Page 20 of The Dandelion Princess
“An excellent use for newspapers, Mia. Let’s see if your meal will be scrambled.”
Over the side it goes, right on target. I tuck the microphone under my arm, unwrap the package, and hold the intact egg aloft. See, ladies? Science is fun.
Ella continues through the queue, meeting triumphs and disappointment with the same cheerful energy. At last, an egg—wrapped in an orange peel packed with confetti and tucked in a nappy—explodes across the floor, spattering my leather shoes in yolk.
“There goes my lunch,” I laugh, taking the sting out of a failed attempt. The young scientist giggles.
“Who’s next?” I ask.
Ella leans over, her red curls falling forward, as breathless as a teenager. “Me. I’m the last one.”
“What do you have, Ella?” I ask.
“I folded three origami wings and bound them with painter’s tape. In the middle, I’ve cocooned the egg in slightly inflated surgical gloves.”
I retreat from the blast zone a generous step.
“Want to make a friendly bet?” she asks, lifting her package over the railing. The crowd screams its approval and her eyes dance. “I’m hungry,” she says. “Are you hungry?”
I don’t have time to be hungry. “I’m hungry.”
She smiles. “If my good pal, Eglantine, makes it,” she bounces the egg lightly in her hands, “you have to feed me lunch. Agree?”
The crowd, scenting romance, goes wild. Suddenly, I want to send up some bubble wrap tied to a bouquet of helium balloons, and lay down a nest of pillows. Our good pal is not going to make it.
“Agree.”
When she drops it, I feel a dog of hope sit up in my stomach, paws restless, chin raised in expectation. The paper wings set her packet spinning in an elegant dance but when it lands an ominous pop echoes through the lobby.
Before I can confirm the outcome, she breaks in. “If you don’t open it, we never have to know if the egg broke.”
I lift a brow. “You want me to falsify test results in this Temple of Reason?” I ask.
“Falsify? You wound me, Marc. No. We’ll put it to a vote,” she says.
I grin. “Ella, this is not how scientific consensus works.”
She ignores me. “Those who say the egg is broken...” A few scattered claps serve as the only memorial to empirical evidence.“And those who think it’s intact…” The lobby shakes so hard that government scientists are registering signs of volcanic activity.
I’ll tell Noah Ihadto keep her for a lunch date. It was for science, after all.
“Let’s see it,” I say when I finally get her to my office. I set aside the wrapped sandwich from Bette’s, and she lifts her hair away from her forehead, allowing me to brush my fingertips over the slight swelling. “Good makeup. Are you having any lingering headaches?”
“Do you count my mother? She marched me down to Doctor Frum’s surgery when she saw it. I swear, the woman has eyes like a hawk. Anyway, I got the usual lecture,” she says, spinning her hand in the air, “about how I’m not fifteen anymore and she’s juggling several reign-ending catastrophes at once. Can’t I just be easy so she can focus on Freja? All of it.”
I hold Ella’s chin in my hand, tilting her face into the light. She’s not made of glass, and her doctor is one of the best in the country. Still, such knowledge doesn’t shorten my inspection.
Finally satisfied, I relax onto the leather sofa, overlooking the city’s historic skyline. Ella kicks off her trainers and tucks herself into the corner.
Why am I worried about her? The question has the rough heft of a brick, and my mind hastily boards up its windows. The answer is—must be—that I am her friend and protector, I think as I pick up one of the white trainers. Those rigid roles protect us both. “Was this on Her Majesty’s list of approved wardrobe choices?” I ask.
Ella reaches for a sandwich, but her face wears the same look it does when she’s left one of the pasture gates open and all the cows have wandered out. Ask me how I know.
“Approved?” She chews her liver paste on rye. “Mama doesn’t have time to monitor every little thing, and I took a chance.” She meets my gaze from the corner of her eye. “No. I already knowwhat you’re going to say. Don’t. You can’t imagine living every second of your life policed by a loving but tyrannical despot.”
My lips twitch. “She’s going to be annoyed that you’re not wearing contacts.”
“My eyes were itchy this morning.”
