MY ENTIRE FACE IS ON FIRE.
Chew. Chew. Chew.
Swallow.
You can do this. You are not going to DIE!
Yes, I am. I am going to die right here on this stage! Death by ghost pepper at the tender age of twenty-nine!
Snot pools in my nostrils, and my eyes shut involuntarily while I swallow and cover the lower half of my face with one hand. Every pore in my head opens up to let out the heat in the form of sweat. Suddenly, a cool glass is thrust into my hand. I open one eye, but just barely since it wants to clamp shut again, but before it does, I see it’s milk.
I suck it back in long, huge gulps, not caring that it’s pouring down the sides of my mouth onto my dress. It’s either humiliate myself or wind up with third degree mouth burns.
When I finally recover enough for my eyes to open up, I glance at Will who doesn’t seem even the slightest bit affected by the pepper. He does however look very concerned, and if I’m not mistaken, the tiniest bit horrified. It’s the snot, isn’t it?
“You okay?”
I nod quickly, reaching for the tissue box and snagging out several whilst keeping my other hand over my face. I blow my nose, something I’veneverdone in front of anyone other than my nannies when I was a wee girl.
Dylan shouts, “We’ll take a quick commercial break and give Princess Arabella a chance to recover. Stay tuned for question number two!”
The lights dim down a bit, and Dylan leans forward. “Are you all right? That one really got you.”
“Yes, absolutely fine.” I blow my nose again as a makeup artist comes rushing toward me, brushes in hand. I blink and sniffle repeatedly while she sets to work on my face, her hands a flurry of action while my mouth continues to burn. Dylan and Will, meanwhile, fill the two minutes with some witty banter about how experienced they are at eating spicy food. Apparently, they’ve both been to India and dined on some of the hottest dishes on the planet with ease. If my eyes weren’t still stinging, I’d be rolling them right about now.
“Ten seconds!” the director shouts. The makeup artist abandons me, and the lights come back up.
“Welcome back toPrincess in the Wild - The Preshow! For those of you just joining us, I’m your host, Dylan Sinclair. Will and Princess Arabella got question one wrong, so they’ve faced the first food challenge—one of the hottest peppers on the planet, cultivated right here in the U.K.,” Dylan says. “Your Highness, are you ready for question two or do you need some more milk?”
“Let’s just keep going,” I say, my words coming out raspy.
“Let’s!” she calls. “Question two: what is Will’s most annoying habit?”
I wince as I hold up my card. His face falls as he reads what I wrote:Know-it-all. Guilt thwacks me on the head when I read his:Guessing the ending of movies.
I look into his eyes. Obviously, they’re dark-brown pools of pain. “Sorry, darling,” I murmur. “I’m afraid I froze up… and I thought you’d write that since that was my biggest pet peeve when we first met. You’re not really a know-it-all. But you do have a great deal of knowledge about a myriad of topics.”
He nods and raises his eyebrow. “Sure, yeah. I figured you’d say the thing about the movies since we were just joking about it the other night when we were watchingParasite.”
“Uh-oh! Trouble in paradise?” Dylan asks gleefully.
“Not at all,” Will says. “I think we just interpreted the question very differently.”
“Indeed,” she says. “Next dome!”
I close my eyes, afraid to see what’s under it. The audience groans, and “ewww” can be heard around the room. Opening one eye, I see some beetle larvae crawling around on the silver platter. My knees go weak at the same time that my mouth waters in that way it does right before I vomit.
Dylan chimes in with, “Now, Princess Arabella, you couldn’t eat these in the jungle. Can you do it now?”
Will picks his up, twists its head off, presses on its body to empty the digestive tract, then pops it in his mouth. He picks up the next one, does the first two steps again, and hands it to me. “Pretend it’s a gummy worm.”
“Bring out the Bucket of Shame!” Dylan shouts.
Bucket of Shame. Oh, what I’d give to flip her the bird right now—withbothmiddle fingers. But I really should be angry with myself. Know-it-all. Why would I think he would write that? Ideserveto eat this putrid larva after writing something so awful about Will. I gingerly take it and put it in my mouth, chewing and gagging intermittently until it’s gone.
Dylan, who herself is looking a little pale, says, “Let’s hope you got question three right.”
6
