Free God Save the Queen by Amanda Dacyczyn Page B

had arrived at the palace, but kept it close at hand just in case.
                  It was 3:00 a.m. No one would be calling me unless it was urgent. And if it wasn’t, then the person on the other line was going to get a whole lot of grumpiness. I looked at the caller ID and saw that it said Maggie . I quickly flipped the phone up, wondering why she was calling. A quick mental calculation told me it was 11:00 a.m back home, which meant she should have been in class.
                  I clicked the answer button and croaked out a “Hello?”
                  I suddenly heard lots of people talking very loudly with much shouting. Then Maggie shouted, “Anya? Anya, are you there?” The background sounds suddenly went silent and I heard people making shushing sounds. “Hello, Anya?”
                  “Maggie I’m here…What’s going on?” I looked at the clock to check the time. “Why are you calling me so late?”
                  “What are you talking about?” She said, but her tone was suggesting a hint of irritation.
                  “Maggie, it’s three in the morning here. Remember, I’m in Russia. There’s a time difference.”
                  “Oh, yeah… Russia . On family business. That’s right.” The way that she was talking didn’t sound right. Kind of nasty, in fact.
                  “Maggie, what are you doing? Why are you calling me?” I was ready to hang up.
                  “Oh, I don’t know, just hanging in the classroom. Watching CNN. Hearing how you’re a princess? Anya, is it true? Tell me tell me tell me tell me--”
                  My heart suddenly sank. CNN had gotten a hold of secret information about me? Oh, I thought, this is just peachy!
                  “What? Have you been inhaling too many fumes in Chem Lab again, Maggie? Of course I’m not… not, definitely not a princess. I mean, really.”
                  “Oh, ‘cause, you know, it’s kind of weird how you just had to suddenly leave for Russia for some ‘family thing’ and all of a sudden this story comes out on CNN. Come on, spill. It’s me, Anya!”
                  I resented her implied quotations around ‘family thing.’ I wasn’t very good at lying, but right now I was trying my best.
                  “No, there is nothing that I’m keeping from you…”
                  “Oh, just shut it, Anya. We didn’t read about it in some supermarket tabloid. It’s on CNN! Which I really find weird, because if I want to find out my friend’s royalty, I kind of want to hear it from her… not the freaking news! ” She suddenly stopped shouting at me and then sighed, “Hold on, Sadie wants to talk to you.”
                  I heard a bunch of movement on the other end and then a soft, “Anya?”
                  “Hey, Sadie.”
                  “Anya, why couldn’t you tell us about this? Was it because they threatened you? Because I told Maggie that they threatened you when we first heard about it. But she was convinced that you were just being a bitch about it, but I told her that maybe they said they were going to kill us if we knew, like in all of those CSI shows. They weren’t going to kill us, were they?” From the tone of her voice, she sounded as though she was shaking.
                  “No Sadie,” I sighed, “they weren’t going to kill you. I just thought it would be better if you didn’t know. I can’t really tell you why I thought this, but I just did. It was all so confusing and I didn’t have all the information, so I didn’t want to answer any questions.”
                  “Oh. Well, I don’t blame you.”
                  “Thanks. So what’s--”
                  My bedroom doors flew open and a very sleepy, very