Page 49 of Royal Hottie
Phillip steps out of the Jeep, helps me out, and then urges Rafe back in a low command before greeting the children. “Hello! How’s everyone doing?” He reaches out both hands and the children rush to high-five him. He’s done this before, probably taught them the high five too. “This pretty lady is Ruby. Say hi, Ruby!”
“Hi, Ruby!” the children chorus.
“Hi, everyone.” I smile and wave. I’m already drenched in sweat, even wearing a linen dress, hat, and sandals. Phillip is sweating too in his linen shirt and pants.
Phillip smiles at me and then looks toward a small figure in the shade of the shelter’s porch. “David!” He turns to me. “Come meet David.” He strides over to the shelter, where a young boy in a wheelchair waits. The boy smiles shyly. He’s probably five or six. His legs end at the knees.
Phillip drops to his haunches so they’re eye to eye. “So good to see you again, David. I brought my friend Ruby.”
David smiles at me and turns to Phillip. “I can read a chapter. I’ve been practicing.”
“Well, let’s hear it. Have you got the tablet with you?”
David nods and points behind him.
Phillip stands and checks the pouch on the back of the wheelchair, pulling a digital tablet out. He hands it over to David and drops to one knee to listen, his head bowed toward the ground.
David presses a few buttons and begins to read about a mischievous puppy. It’s painfully slow and he stops a few times in the beginning, stuttering over a tough word. Phillip lifts his head once David sounds confident, listening in rapt attention, occasionally nodding to encourage him.
Finally David finishes and puts the tablet down on his lap.
“Brilliant!” Phillip exclaims. “Very impressive. I wasn’t reading that well until I was six and you’re only five.”
David beams.
“Keep at it,” Phillip says. “Remember what we talked about. Education means opportunity, and what does opportunity mean?”
“A good job,” David says.
“That’s right. You want to see the pump’s guts? We’re going to tinker with it.”
“Yeah!” David exclaims.
Phillip tucks the tablet back in the pouch and pushes him toward the pump, inclining his head for me to join them. More kids gather round to watch, only now they’re carrying their own tablets and telling Phillip what they’re learning with them.
I hang back, watching as Phillip talks to the kids and some of the adults who are helping with maintenance on the pump. He makes each kid feel special. My ovaries are bursting. He remembers a lot of their names, and he subtly keeps them out of the way of the workers. The press secretary snaps some pictures and urges me to get closer to Phillip.
I work my way through the crowd of admirers. Phillip turns to me. “Check out what Emmanuel’s been doing online. He’s already up to algebra. And he’s ten!”
“Wow, that’s great! So you’re all learning online? Or do you go to school?”
“It’s both,” a woman says. “Hi, I’m Irene. I run the school, and now with the computers and tablets His Highness, Prince Phillip, has provided, we can go further, learning more online.”
“That’s wonderful.” I turn to Phillip, and he smiles modestly. He never mentioned he was doing a technology-in-schools program.
“It is,” Irene says enthusiastically. “And now the girls are in school as well.”
My eyes widen. “They weren’t before?”
She lowers her voice. “They were needed to fetch the water.” She gestures toward the pump. “Now the machine does it, so they can go to school.”
“I’m so glad to hear it,” I say, though I’m a little stunned. It hadn’t occurred to me girls couldn’t attend school because they had to get water for their village. It’s sexist and unfair, which angers me as a woman. At the same time, it’s basic survival, which I have never had to contend with in my life. Probably everyone in the village has a specific role so they can all survive. My whole life I’ve taken for granted food, water, and shelter, even school. My world just shifted, my eyes open for the first time to the realities of a very different kind of life.
We leave an hour later, heading to another village. This next one will be getting a solar water pump for the first time.
I take my seat in the back of the Jeep with Phillip. He’s waving bye to the kids, who are running alongside the car for a bit. Finally we’re too far and the kids hang back.
“I didn’t know the water was connected to education for girls,” I tell him. “That blew my mind.”
