Princess Izzy and the E Street Shuffle Read Online Free

weeks, even that wasn’t so bad, filled as it was with
     optimistic good wishes and refreshing enthusiasm.
    It was only in the last few weeks before the wedding that she had any real hint of what would await her. That was when she
     began to notice how some of the articles about the wedding would include snide comparisons about how many meals for the homeless
     the cake budget would buy. And after a small misstatement regarding a historical fact at the dedication of a war memorial,
     and that rather splashy spill she took coming down the castle’s grand staircase at the annual theater festival, a couple of
     newspapers even took to calling her “Dizzy Izzy.”
    “But I hate being called Izzy,” Isabella complained to friends, rather missing the point.
    Even so, things weren’t all bad. At least not compared to how they could have been. For a while, Isabella was even able to
     continue meeting her sister and some old primary-school chums for a weekly brunch at a small sidewalk café, which was, fittingly
     for the new Princess of Gallagher, located in the Gallagher neighborhood, along the picturesque banks of the Kloster River.
     Soon, though, photographers—lured by the image of young women wearing straw hats and sundresses while sitting outside sipping
     imported ciders and eating spring rolls with the river traffic rolling behind them—began camping just across the street, snapping
     away at every bite.
    The castle advisers, a group of stodgy and conservative men, wrung their hands and insisted that Isabella bring her friends
     to the castle for lunch. But Isabella ignored them, arguing that she would not live in fear, that the photographers would
     get bored eventually, and what would they gain anyway? Proof that she ate?
    During one infamous row on the subject, Sir Hubert, the head of castle operations, angrily put his foot down, saying, “I’m
     afraid, Your Highness, I must put my foot down. The café luncheons will stop.”
    Isabella stared him down with cool disinterest before mustering a rather nonegalitarian response: “That’s interesting. Because
     seeing as how I’m the future queen, and you’re nothing but hired help, I’m afraid I must put my foot down and insist the subject
     not be raised in my presence again.”
    This caused, as you might imagine, quite a stir at the castle. And it speaks volumes that of all the goings-on during what
     came to be known as the “Isabella years,” that particular confrontation was the only showdown not widely reported. Apparently,
     the people fond of leaking scuttlebutt weren’t so fond of leaking their own comeuppance.
    Even the queen, perhaps remembering the bullying she took in her own days as the Princess of Gallagher, was said to have enjoyed
     this little exchange, though she naturally feigned shock when Sir Hubert reported it to her.
    But Hubert eventually got his way, and the luncheon custom was abandoned after the unfortunate incident in which the princess’s
     sister, Lady Fiona, made a rather amusing crack about the prime minister—which, thankfully, the reporters did not overhear—and
     Isabella burst into laughter, blowing her water right out of her nose. I’m sorry to put it so bluntly, but there is no discreet
     way to get the point across.
    Like so many royal crises, this one seems in retrospect a bit, shall I say, overblown. But it is hard for us to imagine what
     it was like for someone of Isabella’s upbringing—she always curtsied when appropriate, knew her way around a twenty-seven-piece
     place setting, and generally had impeccable manners—to be plastered on the front pages of the tabloids with the headline: THAR SHE BLOWS, MATEY .
    And while the advisers and the royal family and the commentators all publicly expressed the “Well, it could happen to anyone
     and why don’t they leave her alone” sentiment, privately, everyone was rather aghast. For the picture was, and I don’t think
     I’m exaggerating, absolutely