The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst Read online

  ‘You what?’

  ‘It was only fair,’ Astrid shrugged. ‘He knew when the others were lying.’

  ‘He must have been cross,’ Father said admiringly.

  ‘Furious,’ Astrid agreed. ‘He un-fired me the next day though, as he found it too confusing going to meetings without me. I said I’d keep telling the others if he lied again, and he sighed like this …’ She demonstrated: a deep, slow sigh. ‘Then agreed. He’s only lied three or four times since.’

  After we’d laughed for a while, Imogen told us that the most fun part of the swimming tournament had been train and coach rides, and lunches and dinners, with Pelagia and Mr Dar-Healey.

  ‘Pelagia acts out her stories so dramatically. Like, she’ll huff and puff as if she’d just run a big race if she’s describing a chase scene. Or she’ll wave her hands around to demonstrate flames if fire is part of her story. Mr Dar-Healey and I were transfixed. Although …’ Imogen paused, and sipped from her orange juice. ‘She changed as the trip went on. She was winning everything so she ought to have been happy, but her stories got shorter, and less theatrical, and then she stopped telling stories altogether. Mr Dar-Healey and I tried to cheer her up, and to ask what was wrong. She never answered.

  ‘Plus, a few times she wandered away from the hotel when we got to a new town, even though we were supposed to stay together. Mr Dar-Healey got a bit stern with her about that, and she cried, and then he felt bad and explained that we were his responsibility, and he cared about us, and she only cried more, and he looked over at me, like: help!’ Imogen demonstrated Mr Dar-Healey’s helpless face. ‘I didn’t know what to do, and then Mr Dar-Healey suggested a game of Scrabble which, surprisingly, cheered her up. But she was never the same. It was str—’

  I think she was going to say strange, although I can’t say for sure because there was a mighty creak and everything slid off the table.

  Coffee pot, napkins, plates, cutlery, milk jug, fried eggs, salt and pepper shakers. Everything.

  It was happening all around the dining room. People shrieked, grabbing at things, or tipped over in their chairs. The chandeliers swung wildly, and breakfast food continued crashing and splattering to the carpet.

  Another cre-e-e-e-a-k, a boom! and the ship righted itself again. Then, just as we began to pick up chairs and plates, a voice from out on deck shouted, ‘Aquatic Elves!’

  Everyone dropped the items they’d gathered, and rushed out onto the deck. Aquatic Elves are extremely rare. There are only a handful of colonies, all of these in the far north waters of the Northern Climes.

  ‘It won’t be Aquatic Elves,’ Father warned us. ‘We’re too far south.’

  But it was.

  A colony, riding their net along the ocean surface. Aunts Maya and Lisbeth must have had to tack sharply to avoid them.

  Their net looked like the white pith inside orange peel. It blended with the foam of waves, so you had to squint before you understood what you were seeing.

  The Elves, each the size of a teaspoon, and each with a spray of white hair like a dandelion puff, paid us no attention. Some were curled up asleep, but most scurried about, straightening the edges of the net, gathering sea-krill, jumping into the ocean to splash about, plucking baby Elves from the water so they wouldn’t be left behind. It was mesmerising to watch. They moved so quickly! Very different to land Elves, who tend to be leisurely except when playing music or sport.

  The ship’s deck was crowded now. There were people like us from the dining room, passengers who’d run upstairs in their nightgowns, and early risers who’d already been playing shuffleboard or reading on the deck.

  Everyone exclaimed and pointed, running from port to starboard, bow to stern, trying to keep up with the Aquatic Elves as their net skimmed this way and that in the water.

  Soon, though, the net began to drift steadily away from the ship. We peered into the distance for as long as we could but it vanished, merging with sea spray.

  ‘Aquatic Elves! I can’t believe we saw Aquatic Elves!’ everyone chattered, shiny-eyed.

  ‘What are the chances?’ a passenger breathed.

  ‘Minuscule,’ said a man in a straw hat.

  ‘Vanishingly small,’ added a woman in a bathing suit.

  After a moment, my father spoke in a thoughtful voice. ‘Non-existent,’ he said, and glanced at us. ‘There’s no chance of seeing Aquatic Elves here.’

  We told him that that made no sense as we’d seen the Aquatic Elves so there had to be some chance, but he was strolling back into the dining room, taking no notice at all.

  The next important thing to happen on our voyage to Spindrift was that we stopped in Cloudburst for a night.

  Cloudburst is the capital of the Kingdom of Storms, and is right in the middle of that kingdom. (Spindrift is on the coast, but it’s quicker to travel there overland than to sail around. That’s a helpful aside, in case you’re puzzled, or a geographer.)

  While we were in Cloudburst—

  —I broke my ankle.

  How did I do that?

  Well, first you should know that Cloudburst is crowded, hilly and rainy. The Royal Palace stands at the top of the steepest hill like a worried parent frowning down on its children as they scurry about in the rain. Cobblestone roads are pockmarked with puddles, and lined with fancy shops, in and out of which people bustle, raincoats flapping. ‘Excuse me!’ they sing to each other. ‘Oops! Got our brollies tangled.’

  Honestly, the place is an accident waiting to happen. Anybody could slip and break an ankle.

  You can’t blame the person who breaks the ankle. You have to blame the town.

  We arrived in Cloudburst in the morning, checked into the hotel, and set off to see the Cloudburst Museum. I was pretty bored by the museum, if I’m honest. Don’t tell Father I said that. He was so proud of himself. ‘Educational!’ he said, as we waited in line. ‘Fascinating! You’ll love it!’

  He’s an historian. It’s his job to love it, not mine. I can’t even remember a single thing we saw. A vase, maybe? No flowers in it.

  Next, we had lunch in our hotel dining room. Father was called away during the pumpkin soup to take a telephone call. My sisters got out their detective novels to read at the table, but I’d already finished mine. So, after a bit of staring around at other diners (one man curled his arm around his plate, as if I was hurting his food by looking at it), I pushed back my chair.

  ‘Be right back,’ I told my sisters, who only carried on reading, and I slipped out of the hotel.

  I ran all the way up the steepest hill in Cloudburst until I reached the palace.

  Why did I do that?

  I had the strange idea that I might see Alejandro, the Stolen Prince of Cloudburst, through a palace window. As I’ve mentioned, my sisters and I had met him once, two years earlier. Mother had been sure he wouldn’t remember us and I was anxious to prove her wrong, as soon as possible.

  I didn’t have an umbrella or coat, but that was all right, I love the rain. (Teachers never seem to think that’s important. They’re always carrying on: ‘What were you doing outside in that downpour!’ And when I reply, soothingly, ‘It’s all right, I love the rain’—they brush that aside as irrelevant. It’s all about ‘catching a chill’ with them, and ‘have I lost my mind?’)

  Anyhow, once I reached the palace, I walked around it three times, the rain pattering pleasantly on my head and shoulders. The golden-red sandstone walls were made richer and redder by the rain, the elegant balconies and balustrades shone, and the royal flags drooped and dripped. Each time I passed a guard, I waved, yet the guards stood grimly, rain streaming down their faces, and took no notice.

  Other people were staring up at the palace too. They had umbrellas. One woman kept twirling her umbrella, which was a bit careless as she was sharing it with a friend. The friend had to prance about like a goat to stay sheltered. Anyway, the twirling one said to her friend: ‘Can you believe the young prince is in there? Never thought I’d see th
e day when he’d be back!’

  The friend sprang sideways and ducked under the twirling umbrella. ‘I know,’ she agreed. ‘I hear they’re travelling to Spindrift early in the morning, for the party. Wish I’d been invited.’

  ‘They couldn’t invite the entire Kingdom, I suppose.’

  ‘Suppose not.’

  After that, the two women clipped back down the hill.

  High-heeled boots they wore. Dangerous on slippery roads. Could so easily break an ankle.

  I circled the palace one more time. This time I peered hard at the windows, hoping to spot Alejandro. Or even a glimpse of King Jakob and Queen Anita hugging Alejandro? The queen would kneel before her son, holding his face in her hands. Tears sprang to my eyes just imagining it.

  Each time I passed a guard, I almost called out: ‘You know Prince Alejandro? Guess what? He’s a friend of my cousin, Bronte! I’m Esther!’

  But I was never quite brave enough. I imagined the guards might not believe me. They’d think, ‘How could such an ordinary child have anything to do with our prince?’ They might sniff at me.

  Or what if they hollered into the palace: ‘Prince Alejandro? Your friend Esther is out here!’

  And next came the sound of Alejandro’s voice: ‘Esther? Who’s Esther? Never heard of her.’

  Because really, it had been a very busy afternoon when we met Alejandro, one that featured many cousins. Alejandro could easily have missed me altogether.

  That would be embarrassing.

  Also the guards might arrest me, thinking I was a spy.

  Not worth the risk, so I didn’t call out.

  I was about to return to the hotel when I happened to notice that three grand houses stood opposite the palace. One of these, the grandest, had a high, peaked roof. If you were doing repairs on that roof, I thought, you’d be able to see directly into the palace windows.

  Next thing I knew, I was climbing onto the roof.

  It really was like that. I didn’t make a decision to climb—that would have been a silly decision—I just found myself doing it.

  (Later, when I tried to explain this, nobody really got the distinction. Father said, ‘Well, you did make a decision, Esther,’ in a serious voice. ‘It’s not as if you were Whispered to climb. You just wanted to.’ This was true, and Father is never serious generally, so I nearly cried.)

  It was easy to climb. There was a drainpipe running up the side of the house, and you could sidestep onto window ledges for rests. It was almost as if it was designed for a passing child to climb.

  Up on the roof, the slope of tiles was steeper than it had looked from the road. So that’s not my fault. That was a bit misleading.

  I scrambled up, sliding down now and then, until I reached the peak. This, I straddled.

  It was very windy up here, and my hair swirled around, splashing against my face. Again, how could I have known that would happen?

  I peered across at the palace.

  You couldn’t see a thing. The windows over there ran with rain, and were fogged and misty. Also, there were curtains.

  Oh well, I thought. This was a waste of time. And I swung my leg back over, ready to climb back down.

  I was being very careful, I promise.

  I glanced back towards the palace just one more time as I swung my leg and, right at that moment, a curtain was whisked aside.

  I saw a face.

  Somebody was pressing their forehead to the glass to look outside.

  A woman’s face.

  Queen Anita!

  I recognised her from newspaper pictures!

  Right there, across the way! The queen!

  And her expression—the expression on her face—there was something about it that I could not quite—

  Then I was skidding down that roof at an alarming speed, bump-bump-bump, grabbing wildly, but finding nothing to hold onto! (they should have handles or something up there) and then, oh it’s the edge—I’ll have to catch on—

  I was skidding too fast.

  No chance to catch onto anything.

  Crashed over, tumbled down the side of the house, grabbing at window ledges all the way—

  The ground slammed into me like something furious. Snap, went my ankle.

  The doctor at the hospital was an enormous man with a ferocious scowl.

  (A palace guard saw me fall and called an ambulance, if you’re wondering how I got to the hospital.) The doctor asked what had happened, stared at my ankle, checked it against the other one, and had me move and twist my foot. Although his expression was fierce, his hands were gentle, as if they knew just how much the ankle hurt.

  Eventually he straightened and said he was sending me for an X-ray, but that he was pretty sure it was fractured.

  ‘You say this happened while you were climbing onto the roof of a house?’ he asked. ‘One of those big houses opposite the palace?’

  ‘Well, I mean, it happened when I fell,’ I said, ‘rather than when I was climbing.’

  His frown deepened and it seemed like he was about to scold me for climbing in the first place. So I quickly pointed out that the people who own the house should place a sign outside saying the roof was steeper than it looked. And warning children about how windy it was up there. A sign like that might have saved me a lot of trouble. I also mentioned how slippery the roof tiles had been from the rain, so in a way it was the fault of the rain, and of Cloudburst itself. Cloudburst is an accident waiting to happen, I said.

  He listened to this with the same fierce frown, then a woman dressed in a blue uniform came in, and the frowning doctor asked her to, ‘Please take Esther to X-ray for me?’ And when he swung around to leave the room, I caught a glimpse of his face and he was grinning.

  Not long after the X-rays, my father and sisters arrived.

  Father said, ‘Oh, Esther! You’re white as a ghost! Esther! What have you done, Esther darling?’ and gave me a big hug. He had actual tears in his eyes and kept stroking my hair. (It was the next day that he became serious about making sensible decisions in relation to roof-climbing.)

  Imogen and Astrid were just hugely jealous and wished they could fracture their ankles, too. They were so impressed by how my ankle had swollen up and turned purple and grey. I told them about how much it hurt but they didn’t see that as important.

  Later on, the same doctor returned and told me I didn’t need surgery. I hadn’t known that surgery was possible and was a bit disappointed. I mean, I wasn’t completely sure what surgery was, but it sounded important.

  Next, the doctor wrapped my ankle in plaster. Two nurses helped, dipping bandages in a basin of water, and winding the white cloth around and around my foot and leg. It was like a craft project. The nurses snipped the edges to tidy them up, and dabbed away any spilled bits from my skin.

  My sisters stared and stared at the doctor as he worked, and the doctor glanced over at them, as if curious to know why all the staring.

  Once he was done, the doctor said the plaster would ‘dissolve’ when the ankle was healed. A nurse would come by with a pair of crutches for me in the morning, he explained next, and would demonstrate how to use them.

  At this point, Astrid became agitated because she’s always wanted crutches. She begged for an extra pair for herself, ‘to keep Esther company’. The doctor seemed bewildered.

  But Father had a question. ‘Will Esther be okay to travel to Spindrift tomorrow? With that plaster? We’re going to that big party, the one to welcome the Stolen Prince home.’

  ‘Of course I will!’ I cried, before the doctor could speak. ‘If it’s not okay to travel with plaster, I’ll just take it off! Hand me those scissors!’

  I lunged for a pair I could see on a shelf. The doctor did not take much notice of me, except that he picked up the scissors just before my fingertips reached them, and slipped them into the pocket of his white coat. He turned to my father.

  ‘She should be fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll give her something for the pain. I’m heading
to Spindrift myself for the party. Might see you there.’

  Then Father and the doctor had one of those boring conversations about life—the doctor said he’d grown up in Spindrift, in the orphanage, and that he’d known Queen Anita back then and had worked with her in hospitals. That’s why he was going to the party.

  I’d forgotten that Queen Anita was a doctor herself, and I’d forgotten she also grew up in an orphanage.

  I listened to all this over the sound of my heart beating loud and fast at the idea that I might have had to miss the party.

  The next day, a nurse came around early, before breakfast even, with crutches for me to try. He also brought a cupcake with pink icing, and he told me that I’d been very lucky to get Doctor Eli.

  That was the frowning doctor’s name, apparently.

  ‘He’s Faery,’ the nurse said. ‘He’s also famous for another reason, but I’m not supposed to talk about that. We’re very proud to have a Faery here at Cloudburst General, because they’re rare in the Kingdom of Storms. They don’t like the wicked and nefarious kingdoms nearby.’

  I told him that we didn’t have that problem in my area. There are Elves, Faeries and Crystal Faeries scattered all over Katherine Valley, I told him, and we even have a part-Faery matron at our school. Or we used to, anyway, before she went travelling.

  ‘Well, then you’ll know,’ he said. ‘You’ll know how clever they are with healing, the Faeries. Eat your cupcake, won’t you?’

  ‘No thanks,’ I replied. ‘I’ll give it to my sister, Imogen. I don’t really like pink icing, but it’s her favourite.’

  The nurse shook his head. ‘It’s not for your sister Imogen,’ he said. ‘It’s for you. It’s a Faery healing cake—Doctor Eli made it especially, to help with the pain.’

  So I ate the cake. It was delicious, even with pink icing.

  ‘There,’ the nurse said. ‘Good work. Doctor Eli will have added Faery healing to the plaster yesterday too. Any other doctor and you’d have been stuck here a week. The X-ray shows that it’s a very nasty break. Actually, if a different doctor does the rounds this morning, they’ll be wanting to keep you in another few days, I expect, just to be sure.’