5,781 Miles Apart

Chapter Seven

This is the last day of torture, Adalheida, if you can survive it, you get ten days without the witch. I think.

Agatha swats a yardstick at my hands and I flinch. "Keep your hands in your lap."

I roll my eyes when she's not facing me. Just a little while longer.

I look over at Amey who is sitting at his desk, reading from his textbook, doing nothing that Madame Agatha could critisize. I bet she'll still find one. I think to myself.

She swats the yardstick at his hands. "Keep your shoulders back and your back straight when sitting in an upright position."

I see him roll his eyes while Agatha is near, and with her hawk eyes, she notices. "That is it, young man!" She yells. "I have had enough of your attitude. I want two pages of lines written by lunch time, or you'll owe me three more."

"What should I write?" He asks, covering all emotion in his voice.

"I shall keep proper posture at all times as well as learn the proper attitude to maintain around authority figures." She says.

His jaw drops. "Authority figure?" He yells. "If anyone here is an authority figure, it's Adalheida, and then me!"

"Young man," she says, stiffening her already straight back, "to the public eye you are, but when we are alone, I am miles above you in authority. I never want to hear those words again. Understand?"

"Fine." He mumbles.

"What was that?" She questions.

"I said fine. You need to get your ears checked." He says.

She glares at him and waits. "I am sorry Madame Agatha. I will try to maintain the right attitude and learn respect for all authority figures." He says, giving up.

"Very well." She says, staring down at him over her long, crooked nose. "To make sure this doesn't happen again, please come with me so the proper punishment can be ensued."

She roughly grabs his wrist and starts to pull him foward.

"No!" I shout.

She stops in her steps. "What?"

"I said no." I say, talking about two inches from her face.

"How dare yo-" She begins.

"No." I say, cutting her off. "How dare you? As far as I am concerned, I am your ruler. My word is law, now let my brother go." I say, enunciating each of the last words as of they were in their own sentence.

She reluctantly let's go of my brother's wrist. "Thank you." I say. "Now, would you like to leave by yourself, or would you like the gaurds to remove you for me?"

"You can't fire me." She protests.

"Gaurds!" I yell and immediately two run into the room.

"Yes, Your Highness?" One asks.

"Please remove this woman from my house immediately." I say.

"Yes, Your Highness, of course." Says the other.

"Thank you. And please make everyone aware that her presence is no longer welcome here."

They both nod curtly and each grab one of her elbows pulling her out or the room, despite all of her protests.

I plop down in my chair and lay my head down on my arms.

"Adalheida, that was amazing!" Amey exclaims.

"Yeah, well," I say sitting up. "It may seem so grand now, but Mother will be furious."

He rests  hand on my shoulder, unsuccessfully trying to comfort me. "I'll tell her I started it. I'll take all the blame."

I scoff. "I bet she'll still find a way to turn it around and make it my fault."

He shrugs. "Probably, but still. I'll try and make sure that doesn't happen."

"Gee. That's for trying to help me feel better." I say sarcastically.

"You're welcome." He says cheerily, and then walks out the door.
                                                       ----------
"What did you do?" Mother questions, absolutely furious.

"I thought she was going to hurt him!" I exclaim, trying to defend myself.

"Adalheida, I don't know what's gotten into you recently, but I don't like it. Madame Agatha wouldn't harm a fly."

"Mother," I say desperately, "Don't you understand! It was all an evil façade. Look!" I turn around my arm to show her the bruises Agatha's yardstick had left.

"What's this?" She questions, holding my arm.

"It's from her yardstick, Mother. She would beat us with it when we didn't have correct posture or didn't do something stupid in the correct manner." I explain, my eyes now watering. "I was tired of her hurting me and Amey."

"Amey too?" She questions.

I nod. "Yes."

"Why was this never brought to my attention?" She asks tenderly. One of the first signs of tenderness she's shown me in years.

"We tried, Mother. We really did. You just had it in your head that she was an angel. I was just too tired of it, so I took matters into my own hands."

She sighs and pulls me into her embrace. I am rather surprised, but I relax and find myself enjoying it. "Go find your brother." She commands, pulling away. "I'll ring for  butler to come with  camera to take pictures of what that woman did to you."

"Mom, really, we're okay. There's no need to do anything other than keep her out of the palace." I try to reason.

"No." She says. "I want justice for what's she's done to my children."

I sigh at her refusal to listen to me. She's so headstrong. I guess I'm like her in that way. Once she makes up her mind, there's no going back.
                                                      ----------
Over all, the day did not go as I wanted. I wanted a nice day to relax at home before the trip, but instead I was trapped in a political war zone.

At least I didn't get bored.

I change into my nightgown and lay in bed, getting ready to sleep early because we have to leave early. It's about eleven hours on the plane and Germany is nine hours ahead of Angeles. The jet lag will be wonderful.

Our flight leaves at six a.m. which means we should land at eight a.m. on the time zone that Angeles is in, that is if I did the math correctly.

That will be fun.