Stacy Gregg - The Princess and the Foal

Haya tries to keep watching it, but the sun blinds her eyes. She shuts them tight, just for a moment, and when she opens them again, the helicopter is gone.

*

Haya curls herself up tightly into a ball. It is pitch-black in here, but nice and warm too, and she has her favourite toy, Doll, with the pink hat and sewn-on eyes and squishy cotton legs, with her for company.

“Shhhh,” she whispers to Doll. “I can hear them coming. Be quiet now or they will find us.”

There are voices outside and then car doors slamming. Haya feels her heart racing as the engine begins to purr. They are moving!

Uh-oh. The car has stopped again. There is the sound of voices once more and then footsteps, and suddenly the car boot is wide open and she is blinded by the glare of daylight.

“Haya! Not again!”

It is Baba. He has opened the car boot and found her!

“Haya.” The King hardly seems surprised to see his daughter in the boot of the car. “Out you hop, please. I need to go now.”

The first time Haya hid in the boot of Baba’s Mercedes she made it all the way to Aqaba. But ever since then the King has been wise to her tricks and he always checks the car before he drives off.

Haya unfurls herself slowly and reluctantly, as if stalling for time will help matters.

“Please can I come?” she asks hopefully. “I won’t be any trouble.”

The King tries to suppress a smile at her antics as he bends down and lifts her out of the boot. “Somehow I find that very hard to believe.”

Haya isn’t going anywhere and so it is up to Grace to keep her amused. That afternoon they are baking biscuits in the palace kitchen. Grace makes them with dates and almonds and it is Haya’s job to roll the mixture into little balls, dip them in sugar and then squish them down with a fork before they are put on the baking tray.

Ismail, the head chef, is grumpy that they are taking up his kitchen space. He doesn’t complain – how can he tell off the daughter of a King? But he does clatter about, making extra loud noises banging his pots and pans as he cooks. He is making mansef for dinner: a rich dish of lamb with rice and thick pungent yoghurt. Bedouin food , Ismail calls it, one meal powerful enough to sustain you for many days.

This is what Haya’s ancestors survived on during nomadic voyages across the great deserts. Her great-grandfather, King Abdullah, ate mansef with Lawrence of Arabia when he led the Bedouin army in the Arab Revolt.

Haya never met her great-grandfather, but she has seen his portrait on the wall of Kings. Baba was with him on the day that he died. He was accompanying his grandfather to pray, climbing the stairs of the mosque in Jerusalem, when an assassin opened fire. King Abdullah was shot and Haya’s father would have been killed too if he had not worn his new uniform that day, with his medal for sword-fighting pinned over his heart. The medal stopped a bullet and saved her father’s life.

Haya’s father, Hussein, has been the King since he was seventeen years old. Presidents and prime ministers, kings and queens all come to Al Nadwa to meet him. They sit and talk for hours, but they never bring their children with them to play. It is all very, very dull as far as Haya is concerned.

During these visits there are grand dinners and the kitchen becomes a flurry of activity with six cooks working at once – so Haya cannot understand why Ismail is so grouchy about sharing his kitchen today. Surely there is enough space for her and Grace to bake biscuits alongside him?

When the biscuits are ready, they eat them in the Blue Room. It is much smaller than the grand dining room and is just for family. Everything about it is very blue – blue walls, blue curtains, even blue plates and water glasses. Haya likes to pick the glasses up and look through them so her food is blue too.

No matter how busy her father is, he always eats breakfast with them, but often he does not make it home in time for dinner. Kings have a lot of work to do.

“Your father is the King of a nation,” her Mama says. “The people of Jordan are all your brothers and sisters and we must love and care for them just like we care for you.”

Haya has millions of brothers and sisters. But she mostly has Ali and there are only three places set at the dinner table that night for her and Ali and Grace because her Baba has not returned from Aqaba and Mama is still in Tafilah at the hospital. Usually at dinner everyone laughs and talks, but tonight it is quiet and Grace is acting very strangely as if she is anxious about something. Haya wonders if it has anything to do with the phone call that she took just before dinner.

There is a storm coming. Outside the windows of Haya’s bedroom the tops of the palm trees are bending and swaying in the wind. When Grace puts Haya to bed she stays with her for a long time because the noises are quite scary – even when you are brave like Haya.

“I want to stay up until Baba and Mama get home,” Haya says as Grace tucks her in. Haya’s bedroom is upstairs and her bed is right beside the window. She likes to lie there and gaze up at the aeroplanes. The palace is so close to the airport that when the planes take off Haya thinks she could actually stick her hand out and touch their bellies. She likes to stare at the lights twinkling red, green and white on the tips of their wings as they fly overhead. But tonight there are no planes to watch. The winds are too strong and the airport has been closed.

Grace strokes her hair, then tucks Doll tightly into bed beside her. “Go to sleep. I will be in the room next door with Ali.”

Haya squirms about to get comfy, wrestling with Doll beneath the blankets. She cannot sleep. The wind is howling now. Outside her window the palm trees are being shaken like rag dolls.

In the blackness of her bedroom, Haya clutches on to Doll. Fresh thunder rolls across the heavens and she is just about to call out for Grace when she hears the sound of voices, coming from downstairs. They are home!

Grasping Doll by the arm, Haya swings her legs over the side of the bed and scampers across the landing.

As she comes down the stairs, she can see her father. He is home and he has company. The King is speaking to a man in uniform, one of the Royal Staff. The man has his head bowed as he hands an object to her father, something small and shiny.

“ Baba! ”

Haya dashes down the staircase. The King turns to see the little princess in her pyjamas, clutching a dolly with a pink hat, and that is when Haya realises with shock that he is crying.

Haya has never seen her father cry before. He weeps openly, letting the tears run down his cheeks without trying to wipe them away.

“Haya.” Her Baba picks her up and his arms feel strong and safe around her. “It’s OK …”

Haya hugs him tight and buries her face in his chest, but as she does so, she catches a glimpse of the object that he cradles in his right hand. The small and shiny thing that the man passed to him. Haya can see now what it is.

The shattered remains of her Mama’s wristwatch.

aba cradles Haya as she sobs. She cries so hard, the tears threaten to choke her and she cannot breathe. She clings to Baba, and his arms are strong as he holds her tight and close, and yet it is not enough to comfort her. She wants her Mama. But her Mama is not coming home. Not tonight. Not ever again.

This is what Baba has told Haya. He said that Mama was very brave to go to Tafilah, knowing that the storm was coming. She helped the people in the hospital, gave them blankets and medicine and food. The skies were black when they left the hospital, but the pilot hoped they might outrun the thunderclouds. They were high above the desert on the outskirts of Amman when the storm caught up to them and lightning struck the helicopter.