so many people coming along – how foolish an idea this was – and I wondered if maybe I should put them all off. What were they going to think of me when they found out I had lied? I couldn't think of a way to stop them finding out the truth.

'Do you think we'll have time to go clothes shopping?' Pen asked, resting her feet up on the back of the driver's seat.

'No,' Saunders said, clicking his seatbelt in and looking in the mirror and giving her a death stare and pointedly nudging her feet.

'Shame,' Pen commented, pointedly ignoring him, and my stomach tightened a little bit more.

As we pulled out of the school drive way, I couldn't help but turn round and watch the building disappear. I didn't know if I would ever see it again. This very much felt like the beginning of something I couldn't control and that utterly scared me.