Born to Rule

marching around the salon of the turret.
    “Hup, two, three, four. Hup, two, three, four. Sound off, tweet tweet!”
    The bird tweet tweeted back! “Hup, two, three, four. Hup, two, three, four,” Gundersnap sang happily.
    “That’s not a real song, Princess Gundersnap,” Kristen said.
    “Of course not. It is the first drill exercise of the Empress’s Grenadiers.”
    Alicia herself could hardly wait to get started, but there would be no military exercises for her beautiful bird. She went into her own chamber, put her bird into the cage hanging by the window, and got out the book that had been distributed to all the princesses, Basic Songbird Instruction .
    “‘Lesson one,’” she read. She tapped on the cage lightly with her finger. “Training a songbird always begins with scales,’” she continued. Then she sang, “Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do!”
    The little bird tilted his head slightly as if he were listening to Alicia, but he remained silent. Alicia tried again. She sang each note of the scale slowly and clearly, waiting between each note to let the bird join in. Nothing. She tried one more time, but the weeb simply sat in his cage and stared at her.
    “Oh, dear, I hope I don’t have a dud of a songbird!” Alicia murmured.
    As she spoke, the shutters shook violently and swung open. A blast of raw, cold air came rushing in. The golden weeb started beating his wings against the walls of his cage as the wind swirled around Alicia. Then the wind and the weeb grew calm.
    “What was that all about?” Alicia whispered, terrified, as she closed the shutters. The South Turret was beginning to feel creepier and creepier!
     
    That night in bed, long after she had said her prayers and read two long letters from the Forgotten Princess, Alicia tried to sleep but only tossed and turned. Although her little bird remained silent and hardly fluttered a feather, Alicia seemed to feel another presence in the room. It was still autumn, but she felt so cold it could have been winter. Alicia remembered her own little joke about a two-hundred-year-old ghost being quite out of fashion. It didn’t seem so funny now. Gundersnap and Kristen were both much braver than she was. Alicia wished she could run to them now. But she did not want to be what her father called a puffball princess. Her pop’s words came back to her: “You know, dear Alicia, being a princess has its responsibilities. One must be firm and fair in judgment. One must be steadfast, true to one’s beliefs, and brave in the face of danger.”
    “I don’t believe in ghosts!” Alicia whispered in the firmest voice she could.
    Her father would say, “Don’t be one of those puffball princesses like Aunt Molly, always dithering about. Despite her pretty ways, she has about as much sense as a chicken. Exactly like a Belgravian Meadow Hen—all pretty feathers but not much else, and scared of its own shadow.”
    The flames of the fire in the grate cast shadows across the floor of Alicia’s chamber. Alicia dared herself to sit straight up in bed and watch her own shadow for at least ten seconds. “One…two…three…,” she counted. As she moved her head, she saw her shadow with its loosed hair spread upward on the wall. She raised her arms. “Five…six…seven.” She felt the bird staring at her. “Well, go ahead and stare!” she muttered. “Eight…nine…ten.” She’d done it. “I am not a puffball princess!” she said in a firm voice—and then dived under her velvet blankets, pulling them up around her head.
    When the clock chimed midnight, she was still not asleep. So Alicia decided to read just a few more pages.
Dearest, I must flee, I must flee, for your safety as well as mine. We must be apart if we shall ever have any hope of being together. I shall return to the place where I was happiest before I met you. Though I have no hope of throne or kingdom, I will be taken in and made welcome.
    Alicia had often wondered what that happy place was. Where was it? What made the Forgotten Princess so happy? It must be a lovely place, she was sure. Each time she read this passage, Alicia wished that she could go to that place where her heroine sought refuge. If only she had been born back then, she could have helped the Forgotten Princess. How ice would that be? Alicia loved Kristen’s odd expressions. Yes, totally ice to help the Forgotten Princess.
    As she read, she grew drowsy, and the book soon fell to her chest. Her hands rested on