Royally Jacked (Romantic Comedies, The) by Niki Burnham

of here. Maybe I’ll have some e-mail from the A-listers. Something more about David and him being jealous would suit me just fine right now.
    Luckily it’s not a real long walk home—to the palace, that is. It only takes about ten or fifteen minutes. But there’s also a streetcar stop right by the school, and if I hop on, it’s only one stop to get tothe palace. Since the streetcar is pulling up, and Dad bought me a pass yesterday, I jump on. I punch my ticket in the little yellow machine on board and congratulate myself on figuring out something about Schwerinborg without having Dad tell me.
    I quickly realize that this is a mistake, because the second the streetcar starts moving, I wobble, fall onto one of the bench seats, and nearly end up in this old lady’s lap. She’s in an all-black dress, and she has on—no, I’m not kidding—knee-high nylons, and you can see the tops of them at the hem of her dress. And her legs are all hairy, too.
    She waves me off and says something in German that doesn’t sound particularly civil, but I have no idea what. And no idea how to apologize. I make an
I’m so sorry
face as I stand up from the too-narrow space beside her, go to the other side of the car, and grab on to an empty pole.
    This shouldn’t upset me. But it does.
    I can feel tears in my eyes, burning way at the back, and I blink to keep myself calm. I so need Jules and Natalie. They’d have made me laugh with some offhandcrack about how the Schwerinborgers need an introduction to Nair. Or Christie, who’d have said something miraculous to the old woman to make it all better.
    I sure hope Christie got my e-mail with my phone number, and that her mom lets her call me tonight instead of waiting for the weekend. I’m going to go over the edge if I have to wait until Friday to talk to someone about all this.
    I mentally pray that Christie will be extra nice to her Tennessee cousins and that they all have a fabulouso time at the Smithsonian. I ’m desperate.
    Then I hear this voice near me speaking German, but it’s familiar.
Way
familiar.
    “You okay?” Georg asks in English when I turn around.
    “Um, yeah,” I manage, wondering if my day could possibly go any further downhill. I know how bad I look when I get into almost-crying mode. Before I can take two seconds and think, I blurt out, “What are you doing here?”
    “I saw you getting on the
strassenbahn
and decided to follow you.”
    “Saw me making a total dork of myself.”I give the woman I tripped over a weak smile, but she’s just staring at Georg.
    “I told her it was an accident, and that you’re a very nice person but that you don’t speak German.”
    “Or know how to stand up on a
strassenbahn,
” I say, trying out the German word for “streetcar.” “But thanks.”
    I think I’m turning red now.
    Georg puts his hand on my lower back, and the feel of his fingers through my clothes makes me freak out inside. “We’re here.”
    I look out the window, and sure enough, we’re slowing down alongside a street-level platform. There’s a canopy over part of it, and in big black letters it says SCHLOSS, which Georg tells me is the German word for “castle.”
    Schloss
doesn’t sound like a castle to me, but seeing as the rear gate to the palace is across the street, I trust him that it doesn’t mean “sewage treatment plant,” which would’ve been my guess.
    I still can’t believe that a prince is on this thing. And from the looks other people are giving him—most are more discreetthan the old lady, either peeking from behind newspapers or past grab bars—I’m guessing this isn’t the usual way he comes home.
    Once we’re through the gate and we’ve climbed up the back stairs into the wing where my apartment is, Georg stops.
    “What?” I frown. I’m about to apologize for screwing up on the streetcar, but he crooks his finger at me, then puts it over his lips. I follow him down a long hall, wondering what’s with all the