The Lost Princess

Chapter 9

In the doorway stood a man.  His face was slightly red and he wore a serious expression on his face.  His hair had grayed and covered his head like a ball of fuzz.  His beard was small and just covered his chin.  He also had a mustache that ran from one end of his mouth to the other.  He wore a pair of round glasses that sat on his nose.  He looked old.  He looked scary. 

“God dag, Prinsesse Anna,” he addressed Anna.

“God dag, Fernando,” Anna responded, then she curtsied.  If this man was able to make Anna act so formal, he must really mean business. 

“God dag, Prinsesse Lisa,” he said, addressing me.

Given that I didn’t understand what he was saying, I just responded with a simple “hello,” and a curtsy. 

Fernando gave me a funny look, but didn’t say anything more. 

“Prinsesse Anna, du er unnskyldt,” he told Anna.

She nodded, then left the room.  Fernando directed his attention at me.

“Sit down Princess Lisa,” he said, pulling out a chair and sitting in one himself.

I sat down, thankful that he did indeed speak English also. 

Fernando reached into a bag he had brought with him and produced a packet of papers.  He set them on the table in front of me. 

“This is your pretest, take it, do your best, and let’s see what you know.”

I looked down at the test.  It didn’t take very long for me to figure out that it was all written in another language.

“I don’t know how to do it,” I protested, “I don’t know the language.”

“You don’t need to tell me what you know and don’t know, just fill out the test and no more talking!” he snapped.

“But I can’t read the test!” I shouted back.

“Enough!  Do the test!  Now!”
His face was getting redder.  I figured that I didn’t want to pick a fight with this person, so I looked down at the test. 

Question 1: “Oversett ‘hallo’”

I had no idea what the question was asking, so I just scribbled down, “don’t know.”

After the fifth question I gave up on reading and just scribbled down, “don’t know.”

Soon I was bored of this and begun to just write down nonsense.  Dfjklasjfk.  Kdfkfjskj.  Dsjfjiwe. 

By the time I finished the third page I was done.  I wasn’t about to continue writing random letters for six more pages.

“I don’t know this,” I whined to Fernando.

“I don’t care what you think you know or don’t know, just do the test!” he roared.

“No,” I replied definitely.

“What did you just say?” he asked, his face as red as a tomato.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.  N-O.  I’m am not doing the test.”

“Nobody ever says no to Fernando!”

He stood up from the chair, making a loud noise as it thudded backwards.

“You will do this test, and you will do it now.  You will never say no to me again, understand?” he yelled.

“No.”