Chapter 10 #2
“Would you like a cup of tea, Your Royal Highness?”
My mind is still thinking about ancient pigments, so I answer her without thinking.
“Um…no, thank you. I don’t drink tea. I’d rather drink dishwater, to be honest. At least that would have the added benefit of cleaning out my insides, right?”
Her eyebrows fly up.
Oh shit.
Mental note, insulting the national drink of the country I’m going to rule one day isn’t a particularly good idea.
I’m fairly sure Raymond covered that one in my training, actually.
I take a deep breath as I run my hand through my hair.
“So, do you want some dishwater then?” she asks, and the snark in her voice is unmistakable.
“A glass of ordinary water will be great, thanks.”
She fills a glass with water and hands it to me wordlessly.
“Thank you.”
I retreat, pretty sure her withering stare follows me.
“I think I need to learn to drink tea,” I say in an undertone when I find Amelia, who is standing with Michelle and another member of the board I was introduced to earlier.
“You’ll probably go thirsty in this country if you don’t,” she whispers back.
I take a deep breath and try to join in the conversation Michelle and the woman are having.
Unfortunately, I’m instantly lost because they seem to be having an intense debate about something to do with an oyster. I never knew shellfish could be so contentious.
Michelle glances at me. “What do you think, Prince Callum?”
“I don’t know much about shellfish,” I hedge.
There’s a moment of stunned silence. My face heats because it’s very obvious from their faces that I’ve made a mistake.
“I thought you were talking about oysters,” I say quickly.
“We’re talking about the redesign of the oyster card,” Michelle says.
“What’s an oyster card?”
There’s another moment of dead silence.
“The Oyster card is used for the London public transport system,” Amelia says kindly.
My cheeks heat. “Oh. Right.”
I clutch my glass of water, my fingerprints leaving marks in the condensation.
Will I ever feel like I truly belong here? How can I ever be a proper king when I’m not English?
I take a deep breath. History is littered with foreign kings of England.
There was Cnut the Great—only a letter scramble away from a very unfortunate name—who was a prince of Denmark but crossed the North Sea in 1015.
Then came William the First and Henry the Second, both born in France.
William the Third was from the Netherlands, and both George the First and Second were born in Germany.
Okay, so maybe none hailed from as far away as America, but they all came from countries with a more fractious history with Britain than America. There’s nothing to prevent me from being an amazing king when it’s my time to inherit the throne.
Amelia seems to pick up on my feelings because she’s moved closer to me.
“Remember, Cleopatra was of Greek descent, and yet she’s remembered as one of Egypt’s greatest queens,” she whispers.
I throw my sister a grateful look, then straighten my shoulders. I can do this.
Amelia and I leave the event together. As part of my attempt to improve my Britishness, I quiz her on contemporary British playwrights, a topic I don’t know much about. I’m so focused on her words that I don’t take care with my footing, so I stumble as we descend the steps outside the museum.
It’s only a little trip, and Amelia catches my arm before I can faceplant. So you know, only a small stumble in the context of the history of great falls.
But it happens in full sight of the assembled press and their snapping cameras.
Which I know makes it a big deal.
Sure enough, when I get back home and, like the masochist I am, check out the headlines, most of the newspapers and social media are abuzz about my fall.
King Callum the Klutz?
Prince of Wales Finds New Royal Duty with Unplanned Gravity Checks
Oops, He Did It Again: The Unstoppable Saga of the Clumsy Prince
BritishPatriot, the Twitter account I can’t help always checking out, has made a slow-mo action scene of me falling set to NOFX’s song “Idiot Son of an Asshole.”
There’s only one variation of the theme of my incoordination.
Prince Callum Doesn’t Even Drink Tea!
Yanks a Lot, Prince Callum: American Heir Snubs Tea-Time
Callum Prescott Scorns National Drink of England
Yeah, I guess I deserved those headlines.
But there’s an opinion piece in The Daily Beacon titled: The reason the Prince of Wales doesn’t drink tea and its significance in the relationship between the UK and America.
Shit. How had I, a student of history, never realized how contentious something as innocuous as tea actually is?
After all, the American Revolution was sparked by a dispute over the taxation of the drink.
The boycott of tea at the time was seen as a boycott of British culture.
No wonder the British people take it as an insult that their American Prince of Wales doesn’t drink tea.
This is the problem. I feel like I’m walking through a minefield dressed only in oversized clown shoes.
Just as I’ve started down the rabbit hole of reading the history of tea, my phone beeps with a message.
It’s from Oliver Hartwell.
I thought you might want to see this in case it didn’t make it across the pond at the time.
I press play, and it’s a clip of Oliver stumbling as he walks into 10 Downing Street.
What did you trip up over?
There was a magical treasure chest. Invisible to everyone else.
I laugh out loud.
This is one thing I hadn’t expected from Oliver Hartwell. This dry sense of humor he shares with me. You’d never know from his serious demeanor that he’s hiding a funny side.
I type a message back.
But I won the title of the most negative coverage today, right?
Hmmm. Not sure. The Daily Chronicle just published this cartoon of me, which I think might be the winner.
And he sends me a caricature of him hovering over a hoard of cash, with some caption relating to the fiscal policy.
I can imagine Oliver is a political cartoonist’s nightmare—because he’s so good-looking, he doesn’t have any bad features to poke fun at.
Here, the cartoonist has solved the problem by taking total creative license and making his nose about twice the size it should be.
Ow. That’s harsh. Although they did portray your nose quite accurately. Completely unrelated question, have you ever double-checked you’re not Pinocchio’s twin?
I’ve been told I’m as thick as two planks, and my expression is wooden, so I guess there’s always a chance.
I’m still laughing when Oliver sends me another message.
But I never lie, so that’s not responsible for my nose growth.
Sure, you’re a politician who never lies. I totally believe that.
I’m a very unique politician.
I definitely believe THAT statement. Unique is good though.
Oliver’s message comes back almost automatically.
Unique is definitely good. Remember that.
This is another thing that peppers Oliver’s and my conversations besides gentle teasing. He always seems to be trying to boost me up in a subtle, restrained British kind of way.
I think he feels sorry for me.
I’d much prefer it to be mutual respect driving my conversations with the British prime minister rather than pity. But I’ll take what I can get.
Because Oliver Hartwell understands what I’m going through, and that’s rare for me in my life at the moment.
My grandmother and even Nicholas and Amelia are in the public spotlight with me, but they’ve been in it their whole lives, so they don’t quite understand how hard it is to go from obscurity to royalty.
Oliver understands what it’s like to change from being a nobody to suddenly having the attention of the whole country.
And he doesn’t seem to mind the random stuff I share with him. In fact, he often seems genuinely interested.
I decide to share another nugget now because it’s slightly relevant to our topic of conversation, which has always been good enough for me.
I was reading this interesting article about why humans care so much about what other people think of us.
Evolutionarily it makes sense because group cooperation was such an important part of survival for early humans.
You didn’t want to be the one left behind to face the saber-toothed tiger by yourself.
So we’re really fighting against millions of years of evolutionary biology trying to not care what people think.
Oliver sends three replies in quick succession.
That’s depressing.
Maybe the only people who can actually handle it are the unevolved of us.
It would explain a lot of my colleagues in Parliament, to be honest.
I laugh again as I settle back against the sofa.
It looks like it’s going to be another long night of exchanging messages with Oliver Hartwell, dipping in and out of each other’s brains, making each other laugh.
Which is somehow turning into my favorite form of entertainment.
Even if it is driven by Oliver feeling sorry for me, I’m totally taking it.