PLAYBOY PRINCESS (gxg) ✓

06. Rory Preston

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               RORY WHEELED HER CHAIR NEXT TO A SNARLING GIRL, WATCHING HER scrape a red crayon across the page. 

               "What are you doing?" Rory asked.

               The girl looked up, her purple-beaded braids clinking together. Scowling, she said, "It's not like how I imagined it."

               "The drawing? How'd you imagine it?"

               "Like—like a princess from a castle and a dragon!" 

                Rory tilted her head, getting a better angle of the paper. A scrawl of red lines clouded over what might have been a stick-figured girl and a fire-breathing dragon.

               "I think it looks exactly like a princess from a castle and a dragon."

               "But I hate the way the princess looks," the girl seethed.

               Rory almost laughed at the fire in her, the way she dug the tip of her red crayon so hard into the paper it chipped into wax flakes.

               Seriously, she said, "Well, I'm a princess so that makes me qualified to say I think your princess looks pretty."

               The girl's head snapped up.

               Suspiciously, she asked, "You're a princess?"

               "That's right."

               "Then where's your crown? Or your ballgown? Where's your castle?" 

               "You got me there," Rory said, frowning. "Well, I got into an accident, so . . ."

               She motioned to the wheelchair, and her leg in the stiff cast.

               The girl shook her head. "You're lying. A princess would choose pink for her cast."

               "Doc's gonna replace this one tomorrow."

               "So you are a princess," said the girl, and this time her eyes lit up. "My name is Dhonielle. Will you bring me back to your castle when you get better?"

               "Of course," Rory said easily. 

               Dhonielle bit her lip. "Do you mind moving right there?"

               Rory raised a brow, but she wheeled her chair towards the spot the girl had pointed. 

               "How come—"

               Excitedly, Dhonielle said, "And can you lift your arms like you're holding a sword? I want to draw you."

               Rory's chest swelled. "You're going to draw me? Fighting a dragon?"

               Dhonielle's brown skin shone, her cheeks dimpled with a grin. "Yes!" she said. "It's going to be a really good fight. You and the dragon are going to have an epic battle."

               "How do I win? Do I stab the dragon in the heart, really heroically?"

               Dhonielle didn't even look up as her hand moved furiously across the page, sketching out the imaginary fight. 

               "No, you're going to get eaten," she said. "Don't worry, though. Once the dragon swallows you and you're inside his stomach, it'll be a painless death."