Queen Liliuokalani: Royal Prisoner Read Online Free PDF Page A

it.

    The dinner was, of course, delicious. So was the dessert, something called tiramisu, which was Italian, too. Afterward, Maisie and Agatha beat Felix and his father at Pictionary. Then Agatha brought out a tray of chocolate truffles she’d whipped up, and took a ukulele off a shelf and played while they sang along. Felix joined in reluctantly on “Over the Rainbow,” but deep down he felt melancholy. Their mother was with the boisterous Bruce Fishbaum, and their father had ended up with a goddess.
How traitorous to be won over by her charms,
Felix thought.
    Finally, Maisie and Felix got to go to bed. Agatha was staying the night with her best friend Lulu in Brooklyn, but before she left she brought them water and a book of poems by Shel Silverstein.
    “These are such fun,” she said, placing the book on the night table between them.
    As soon as she closed the door behind her, Felix said, “How can you be so nice to her?”
    “What?” Maisie said through a yawn. “She’s great.”
    “Too great,” Felix mumbled.
    “And I told you Dad would laugh when I told him how awful the apartment looked,” Maisie said.
    He had laughed.
Celery?
he’d said.
Avocado?
    “Well, I’m glad you two find it so funny,” Felix said, rolling on his side away from Maisie. “I think it’s terrible.”
    Maisie didn’t answer him. Instead, she chuckled.
    Felix turned back over and there his sister sat, reading those Shel Silverstein poems and chuckling to herself. Of course Agatha would choose the perfect book for them, Felix thought miserably as he faced the wall again.
    The next time he rolled over, Maisie had fallen asleep with the book open across her chest. She was so hard to figure out, Felix thought. He had been certain that Maisie wouldn’t like anybody their father went out with, especially someone as perfect as Agatha. Instead, she thought Agatha was great. Why, she seemed almost happy that their father had a girlfriend.
    Felix sighed, wishing they were back in Newport. If they were at Elm Medona, he would try to figure out how to get into The Treasure Chest. Nothing like a little adventure to make the fact that your father has met the woman of everyone’s dreams seem not so bad. He closed his eyes. The next time they went into The Treasure Chest and picked up an item, Felix thought as he drifted off, they should choose more carefully.Obviously that hawk feather would bring them to the Old West. And if they’d looked more closely at that coin and seen the date, they would have known where they were headed. Or at least
when
.
    Next time,
Felix thought.
    He looked over at his sleeping sister.
    “Do you know what I wish?” he said, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him. Or maybe
because
he knew she couldn’t hear him.
    “Hmmm,” she mumbled.
    “I wish we could time travel right now.” Felix stared up at the ceiling, which was painted the color of the sky.
Blue as the sky,
he thought.
    “I don’t want to be here,” he said softly. “I don’t want to be with Agatha, and I don’t want to be in Newport with Bruce Fishbaum.”
    “Well,” Maisie said, surprising him, “would you like to be in a castle? With a moat and a jester and damsels in distress?”
    “You heard me,” he said, half glad that she had, and half embarrassed.
    Maisie was getting out of bed now, and she looked exactly the way she did when she was up to something.
    “A big castle with serfs and maybe a dragon andlords and ladies,” she said.
    “What are you talking about?” Felix asked.
    She went over to her suitcase, which lay open in the corner. Felix watched her rooting around until she found whatever she was looking for.
    “Ta-da!” Maisie said, holding out the crown.
    “Where did you get that?” he asked.
    “From The Treasure Chest.”
    “But how—”
    “Remember after that awful March Madness party?” she explained. “You found me in The Treasure Chest, right? But I had already tried to time travel by myself. I saw