The Princess Selection

Chapter 5: Basic

Charlotte's POV: 

I wake up enveloped in silk sheets and a soft mattress. I open my eyes and light streams through the door that goes out to the balcony. I sit up and stretch my arms out in front of me. 

There is a soft knock on my door and Maria steps in quietly. She sees me sitting in the bed and shuts the door before walking into the bathroom and bringing out a simple dress and a pair of dainty flats. 

"Breakfast is in a half hour, miss. Kate and Sadie will be in shortly to get you ready," Maria says, hanging the dress up inside the bathroom door and placing the shoes on the ground. 

She then comes over to the bed and tosses the covers off of my legs. The cool morning air immediately attacks my bare skin. I shove my legs under my nightgown that Kate left on my bed last night for when the party ended. 

"Get up and go shower. Quickly. We need to get you ready," Maria snaps. 

I jump off the bed, a little afraid of her harsh tone, and scurry into the bathroom and shut the door. The cold tile stings my feet as I go over to the shower and turn on the water. 

I leave the nightgown on top of the hamper outside of the adjoining closet and step into the warm water. 

I wash quickly and step out. I find a silk robe hanging on the wall and I slip it on before going back out to the bedroom. 

Sadie grabs me as soon as my feet touch the carpet and she plops me down in a plush chair. Kate starts drying my hair and setting it in rollers and Maria starts on my face. It doesn't take them long to fix me up. 

I stare at myself in the mirror. My grey eyes give off a hint of blue, my blonde hair falls in loose waves over my shoulders and down my back, and my cheeks blush a rosy pink. 

Sadie ushers me back to the bathroom and orders me to get dressed. As soon as the dress is on and the shoes are slipped onto my feet, my maids shove me into the hallway where a guard is waiting to guide me to breakfast. 

I enter the dining room to find that almost all of the girls are already seated and eating. The king and queen are seated at a table separate from the rest of us. 

I take a seat next to Beth and look at the table. 

"Morning," Beth says. 

"Morning."

"What are you waiting for?" She asks, watching me curiously. 

"I've never seen so much food," I say. "What do you suppose they do with the extras?"

I stare at the piles of food lined up down the table. 

"Queen Evelyn sends out servants every day with the leftover food and they take it to the sixes, sevens and eights," Beth says. 

I nod. 

"Are you going to eat something?" She asks. 

"I don't know what to eat. There's so many options," I gawk. 

She takes two strips of meat and drops them onto my plate. Then, Beth scoops some sort of puffy yellow things onto my plate. 

"There," she says, handing me a fork. 

"What is it?"

"It's bacon and scrambled eggs, Charlotte. Have you never seen eggs or bacon?" 

I shake my head. "We don't get much meat unless it's leftovers from someone and as far as eggs, we eat them sunny side up and that's about it."

"Eat your breakfast," Beth laughs. 

I eat until my stomach hurts. Then I eat some more. I finish just as the maids come to clear the plates. 

The king and prince Lucas leave the dining room, I hadn't even noticed the prince come in. 

The queen and the princess stay seated at their table and Jane stands. 

"Okay ladies. We are going to be spending the day in the parlor, and then the queen and princess will be teaching you all the basics of being a princess. There will be two groups. One group will go with me and the other with princess Makenna, queen Evelyn will be monitoring your progress throughout the day. Tonight at dinner the prince will announce his choice for whom he wishes to go on a date with first. Now, listen for your name and your group," Jane says.

The names are ordered by number so I sit and listen until finally my name is called last. 

"Lady Charlotte, you will be with princess Makenna," Jane announces. 

I get up from my seat and join the group of girls crowded around the princess. I find Macy in the sea of girls and she smiles at me when I stop next to her.  

The princess leads the group to an empty parlor and instructs us to sit. We obediently follow orders and the princess stands at the front of the room waiting on the rest of us to do as we're told.

"Okay then. Today I am going to talk to you about what it means to be a princess, then we'll go through some basic skills so you are ready when Lucas announces his choice for the first date tonight at dinner," Makenna says.

She goes over the dos and don'ts of princessing. Do always look your absolute best, even if you're just hanging around all day, don't be impolite, use your common sense. Things that any person with a brain would know.

"Okay, when you go on your date with Lucas, don't be overly clingy, if he offers his hand or arm, take it. Don't ignore his gesture, he is just as nervous as you are. Be yourself, honestly that's all he's going to want out of you. Don't be so overly polite and proper that you come off as stiff and boring. Get to know him, one of you will marry him, the least you can do is know his favourite color," princess Makenna says. "Have fun. This may be a competition but you can still have fun, get to know these girls around you, you're all scared and away from home. Be each other's support system."

We all nod.

"Good, now I want to talk with each of you individually, so get to know each other and I will request one of you at a time, just to talk and get a feel for who my brother has to choose from," the princess smiles. "Lady Charlotte, let's start with you."

I follow the princess to the other side of the room while the rest of the girls watch with envious eyes, Macy smiles encouragingly at me.

"Sit."

I sit in a plush armchair across from the princess.

"Pretend to look scared," the princess whispers.

"What?"

"Look scared, I want them to think that this is going to be super hard and stressful," she hisses.

I give her a weird look instead of a scared one.

"That works too I guess," she shrugs. "so Charlotte, do you actually go by Charlotte? It's awfully formal."

"I'm sorry, your highness. I don't understand," I say. 

I'm usually very outspoken, never would I be this cordial to my parents or my older sister.

"It really irritates me when people call me that, call me Makenna, or Kenna if you want, that's what Luke calls me, Kenna. I just want to get to know you on a personal level, one of you is potentially my new sister and I want to know what sets you off, what makes you smile, I want to be your best friend so I can help influence my brother's decision. Be all you. I don't want to fall in love with your personality and then find out it's completely fake and you're really stuck up who thinks she deserves this position. So my question is, do you really go by Charlotte?"

"My parents and most of my friends call me Charlie," I say.

"Charlie, that's cute," Makenna says.

"I've always thought Charlotte was too fancy for me, I'm only a five, where am I supposed to go with a name like Charlotte and a ranking like a five?" I sigh.

"The rankings annoy me. Why should our people, our fellow Americans, all be defined by a number. It's horrible. We may be under a monarchy rule now, but that doesn't mean that we're not still a free country, the constitution and the declaration of independence still stand, that's the only thing we have left from what our country used to be, why should we slowly strip that away from our people?" Makenna asks.

What she just said catches me off guard.

"Sorry, that was a little out there for a first time conversation, I apologize. So you're a five? Do you sing, dance, paint?" Makenna says.

"I sing, my mother paints and my dad takes photos," I say.

"Any siblings?" Makenna asks.

"Older sister, about your age. She plays the piano," I say.

"I wish I had an older sibling rather than be the older sibling, it's so much work. You have to be a good influence and do everything right so that your younger sibling doesn't learn any bad habits from you," Makenna sighs.

I laugh. " I wish I was the older sibling. I grew up with hand-me-downs and always being compared to Julia, it's exhausting."

"Lucas and I never had the hand-me-down problem, but I totally get the comparison piece, except with my parents it's more of comparing how much one of our screw ups compares to the others, like this one time Luke got caught at a party and the press was all over it, he was so drunk he was going crazy, this fortunately overshadowed me missing my flight to Italy to meet with the princess because I was hungover from the night before," Makenna laughs. "Luke was so drunk, there were pictures of him dancing half dressed on top of tables on the fronts of magazines for weeks. I still haven't let him live that down."

I laugh.

"I like you Charlie. You aren't fake and you don't hide behind money. You're real and sweet," Makenna says.

"Wait until you get to know me, I'm not always so sweet," I say.

"What do you mean?"

"Let's just say I'm not known for backing down, I usually speak my mind and stand my ground for what I believe in. I used to get in a lot of trouble for it when I was younger, especially in school," I smile.

"Give me an example," Makenna says.

"There was this one time, I think I was in the fourth grade, my teacher was so rude to all of us, constantly. She told our class one day that we were so horrible and so disrespectful and I said 'well at least you've taught us something'," I laugh remembering the look on my teacher's face.

"You didn't!" Makenna laughs. "How old were you?"

"Fourth grade I think, I got sent to the office and my parents were so mad." I laugh.

"Oh my gosh. Oh! Goodness, I'm so sorry, we're going to have to cut this short, I have to move to the next girl if I want to get through all of you before dinner," Makenna says.

I smile and get up from my chair.

"I'll put in a good word for you with my brother, and I'd love to talk to you again," Makenna says.

"Me too," I smile, before going to join the rest of the girls again.

"Seriously, tell me what you talked about with the princess, I told you," Macy begs me as we walk down the stairs to the dining room.

I shake my head. She's been on me about this ever since we were released to our rooms to get ready for dinner. There was a brief intermission between her pleads when we separated to prepare for dinner, but as soon as we met up again in the hall she started back up. Apparently I was the only one who had an actual conversation with the princess.

"Please Char, tell me!" Macy whines.

"Oh look how pretty the dining room is," I comment when we walk in.

"Way to change the subject," Macy snorts.

"I can't tell you, I'm sorry. She told me not to talk about it with anyone," I say, sitting down next to Beth.

"What is she whining about?" Beth asks.

"She spoke with the princess today and they had a very entertaining conversation, I mean she had the princess laughing for the whole thirty minutes they talked, and Charlotte won't tell me a thing." Macy pouts.

"Just you talked to her?" Beth asks me.

"No," I shake my head. "She spoke with all of us, Macy had her own conversation. Why are you so intent on knowing mine?"

"Because my conversation with her lasted all of ten minutes, she asked me so many questions and I didn't know what to say without offending her," Macy sighs. "It was awful."

I laugh. The royal family finally enters and the room goes quiet. The king, queen, and princess all take their seats at the table, the prince approaches the microphone and clears his throat.

"Good evening ladies, today you all spent the day with my mother and my sister. You each had the opportunity to speak with one of them and they reported the conversations back to me to give me advice on who to choose for the first date. And after much consideration, I am pleased to announce my choice for the first date that will happen tomorrow," Prince Lucas says. "My choice is, Lady Charlotte Robins."        

I'm in such a state of shock, I can't move. I can feel Macy and Beth shaking me in excitement and I can hear clapping. 

I, a five, was just chosen for the first date in The Choosing.