Page 27 of Royal Desire

Mama turns to Bess. “Follow me. I will give you a tour of the estate and go over my expectations.”

Mama turns and her heels click on the marble, but Bess doesn’t follow. She bends at the waist and sticks a pointy finger in Ruby’s face. “Do not get in trouble and mess this up for me.”

Ruby shrugs.

Mama would put me in the timeout chair if I did that.

Bess shakes her head and hurries to catch up to Mama, leaving me and the girl alone at the bottom of the staircase.

Ruby tips her head back to look all the way up to the ceiling before she turns in a circle, stops, and looks at me again. I’ve never seen anyone with eyes like hers.

“Your house is really, really ginormic.”

“Gigantic?” I don’t look around. We just moved here, and it is big. Bigger than our last one. No one lives near us, which means I have no one to talk to or wave to when I go outside. “It’s big, but it’s boring.”

“Why’s it boring?” she demands.

I mimic what she just did and shrug. “Because I’m by myself unless my teacher is here.”

“I’ve never had a teacher,” she states. “Whatcha wanna do?”

“I don’t know.”

Then she smiles. “Are you fast?”

I frown. “I can run.”

Her smile gets bigger. It’s almost ear to ear. “I’m fast. I bet you can’t catch me.”

“Why would I want to catch you? You’re right here.”

And with that, she kicks off her dirty shoes and picks them up. What she does next surprises me.

She slaps me on the shoulder with the chewed-up flip flop and yells in her outside voice. “Tag! You’re it!”

Then she turns and races up the stairs faster than I ever have.

“Hey! Come back!”

She doesn’t stop. She’s almost to the top of the first staircase before I realize I’m supposed to follow. This girl is as weird as her mother’s shirt.

Does she really want me to catch her?

As if I asked the words out loud, she looks over her shoulder. “Come on! Don’t be a dummy-dum-dum. Catch me!”

I finally move, because I’m not dumb. My teacher always says how smart I am.

I’m halfway up the stairs when I see her turn in the opposite way of my activity room.

Oh no. She’s headed toward my parents’ part of the house. I hardly ever go there.

“Ruby, wait!”

She doesn’t stop racing through the halls screaming even though she’s never been here before and doesn’t know where she’s going. “You’re it! You’re it!”

She disappears into Mama’s sitting room. I don’t know what to do. I don’t have any friends here, not that Mama let me have friends come over to our old house.

Ruby wasn’t kidding when she said she was fast. I’m breathing hard by the time I run through the doors. She’s nowhere to be seen.