"An hour late?" Daddy screeched.
I tried to calm him down, but he kept ranting to the receptionist, even snatching the invitation right out of my hands and showing it to her. I apologetically smile and shrug, but she still glares at me like I'm a rather bad smell.
"Miss, I am the King of the Sea, I'll have you know, and I certainly..."
I'm distracted by sounds. Teenage girl sounds. Chattering, bickering, laughing. Coming down a very long flight of stairs.
Oh, no. They're going to see me.
"OK, Daddy, I'm off, now."
He ignores me. I slip away and wait at the bottom of the stairs.
The first girl to emerge is dressed in a shimmering blue dress with platinum blonde hair. She's closely followed by a girl with her mousey-brown hair in two plaits, dressed in a blue dress with blue rosemaling across the hem and green, pink and purple rosemaling down the black bodice. By their resemblence, I guess that they're sisters.
"Where's that redhead?" the brown-haired one asks.
"I don't know." The blonde replies.
I shrink back into the shadows, hoping they don't see me.
"You know, Elsa, I think she's late."
"Late? Anna, dear, a princess is not late."
Uh-oh.
Following them are another pair of girls. The white girl is dressed rather plainly, in a white dress with puffy sleeves and a blue apron. The black girl is wearing a yellow dress with a green hat and jacket.
"H-H-Hi."
They stop, bewildered.
"Was that you, Belle?" the black girl asks.
"Er... no. Was it you?"
"No."
I realise that I didn't resume my normal position from hiding from Elsa and Anna. I step into the light.
"Hi."
"Oh, it was you!" the black girl grins. "Would you look at that? Tiana, by the way."
"I'm Ariel."
"Ariel?" Belle frowns at me. "You're late."
"I know. The invitiation read wrong."
"What?"
"My dad has it."
He's still at it.
Tiana chuckles. "He's sure on a mission."
"I don't even know what for."
"You'll be OK. Come to next class with us."
"What is it?"
"Cookery."
"Cookery? What have you just had?"
"Cleaning?"
"What?"
"Is there something wrong with that?"
"Don't we do things like History and Geography and Science and-"
"Tiana, I TOLD you there would be someone else who wanted that!" Belle exclaims.
Tiana rolls her eyes. "Ariel, Princess Academy is about training to be a woman, really, rather than a princess. Unfortunately, they don't consider Science a female subject." she lowers her voice as we enter the Cooking classroom. "Many of them wouldn't be able to do it anyway."
'Training to be woman'? You wish...
