Royal Pain by Raelyn Drake

Author:Raelyn Drake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Darby Creek, Family & Relationships, Fantasy, Fiction, Hi/Lo, High Interest, High-low fiction, Humor, Reluctant Readers, Royalty, Royalty, Royal, Royals, Romance, Family, Alaborn, Raelyn Drake, Rotherham, Royal Pain, Suddenly Royal, Valmont
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group
Published: 2018-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

6

“It says here that this small clay horse was most likely a child’s toy,” Tori said, reading from the label next to the case. “And apparently there’s a thumbprint in the clay left by the person who made it.” She leaned toward Noah, eyes flashing with excitement. “Can you imagine? A thumbprint belonging to a person who lived over four thousand years ago.”

“Wow,” Noah whispered, resisting the urge to push his nose up against the glass case to get a better look at the tiny clay animal. He could feel his heart beating quicker, but that had less to do with the artifact and more to do with Tori standing so close to him.

For the past week, Noah, Tori, and Beth had been working on the museum. Today they’d spent all morning dusting the dining room and ballroom so that the painters could get started. Now they had returned to the finished parlor, taking a much-needed break by browsing the display cases. Noah was thrilled to have a chance to examine the artifacts more carefully. Tori seemed just as interested, but he had a feeling Beth was getting bored. She had been staring longingly out the window, her silence punctuated by occasional polite noises in response to Noah’s comments.

“Ooh!” exclaimed Beth suddenly, pointing to something in the next case over and sounding more excited than she had all morning. “This is absolutely gorgeous.”

Noah walked over to look. It was a crown, formed of gold leaves that overlapped to give the impression of a wreath. Flowers made of rubies seemed to sprout from the branches. It was certainly eye-catching, but Noah couldn’t help thinking that the simple clay toy was cooler somehow. It had a lot more character than the overly perfect crown.

“The label says that this crown once belonged to Queen Helen herself,” Beth said, sounding awestruck. “She was one of Evonia’s first queens from ancient times,” she explained to Noah.

“This museum—the collection—all of it is amazing,” Noah said. “I can’t wait for the grand opening.”

“It will be hard work to get it ready in time,” Tori said, “but it will be worth it. Do you want to go through some of the collection boxes they just brought up from the basement storage?”

Noah opened his mouth to respond with an enthusiastic yes when Beth cut in.

“It’s already past noon,” she said, “and we haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast. Why don’t we head back to the main house for a quick bite, then we can take horses out to ride the trail along the bluffs. It has the best view, possibly in all of Evonia. And,” she added, “there used to be an ancient Evonian outpost along the bluffs, so there’s bound to be some old ruins to explore.”

“That sounds great, Beth,” Tori said, “but I’m not very good on horseback.”

“And I haven’t been on a horse since a pony at camp tried to throw me off,” Noah said. “Why don’t we just hike instead?”

Beth bit her lip thoughtfully. “It’s too far to walk .

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