What Comes of Attending the Commoners Ball

by Elisabeth Aimee Brown

Well, it doesn’t matter if I’m neither fashionable nor graceful. I’m not going to the ball to dance—I just want to eat.

“I think you’re just jealous that Miss—Smith, or whatever her name is—likes me better than you.” Miss Flander’s pinched, curious face reappears in my mind. “She likes food better than either of us.”

“I am sincere, though,” he says. “If I can be of assistance in anything, please send word. Ask for Rodering; he will make sure any message gets to me.” “I am out of cheese,” I say meditatively. “If that’s what you mean.”

As restitution for the book I damaged—and to improve your mind—I got this for you. Please be very impressed at my self-control, because I wanted to buy a different one and read it first, but I restrained myself on your account. Don’t bother savoring it—there are seventeen more volumes, so you won’t soon run out of horrible things to put you to sleep.

"Don't bother savoring it--there are seventeen more volumes" is such a loving indictment of genre fiction 😆

I hope you didn’t fall in love with him just because he gave you cheese!”

“We’re all fools in love,” Dad says. “What’s his name, then?” I fill the teakettle. “No one was in love with me.” I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. Now I’ll never hear the end of it! “What? Giving you cheese without being in love? I’ve never heard such things,” Dad says.

Mum relays all the gossip from Lower Splott, and I share as many stories as I can without revealing the particular identities of the young men who were after me, in Dad’s opinion. It would be too much of a shock—plus, Mum would never respect our monarchy if she knew how liberally they gave away their cheese!

Elisabeth Aimee Brown is the granddaughter of lifelong dairy farmers, so really, this book is just cheese propaganda.

A+ for the running gag