Free Novel - Airman by Eoin Colfer

emotions under control must surely have resulted in some disfigurement of his forehead. I must talk to Isabella now.
    He would go to the princess. Tell her that the spring-loaded glider had been a bad idea. He would gather some flowers and wrap them in paper, and on the paper write a poem.
    Pathetic. That sounds pathetic even to me, and it was my idea. I am no poet. If Isabella likes me, it is not for my poetry.
    He would go to her and be himself. Just remind her of his existence before Prince Christian charmed her off to Denmark. Maybe tell a joke. One of Victor’s.
    What’s happening to me? he asked himself. Conor had always thought that the most powerful emotion he would ever experience was the thrill of scientific discovery. To do something that no one in the history of the world had done. What could compare to that? But then he began to see Isabella through different eyes. He noticed how she brightened the classroom with her jokes and attitude, and even her constant insults and threats of torture seemed somehow endearing. He realized that her brown eyes could make everything else in a room disappear. He wished the mornings away until she appeared in the classroom.
    I must talk with her. Even my flying machines will not fly to Denmark!
    The princess’s rooms were below the king’s in the rebuilt main tower. There was a sentry on the Wall above the tower door. Conor knew him as one of his father’s favorites, in spite of his relaxed attitude to authority. That Bates will be the death of me and himself, Declan often complained. I don’t know which is sharper, his aim or his tongue.
    Conor saluted him. “Corporal Bates, nice evening.”
    “Really? Not if you’re up on a wall with an ocean breeze blowing up your trouser leg, it isn’t.”
    “I suppose. I was just making conversation. I’m really here to . . .”
    “See Isabella, as usual. You have that big lovestruck gombeen head on you again. Go on up there before the Denmarkian fellow steals her away on his hobbyhorse.”
    If Conor had been really listening, the “hobbyhorse” comment might have made him pause. “It’s Danish, and do you think he can steal her away? Have you heard anything?”
    Bates stared at Conor as though he were mad, then smiled slowly. “Oh, I think he has a good chance. Strapping lad like him. And the way he eats up all his dinner. Very commendable. I’d get up there if I were you.”
    “Should I wait here while you announce me?”
    “No, no,” said Bates. “You go on up. I’m sure the princess would love to see you.” Not exactly procedure, but Bates’s cavalier disregard for protocol was legend.
    “Very well, I will go. Thank you, Corporal Bates.”
    Bates saluted merrily. “You are so welcome, young Broekhart. But don’t thank me now, just make sure I get an invitation to the wedding.”
    Conor hurried up the staircase and was panting by the time he reached the princess’s floor. The stairway opened to an arched vestibule with four glowing electric globes, a spectacular Norman medieval tapestry and a cherub fountain, which generated more noise from its two pumps than it did water. The vestibule was deserted apart from Conor, who steadied himself against the wall, wishing he wasn’t sweating and covered in mud. Of all the days to be wrestling pigs and running up stairs.
    From behind Isabella’s door came peals of delighted laughter. Conor knew that laugh well. Isabella saved that particular laugh for special occasions. Birthdays, Christenings, Mayday. Pleasant surprises.
    I have to go in there, to hell with the consequences. Conor drew himself up, pasted his hair down with a licked hand, and barged into the private apartment of a royal princess.
    Isabella was kneeling at her small gilded reception table, hands dripping red.
    “Isabella!” shouted Conor. “You’re bleeding.”
    “It’s just paint,” said Isabella calmly. “Conor, what are you doing here?”
    There was a well-dressed little boy at the table.