Unicorns? Get Real!

princesses over. She was trying very hard to arrange her naturally cheerful face into a stern visage. “Miladies, I have been hearing reports of nasty exchanges in Latin. Princess Morwenna is quite upset. She is requesting to go to the nearest convent to pray for your souls.”
    “That’s totally lame,” Kristen said under her breath.
    “She’s no more praying for us than we are for her,” Alicia whispered back. “She just wants to get out of going to the ball.”
    “Now there is to be no more of this. Nothing is so unattractive as a waspish tongue—even in Latin.” Lady Merry shook a plump finger at them, then ordered her driver on.
    “At least if Morwenna stays at the convent, there is no danger of her in our tent,” Kristen muttered. They were approaching the tents now.
    “Look!” cried Alicia. “Look! Princes!”
    And indeed, what seemed like a legion of princes was riding toward them, each prince bearing a garland of roses to present to the princesses.

Chapter 17
    A ROYAL DILEMMA

    Princess Gundersnap watched as Alicia danced a very popular circle dance known as the pavane. It looked easy enough. Each princess, holding the hand of her princely partner, made a circle around him. Gundersnap nearly laughed as she saw how the tiny Princess Myrella had to stand on tiptoes while she held the hand of her prince. And even on tiptoes, her hand barely cleared the kneeling prince’s. But she seemed unconcerned about her short stature. Short, however, was different from squat and thick. Gundersnap had many fewer pimples on her face than she had last session, and she hadn’t even used the squished snail remedy. The one good thing she had learned in makeup had helped. It was a paste made of talc, white chalk, and egg whites, and it covered the worst of the pimples. But it made her face feel very much like a thin porcelain teacup. She was afraid it might crack at any moment.
    The dance had finished and another began. This was a lively one, and it required quite a bit of jumping about. Princess Kristen had seized a prince by the hand and dragged him out onto the dance floor. She is so daring! Gundersnap wished she had the nerve to just go up and ask a prince to dance. Kristen towered over her partner, but soon they were both leaping in the air. The princess’s fiery red hair, which had been braided over each ear and looked like twin pastries, began to come loose. Her shark tooth tiara was slipping down onto her forehead at an angle some might call jaunty for a hat. It was completely idiotic for a tiara.
    “By the bones of Saint Vitus, I have never seen such a princess! What am I to do with her?” Lady Merry von Schleppenspiel had her attendant put down her sedan chair by Gundersnap.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Princess Gundersnap, you call that dancing? Look at her! It’s as if Princess Kristen is going to ignite—explode—a royal conflagration! No, a hectic complexion does not serve well.”
    She’s having fun , Gundersnap thought. And how , she wondered, can I have fun when Menschmik might be dead or dying? Just as she was thinking this dismal thought, she felt a tap on her shoulder, and a voice from behind her said, “May I have the next dance, Princess Gundersnap?” Gundersnap turned and blinked. A prince stood by the chair where she was seated. He was not squat or thick, nor did he have spots. She blinked once more and he asked once more, “May I have the next dance, Princess Gundersnap?” The princess felt a poke in her side. It was Lady Merry poking her to answer. But her voice seemed to have disappeared. Lady Merry poked her a second time. Finally Gundersnap replied, “Why?” At that moment Lady Merry swooned in her chair.
    “Because I thought you might like to dance,” said the prince.
    “Yes, I would,” Gundersnap said in a dazed voice.
    She then moved to the floor to dance a galliard with Prince Haraldsvar of Svarlandia, a country her mother had not yet even invaded.
     
    “He loves archery!”
    “He’s the one who is going to be in the tournament?”
    Gundersnap nodded solemnly to Alicia and Kristen. They had returned from the ball and were sitting in their beds in the lavender silk tent they had been assigned to.
    “So what’s the problem?” Kristen asked. “You both like the same sport.”
    “But it is a problem. I see it,” Alicia said thoughtfully, and scratched her head.
    “I don’t see at all,” replied Kristen.
    “They’re in competition,” Alicia