Grace

Chapter 59

I was officially slumming it at the palace. It was Saturday, ten in the morning and I was on the sofa in pyjamas with a bowl of chocolate cereal. Ben and Christian were in pyjamas too. We'd all slept in, Christian kept yawning and I was sorely tempted to fall back asleep.

"Anything you kids want to do today?" Christian asked.

"Chill out," Ben said. "Not work out. Not use my brain..."

"Um, I second that. Though I do have a dance to practice for Monday's assessment."

"What is it this time?" Ben asked.

"Indian solo work. I need to get a costume together too... Which means I need to go shopping. It's supposed to be authentic to show that we understand the culture."

"Well there's the Indian market near Black Friars," Christian said. "We can go there."

"Haven't they got the street food there as well?" Ben asked sounding a lot more interested.

"Yeah."

"Sounds cool."

Christian rolled his eyes. "I'll call a car for... two?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Sounds good," Ben yawned.

I finished my breakfast and then leaned against him. He put his arm around me and then slouched a little more making me slouch with him.

*

I always knew that getting in a car with the king was going to cause a fanfare and chaos. I hadn't expected the hats and sunglasses we were wearing to be such excellent disguises. As such we were able to pull up at the market in a rather boring looking car without getting noticed anymore than pulling up in an inconvenient place gives you. We were also able to get out with only irritated glances rather than open mouthed stares and video cameras looking at us.

"Don't look so confused," Ben whispered in my ear. His voice was excited and jolly, no doubt because he hadn't been recognised yet.

"This is great," Christian said with a grin.

His sunglasses were huge, sporty and covered up a good chunk of his face and his baseball cap covered his forehead leaning only the lower half of his face exposed. Without the rest of his face showing it was an unremarkable chin that would blend into the background of the hoard of people we were stood in. Ben's 'disguise' was much the same and like his dad he was wearing shorts and t-shirt. In comparison, I was wearing a floral knee length skirt, white t-shirt, Ray-Bans and a wide brimmed hat. My hair was tucked up inside it and I'd given myself a bit of extra height with the purple wedge sandals I had on my feet. A little contouring had made my cheekbones sharper, and carefully blended lip colours made my lips look fuller.

Tang, one of Christian's guards, pulled off in the car so that he could park down a side street that wasn't far away. He, another guard called Hugh and Samuel, Ben's guard, had been told to dress down and blend. They'd donned sports gear and would maybe make a few purchases whilst we were here. Hugh was going to stick close to us. He'd never been on TV and looked enough like Ben that he could be mistaken for an uncle.

"Ready to see how long this charade lasts?" Christian asked.

"I just need to go to the cash machine," I said. "There's one over the road."

We dashed over there, weaving between slow moving traffic and even slower pedestrians. The machine was so low we all had to kneel to be able to see the screen. I was just glad I wasn't wearing tights.