A True Princess (13 page)

“And yet what?” I asked, raising my face to his.

“And yet, to me you will always be the Lilia who breaks the plates and cooks lumpy porridge,” he said, grinning; and at last he kissed me.

Then we joined Karina and Tycho, and the four of us danced until the moon set and the edges of the sky began to lighten. Exhausted and happy, we made our way back up the hill to the palace with Ove now trailing bedraggled behind us; the king and queen had long before gone up to bed.

“Oh, my poor feet!” I groaned, not used to the heels I had worn that night. I longed for my lovely mattress and a deep, deep sleep.

“But it was wonderful,” Karina said, taking my hand and pulling me up the steep cobblestones. “It is all too wonderful to be real. It seems like a dream.”

I turned and looked down at the town spread out below us, my town in my own kingdom, where the bonfire still smoldered and the reunited families slept, cozy in their stone houses. Then I looked up at the palace perched atop the hill, where I would get to know my parents and learn to be a princess, where Tycho and Karina would be married.

“No,” I said softly to Karina, and to Tycho and Kai, shaking my head. “It is not a dream. My life before this was the dream. This—this is the awakening.”

A True Princess

Poem on pages 27–28 based on “The Erl-King” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, at
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-erl-king/

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Zahler, Diane.

A true princess / Diane Zahler. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: Twelve-year-old Lilia goes north to seek the family she has never known, accompanied by her friends Kai and Karina and their dog Ove, on an adventure fraught with peril, especially when they become lost in Bitra Forest, the Elf King's domain. Inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen tale, The princess and the pea.

ISBN 978-0-06-182501-9 (trade bdg.)

[1. Fairy tales. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. Princesses—Fiction. 4. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 5. Heroism—Fiction. 6. Lost children—Fiction. 7. Friendship—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ8.Z17Tru 2011

2010017846

[Fic]—dc22

CIP

11 12 13 14 15 LP/RRDB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition