To Catch A Prince

Chapter One: Plan B The man seated in the middle of row twenty-three had bad breath. But that wasn't the problem. He also had agoraphobia, which made it absolutely impossible for him to sit on the aisle, with all the rushing carts and babies. And he had vertigo, which made it out of the question for him to sit by the window and look out at the billowing clouds. So the man in the middle separated Helene Masterson from Alexis Worth on their first-ever transatlantic flight.Thatwas the problem.If Alexis leaned forward to talk to Helene, Mr. Middle flinched. And if Helene passed a note to Alexis, he grumbled about his "personal, paid-for space." Helene politely asked him to switch seats with her, but he refused, slipped on a black eye mask, and stuck an earplug in each ear to cement the point. He reclined in his seat and breathed his bad breath.Now, this would be tolerable on some flights -- from LA to San Francisco, say, or Washington to Boston. But New York to London was almost seven hours, and sixteen-year-olds Helene and Alexis had a busy schedule planned for their time in the air. They would play cards at first. Then they'd eat their preordered specialty meals (vegetarian for Helene, diet for Alexis). And then, dinner finished, they would switch to a careful study of all their favorite magazines. They'd even arrived at JFK two and a half hours early to have time to buy one of every magazine on the shelf. Theyhadto be able to sit together."What if I put the window shade down?" Helene said to Mr. Middle. She wasn't sure if he could hear her with his earplugs in, so in a louder voice she added, "Then could you sit by the window? You have those things on your eyes anyway.""Itoldyou, young lady," Mr. Middle replied, the earplugs making him speak in an extra-loud, extra-annoying voice, "I havepaidfor a middle seat, and I willsitin the middle seat."Alexis tried not to make a face, but then she realized Mr. Middle couldn't see her, so she stuck out her tongue and rolled her eyes up into her head. Helene laughed, and then turned her giggles into a cough. She didn't want to annoy Mr. Middle any further.Reaching into her backpack, Helene pulled out her sketch pad and some pens. She spelled a message out to Alexis, underlining it twice. Plan B! Alexis nodded and smiled slightly. From her Coach purse she took out lip gloss and blush. Plan B always required a little sprucing up. Then she winked at Helene, stored her tray table, and stood up from her seat.They'd created Plan B a few years earlier when they were still in junior high. Back then, if Helene and Alexis were fighting, as best friends will occasionally do, their parents would separate them. Helene would be sent to one room and Alexis to another, and neither would get the last Haeagen-Dazs bar. It was, as Helene said, "a lose-lose situation." So they decided that whenever they fought, they would make up before the grown-ups stepped in. One of them just had to whisper "Plan B," and they'd stop. That way they both were allowed to vacation on Martha's Vineyard, skate at Rockefeller Center, hold a swimming party in the backyard, eat half the ice cream bar.Plan B worked in other situations too. If Alexis was unsuccessfully trying to get an extension for a history paper, she'd text Helene an urgent Plan B! Helene would immediately go to the classroom and reason with the teacher until it was clear that Alexis was actually doing the teacher a favor by not turning in her homework on time. See, what Helene knew -- and nobody else did -- was that Alexis grew uncomfortably shy around adults, especially mother types. She would just turn speechless sometimes. Not because she was stupid or scared, just intimidated in a way that nobody but Helene understood. But Helene's charm plus Alexis's beauty worked like magic.Now Helene watched from her window sAbel, Heather is the author of 'To Catch A Prince', published 2005 under ISBN 9780689877339 and ISBN 0689877331.