Who Made You a Princess? (28 page)

“Hanna?” His eyes sharpened on me. “Are you the Shani Hanna whose name was linked to the Prince of Yasir?” I nodded. He obviously
knew the truth, so no point trying to keep it on the down low. “Miss Hanna, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

I glanced at Gabe and Patricia, who were already moving on up the ropes to the next interview. “Um, if we’re quick. I don’t
want to lose the rest of my party.”

Reaching behind me, I grabbed Danyel’s hand for support.

“I’ll just keep you a minute. Miss Hanna, is it true you were engaged to the prince?”

I smiled a professional smile. “Not at all.”

“You must be up on the gossip. It’s been reported that he’s now seeing the daughter of the Principessa di Firenze, who goes
to Spencer Academy. Can you confirm that?”

“I can, Steve. They seem very happy together.” Which was the truth. Rashid’s mystery girl wasn’t such a mystery after all.
Vanessa—believe it or not—had found someone who demanded that she be real. Rashid didn’t put up with any of her snot-nosed
garbage, and she’d started showing signs of becoming an actual human being. It would probably end if and when they broke up,
but in the meantime, Spencer was heaving a sigh of relief.

“Miss Hanna, that Harry Winston necklace looks too, too familiar. Wasn’t that the diamond cluster piece given to you by His
Highness?”

“The original was,” I said.

He snapped his fingers and looked into the camera a moment. “That’s what’s different. girlfriend, what happened to the Star
of the Desert? It seems to be missing.”

But at that moment, Gabe turned and waved at us urgently, flashing “five minutes” with his fingers. Five minutes to curtain
and the beginning of
The Middle Window
, and we weren’t seated yet. His handlers swarmed around us and herded us away from the TV crews.

I tossed a smile at Steven over my shoulder and Danyel and I hurried toward the yawning cavern that was the entrance to the
Kodak Theatre.

It was none of the world’s business what I wore around my throat. This was its last appearance, anyway. From now on, any diamonds
in my future would be the kind I paid for with my own hard-earned money, sometime out there in the future, once I had my M.B.A.
and my career was on its way. Or maybe I’d get one from a certain special person who might wear Danyel’s smile, or might not.

I was leaving all that up to God. Because He’d worked a miracle.

I settled into the plush seat in the middle of the theater, all my friends talking and rustling and arranging their pretty
dresses around me as we settled down. Inside I felt a warm, glowing calm. Thanksgiving was next week, and I had more invites
than I knew what to do with—from Mrs. Loyola, from Carly’s dad, from Lissa. But there was only one place I really wanted to
be: at Danyel’s parents’ place in Santa Barbara. Malika wouldn’t be cooking the turkey, which meant there was a chance it’d
be the real thing.

This time last year I’d jetted off to Bermuda for the long weekend. By myself. But the days of jetting anywhere, alone or
not, were over.

And you know what? I was good with that. I had my friends, I had Danyel, and I had the rest of my senior year, guaranteed,
at Spencer Academy. I even had this couture dress for special occasions. I might wear it out and everyone would get tired
of looking at it, but that was okay, too.

So, you probably want to know about that miracle, right? I don’t know if it was Rashid’s idea or the Big Guy’s, but the day
before yesterday I received a velvet box by special courier. Inside was the Winston diamond cluster necklace—minus the Star
of the Desert.

On top of it lay a letter.

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

who made you a princess?

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

tidings of great boys

available in September 2009!

Turn the page for a sneak peek…

S
OME PEOPLE
are born with the gift of friendship. Some achieve it. And then you have people like me, who have friendship thrust upon
them.

Believe me, there’s no one happier about that than I am—in fact, I probably wouldn’t be alive right now without it—but it
wasn’t always that way. My name is Lindsay Margaret Eithne MacPhail, and because my dad is a Scottish earl, that makes my
mother a countess and me a lady.

I know. Stop laughing.

To my friends I’m simply Mac. If you call me Lady Lindsay I’ll think you’re (1) being pretentious, or (2) announcing me at
a court ball, and since none of my friends are likely to do either, let’s keep it Mac between us, all right?

This all started when I sat in the the dark, deserted computer lab and watched the timestamp on the monitor click over: eleven
o’clock.

“Carrie?” I settled the earphones on my head and leaned toward the microphone pickup.

“All right?” Her familiar voice came over Skype and I smiled, even though she couldn’t see it. She sounded like sleepovers
and mischief and long walks through the woods and heath. Like rain and mist and Marmite on toast. She sounded like home.

“Yeah.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. I’d chosen to come to Spencer Academy for the fall term instead of going back to
St. Cecelia’s. I’d hounded my mother and when that didn’t work, my dad. So I had no business being homesick. Besides, being
all weepy just wasted precious minutes. Carrie had to leave for school and I had to sneak back up to the third floor without
the future Mrs. Milsom, our dorm mistress, catching me after lights-out.

“Only two weeks to go until you’re home,” Carrie said. “I’m already planning all the things we’re going to do. Anna Grange
has a new flat in Edinburgh and she says we can come crash anytime we like. Gordon and Terrell can’t wait to see you—they
want to take us to a new club. And—”

“Hang on.” How to put this? “I haven’t actually decided what I’m doing for winter break. There’s a lot going on here.”

Silence crackled in my headset. “What nonsense. You always come home. Hols are the only time I ever get to see you—not to
mention all your other mates. What do you mean, a lot going on?”

“Things to do, people to see,” I said, trying to soften the blow. “Mummy wants me in London, of course, since she hasn’t had
me for nearly three months. And I have invitations to Los Angeles and New York.”

“From who?”

“A couple of the girls here.”

The quality of the silence changed. “And these girls—they wouldn’t be the ones splashed all over
Hello!
last month, would they? At some Hollywood premiere or other?”

“Oddly, yes. I told you all about it when that issue came out.”

She made a noise in her throat that could have been disgust or sheer disparagement of my taste. “That’s fine, then. If you’d
rather spend your vay-cay-shun with your Hollywood friends, it’s nowt to me.”

“Carrie, I haven’t said I’d go. I just haven’t made up my mind.”

As changeable as a sea wind, her temper veered. “You must come. We’re all dying to see you. I saw your dad in the village
and he invited all of us particularly as soon as you get home.”

“Did he?”

“I know. I didn’t think he’d even remember who I was, but he stopped me in the door of the chip shop and told me I was to
come. He sounded so excited.”

This did not sound like my dad, who wasn’t exactly a recluse, but wasn’t in the habit of accosting random teenagers in chip
shops and inviting them up to the house either. She was probably having me on. I had a lot of practice in peering behind Carrie’s
words for what she really wanted. She was my friend, and friends wanted to be with each other.

The problem was, I had more friends now than I used to. Besides the ones at Strathcairn and in London, there were the ones
here at Spencer. And lately, Carly, Shani, Lissa, and Gillian were turning out to be solid—more so than any friends I’d had
before.

Awkward.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I figure out what I’m doing,” I told Carrie. “I’ve got to go. The Iron Maiden stalks the halls.”

Carrie laughed. “Love the pic you sent with your camera phone. What a horror. Who would marry her?”

“The Bio prof, apparently. The wedding’s set for New Year’s Eve to take advantage of some tax benefit or other.”

“How bleedin’ romantic.”

There was another Christmas wedding in the works, but I hadn’t heard much about it lately. Carly Aragon’s mum was supposed
to marry some braw lad she’d met on a cruise ship, much to Carly’s disgust. I could relate, a little. If my mother was going
to marry a man who looked like a relic from an eighties pop band, I’d be a little upset, too. So far Carly was refusing to
be bridesmaid, and the big day was sneaking up on her fast.

“I’ll call you at the weekend.”

“I might be busy.”

“Then I’ll call Gordon and Terrell. I know
they
love me.”

She blew me a raspberry and signed off. Still smiling, I laid the headphones on the desk and got up.

And froze as a thin, dark shape moved in the doorway. The lights flipped on.

I blinked and squinted as Ms. Tobin stared me down. “I thought I heard voices. Is there someone here with you?” I shook my
head. “You do realize, Lady Lindsay, that lights-out is ten o’clock? And it is now twenty after eleven?”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“What are you doing in here?”

“Calling home.”

She scanned the rows of silent computers. Not a telephone to be seen. “And you can’t do that from the privacy of your own
room?”

“It’s eleven twenty and my roommates are asleep,” I pointed out helpfully. “But it’s seven twenty in Scotland. I use Skype
so there are no long distance charges.”

She rolled her eyes up, as if doing the math. “Calling Scotland? Your family?”

I smiled. If I didn’t actually answer, I wouldn’t be lying. “My B.T. phone doesn’t work over here, so I use Skype.” I let
the smile falter. “I get homesick.”

Ms. Tobin pinned me with her gaze like a butterfly on a board. “I sympathize, but you still broke a school rule. A demerit
will be added to your record. Again.”

Oh, please. Who cared about demerits when I needed to talk to Carrie? “I’m sorry, Ms. Tobin.”

“Come along. I’ll escort you to your room.”

And she did, like a bad-tempered Dementor floating along beside me. Only compared to that dreadful brown tweed skirt and round-toed
Oxfords, the Dementors were turned out in haute couture. Did the woman actually have on knee-high stockings?