Princesses Don't Do Summer School Read online

  Princesses of the Pizza Parlor

  Ep.1 "Princesses Don't Do Summer School"

  Max's Pizza wasn't the biggest restaurant in town, or the busiest, or even the tastiest — though lots of people said it was anyway. The building had once been a burger joint, and then an ice cream parlor, but Max had done such a number on the place that you'd never know unless you'd lived here all your life. Red-checked cloth covered the tables, and there was a counter along the far end where you could pick up a slice of whatever was available. If you wanted something else, Max was usually happy to oblige.

  There were corner booths with deep old sofa seats, leather worn and cracked, and broad tables that were useful for so many things. A lot of business meetings happened here during the week.

  It was Sunday afternoon, though, right after the lunch rush brought in all the families after church. One table was wiped clean of crumbs, and now had all sorts of things gathered upon it.

  A white laptop computer, not too old and not too new, sat to the side. A pile of colorful books lay next to it, and tons of loose paper. A cardboard box was filled with little figurines, no two alike. And in a big old Mason jar, there were dice, more dice than a kid might think existed. Some were square, with six sides, but more were not. There were little plastic pyramids that counted only to four, and others with so many sides that they were almost round. Those counted up to twenty. There was even a blue one that really was round, and it rattled when you shook it.

  Helen let the little blue ball fall from her hands and watched it roll across the table. It stopped right in the middle, showing six white dots in two rows.

  "If you're gonna mess with the dice, be useful and get them sorted for everyone," her uncle said. He turned back to his conversation. "Thanks again for letting us set up here, Maxine."

  "Not a problem. Sunday afternoon and evening are always pretty slow for walk-ins, anyway. And it's Max. You know that." The owner and operator of Max's Pizza was dressed in her usual black slacks, white shirt, and red vest. She looked real smart in it, especially when she stood next to Uncle in his faded jeans and flannel.

  The dice came in a crazy rainbow of colors, but it was easy enough to sort them into crowds of sorta-red, kinda-blue, mostly orange, probably purple, and greenish. All the rest — the clears, the blacks, the metallics, and the whatevers — she piled up behind the divider screen at Uncle's seat.

  "So when are your little friends arriving?" Max picked up a couple of sparkly red dice and rattled them in her fist. "The pies will take a while to cook, after all. Pepperoni still good?"

  "And a small supreme for me," said Uncle as he arranged his papers.

  "Yes, please," Helen said. "Are you sure you don't want to play too?"

  "Sweetie, I haven't had the time to sit down for a game in years. I'll just let you and friends have your fun, and I'll enjoy from the counter."

  Helen scooted to her place in the middle of the wide sofa seat and organized her greenish dice in neat lines according to size. First the twenties, then the twelves, the tens, the eights, the sixes, and then her one little four-sided die, a light green with swirls of yellow. She rolled it once, just to see, and it came out with a 3 on its top point.

  "Here's your character sheet, kiddo." Uncle slid the paper over. "Got everything we talked about."

  "Thanks, Uncle!"

  "Still can't believe your niece talked you into this," said Max.

  "What can I say? She saw it on TV, wanted to give it a go, and I'm the only one in the family who knows anything about it. Oh, Helen. Is that one of yours?" He pointed out the window to a blue sedan that had just parked on the side. Two girls were hopping out. One was skinny and taller with a thick mane of orange-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. The other girl was a full head shorter, with brown pigtails and bangs that almost completely hid her eyes from view. Both of them had enough freckles each to form their own constellations.

  "Cynthia! Katelyn!" Helen called and banged on the window until she'd caught the girls' attention. She ran to the door and greeted them with hugs and squeals.

  Uncle had resigned himself to a long afternoon, but he put on a good face and shook Mr. McAll's hand. The man had the look of a dad who was already wishing summer vacation was over, and all he'd done was ferry his daughter and her friend to a playdate.

  "Thanks for doin' this," Cynthia's father mumbled through his moustache. "The girls seem t' be lookin' forward to it."

  "Yeah, they do. And thanks for chipping in for the pizza and all."

  "Worth it, young man. Worth it." And with that, the dad beat a hasty retreat.

  "So!" Uncle said, turning back to the table. "We're just missing two, right?"

  "Nope, just one," came a voice from right beside his elbow. Uncle jumped, tripped, and nearly fell over a roll on the carpet.

  "Claire!" cried Helen. "When'd you get here?"

  "Just now. Rode my bike in." The tiny girl waddled over to the table, then climbed up onto a seat. Her legs didn't quite reach the floor, and her thick, round spectacles barely made it above the table's edge. A single oversized bow stuck out from the back of her dark brown hair like a pair of floppy rabbit ears.

  "Okay then," said Uncle. "Who's missing?"

  "Just Shelby," his niece said. She and the other girls piled onto the old sofa seat. "Not sure if she's coming. She wasn't really into the idea."

  "I guess we can start then, and she can catch up when she gets here." Uncle picked up a sheaf of paper and tapped it even. Each page had a logo on it, plus a bunch of lines and a whole bunch of numbers. "So, everyone knows what we're up to today?"

  "We're gonna have an adventure!" shouted Cynthia.

  "Gonna tell a story!" Helen added.

  "...be princesses," Katelyn mumbled, her eyes darting back and forth a little nervously from behind her bangs.

  "More or less all of that. Including the last one." Uncle didn't quite groan at that, but he really wanted to. That had been one of the few things that was completely non-negotiable with his niece. If they were playing a fantasy story game, then there had to be princesses. And since she didn't want her friends to feel left out, they could all be princesses, too. He'd just done his best to accommodate. "So in this game, you each get a character that you have to role-play. She can be just like you, or a completely different person. It's your choice, and you'll have some time right here at the start to change things up or choose how she looks. Anything you want, but," he added with a tap on the paper, "she's completely defined by what's on her sheet here. You can't decide a few hours in that she knows kung-fu or anything, just because it's convenient. So we're going to work on who we are, first of all. Helen, why don't you introduce them to your princess, since we already worked her details out?"

  "Okay, Uncle! Ahem, my princess is named Gwenevrael, and she's..."

  Gwenevrael sat on her favorite branch of her favorite tree in her favorite part of the woods surrounding Lady Amberyll's Academy for Young Ladies. She had her special cloak out, the one her father had given her as a parting gift before she'd left for school, and the magic woven into it made her extra hard to see against the bark.

  This came in extra handy when she wanted to hunt, but she wasn't hunting today. Gwenevrael liked to sit here and think sometimes, and pretend there was no one else around for miles but rabbits and squirrels and deer and hawks. Sometimes her lightly pointed ears caught the sound of a deer passing by. Sometimes she'd imagine it was a unicorn, even though she knew better.

  Eventually she grew tired of hiding and flipped back the hood of her cloak to reveal the pale skin and arrow-tipped ears of her father's family matched with her mother's red hair and freckles. The sky-blue eyes were he
rs alone.

  She jumped to the ground, startling a family of rabbits as she did, and started walking back to the Academy.

  "... so her sheet tells us at the top that Gwen here is a half-elf, and that she's trained as a ranger."

  "That anythin' like a forest ranger?" asked Cynthia.

  "Sort of, but with more arrows and magic. Now, these numbers here along the top are for things like how strong she is, how fast, how smart, stuff like that. Whenever Helen wants her to do something difficult, these are the numbers we'll be checking. For example, she's got a high dexterity — she's fast and good with her hands," he added quickly. "So, any time she has to do something quick and tricky, she gets a plus-three bonus. With me so far?"

  "What's the stuff along the side?" asked Claire. The little girl was standing on her seat to look at the paper better. "Riding, climbing, swimming..."

  "Just what it looks like," said Uncle. "Those are things that she is, or can be, good at, with the bonuses based on the numbers up top. Now, I've already drawn up a bunch of characters with their base stats and skills assigned, so we could get things started faster. What kind of princess would you like to be?"

  "Like Snow White!" hollered Cynthia. "Y'know, singin' and happy and gettin' animals to like her and all."

  "Druid princess it is! That means you get to use nature magic and you have an animal companion," he explained as he handed her the paper. "And for you other young ladies?"

  "...um.. could... could I..." Katelyn mumbled. "Can witches be princesses?"

  "She's always a witch. Every Halloween." Helen rolled her eyes, and Katelyn's blush spread out from under those brown bangs.

  "Nothing wrong with that. And yes, I've got a witch princess in here. Glad I drew some from outside the core classes now. Here you are." He passed the sheet over. "Okay, how about you, Clai—"

  "I am the moon princess, here to fight for love and justice and happiness and the future of the Moon Kingdom!" The girl stood on her tiptoes and brandished a plastic wand with a red crystal held in a crescent moon shape. "And I'm tall and beautiful and strong and all the evil monsters of the dark dimensions shall fear me!"

  "Tall?" snorted Cynthia.

  "Now, now, I already said that your princess does not have to be just like you. So, Claire. You like those Japanese cartoons, I take it?"

  "Yeah! Wanna know which one's my favorite?"

  "I think I can guess," said Uncle. "Let me check what I've got on my laptop..." Tap-tap-click. "Okay, you can be a cleric princess. That means you're a holy girl who gets her magic from a god or goddess. There isn't an official Moon goddess in the system we're using, but we can always make one up. Okay!" Uncle announced as he pulled a stack of index cards from his bag. "Three of you are able to use magic, so we need to go over some basics. First, Helen, could you get the bag of flat marbles? Give everyone else three blues each. For the reds, Katelyn and Claire get two, and Cynthia gets one."

  "What're these s'posed to be?" the pony-tailed girl asked. "Looks like somethin' from the bottom of a goldfish bowl."

  "These are your magic spells," Uncle explained. He picked up a blue. "These are for level one spells, which your characters should know a few of, and the reds are for level two spells, of which they know exactly one each. I already filled out the list on the back of your sheet for you, but we can change them up a little if you want."

  He showed them the index cards, which had colored tabs in green, blue, or red. "These have the details of each spell written on them. Green ones are the so-called level zero spells, which do a bunch of useful but boring things like fetching, cleaning, or mending. You get to choose four of these each day, but you can use them any way you want, as much as you want."

  Helen took the cards and the other girls crowded around to check them out. It had taken Uncle most of an afternoon and evening to fill out the necessary information in a way that was clear, and he'd tried to make it funny as well, with descriptions like "Makes a magic snowball that you can stuff in someone's ear, down their pants, wherever. Good for getting people to chill out." He hoped their giggles were for the jokes he'd actually intended.

  This gave him free moment to check over some details, at least. Silently, he thanked Max for giving him the shop's wi-fi key. Having an internet connection available made things so much easier. "Okay, Claire? Could you come over for a bit?"

  "Yes, o inimitable maestro of the grand game of the imagination?"

  "... save it for the roleplay, kid." He pulled a chair over so she could see the laptop screen with him. "So a cle... er, holy girl's got to choose some things called domains. Has to do with who they're supposed to be serving, and how that deity influences the world. I'm guessing you're okay with the Love and Moon domains?"

  "In the name of the Moon, I shall bring peace and love to the world!"

  "Right... I'll take that as a yes. Now, as a holy girl —"

  "Princess."

  "Yes, as a holy princess, you get a few extra tricks connected to your domain. On top of that, I can give your holy scepter a special power based on the Moon..." He scribbled a note and handed it to her to read.

  "Um.. does this say I get a light saber?"

  "I guess you could call it that. You can only use it a limited amount of time per day," he added. "Based on your character's level."

  "Awesome. Um, what level are we starting at? One?"

  "Good question. Okay, ladies!" he called for attention. "Seeing as you are all princesses, Helen and I came to some agreements. First, you're all starting at level three, probably because of excellent tutoring options."

  "Awesomesauce! Moon Laser Sword Magic!"

  "Um, Mr. Man?" Cynthia raised her hand. "How do we get magic back after we use it?"

  "That depends. You all need to get a good night's sleep to really recharge, but beyond that, druids need to meditate on nature for a bit. Moon Princesses need to say their prayers every evening. Witches just need a good rest and some quality time with their familiars. Now, have you all cho—"

  "NO, NO, NO! I don't wanna and you can't make me!"

  All heads turned to the front door, where a tanned, burly man with with more blond hair on his face than on his head was all but carrying a girl one-handed into the restaurant. This was a particularly impressive feat because she was taller than any of the kids at the table by almost a full head, and looked like she spent most of her time running around outside and kicking stuff.

  "Now, now!" said her father. "You promised your friends you'd be here, and I ain't gonna let you weasel out of it that easily. See? They're already here!"

  "Hi, Shelby!" shouted Helen, with the chorus of other girls following a moment later.

  "Hrmph." The girl managed to slouch her way across the room, squeezing onto the couch next to the others.

  "I'll be back to pick you up around six, honey!"

  "Whatever." Shelby's face was so sour it could be mistaken for lemonade. Curly black hair stuck out in all directions, but mostly downward to the collar of her soccer team t-shirt.

  "So, er, Shelby," said Uncle. "Ready to be a princess?"

  "No."

  "Aw, don't be like that," said Helen. "It's not going to be dresses and balls and stuff. We're going to have adventures!"

  "Defend nature!" cried Cynthia.

  "...do magic stuff."

  "Punish evil-doers in the name of the Moon!"

  "Anything you want, really," said Uncle. "Helen, how about you go over the options with her? We could use a fighter of some sort in this game."

  That perked up Shelby a little. "So I don't gotta be some stupid Disney pretty princess?"

  "Well, I made it a house rule that everyone's got the same charisma score, so you're all equally pretty princesses, but..." Uncle shrugged. "It's your show, ladies. I'm just organizing it. If you want to change your characters, customize them a bit, then now is the time."

  "C'mon, Shelby. Let's get you a cool battle princess," said Helen. She grabbed the remaining character sheets, as we
ll as a couple old art books that Uncle had brought along.

  "Good, good. Now, um, Katelyn? Could you come over?"

  "...yes?"

  "You'll need to speak a little louder, kid. First question, what sort of familiar animal do you want for your witch?"

  "... can I have a cat?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "I..." The girl coughed, then raised her voice a little. "Can I have a little black cat with a white spot on his chest?"

  "Don't see why not. And kitties give you a bonus on stealth, so..." He checked a few boxes on her character sheet. "You're all set for some sneaky shenanigans. That okay with you?"

  His only answer was a shy smile.

  "Okay, now as a witch, you can get some special tricks. I've got the list here somewhere..." He pawed through a ringed notebook for a second. "Yeah, here we are. Hexes. Choose two."

  Katelyn squinted through her bangs at the scribbled notes. Uncle's handwriting was if anything worse than the fifth-grade average, but he'd tried to keep it readable. Quietly, she picked out two tricks from the list and wrote them on her sheet.

  "Interesting selections. This should be fun."

  "Can I have these spells, pleeeeeeeeeeeeze?" Cynthia crashed in from the side, shoving a piece of paper in Uncle's face. Her handwriting was about as messy as his, only written larger and with kitty paw prints above the i's and j's.

  "Um... Summon Animal, Summon Nature's Allies, Converse with Animals..." He continued reading. "Er, Cynthia, do all of these have to do with animals?"

  "Yup!" The girl bounced on her seat, sending her ponytail up and down.

  "Okay, some of these are redundant, and a couple are completely out of your ability level. This last one... All-Out Animal Apocalypse isn't a real spell, so no."

  "Awww...."

  "Palaver time!" Uncle called. "Claire, get back over here! We're working on spell lists."

  It didn't take that long to sort everything out, though he'd had to put his foot down a few times before they had any sort of agreement. He needed to resign himself to the fact that none of the girls made the sort of decisions he would, but then again, wasn't that the point?