It’s a four-column, gleaming piece of art, hand-carved in the sixteenth century from one massive piece of Brazilian mahogany. It was an eighteenth birthday gift from the King of Genovia.

About having better things to do-not the plan to kick me. You think I don’t have better things to do? Was just about to kick you.” He straightens up at my bedside, as much as his hunched, ancient spine will let him. God knows the wrinkled bastard is old enough. I’ve long suspected the stereotype of the condescending, cantankerous servant began with Fergus.

His one good eye glares disapprovingly, while the other-the wandering one-that my brother and I always suspected wasn’t lazy at all, but a freakish ability to see everything at once, gazes toward the opposite side of the room.Įvery stereotype starts somewhere, with some vague but lingering grain of truth. My eyes spring open, to see Fergus’s scraggly, crinkled countenance just inches from my face. ONE WOULD THINK, as accustomed as I am to being watched, that I wouldn’t be effected by the sensation of someone staring at me while I sleep. Infamy is temporary, celebrity is fleeting, but royalty…royalty is forever. I was known before I was born and my name will be blazoned in history long after I’m dust in the ground.

People get swept up in it, swamped by it, but eventually the notoriety recedes, and the former object of its affection is reduced to someone who used to be someone, but isn’t anymore. Internationally renowned, instantly recognizable, our everyday activities headlines in the making.įame is a strange thing. In the years after, I’d learn just how different my family is. It was the first inkling I’d had that I was-that we were-different. “Nicholas! Nicholas, this way, smile now! Look up, lad! Nicholas, over here!” They were drowned out by the roar of snapping shutters and the shouts of photographers calling my name. I remember my mother’s voice, soothing and constant as I clung to her hand, but I couldn’t make out her words. Lining every inch of the sidewalk and the streets, and clustered together at the entrance of my school like a sea of one-eyed monsters, waiting to pounce. I should’ve been used to it-and I think I was. I planned to smear finger paint on the outfit the first chance I got.īut that’s not what stands out most in my mind.īy then, spotting a camera lens pointed my way was as common as seeing a bird in the sky. For some reason, my mother ignored the fact that I was actually a boy and dressed me in God-awful overalls, a frilly cuffed shirt and patent-leather brogues. I was three years old and it was my first day of preschool. MY VERY FIRST MEMORY isn’t all that different from anyone else’s.

Royally screwed by emma chase