Queen Liliuokalani: Royal Prisoner Read Free Page A

dream quest, even though they’d had real adventures, as soon as they got home, everything was as ordinary as ever. So, in the oddest way, traveling solo on a train from the tiny station in Kingston, Rhode Island, to Penn Station in New York City felt even more adventurous than time travel.
    Maisie had imagined going to the dining car and eating food that she could only get on a train trip. Although she had no idea what that might be, she imagined it came in a tray with special compartments, each one holding its own course. She imagined sitting at a table with a white tablecloth, and watchingConnecticut roll past. But instead, adding to her overall disappointment, the dining car smelled like microwaved plastic, and the food was completely dull.
    And Felix imagined that the trip would be so special it would inspire him to write poetry or something. Jim Duncan had given him a book called
Moby-Dick
to take on the trip, and Felix did try to read it. But the story, about a guy on a whaling ship a long time ago, did not capture his interest. Neither did the journal he’d brought along. Really, all he could think about was his father and Agatha/Agnes. He felt miserable.
    By the time they stepped off the escalator at Penn Station and moved toward the big departure board their father had told them to find, the excitement of the week ahead had almost vanished completely.
    But then they saw their father standing right where he said he would be, under the big departure board. Alone. He had on his faded jeans and a plaid shirt and the biggest grin ever. As soon as he spotted Maisie and Felix, he ran toward them and swooped them both up at once into his strong arms.
    “Is it possible you two are even bigger than at Christmas?” he said into their hair, because he washolding them so tight and so close, that’s where his mouth settled.
    “I grew half an inch,” Felix said proudly. He was tired of being shorter than his sister, even though his mother always told him that boys have their growth spurts later than girls.
    “At least half an inch,” his father said.
    He released them, kind of. He kept one hand on each of them at the shoulder and studied them at arm’s length.
    “Boy,” he said, “have I missed you guys.”
    For a moment they stood like that. Then, he let them go and took their overnight bags from them, motioning for Maisie and Felix to follow him.
    Maisie glanced at Felix.
    He shrugged, happily.
    Obviously there was no Agatha/Agnes. It was just them and their father. Relieved, they descended into the subway, where they sat, smiling, on the uptown 1 train, their father peppering them with questions the whole way.

    “Ta-da,” their father said as he opened the door to a brownstone on West Eighty-Sixth Street.
    He unlocked the door to one of the ground-floor apartments. Sunlight streamed in from the bay window, spilling a dappled pattern onto the polished wooden floor.
    “What is this place?” Maisie asked, stepping inside.
    “A friend in Doha is letting me use it,” her father said.
    He tossed the keys into a big brown-and-orange bowl as if he’d been tossing his keys there forever.
    They stood in a small living room decorated in a kind of shabby-chic style, with big, worn easy chairs and a couch covered with pillows. The kitchen was small, too, and there was an alcove with a round wooden table and four chairs, each one painted a different bright color. In the middle of the table sat a big blue bowl, kind of like the bowl that held the keys, full of shiny apples.
    “You guys can take the bedroom,” their father said, heading in that direction with their bags. “And I’ll crash on the couch.”
    When he disappeared into the bedroom, Felix said, “Not bad, huh, Maisie?”
    “Not bad at all,” Maisie admitted.
    Their father came back out and took a menufrom a corkboard on the kitchen wall.
    “Chinese food?” he said, holding it up.
    Felix sighed. It sure was good to be back in New York City, where Chinese