Twice Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris Read Free Book Online Page A

gown. And before her meetings with Rollo, Mrs. Clover, and Sedgewick, she summoned Lazy Susan and Mr. Lucasa to her dressing room to service her wardrobe.
    "Ooooh," Lazy Susan said, examining Olympia's court dresses. "These are too gorgeous for words. All that silk and all those ruffles. All those bows and all that ermine."
    Olympia pulled a dress off its hanger and threw it on the floor. "Completely out of fashion, I'm sure. And even if it isn't, I'm not about to be seen in a dress that's a year old. I'll need all new things. Immediately!"
    Mr. Lucasa picked up the dress. "I can do something with this," he said. "The material is beautiful."
    "Do whatever you want with it," Olympia said. "And this." She threw another dress on the floor. "And this, and this, and this—" She kept at it until they were up to their knees in discarded clothing. "Now
this
one," she said, indicating the single remaining dress, "was made for me to wear to the reception after Marigold's wedding. The reception I never got to because I fell in the river. So no one but the dressmaker and I have ever seen it. This one I can wear. Lazy Susan, you help me. Lucasa, you get busy with this other stuff." She kicked at the pile on the floor.
    Mr. Lucasa gathered up as many of the gowns as he could carry and left while Lazy Susan stayed to help Olympia dress. This involved a lot of ordering about, complaining, shouting, one incident of hair-pulling and two slaps, all of the above delivered by Olympia. By the time the queen was finally dressed, coiffed, and perfumed, Lazy Susan was exhausted, sulky, and rebellious, and wondering again what had turned her sweet friend Angie into this selfish, demanding shrew. She had also just done more work in a single day than she had done in any previous year, and she hadn't liked that one bit, either.
    "I'm going down to my meetings now," Olympia said grandly. "Be here when I get back to help me undress."
    "Fat chance of that," Lazy Susan muttered as Olympia left the room. "Figure out how to get your own self out of that complicated monstrosity of an outfit." The simple life of Granolah, which had seemed so dull and repetitious when compared to Beauty's circumstances, now seemed almost unbearably precious. Oh, to sit on the stone bench by the well again, doing nothing but watching the village go by. To lie in her bed at midday resting from the rigors of eating breakfast
and
lunch. To have time to rehash her old resentments against Beauty. Though, at the moment, seeing what life in a castle could be like, Lazy Susan wasn't sure she was as envious as she used to be, no matter how handsome Beauty's prince was. Being a queen was apparently quite a strenuous job.
    She headed for the small attic cubicle that Mrs. Clover had assigned to her, threw herself on the narrow cot, and was instantly asleep.

    T HAT NIGHT , no one slept soundly except Olympia—and that was only after the episode of bellowing when she discovered Lazy Susan was not waiting to disrobe her. Four other maids and seven footmen were sent to scour the castle, and Lazy Susan was delivered to Olympia just in order to be demoted to scullery maid.
    Ed lay awake worrying that Olympia would find a way to dismantle his tooth-covered turret, or bring a halt altogether to Tooth Troll Limited.
    Swithbert lay awake in despair at the prospect of life with Olympia again, just when he was finally getting used to the blithe feeling of life without her.
    Bub and Cate lay awake, making plans to somehow get that blue squeaky toy all to themselves.
    So did Flopsy, Mopsy, and Topsy.
    Christian pretended to be asleep so he wouldn't disturb Marigold, but he worried for Marigold's safety. He hadn't forgotten that Olympia had once contemplated arranging a fatal accident to get Marigold out of the line of succession. Theoretically, as Queen of Zandelphia, Marigold was already out of the Beauri-vage line of succession. But if Swithbert's plan for uniting the two kingdoms came to