Chapter One – Professors, Paint and Perhaps Going a Little Too Far

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, Prince Charming II was bored. Yawn-inducingly, crown-numbingly bored. For about the fiftieth time, he made a vain attempt to concentrate on the worksheet in front of him, but one look at Question 1 – “Using sources 1 & 2, explain why the democracy rule of Freedonia collapsed in 1809” – and he decided that, for his own safety, he’d give any form of brain-work a miss.

“Is there a problem, Mister Charming?” Charming made a huge show of looking up from his exercise book, his pen poised over the page.

“No, sir,” he said, trying his hardest to look very innocent. His tutor, Professor Fredricks, seemed satisfied and surreptitiously slid a little lower in his seat so that his head was resting comfortably against the padded back of the chair. Charming watched enviously as the old man’s eyelids drooped and his mouth fell slightly open, a trickle of drool escaping from the corner of his mouth and making a bid for freedom down his stubbly cheek. No stranger to Fredricks’ incredibly light sleeping, Charming cautiously raised an arm in the air. Nothing. He waved it slowly from side to side as though he was listening to a sickeningly slow love song at a live concert. Still nothing. He slowly increased the movement of his arm until it looked as though he was trying to personally start a hurricane, but there was still no sign that the Professor was anything but deeply asleep.

“Sir?” he ventured. “Sir, the work you have set me is an utter waste of my time, and there isn’t a chance in hell that it’ll ever come in useful.” There was still no response from the dozing tutor. Warming to his theme, Charming continued, “Furthermore, sir, you are a boring old fart with less ability to be interesting than a very fat bumblebee...” Actually, Charming had to admit that an overweight insect would be a pretty amusing sight. “The seconds I spend with you crawl by slower than a crippled slug, and I never want to set eyes on your ugly mug again.”

In response, Fredricks let forth a very loud and very repulsive snore. Satisfied, Charming pushed his chair back from the desk and opened the door a crack, checking the hallway for footmen. The coast was clear. With a final sarcastic wave at Fredricks’ unconscious form, he snuck out of the room.

Charming found himself, almost automatically, making for the Grand Ballroom for no apparent reason, thinking all the way of what to do with his rare moments of freedom (it was not for want of trying that these moments were rare, mind. Not a day went by when Charming didn’t try to skive off lessons with Fredricks. He’d tried every trick in the book, from sudden violent illnesses to setting off a couple of large firecrackers and making a break for it). Going down to the kitchens and getting one of the cooks to make him a sandwich seemed as mundane as shouting “I’m FREE!” from the tallest tower in the castle seemed pointlessly ostentatious, but his brain seemed to have been turned to mush by a double session of History of Government, and those were the only two options he could think of.

Deep in thought as he was, Charming rather stupidly nearly walked into a footman who was obviously in a hurry, causing him to almost spill the dangerously full pot of paint he was carrying.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” the man gushed, barely bending his head in a bow so much was his haste to get to wherever he was going. Charming held out a hand, however, causing the footman to hop from foot to foot with impatience; Charming was too busy staring at the large quantity of paint to notice. A slow smile spread across his face.

“Terribly sorry,” he said, relieving the footman of his load, “but I’ll be needing that. There’ll be some more somewhere I’m sure.”

Careful not to spill a drop, Charming left the footman to break several records for human speed on land as he went to find some more paint, doubling back on himself, for perhaps the first time in his life, making his way willingly towards the school room.

***

Charming watched a little nervously as his mother, Queen Ella, compulsively straightened the cushions on the sofa she was sitting on.

“I see, Professor Fredricks,” she said, smoothing down the sofa cover on either side of her out of habit. “And I understand, of course, that this is not simply a one-off occurrence. I shall certainly be speaking to my husband.”

“That will not be necessary, madam!” Professor Fredricks spat, trying and failing to keep his tone level. “I am henceforth handing in my resignation.” He turned on Charming. “You can start jumping for joy, Charming, because I’m leaving as of now! Good day to you.” He snatched up his briefcase and stalked out of the room, his face still bright red – although this could possibly have been because that paint had been hard to wash off. As soon as the door shut behind him, Queen Ella whipped out a miniature feather duster and, getting to her feet, she began absent-mindedly dusting down the mantelpiece.

“Well, Charming?” she sighed. “What have you got to say for yourself?”

Charming shrugged. “The colour went with his hair.”

This was clearly not the explanation his mother was looking for; she began to attack a desk with her feathered instrument, lifting so much dust from behind it that the air around her looked slightly grey. “I’m going to have to tell your father when he gets back from his business trip, you understand. He’s not going to be happy about this. Gustaf Fredricks was the best tutor in the whole kingdom.”

Charming sat up a little straighter at that news. “So he’s irreplaceable?” He just might have done something right for once. If Fredricks couldn’t be replaced, then he wouldn’t be. No more tutor meant no more lessons.

“He was the best of the best,” Ella lamented, pausing in her dusting to wring her hands hopelessly, “of course he’s irreplaceable.” She fell silent, twirling the duster like a baton, clearly deep in thought. “I would have to discuss it with your father, but... Yes, maybe... After all, we know so many people who...”

“Who what?” Charming prompted suspiciously. Anything his mother had to ‘discuss’ with his father was unlikely to appear all that pleasant from his perspective. The last time such a thing had occurred, the household cooks had been banned from giving him chocolate cake ever again.

“Nothing, dear,” his mother said quickly, confirming his fears that whatever it was she had in mind was not something he would be altogether happy about. “Why don’t you go off and amuse yourself for a bit, as you have no lessons this afternoon.” She fixed him with a stern look when she said this, and he squirmed a bit under her gaze. “Go on, off you go.” He didn’t need telling twice. Leaving her to her obsessive dusting, Charming left the room.

***

Charming had correctly assumed that his parents ‘discussion’ would take place in his father’s study, and had kept watch from his bedroom window until well past midnight, when the royal limousine had pulled up in front of the palace. As quietly as possible, he had then made his way through a back passageway to the ideal vantage point – a small tower room directly above the study. If he lay on the floor with one ear pressed slightly painfully against the bare floorboards, he could hear every word.

“Welcome back, dearest.” There was a pause, and a sound that Charming didn’t want to dwell too much on. “How was the trip?”

“Uneventful,” his father replied. There was the creak of a chair as he sat down. “Rufus still refuses to make it clear where he stands in this whole disagreement, and Victor’s becoming increasingly difficult about the whole thing. Boris didn’t even show up at the conference – trouble at home I gather.”

“Speaking of trouble at home, did you happen to get a resignation notice from Fredricks?”

There was a noise like a chair being pushed backwards very fast on the floor as the King stood up quickly. “What??”

“I gather you didn’t,” Ella said hopelessly. “It only happened a few hours ago. You know how Charming is about his lessons. There was a lot of red paint involved.”

Charming heard his father swear quite loudly. “That paint was going to be used for repainting the State Dining Room. Now I’ll have to get Strafford to order some more–”

“Yes, dear,” Ella interrupted patiently, “but what about Fredricks? Charming will need to start studying for his exams soon, and we can’t get as good a tutor as Gustaf at this short notice.”

“Well, what do you suggest?” grumbled the King.

“Well, there was just this one idea... We discussed it briefly before we got Fredricks in, if you remember?” There was a brief silence. “Well, I was talking to Vera the other day, and she said that nobody does private tutoring these days; everyone’s sending their children to The Academy. I mean, even my sisters are sending their children there, for True Love’s sake! It’s not too late to sign him up; term doesn’t start for a few weeks. He’d be getting a good education, forming diplomatic connections with people his age, and he wouldn’t be causing trouble here at the palace. Goodness knows it would be good news for the servants at least.”

Charming could almost picture his father mulling the idea over, weighing up the pros and cons of this ‘academy’. “Everyone you say?”

“Last I heard Victor, Rufus, Boris, Phillip, Ranius and both my sisters were all giving it a go.”

The King stayed silent for a moment longer. “Well, why not,” he said finally. “I have no objection to it. Get Strafford to sort it all out: I’m going to be gone for a few days.”

“But you’ve only just come back!” Ella protested, voicing Charming’s thoughts.

“Kingdom first, darling, you know that.”

“Yes, of course, never mind about family first or anything,” the Queen snapped.

“Don’t be difficult, Ella–”

Charming sat up quickly, his back aching from the position he had been lying in. He had no desire to listen to his parents at half past one in the morning. He tiptoed over the wooden floor and back down the passageway, intending to puzzle out the problem of the mysterious ‘academy’ his parents had been speaking of. Naturally, as soon as he climbed into the warm sheets of his bed and closed his heavy eyelids for a second – the only thing he could think of doing at that moment was sleeping.

***