Letters to a Princess by Libby Hathorn

‘Oh my God Diana, what’ll we do? What in hell will we do?’ she kept asking over and over as if I would be the one with the answer!
    Well, there is no answer that will make everything all right again but there is a heartfelt apology to you. And I’ll really send this letter. Babs has insisted on it as even she is quite disgusted with me.
    Life is pretty hard at the moment but I just needed you to know that I only wanted the best for you. I always want the best for you. Please believe me.
    Sincerely,
    Diana Moore

12
    Zoë and I were well and truly sprung. We had to confess the whole truth to Miss Pate, the school counsellor, Selma Fitzsimmon, Selma Fitzsimmon’s dad and, of course, the principal, Ms Morrison. Not to mention various members of both our families. It was horrible.
    After she got over her first impulse, which was to expel us for everything from lying to bringing shame on our school, our town and our country, Ms Morrison turned out to be our saving grace as far as the press was concerned. Because the press went a bit crazy. They hung around outside my house, and Zoë’s, for days. After that, seeing how upset and sorry we both were, Ms Morrison tried to help us, but not before she gave us hell.
    She explained how the whole thing could have blown out even more and become a matter for the police. She said the British government had the right to take action too, if they wanted.
    ‘Why not the CIA, the KGB, whatever?’ Zoë had quipped after our first interview with Ms Morrison. But she said this without her usual laugh. It was all so SCARY. Zoë and I could see prison or a home for juvenile delinquents coming up for both of us. We told Ms Morrison the whole story without a single embellishment, not even from Zoë.
    Zoë’s mum and dad were called in for another telling of the
real story.
Graham was there too, supposedly for my benefit. And Miss Pate, who just sat there, silent for once, taking notes. In the discussion that followed I pretty much came off as the main culprit. The first handwritten draft of the interview was passed around as ‘evidence’ of my ‘instigating role’. Zoë insisted it had been her idea in the first place but it was no use, no-one believed her. (She didn’t try hard enough, I thought. She just didn’t insist the way I would have!) In the end even I started to believe it was all my fault.
    I could see how easy it was for them to lay most of the blame on me. To see me as the obsessive Diana fan who had exerted too much influence over Zoë. I would have obviously been keen on the interview idea because, being a Diana expert, I would know most, if not all, of the answers. I was a good writer with aspirations to become a journalist. On and on …
    Given my ‘eating disorder and general depression’, I must say I looked like a complete nutcase. I could see a life-stint in a psychiatric hospital coming up.
    It was Zoë’s dad, Jack, who came to my rescue when Miss Pate said I have a very fertile imagination and thatmany of my stories bordered on the fantastic,
as if that too were a fault; an affliction.
    ‘Hey, listen, I know Zoë can invent a good tale or two herself! It’s not all Diana’s fault!’ Zoë’s dad intervened. Her mum, Bee, who was usually so easygoing, seemed a bit indignant that he was taking my side.
    ‘Really Jack, I don’t think Zoë tells
lies!
Which is, after all, what Ms Morrison was talking about!’
    ‘Well, somebody at our house does, love. Heaps and heaps of them. I’ve heard some pretty tall tales about my appointment as managing director at a firm where I was applying to do the work of a clerk—not that I even got that,’ he said.
    Both Bee and Zoë flushed deeply. ‘Let’s not discuss that here, Jack. After all, it’s not the point.’
    ‘The point is, it
is
the point, love!’ he boomed. ‘Our daughter Zoë has an equally fertile imagination. That’s all I’m saying. They both helped each other into this mess. Now how do we help