Fairest of Them All by Sarah Darer Littman

Author:Sarah Darer Littman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin

Chapter Eight

“HOW WAS THE SOCCER GAME?” Dad asks me when I get home, exhausted and worried about what’s the matter with me.

I stare at him blankly, Mozart sniffing at my ankles, before I remember that that was Lie Number 10—or was it Number 11?—about where I was supposed to be today.

“ ’Twas ill fought. We hath lost.”

My father gives me the What strangeness doth emerge from your piehole look that everyone gives me the minute I open my mouth.

“You ‘hath’ lost?” he says. “Was this a soccer game or a joust?”

Ha, ha. Methinks thou doth jest too much, Pater.

As I’m trying to figure out what to say, Dad watches Mozart nosing me jealously. “What’s up with him? Were you with another dog or something?” he asks.

Poor Mozart must smell Flash. He’s very possessive about his humans.

“Th’re wast a stray cat on th’commons,” I say.

Dad gives me a strange look but then starts singing something about a stray cat howling at the moon on a hot summer night, and that’s my cue to escape to my room to avoid any further questions. While my dad looks impressive in all his princely gear, his singing leaves a lot to be desired.

When I get to my room, I immediately start googling speech afflictions to see if there’s anything about suddenly being able to speak only in Shakespearean English. But the Internet, usually the font of anything I need to know, yields nothing. Zero. Zip. Every symptom seems to lead to the fact that I’ve got some awful brain tumor and I’m going to die within the next two months if I don’t seek urgent medical attention NOW. RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE.

The thing is, I don’t feel like I’m at death’s door. I don’t even feel like I’m on the verge of a one-hundred-year nap. I feel totally fine except for the fact that everything coming out of my mouth makes me sound like I’m about to tread the boards of the Globe Theatre in the seventeenth century.

Maybe I imagined the whole thing. Or it was just a temporary affliction.

Mozart follows me into my room, so I decide to use him as my test subject.

“Thou art such a valorous dog.”

Ugh! It’s for reals and it’s not temporary.

I scratch behind Mozart’s ears. I wish I knew who I could ask about this. My parents would be the obvious choice, but obviously I can’t tell them because it would reveal that I’m a lying liar of a daughter who can’t be trusted, and I’ll be grounded for the rest of my natural life or until I go to college, whichever comes first—

There’s a knock on my door. “Aria? Can I come in?”

“Aye. Enter.”

Mom comes in and sits on the bed. “How was your day?” she asks.

“One hath seen better.”

“Oh? Why is that? And what’s with the ‘hath’?”

How can I explain any of this to my parents?

There’s no way I can do it without being honest. And being honest means telling Mom that I lied, not just about

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