Tidings of Great Boys (28 page)

“I am the Earl of Strathcairn,” Dad said at last. “You and Her Serene Highness are most welcome to my home. Will you do us
the honor of coming inside?”

You’d think royal limousines pulled up in the drive every day of the week. It was a lucky thing we’d left plenty of time to
get to the airport. We’d only run into problems if they stayed for tea.

“I thank you.” The Sheikh inclined his head, but his black eyes did not leave my father’s face. “But I regret we cannot. Our
errand is of a most serious and urgent nature.”

“How can I help you?” Dad asked simply.

The Sheikh’s predatory gaze moved to Shani, and I heard her slow intake of breath. “I have found what I came for.”

Queen Zuleikha put a hand on his wrist. “Remember, my dearest, she once wore the Star of the Desert. Think of our son.”

“It is because I am thinking of our son that I have come all this way in the cold.” He turned to Dad. “Why did you conceal
this girl from my agents? They were charged with bringing her to me. I understood she had returned to America until I saw
a newspaper photograph of her fleeing in this very house.”

I remembered the flashes going off as Shani and I had dashed into the closed-up wing. Oops.

Dad’s ears began to turn red and I stepped forward before he lost his temper for the second time this decade.

I bobbed another curtsey and looked the royal couple in the eyes. “Your Highnesses, I am Lady Lindsay MacPhail, the Earl’s
daughter. This has all been my fault. I took that video of Shani and sent it to a friend by mistake. This friend posted it
on the Internet out of spite.”

“I do not care who made it public,” he snapped. “I care that this girl has toyed with the name of my son when she had no right.”

“She meant—”

“Mac.” Shani pulled me out of the Sheikh’s reach. Not that I thought he’d strike me or anything. But she took my place in
front of them. “Your Highnesses. For the sake of our families’ long friendship, please listen to me.”

“Your disobedience to your parents has severed the connection between our families,” the Queen informed her coldly. “But for
your mother’s sake, you may speak.”

“I don’t know which version of that video you heard, but anyway…” Shani took a steadying breath. “I said I’d been a princess
for four weeks.”

“Liar!” the Sheikh snapped. “My son has told us that is not true!”

“What I was saying—what I meant when I said that, was that I had been a Christian for four weeks. A daughter of the King of
Kings. Not that I was Rashid’s wife.”

Silence, except for the sound of the wind in the bare trees.

“I do not understand,” the Queen said at last.

“I meant that I was a princess in God’s eyes, not the eyes of the world. When I gave up the Star of the Desert, I gave that
up forever. You can ask Rashid, Mama Zazu—I mean, Your Highness.” Shani flushed scarlet and looked at the ground.

The Queen’s gaze softened. “You called me that as a child, when you stayed with us in Greece.”

“That does not excuse—” the Sheikh began.

“You have spoken with our son?” the Queen interrupted.

Shani nodded. “This morning. He understands. We’re still good friends, and a mistake like this can’t change that.”

“You did not mean to embarrass the Prince?” the Sheikh wanted to know. “You were speaking of something else entirely? Of God?”

“Yes, I was,” Shani said. “And as long as you and I and Rashid all know that, I don’t care what the rest of the world thinks.”

The Sheikh set his jaw and said nothing. Queen Zuleikha glanced at him and said smoothly, “Then we are satisfied. Go in peace,
child.”

“And you, too.”

“Will you stay for tea?” I had the presence of mind to ask.

“No. Our plane is waiting for us. We must return to Yasir at once to set the hearts of the people at rest. Good-bye.”

We barely had time to straighten out of our curtseys before they had climbed back into the limo. The driver wheeled it in
a circle and they sailed away down the drive.

“My goodness,” Mummy said faintly. “That was worse than being presented.”

“Well done, Shani,” Dad said. “And Lindsay, too. Very brave of both of you.”

Shani blew out a long breath and slipped one arm round me in a hug. “That’s the nice thing about my friends. No matter how
bad it gets, they’ve got my back.” Her eyes met mine. “And you know what Lissa says about the armies of angels.”

I did, indeed. But angels are beings of spirit, and I’m a concrete sort of girl. The best kind of angels are the ones you
can share clothes with. And experiences. And your deepest thoughts and fears and hopes.

The best kind of angels are your friends.

Shelley Adina wrote her first teen novel when she was thirteen. It was rejected by the literary publisher to whom she sent
it, but he did say she knew how to tell a story. That was enough to keep her going through the rest of her adolescence, a
career, a move to another country, a B.A. in Literature, an M.A. in Writing Popular Fiction, and countless manuscript pages.

Shelley is a world traveler and pop culture junkie with an incurable addiction to designer handbags. She knows the value of
a relationship with a gracious God and loving Christian friends and loves writing about fun and faith—with a side of glamour.
Between books, Shelley loves traveling, listening to and making music, and watching all kinds of movies.

IF YOU LIKED

tidings of great boys,

you’ll love the final book in the All About Us series:

available in January 2010!

Turn the page for a sneak peek…

Excerpt from
The Chic Shall Inherit the Earth

L
ET ME PUT IT right out there: I’m no sports fan—unless you count surfing, which is more of an attitude to life than a sport.
I used to think that there were some things you just knew. But if God were a major league pitcher, he’d be the kind of guy
who threw curveballs just for the fun of it. To catch you off guard. To prove you wrong about everything you thought you knew.

Which is essentially what happened to us all during the last term of senior year at Spencer Academy.

My name is Lissa Evelyn Mansfield—yes, I’m back again. Did you miss me? Because seriously, this last term of high school before
my friends and I graduated was so crazed, so unpredictable, that I had to write it all down to try to make sense of it. Not
to mention the fact that no one else would touch it with a ten-foot pole, so the job fell to me.

But hey, let’s take a moment, here. The words
last term of senior year
deserve some respect, not to mention celebration. They need to be paused over and savored. Excuse me.

Okay, I’m back.

The term began in April, and by the time our first set of midterms (or thirdterms, as Gillian Chang calls them, since we get
three sets of exams every term) rolled around at the beginning of May, it was just beginning to sink in that there were only
seven weeks of high school left. Seven weeks until freedom. Adulthood. Summer vacation. Adulthood. Home.

Adulthood.

Eek.

“Sarah Lawrence is stalking me,” Gillian moaned from where she sat on her bed in our dorm room that day. “Here’s another letter.”
She fished an envelope out of the pile of mail in her lap and waved it.

I looked up from my MacBook Air, where I was checking e-mail. “Don’t let Emily Overton hear you. She got turned down, and
her roommate has had to keep her away from open windows for the last month.”

“But I already told them no twice. What’s it going to take?”

“You could fail some exams.” I’m always willing to offer a helpful suggestion. “They can’t help it if they covet your fearsome
brain.”

“So does Harvard. And Princeton. Not to mention Stanford and Columbia and Juilliard.” She threw her hands in the air, and
the letter flew over her shoulder and bounced off the headboard. “Don’t forget them.”

“I’m glad I don’t have your decisions to make,” I told her with absolute honesty. “If all those schools were after me, I’d
run away and hide.”

“I’ve got to figure out what I’m doing with my life.” She glanced at me. “Or maybe I should say, what God wants me to do with
my life.”

“There’s the kicker.” I nodded sagely. “The Lord knows about acceptance deadlines, doesn’t He?”

“Oh, yeah. He knows. I keep asking Him, and He keeps thinking about it. Maybe He wants me to figure out what I want first.
But that’s the impossible part.”

Poor Gillian. She has the kind of brain schools fight over for their research programs. But she’s also a music prodigy—hence
the acceptance into Juilliard. Then, to complicate things even more, she also has quite the talent for drawing, and ever since
she met my friend Kaz Griffin, her dream has been to create a graphic novel starring a kick-butt Asian girl with a secret
identity. Kaz, in case you haven’t met him, is my best friend from my old high school in Santa Barbara. He’s been trying to
get his graphic novel published for, like,
years
, with no success. But I have to hand it to him. He never gives up hope.

Anyway. Gillian.

“You could always do pre-med at Harvard and minor in art or music,” I suggested. “You know you’re going to need a release
valve from all that scientific pressure. It would be good to have those to turn to.”

Gillian pushed the stack of mail off her lap and leaned back against the stack of colorful silk pillows. The letter from Sarah
Lawrence crumpled somewhere underneath. “But then how will I know if I’m any good?”

“Um, your grades? Not to mention if you got an acceptance from Juilliard, you’re good. Full stop, as Mac would say.”

Lady Lindsay MacPhail, aka Mac, was a student here at Spencer for two terms, and was one of our little group of friends. She’s
gone back to live in her castle in Scotland, though, and she has none of these questions about her life. She knows exactly
what degree she’s going to get, when she’ll get it, and what she’ll do with her life after that.

I envy people who have their future in a laser sight. I’m still trying to figure out what to wear tomorrow.

“What do teachers know?” Gillian asked. I don’t think she was looking for the answer to that one. “If I’m going to find out
whether I’m really any good, I have to try to get into an art program and give it everything I’ve got. Try to get an exhibition.
Or a publisher. Live in a garret and try to make it as an artist.”

“That sounds scary.”

“I know.” She sighed. “Medical school is the easy path, grasshopper.”

Only Gillian Chang would say something like that.

I turned back to my notebook and saw that while we’d been talking, a message from Kaz had popped up in my inbox.