“How?” Oliver points out, exasperated. “The magic easel is broken.”
“Good point,” Orville muses.
“We’ll keep checking in,” I suggest.
Frump whimpers.
“What should you do with Seraphima?” Orville repeats.
Oliver frowns. “Am I theonlyone here who doesn’t speak Dog?”
“I suppose I’d just try to keep her from getting into too much trouble,” Orville continues, and he grins at Oliver. “I believe you have a bit of experience doing just that, Ollie, don’t you?”
Oliver gently closes the book as Frump scratches at the door to get out, no doubt so that he can take up guard duty outside the bathroom. “Oliver,” I say, “we can’t do this. A strange girl—emphasis on thestrange—can’t just show up in my room without raising some suspicions. And what am I supposed to tell Jules’s mom?”
Oliver reaches for Jules’s iPhone, plugged in and charging. “Why can’t Jules tell her?” he asks. “Do that thing you do, with this.”
“You’re brilliant.” I grab the phone from his hands and text Jules’s mom.
Can I stay over at Delilah’s for the whole weekend?
I hold my breath, waiting for a response. A moment later, there’s a ding.
Did you finish all your hw?
YUP, I type. J
DON’T STAY UP TOO LATE.
“There,” Oliver says. “One problem solved.”
“Only temporarily. I bought us two days. But what if Jules isn’t back by then?”
“She will be,” he says, reassuring me.
“And Seraphima? How am I supposed to explain to my mother why Jules and some delusional princess have exchanged places?”
Suddenly an idea dawns. It’s a long shot, but maybe I can convince my mother—and everyone else—that Seraphima is a visiting exchange student. It would go a long way toward explaining her lack of knowledge about, well, everything in an American household.
I turn to Oliver. “We’re going to tell everyone she’s from another country.”
“Which one?”
I think for a moment. What language would people be least likely to know? The last thing I want is someone attempting to communicate with Seraphima in her so-called mother tongue. “Iceland,” I decide.
Oliver nods. “That almost soundsreal.”
“That’s because itis.”
From the hallway comes a bark, and then, “Yoo-hoo! Delilah! I’m ready to be toweled dry!”
I glance at Oliver. “I’m not doing it. I absolutely, categorically refuse.”
He bites his lower lip. “Of course. Well, I supposeIcould help her—”
I shove him so hard he staggers backward. “Not on your life,” I answer. At the threshold, I turn around. “She’d better be gone by Monday.”
When Oliver leaves for the night to go home, my mother is still out on her date with Dr. Ducharme, buying me a little more time to perfect my story before I have to introduce Seraphima to her. I’ve let Seraphima borrow my robe to wear over her thin shift, and I’ve had the dubious pleasure of brushing her hair one hundred strokes with what I insisted was definitely a 100 percent boar-bristle brush like the one she has in her tower, and not a one-dollar comb from a drugstore.
