Her Royal Highness (Royals #2)(33)

“The stupidest thing?” I ask Flora now. “I find that hard to believe.”

I wait for the smart-ass remark, but instead, Flora just shrugs and says, “Fair point.”

Narrowing my eyes at her, I shift my pack on my shoulders. “Are you sick?” I ask. “Or just freaked out about camping?”

“Neither, Quint,” she replies, tossing out the rest of her tea on the gravel. It splashes a group of girls standing nearby. They give startled squawks of alarm, but when they see who threw the tea, they don’t say anything.

Princess privilege, clearly.

Flora shoves her empty cup into one of the side pockets of her pack, so at least she’s not adding littering to her list of sins.

There’s a low rumble as five vans drive up, and on my other side, Sakshi shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “I still don’t think this is necessary,” she says. “I mean, I feel very self-reliant, and also very in touch with the world around me.”

“At least you get to camp with Elisabeth,” I say, nodding toward her roommate. “I’m stuck with Flora, and Perry is with Dougal.”

Perry’s roommate looms over him, his shoulders so wide I’m surprised he can fit through doors. As we watch, Dougal punches Perry’s shoulder companionably, and Perry is nearly knocked off his feet.

He grimaces, rubbing his arm even as he tries to smile at Dougal. Then he looks over at us.

Kill me, he mouths, and Sakshi turns back to me.

“You make good points, Millie.”

We load up into the vans. The plan is that we’ll be dropped off at prearranged spots several miles from each other. Prearranged by the school, I should say. We have no idea where we’ll all be left, and as we rattle over the rough ground, I mutter to Sakshi, “Maybe we won’t be far from each other. I mean, we’ve all got to run into each other at some point, right?”

Saks looks out the window. We’re climbing a hill now, the sky still fairly blue overhead, the hills a mix of green, yellow, and gray from all the rock.

“Maybe?” she offers, and I lean past her to look at the series of valleys and dales stretching out below us. Suddenly, from up here, the school receding in the distance, I realize just how far out we really are. Maybe they can spread us far enough apart that we won’t see each other until Monday.

My stomach starts to twist a little bit. For the first time, it hits me that I’m about to be dumped out in the middle of nowhere and am expected to make my way back to the school in one piece.

And I’ll be doing it with Flora.

That’s maybe the hardest part to swallow, the idea of me and Flora having to rough it, just the two of us. And from the way she’s studying her nails next to me, clearly bored, I’m pretty sure the chances of me being eaten by a bear while she, like, checks her eyebrows in a compact mirror are now super high.

“Are there bears in Scotland?” I ask now, which really seems like something I should’ve been curious about before now, but oh well.

“Not for hundreds of years,” Mr. McGregor assures me from up front, but then he starts muttering about his pistols again, so it seems possible he’s lying, and oh my god, why did I want to come to Scotland in the first place?

We crest a ridge, and the view through the windshield makes me catch my breath. In front of us, a stony hill climbs into the sky, snow still dusting the top, and to the right, the land sweeps away into a valley. I can make out the glimmer of a stream, and with the sun actually shining, it’s like something from a movie.

This, I remind myself. This is why you’re here.

Mr. McGregor puts the Land Rover in park and nods out the window. “All right, Team A-9, this is your starting point. Up and out, lassies!”

Team A-9. That’s me and Flora.

“Right,” I say as Flora just sighs and opens her door, practically sliding out of the van.

“Let’s get this over with,” she mutters, and I bite back a comment about how that attitude certainly isn’t going to get us very far.

The point of this whole thing is supposed to be for us to bond, after all, so I’m determined to at least be . . . okay, “nice” might be too strong, but “pleasant.” That feels like the most I can strive for at this point.

As Mr. McGregor pulls our packs out of the back, Sakshi rolls down her window, gesturing me over. “Courage, mon amie,” she says, offering her crooked pinkie, and with a smile, I wrap my own pinkie around hers, giving it a shake.

“Same to you, Saks,” I say. “See you on the other side.”

Flora rolls her eyes as she pulls her expensive sunglasses from the top of her head.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she drawls. “We’re not going to war, it’s just a wee camping trip.”

She does have a point, much as it kills me to admit that, but as I look around, it’s hard to see this as a “wee camping trip.” The hills look higher than I’d thought, things seem awfully rugged, and as the van drives off, I’m reminded that for the next few hours, it’s just me, Flora, and a whole bunch of Scottish wilderness.

That feels less than wee.

Clearing my throat, I turn, looking around me. I’d done camping with Dad, but always in campsites where the place we needed to put up the tent was clear. Also, most of those places had, you know, bathrooms and showers and stuff.