Oops! My Croissant Started a Coup! | Complete (ONC 2021 Longlister)

17. Backwards Day

As it turned out, their grand plan for this counter coup or whatever was basically to have me live stream the whole thing. That was my whole job. And honestly, I wasn't even mad about it.

As one would expect, we had all painted our faces with war paint and were wearing the most ridiculous array of outfits you could imagine. My purple joggers, green headband, and camo wrist guards were almost as cool as the violently pink tape we had used to stabilize my ankle. As we arrived at the square where the demonstration was to take place, we all spilled out of the vans like a sea of colourful children's slime.

Apparently, though they had planned for a group to stand around me in a circle looking very terrifying in order to keep me safe, no one had really thought about how short I was and how hard it is to livestream things you can't see. I really should have asked what the plan was, rather than just eating snacks.

And by the time I had clambered up the tallest girl's shoulders and trained the camera on the protesters, the square was already full of people dressed in all the colours of the rainbow. There was a group of boys who couldn't be more than fifteen using cardboard boxes as helmets, shields, and swords. They were chanting something about pepper.

There was also a group of very petite women dressed entirely in sky blue who were standing in a semicircle around the palace entrance chanting, "We will not relent" into a bullhorn. Wait is it a palace? Honestly I'm so confused if they even have a king that at this point I would believe it was a great emperor penguin.

I have no idea what happened before I got my camera trained on events, but a large statue had been toppled in the center of the square and the people were performing some kind of well-rehearsed dance. I didn't know I was recording a flash mob. I thought those went out of style ages ago.

I panned the video up and down the crowd until I spotted the place they were all looking toward. It was not, as I had suspected, the doors of the palace. It was a small group of men in black suits standing in a straight line in front of...

It can't be!

"Did they seriously bring a tank?" I asked the girl who was valiantly attempting to hold me up as I thrashed around to try to get a better look. "How did they get a tank?"

"I think so. But it's weird. Doesn't look like they have any weapons at all. Maybe they're trying to just smash their way in? Maybe they're a distraction?"

When I looked back toward the crowd, I noticed my video was pointed to the sky instead of the events and quickly tipped it back. The comments on my screen were flying in faster and faster by the second. Many of them were asking if I was alright or what was going on.

Before I could even think how to respond, the ants that made up the crowd near the palace doors rushed in behind the tank and effortlessly slipped handcuffs over the men in black suits. Winnifred shouted at them through a bullhorn and I waited for the next action, my head on a swivel trying to take it all in.

But no. That was it.

Winnifred and the girls in sky blue just walked over, escorted the men into one of the twelve seater vans and drove off. Everyone else chatted amongst themselves and picked up their lawn chairs and makeshift household weapons before going home.

Not how I pictured my first political event going.

I closed out the video and ignored the flood of comments coming in, following my security detail into the nearest van and heading off to what I assumed to be another location. Surely that can't be all it takes to stage a coup or a countercoup or whatever it was called.

But no, we just blasted bachata music and danced in the back of the van as Jamie or Janine or whoever drove us back to the small cabins we had left only hours before. When we got there, Winnifred, who had somehow arrived before all of us, was tending the fire pit.

"What are you doing?" I asked, hopping out of the van.

"Getting ready for dinner. I just dropped those guys off at Chief Marmud's station, so I did my part."

"You just dumped a bunch of guys through a police station door like bowling pins. Because you arrested them when you stopped some kind of organized takeover by an army of spies or something? And now you're just getting a fire ready for dinner."

Winnifred shrugged. "It happens a lot, actually. We've done at least three of these already. Kinda getting boring, honestly, but someone's gotta do it."

We had a good fire going when the last van full of people appeared with a man I recognized as Lopez. "Hey! What's he doing here?"

"How do you think you got your phone? Good manners?"

I turned to Lopez. "You're working with them?"

He just nodded. "I'm George Callistano, actually. But yes."

This day literally could not get weirder. No way.

And as anyone who has ever uttered that phrase already knows, it definitely could get weirder.

And it did. As we sat around the fire roasting marshmallows and a variety of other food I could not and would not try to identify, Lopez — I mean, Callistano — sat down beside me and handed me his phone. "The prince would like to speak with you."

"What?"

"The prince? You know, the guy whose dad is the king?"

"Okay, I guess." I took the phone from his hand and held it to my ear. "Hello?"

"Harper Holland? I had an unexpected visitor this afternoon who says she knows you. Someone named Olivia."

Why is Olivia here? I tried to answer him, but my mouth was mostly flapping around like a fish out of water. "Yes, I know her. I'd like to see her if that's okay." That's probably not how you are supposed to talk to a prince. Oh well.

"As you did just help us stop the attempted overthrow of our government we would be happy to reunite you and offer you both political asylum here should you wish it."

"Political asylum?"

"If you wish. I'll have Olivia sent over now. Goodbye." And then he hung up on me. I guess princes get to do that.

"Political asylum? Why would I need political asylum?"

Lopez—Callistano—just raised his eyebrow and shook his head. "Maybe the coup you just thwarted didn't go how your government wanted."

No way! Those men in black suits were legit?

And that's how I ended up working in an elite counter coup unit in a country I still couldn't pronounce the name of and living out of the back of someone's camper van. I mean, at least I had my best friend, my Twitter account, and absolutely none of my dignity left to show for it. It could have been worse.

I mean, beats taking care of other people's kids any day. And makes it easier to dodge my mother's calls.

One morning, weeks later, I was tending some carrots in the garden — about the only thing they let me look after — and, like clockwork, my phone rang to alert me to yet another call from my dentist. No rest for the wicked.

I picked it up, intending to tell them to take me off their damn list. "Hello?"

"Well, hello Miss Holland," the voice on the other end of the line spoke clearly and unmistakably. It was Mr. Definitely Not Handsome from the coffee shop. But how was he calling me? Surely he was in prison. I looked around the camp, violently flailing my arms and hoping someone would notice me.

But before I caught anyone's attention, he spoke again. "I have to say, I'm very impressed. I look forward to meeting again soon."

And then the line went dead and I was left staring at my phone in my hand. Oh, shit!