One Great Chapter from:

Two Dreams~One Choice

The moment I see dad he picks his head up from the book he was reading with his serious,
brown eyes. I walk over to his hover desk and I order the hover chair to come down to the
ground. The chair glides over to me and I sit in the chair as it takes me back in the air next to
the desk, right in front of my father. I face him with my full attention.
I am going to tell you something that will possibly upset you, or maybe even make you
angry, but I do not want any interruptions at all until I am finished, is that clear? he asked.
Oh god, this means that there is something bad happening. Even though it may seem as if my
father is being a snob right now, he is actually the opposite with me. Around me his eyes sparkle
with humour and happiness and he is joyful. Usually he puts his I-am-the-king attitude with the
people. But for the first time all I see in his eyes is sternness towards me. So I just nervously
nod and he starts talking again, as you know, you are now 16 years old which means that it is
time for you to marry. It has been the law that every heir to the throne must get married when 16
and they must get married to someone that is, obviously, royal. In two months there is going to
be a ball where I will invite all the other prime ministers, kings, and their sons, from other
countries to join us for an evening together. There you will meet many boys your age and you
must choose one to be the next king. So I give you two months to prepare yourself and now I
must go to a royal meeting. He left the room, closed the door and I heard his footsteps
thumping across the hall. I just stood there speechless.
*** 2 minutes later**
What?!!
My fathers words finally set in. A current of emotions starts rushing into my mind. I feel Anger,
hopelessness, sadness, insecurity towards myself, fear, and also a little bit of regret. How could
he just tell me that I have 2 months to prepare to marry a complete stranger that I will meet for
exactly 5 hours? I cant just give away my freedom and my life to a man who knows nothing
about me except my name. There is so much to explore, to see in the world, and I havent even
stepped out of Harrington. I want to see the way of life in the middle class and poor. I have
dreams to fulfill. I cant just throw that all away. I cant believe that my own father doesnt
understand and care to ask about what I want. I thought he would for once think about his own
daughter before his duties of being a king. How could he do this to me? Why does everybody
only care about the princess and not the lonely girl behind the huge title.
Now that I think about it; if nobody cares about what I want, then why stay here? Why not go run
away? Why shouldnt I just explore the three kingdoms myself? I want to follow my dreams and
if I dont do that now, then when will I ever get such an opportunity? Maybe its my only chance
to fulfil my one dream and if it isnt what I expected then I will surrender and come back and
marry whoever I am supposed to. I guess this time I get to do what I want to do and not what my
father, my aunt, or the whole nation wants me to do. No, no, no. I need time to think about this.
My brain is rambling right now and I need to be practical not emotional.

So the first thing practical thing to do now is sit and make a pros and cons list-- simple
but very important. I know its lame but thinking and analyzing a situation is the best thing that
works for me whenever I have to take a huge decision. Since I am a princess I have been taking
huge decisions since day one. Even what I wear is a huge decision-- I know its stupid but I am
what I wear. So I start with a Chart.

Pros to Escape From Home

Cons To Escape From Home

Nobody will tell me what to do

I will need money and a lot of help from

someone that I know I can trust, someone
who will be there for me--maybe even come
with me

My dream to explore places outside of the

royal palace will come true

I may get caught and mine--and of course

fathers--reputation will be ruined and
destroyed

I wont have to marry a total stranger

I will miss all my sisters including Melody a lot

I will be free

Where am I going to live?

If I come back my experience will help me

rule--If I decide to rule-- and I will be able to
actually help the people.

What if someone recognizes me?!

You know what, I need to follow my heart and screw the pros and cons list. I will fulfill my first
dream and when the time comes I will decide if I want to rule or not. But of course, I have to do
this in less than two months.
Ok. Lets start with the first problem. Who, in this whole palace, is trustworthy enough and a
good friend of mine that will support my decision and wont judge me--not even one bit-- just
because Im the queen. I must have someone that I know in these whole 16 years of my life that
can help in this life-changing situation, right?
At this moment I am frantically searching through my memory for someone, someone,
someone--knock, knock. A calm voice says, May I come in, your majesty? UHHG! Seriously!!
Somebody had to interrupt me when Im thinking about something so important, so vital for my
survival in the universe-- I know I really am exaggerating but just go with it, Im in the moment
here. I sigh dramatically and answer, just come in since youve already decided to interrupt me,
and please, you never need to call me majesty.
Oh sorry I guess I will leave then, answers a familiar voice.
Thank god, I thought. Wait a minute, that was Josai. Aww, he is so nice. I suddenly remember
the fun we had together. I remember how he didnt judge me and just accepted me, he was

such a nice friend. This is what I need to solve my first problem!! He is the perfect person to
trust!!
Just before he left I tell him to wait and come back. He slowly enters with a smile and bright blue
sparkling eyes. I tell him to come sit. I asked him whats going on and He says he is bored and
wonders if I can talk with him and hang out. So we talk on and on about the recent things
happening in the castle. He is really funny and he jokes a lot with me.
Then out of nowhere he says, I heard about the royal meeting.
Of course he did, his father is my fathers very close friend. So obviously news got around fast
to him. So I ask him what he thinks about this and Josai tells me that it was absurd and not fair
to me. He says that it is impossible to just decide who you're life partner is going to be in 3
hours after meeting him. I tell him he is absolutely correct and that I couldnt agree more. Since
he thinks that what my father is making me do is absurd too, I guess that it is time to tell him
about my plan.
I then explain to him about my dream to be free and to be away from all this control in the
palace and then I also show him a journal entry--I never ever show my journal entry to anyone
but I guess there is always a first time for everything. In this journal entry I wrote about my
dreams. I show it to Josia and he reads out loud.
Dear Journal,

I really dont understand why people expect me to be this person Im sooo not. I dont
want to be someone that lives a life for someone else, I dont want to eat the food that
somebody else wants me to eat, I dont want to have a personality thats been created for me.
THAT is just NOT possible.
I am a girl with a mind of my own which nobody understands. My aunt keeps telling me
to be a lady because everybody will be looking at me as a role model--I could care less. The
weekly magazine states that people think a princess should be a beautiful, kind, women that
any person can go talk to. My father wants me to get myself out there in front of the public and
show them the kind of queen they are going to have. WHAT ABOUT ME? What about my dream
and what I want to do with my life.
I have two dreams. One of them is to be free, explore the world, go sight seeing, and be
independent. I want to be a person with no strings that are attached to people that can control
me. I wonder what kind of a life is that. I wonder what its like to be an ordinary person away
from the worries of the castle, away from the responsibilities of a queen.
But then my other dream is to make a change in this kingdom. I want to make this a
better place to live and I want to be the person that changes it. The truth is that I want our
society to change. I want to be fair to the people in this land. The people who deserve to be
leaders of this country need to start leading and the people who get all the fame even without

doing any work need to go down the caste system. When I become queen I plan to change the
caste system so that people arent born into a caste but actually tested to see if they deserve to
be in a specific caste. I love my people and my country. I want to have a purpose in life. But I
am also very confused. I will have to choose one dream over the other. To find out which dream
is the right one for me I need to go on this journey so that I can see what its like to be
independent. Then if I dont like the lifestyle of a free person then I will go back to my old life and
choose the second dream over the first.
Now that I think about this I guess this is a bigger decision than I thought it was. I wonder what
Im going to do?

By,
Angel
ina
When he is done reading I tell him about my confusion on being good to my country and people,
and also wanting to be free and independent. I show him my pros and cons list. I explain on how
I dont want to take such a big decision on being queen since I will have to marry before I
become queen. So I have decided to just escape the life in the castle and see which life is better
for me. The one with a thousand responsibilities but also having a place to call home, or the one
where I am totally free but I have no weaknesses or no one with me. To tell you the truth, I really
am impressed that he didnt look at me with wide eyes and anger. He just sat there listening to
me and letting everything sink in.
After two minutes of silence he says, It seems like you have got everything figured out. All you
need is a person to be there with you while you escape, which is me, and a way to escape the
palace, which we will both plan, and a place to live, which I can arrange. I want to help you so
that you can realize the right thing to do in life and hopefully if I go with you I will be able to learn
some life lessons myself. So when do you want to do the planning and preparations.
I just sit there, dumbstruck. With no idea what to say or what to do. He actually is willing to help
me. Maybe after this I will know what I want. Maybe it is time for change. Maybe I do need to get
a chance to figure out which dream of mine I should follow. Should I be loyal to my people, or
should I think of my independence? I actually have a choice, I actually get to escape-- what the
hell am I waiting for? COME ON, DONT THINK PRACTICALLY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN
YOUR LIFE!!! FOLLOW YOUR HEART, I thought.
So I am going to follow my heart. I tell Josai to meet me at 6:00 pm tomorrow to explain the plan
after Im done with my appointment at the robotic beauty and cosmetics spa. Its basically a
place where a bunch of robots are programmed to make you look gorgeous--or I what I call
fake-- and they totally change your appearance. I say goodbye to Josai and he runs out the
room, muttering about what we needed to escape.

I still cannot believe that I am going to be out of here. I wonder what its going to like.
What will I see? Who will I meet? Where will I go? Will I actually escape or will I get caught?
There are about a zillion questions swarming in my brain like bees buzzing. I kept on thinking
about what was going to happen. Its just, everything is happening too fast--is that a good thing
or bad thing?
***6:00 pm***
Im waiting in one of the rooms of the palace. But this is not just any kind of room. Here is a
secret room which was made long ago. There are about 10 other secret rooms like these that I
have already found. I know, even as I say this to myself it sounds as if Im on a secret agent on
a mission. I still havent figured out everything about the rooms but there is a lot I know from
these past years living in the castle. The rooms were probably made for the people of the castle
to hide in if anything were to happen but since they built this so long ago, everybody forgot
about them. The fascinating thing is that the technology in the secret rooms can update itself
automatically as the years pass by. One of the rooms that I am in right now has a 3-D visual
map of the whole castle. Its on some kind of table and you can see everyone who walks and
goes in and out of rooms in the castle. It is so detailed that you even know who is who and
which room is which without clicking on the labels. There is also a word text button where a
bubble pops up and you can read what a person is saying to another person at any time and
any place in the castle. If you click on the sound button you can hear all the different sounds, if
you click the smell button you can hear all the different smells--I tried that once and the smell
was disgusting in some of the rooms. In this secret room there is also an abundance amount of
everlasting food that never spoils.But the food is tasteless because the taste is preserved in a
way that it needs to be activated. With the food comes this edible powder that if you sprinkle a
little bit on the food then the taste becomes activated and you can taste the flavor and it also
prevents the food from spoiling.This is the best thing about our scientists from today. They can
absolutely figure out any solution to every single problem. But you have to also give me credit
for finding something like this, right? I mean in all of these years, I was the second person to
find the ten rooms--thats so amazing. I was the second person because my great-greatgrandma from my moms side had found the rooms first. I know that she had found the rooms
first because she had added some of her own things to the rooms. I had found the map to the
rooms since my room had been my great-great-grandmas room too and she had secretly hid
the map knowing that somebody one of her daughters or great-grand-daughters would find it.
She even put pictures on the walls of the secret rooms and the walls had some kind of
preserving chemical that had made the pictures look like they were new. So by looking at the
pictures, researching, and finding out more and more secrets about the palace, I was thankfully
able to have some kind--if not any-- adventure in these 16 years of boredom. The rooms not
only kept me busy but also gave me privacy and a sense of security since nobody was allowed
in the rooms if they didnt know the password. The only person living that knows the password is
me. When I learned about these rooms I realized that the palace is a mysterious and also
somewhat magical place but you only realize this if you look really closely. You just need to find
the details about the royal lifestyle and find the gaps and flaws. The gaps and flaws lead you to
the solutions. I found a gap when I realized that there was no security in the palace and there
was no place to get away and hide for a while in. Knowing there had to be somthing I started
looking, and whala, I found it. This is why I thought this was the perfect place to show Josai and
here we could secretly meet and do any planning.

I then pressed a button on the table that had the map which allowed me to communicate
with any person any time. So I clicked on Josai and instantly he got a call on his phone from an
unknown person. Great! I could now see him and also talk to him through the speaker on the
map.
Hello, who is this?, Josia asks.
I tell him that its me and then I explain to him that he should just do what I tell him to do
and ask questions later. I see him nod through the map so I start telling him to first go up to my
room. Then I tell him to go into my bathroom. He goes in with a confused look. Then I tell him to
slide open the cabinet door. By looking at the visual map I see him sliding the cabinet and
finding a mirror inside the cabinet. I tell him to take out the mirror slowly and then he will find a
key. I see him from the the 3-D visual looking at the key with amazement. Wow! This is just like
watching a movie, except it is so much clearer and its in 3-D, and its also happening in real life.
Then I instruct him to remove a shelf beside the cabinet. Then fit the key in the hole behind the
shelf and turn it three times. As he does this I still am amazed by the mechanism to find the
rooms. I dont need to do this every time I need to go to the rooms because I already remember
the way but when a person needs to find the rooms for the first few times, they will need the
map. So when Josia fits the key in the hole and turns it, a drawer pops up beside him with a
map inside it. On the written map there is a drawing of the 10 secret rooms in the palace and
where they are located. I tell him to find the way to the 5th secret room. I am located here since
it is my favorite room out of all of them. He is just dazed by looking at the sketch of the map. I
tell him to find the rooms and then he can eventually freak out and scream.
In about twenty minutes he entered through the sliding door. He came in, sat down, and
said,explain, please!!!.
Wow, I never thought that all I would hear is two words. But I look into Josias eyes and they
reflect excitement, confusion,bewilderment, and amazement. So I tell him about the day when I
was eight and I had nothing to do that day so I decided to explore. Me, being the inquisitive little
eight year old, saw the cabinet and I thought that it was too plain and unimportant to be in the
palace. There must be something else behind it. So I tried with all my power to push it, to pull it,
or even bang it open. Then finally it slid open!! I was so excited jumping up and down like an
eight year old wanting candy. To my surprise all there was is a glass mirror. Oh whatever I
thought to myself at that time. I guess I have my own little mirror!! So two years later, at the age
of ten, I had begun scrutinizing over my appearance and I was angry about how the robot in the
spa had done my eyebrows. I thought I looked like a clown. So when I was looking at the mirror
I was so angry that I hit the mirror and it cracked. Then I realized that there was something
behind the broken mirror. I slowly took the glass mirror off the wall and.. I found a .. key. Are
u kidding me, a key?!! That was all. So then for the next two months I tried finding the perfect
hole for the key but I couldnt find it. So I eventually gave up. Another two years later when I was
12 my earring had fell behind the shelf that was beside the cabinet. By then the mirror had been
replaced and the key was safe where I had found it two years ago. So to get my earring back I
lifted the shelf and put my earring back on. But then on the wall I saw the keyhole. I GOT SO
ECSTATIC!! Eventually after putting two and two together I took out the key from behind the
mirror in the cabinet and fit it in the hole and had found the map. Ever since then I have learned
that the palace is a very unique place. For the past years I have found the three new secret
rooms and added them to the map since there were originally seven. I finally finished telling my
flashback and I looked up to see Josia.
He says, dang, and I thought I was the clever one!!.

I laugh out loud and we start talking about why I wanted to escape. He says that he had
been planning our escape from the moment we had last spoken to each other yesterday.
Perfect. So he starts telling me the plan.
He explains that we will leave two days from now. There are not only secret rooms in the
palace but also secret tunnels. Since Josia had visited the palace and stayed here a lot during
his childhood, he had done some exploring on his own too. There were 2 tunnels known to
Josia. One of them was from my fathers room to Josias room. It was underneath the far left tile
on the room of Josia. There was enough space for two people to crawl in and out. This tunnel
allowed us to go to other parts of the castle and hear and see people through the cracks on the
floors and ceiling. The second tunnel allowed us to escape. You could access this tunnel from
anywhere. You just have to find a big, red X in your room which if peeled off would activate an
automatic square opening that will lead us to the tunnel. After crawling through the tunnels you
would come across a door. That door will lead us to the closest stores bathroom which was
outside the castle grounds. This allows for a quick and easy escape which is great. So now we
know we wouldnt get caught. We will also bring a bag of everlasting food that was in the secret
rooms. I will bring along some of my jewelry to sell the jewelry for chips on our journey.So we
will pack a change of clothes, my jewelry, food and drinks with us. After coming out of the secret
tunnel and reaching a store bathroom, we will come out of the bathroom as disguised as a man
and a women that had made a long journey to meet the king. We will dress as scientists that
have found a huge problem in todays robotics. After eating a little at the store, we will then
leave and buy a room at the closest hotel for 10 chips and stay there and see what happens
next after we get to the hotel.
So at exactly 12:00 am in two days I will get up from my bed and go into the halls and
come to this secret room. If somebody sees me I will say that I was going to the bathroom. Then
me and Josia would meet at the secret room that will already have all our packed bags that we
packed a day before and we will find the big, red X and finally start our journey as we planned.
I then eventually say goodbye to Josia. As I went over the plan in my head I start having a huge
bubbling sensation in the pit of my stomach. I think its just the adrenaline telling me to run and
follow my dreams.