Trans Teen and the Grumpy Princess, Chapter 3
Should I actually call it that?
Avery and His Princess
Chapter Three
“Do I have to do everything?” the Princess complained, standing on the long kitchen acrylic counter, her pink tulle dress somehow still floating around her without wrinkle or tear.
Avery blinked, once, twice, his long eyelashes coming down, up, like butterflies. He squinted. Knives moved up and down without hands, onions lifted into the air, spoons stirring in pots on the stove.
He looked at the Princess.
“We should be the invisible ones stupid Ave,” she said. “And get one of those little knives to get your button out.”
The Princess glowed and buzzed with little bugs of magic. Her chubby fingers left trails in the air as she spun them in a circle, all the familiar faces coming alive around him. Cook’s strong jawline, her acrylic apron over white pants and long button down jacket. Her skinny blonde helper twins.
Avery looked down and watched his hands and legs disappear.
“Ave!!!”
He looked up. The Princess had disappeared, too. He took a step toward her and she pulled his hair.
“Ouch!”
“Wake up!”
She was right. He shook himself.
“Take the button out.”
Avery noticed the Princess had become…very royal. She’d taken charge.
He undid his uniform jacket and shirt, then picked up a little knife. Dug it into his skin above the collarbone until he found the disk, teeth grinding down into each other. He flicked the knife tip and the disk came out. With a lot of blood.
“Get a towel stupid Ave,” the Princess said.
He squirmed around the kitchen workers to a sink, rinsed the wound and took a clean towel and pressed it against himself.
When he turned around the kitchen had gone quiet. Everyone stared at him. He looked down and saw the towel in midair, a growing spot of blood in its center.
“Oops,” the Princess said.
All the heads turned to her.
She suddenly winked into existence.
“My mama is dead,” she said. “My daddy did it.”
Avery came to stand next to her. Tears rolled down her face. She reached over and climbed on Avery so her head rested against the side of his collarbone that wasn’t bleeding.
“The king is coming,” Avery said. “I took my tracker out, but he’s coming.”
The kitchen workers looked at each other, their long thick braids shimmying along their white covered backs. Then all their brown eyes turned to the chef, who stood perfectly upright, watching, brows furrowed together, forehead wrinkled. Avery felt the breath of the kitchen, the inhale, the long hold, the wait.
“We will help the Princess,” the stern chef in her long coat finally said as she removed her apron. “We will help the magic.”
The Princess lifted her head from Avery’s collarbone. “Maybe I can turn off the lights,” she whispered to him, one hand fisted in his hair.
She looked up and the lights went out. She exhaled, laid her head down and the lights suddenly turned back on.
Avery looked around the long kitchen. Its acrylic table, its pale steel ovens, the bleached coats of the workers, their brown faces. The queen’s subjects, he realized. Not the king’s.
“We could stampede the lawn in the dark,” Avery said. “Set off every sensor. They might not know what to do.”
“We could get to the trees?” the cook said.
All eyes waited. All bodies tensed. Freedom, maybe, for everyone.
“I don’t know,” Avery answered. “They’ll shoot.”
The workers looked at each other, faces impassive and grave. Acrylic bullets killed. Acrylic arrows would find their mark. Even under cover of night. If there were enough of them, everyone might die.
“It must be now?” the cook asked.
“Yes,” Avery told her.
The Princess let go and turned around. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not as good at magic like my Mama. Only a little good.”
“We will follow you, my Princess,” the cook said.
Already the workers had pulled off their aprons and coats and were grabbing knives, sacks, stuffing them with bread, cheese.
Some of them wore brightly colored shirts tight against their skin under all the legal white.
Bootsteps sounded down the hall.
The Princess looked up.
The lights went out. All of them, everywhere. The transparent castle became night.
“Can anyone see in the dark?” Avery asked.
“I can,” the Princess told him.
“Why am I not surprised?” he muttered.
He felt a calloused hand of a worker slide into his as the Princess climbed onto his back and grabbed his hair with both hands this time. He hoped if they didn’t die she would not make it a habit.
She kicked a foot against his side and pulled his hair with small chubby hand, motioning him toward…well, toward something he couldn’t see.
“Ouch,” he whispered as he walked in the direction she indicated.
His collarbone and neck started to throb. The pull on his hair loosened.
She whispered, “Stop.”
He squeezed the invisible worker’s hand in his, tightened his grip on the Princess with his other arm. She placed a finger over the collarbone wound and it flared into a burn, then stopped hurting. He felt her nod against his back as she did the same to the neck wound.
They waited.
“Now,” she said.
They slipped outside some door—he couldn’t see—into cooler air. Down an incline near the stables the tiny lights of acrylic horse eyes glowed. Acrylic hooves pawed the ground.
The Princess pointed at them and the lights went out.
“Luck,” she said.
“Luck, Princess,” the cook said. “The magic of luck.”
Avery felt the press of bodies around him—the workers shielding their Princess.
“No,” he said. Then he lowered his voice. “Crawl. Zig zag. Separate.”
“Fly,” the Princess said, lifting her arms.
He rose, they all rose, floating, directionless. The Princess turned her hand and they turned with her, toward the trees.
“I’m sleepy again,” she said, and lost consciousness.
“A chance,” the cook said. “She gives us a chance.
They all swam through the air. Hands grabbed at Avery’s clothes, pushed him with them. He held onto the Princess tightly. Her thick curly hair fell over his shoulder into his face.
It tickled. Which really bothered him. He didn’t want to die itching his freaking face.
The Princess started to snore. A cute baby snore right in his ear as he floated toward the scrub trees he’d looked at every day he could remember. Trees he couldn’t see.
Something sharp flew next to his face.
“Go higher,” the chef said.
A burn in his calf muscle, hot liquid in a slow trickle. He rolled in the air, pulling the Princess around from his back toward his chest. His arm slipped. She started to fall. He dropped down, pulled at her arm. When did she get so heavy?
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, yanked hard.
She floated up past him, still asleep. He didn’t let go.
The trees, invisible in the night, seemed far away. So far.
An arrow flew below, transparent, dividing the air—someone screamed.
Avery pulled the Princess to his chest and curled around her.
Hands shoved him hard from behind until he pummeled the air like a cannonball, speeding over the Astroturf. He started to roll, head over heels.