Maggie Malone and the Mostly Magical Boots Read online

  But little does she know that even pampered princesses have whopper-sized problems—and hers is an evil archenemy named Penelope. Will she survive Penelope’s tricks or will the whole wedding turn into a royal disaster?

  “So how are things over at Stink—at Pinkerton?” Stella asks.

  See, before I went to Pinkerton, Stella and I—and everyone at Sacred Heart and pretty much all over the rest of the world as far as I can tell—called my new school Stinkerton. But I decided if I was going to be stuck at this place, I was going to have to give it a chance. And as soon as I made that decision, things really did seem to get better.

  “Actually, things are getting royally ridiculous over there,” I tell her.

  “Oh yeah?” Stella says, looking up from her laptop. “Tell me more!”

  We are flopped out on my zebra rug, scanning the Celebrity Times homepage, which is our favorite thing in the world to do, besides ride our bikes to Dippin’ Donuts and chow down on crullers the size of our heads.

  “Well, there’s this big deal about the Pinkerton Ball and Royal Court Assembly and everybody is going totally nutso about the whole thing,” I explain. “It’s pretty ridiculous if you ask me.”

  “A Royal Court Assembly?” Stella laughs. “That’s hilarious! What does that even mean?”

  “Well, the 6th and 7th grades each pick three Princess Apprentices—stop laughing!—who kind of serve the 8th grade Pinkerton Princess when she’s elected. Like, you get to carry her books and order her lunch and stuff. Seriously, Stella. It’s not that funny.”

  Stella is rolling back and forth on my zebra rug, bent legs stomping and making sounds like a spastic hyena. I do love her, but she really can take things a teensy bit too far sometimes.

  “I’m sorry, Maggie... I just... I can’t... Princess... Apprentices...” she spits between spasms. “Princess Apprentices!”

  “It’s not that bad,” I say, feeling my cheeks beginning to burn. “It’s actually a real honor to be picked to be an apprentice. And last year, the 8th grade Pinkerton Princess was crowned Marshmallow Festival Queen for the whole county.”

  “Marshmallow Festival Queen? Seriously, Maggie,” Stella says, sitting up. “You’re starting to scare me with all this fake, made up royal talk. You want to talk about princesses? Check this out.”

  Stella slides her laptop my way and points to the Celebrity Times home page.

  “Now here’s a real princess.” Stella angles the laptop so we can both get a look at Princess Mimi, the one and only Princess Wilhelmina of Wincastle. She’s holding a ribbon next to a beautiful black stallion, probably after one of those big fancy horse shows she’s always doing.

  Stella and I have been kind of obsessed with Princess Mimi ever since we were eight and Tween Scene magazine did a big cover story on her. Mimi had just turned ten at the time and I guess over in Wincastle, that’s a major big deal. They had this week-long party for her with about thirteen different cakes, each one the size of a kitchen table. They showed her being escorted into one of the parties by an army of soldiers all dressed in red, and of course she was wearing a real diamond tiara which Stella and I agreed was the coolest thing ever. It’s sort of embarrassing to admit, but until I read that article I didn’t even realize that princesses were real. Seriously. I mean I knew they had princesses in the olden days, but I kind of thought they died out like dinosaurs or something and that they were mostly made-up for fairy tales and movies. I certainly didn’t think there were princesses my age out there in the world right this very minute being all royal and everything.

  But since I figured that out, Stella and I have spent a lot of time imagining what Princess Mimi’s life might be like. We decided she probably sleeps in her tiara and has a solid gold hairbrush and monogrammed toilet paper. (We also designed our own personalized TP, just in case we found out we were princesses. Mine was going to be pink leopard print and have MM on every square; Stella picked turquoise circles with one big aquamarine S in the middle. I tried to argue that turquoise and aquamarine are pretty much the same thing and didn’t she want a little contrast, but when Stella gets her mind set on something there’s no use even trying to change it.)

  “Jeez,” Stella says, skimming the story. “Could Princess Mimi’s life get any better? She’s fourteen and owns an entire country. Not to mention a yacht and a plane and a stable full of horses. And she’s on the cover of a zillion magazines every single month. Can you imagine being called Your Royal Highness, like, for real? ‘Oh, did somebody call Her Royal Highness? Yup, that’s me, right here!’ Seriously.”

  “And she has front row seats at all the fashion shows and gets driven around in a limo,” I add, forgetting all about pretend Princess Apprentices for a minute. We flip through a slideshow with pictures of Princess Mimi lounging on the back of a ship, loaded up with shopping bags and riding a horse that looks exactly like Black Beauty from the movie. “I’ll bet she never has to do chores or make her own bed,” Stella says with a sigh. “She probably even has a Royal Tooth Brusher to do that for her.”

  “She’s big-time into volunteering, too,” I say, because my mom says it’s more important to focus on what people do rather than what they have.

  “I’m just saying the girl’s pretty much got it made. I’d love to have her life.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” I ask.

  “Well, at least you’ve got that Princess Apprentice thing going on at school,” Stella says. “I’m sure it’s pretty much the same thing.”

  “Very funny,” I say, giving her a sideways shove that sends her rolling around the floor again—the girl seriously cracks herself up—but I’m hardly paying attention anymore. Or, I think to myself, I could slip into my trusty MMBs and become actual royalty—the one and only Princess Wilhelmina of Wincastle—for a whole entire day.

  You know how you can build a much better fort or clubhouse with a bunch of your friends than you could ever build all by yourself? Well, the book you’re holding is a lot like that. With that in mind, we would like to thank our brilliant, beautiful, intrepid agent Michelle Wolfson, whose passion, tenacity, and humor truly know no limits. Next, we would like to acknowledge our exceptional editor Aubrey Poole, whose keen eye and bottomless enthusiasm for this project made it better in every way. And finally, we offer our humble gratitude to our friend Jerry Jenkins, who got elected to the unpaid position of generous mentor and never once complained or asked for a raise. We are eternally grateful to you all.

  Jenna McCarthy is a writer, speaker and aspiring drummer who has wanted magical boots since she learned to walk. She lives with her husband, daughters, cats, and dogs in sunny Southern California.

  As a writer and lover of international travel, Carolyn Evans has shucked pearls in Australia and biked the foothills of the Himalayas. Now she’s happy at home with her husband and kids living by a river in South Carolina, dreaming up grand adventures for Maggie Malone.