Diary of a Reluctant Ruler

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…So…

I was in France. Definitely France. There was the Eiffel tower and everything. People were speaking French. I’d just passed a café which had smelt gorgeously of Croissants.

Even I’m not too sure how we got here.

I'm lost.

How can you be lost? We're standing next to the Eiffel tower!

Yes, but where in Paris is that?

Point taken...

Number 36, and number 35 on my list had been crossed off; died my hair and been out of Adria on my own respectively. I was now brunette, and I’d managed to book and catch a plane independently without my family even noticing I was gone. Well, Jenn had helped, so it wasn’t entirely independent…

My plan, which had been conceived overnight after being shouted at and lectured and molly-coddled by seemingly everyone who saw me, was this: get out of here. So I phoned Jenn who picked me up in her car, let me use her laptop to book a flight to Paris, and had taken a flight the very next morning. I’d arrived an hour later at the airport and taken a bus into the city centre. And now I was going to find Olly.

There was only one flaw in my marvellous escape plan.

I didn’t know where Olly was.

I did, however, have the address of her college. Which should have been somewhere in the near vicinity…

“Excusez-moi, mais où est l'académie des arts?” I asked a man at a tourist information stand.

“L'académie des arts?” he repeated, “Oui, prenez une gauche ici…”

“Merci,” I replied, a little boggled by the speed of his French and different accent, but having caught the general gist of the directions.

Half an hour later I was standing in the foyer of the academy, arguing with a secretary about the Freedom of Information and the Data protection Act, and about to burst into tears in a mixture of frustration and general depression.

“Non! Je suis de Adria, mais j’ai voyagé ici pour – Oh god, this is pointless!”

“Er, Miss?” said an unknown voice, in English, from behind me.

“Yes?” I replied, turning around to see a guy who looking suspiciously like Seth Green.

“Do you know Olly?” he asked, a trace of a French accent in his other-wise perfect English.

“Yes, I know her from Adria,” I nodded.

“She’s not here,” he continued, “She left to visit home yesterday.”

“Damn it!” I muttered, feeling on the brink of tears.

“Um, is there anything I can do? I mean, help you to a hotel or…?”

“No, no, thank you, but I’ll be fine,” I said, picking up my rucksack from where it had slumped to amidst my argument with the receptionist.

“Do you know the city, Mademoiselle?” he asked.

“Not really, but-”

“Then I suggest you let me accompany you,” he replied, and promptly picked up my suitcase for me.

Exhausted and on the brink of a mental breakdown, I just smiled ruefully and let him show me the way. In retrospect, this perhaps wasn’t the safest idea, as I he could have been any random person, ready to kill me in some back alley. But I was too tired to think about it and in the end it didn’t matter – he did indeed know Olly, and not only that, but he was the famous Theo who she had raved about last time I’d seen her. At first I attempted not to give away my name, but Theo guessed anyway. He was naturally a little concerned, and in his own words wondered ‘pourquoi l’enfer une princesse voudrait a enfui de son palais’ or in English, ‘why the hell a princess would want to run away from her palace’. I didn’t bother to explain the mess that was in my head, and just settled with the old favourite ‘It’s complicated.’

Theo booked me into a hotel room and then left me with his phone number just in case. Alone in a tiny hotel room with my rucksack and suitcase dumped on the bed, I was able to stop and think for a moment. And I realised quite how insane I had gone over the last few days.

“Jade must be freaking out,” I mumbled to myself, wrestling my phone from my rucksack.

Damn you buckles!

“Hello?” said a confused voice on the other end of the phone.

“Jade?” I asked.

“Phil!” she yelped, “I’m going to kill you! Run away, but run away with me, please! It’s my job to protect you, not to tattle to your parents about where you’ve gone!”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, apologetically.

I feel like a three year old…

“Look, I know you’re in Paris, I’m about to land in the airport, where are you?”

“What, how did you know?”

“You left quite an obvious trail Phil, now where are you?”

“Not sure,” I replied, “I’m close to the New Arts College.”

“Urgh, that’s a dreadful area,” Jade groaned, “You know how to pick your hotels. You know what, get a taxi, meet me at the airport – Charles de Gaulle. I’ll book you into the Lancaster.”

“Aw, but Jade-” I began, not wanting a fuss.

“No buts, you got us into this mess, now let me get us out.”

“Sorry,” I said again.

“Terminal 2, by the entrance, half an hour,” she ordered before hanging up.

Still exhausted, developing a headache and beginning to wonder if I was still sane, I checked out of the one hotel and got a taxi to the airport. Once there, Jade’s orders kept me on my feet until I was able to collapse on top of a new bed. Despite Jade stomping around in a dangerous fashion I fell asleep within minutes, still fully clothed.