For the past few days the palace maids had been buzzing like bees with both gossip and energy, and Calorie had never hated the higher power who decided to shoot her soul into the body of a maid more.
According to the head maid there was a ball coming up, but because the king had announced it so late, the maids were now working overtime to make sure everything was picture perfect. In fact, there was so much to be done and so little time to do it that Calorie had actually been scolded and taught how to use cleaning equipment. Though she was far from enjoying herself, she was at least certain that her mom would be pleased with her newfound skills once she was back in her original body.
The non-stop cleaning and setting up decorations business meant that Calorie had not been able to spend much time with the princess, despite the fact she was literally her personal maid. She could only hope the princess was keeping in touch with the duchess and figuring out a solid plan to get them back home.
"Calorie, to the ballroom," called a passing maid. Though this maid was at least a head shorter than her, she was holding a solid oak table over her head and walking through the hallway as if the furniture was but a wicker basket.
"Ballroom," snickered Calorie mentally. "On my way," she replied outwardly.
A benefit of all the hustle and bustle that Calorie had not anticipated, actually she hadn't anticipated any benefits besides gaining muscle and endurance, was that she was now familiar enough with the palace's passages to not need to discreetly follow another maid to get where she needed to.
Calorie made her way to the ballroom, passing a few more maids with tables hefted over their heads on her way there. She sure was glad she wasn't one of them because she had enough arm muscle to rival a banana.
The towering white marble doors to the ballroom had been pushed open, and there were maids trickling in and out at an even pace, their shoes clacking softly on the tile floors. Calorie cringed at the thought, no the knowledge, that she and at least half of the maids would be spending the day of the ball polishing those glossy white slabs like their lives depended on it, until the floors were practically mirrors.
The servant looked around, trying to figure out why exactly she was summoned. She looked to the left and saw maids stacked on top of each other so they were tall enough to dust the ceilings. She sure hoped she wasn't a part of that. She looked to the right and saw there were also maids clinging to the room's columns like lizards, except unlike lizards who only had to enjoy the luxury of sunbathing, the poor workers were hanging strings of pearls--another task Calorie sure hoped she wouldn't be assigned to.
"Over here," snapped the head maid from the center of the ballroom, beckoning Calorie toward her. "Tell the head gardener to have camellias ready for the ball. They're the flower of the Schmancy household."
"Camellias, eh," mused Calorie, who really only remembered them because she had once seen a girl brutally reject a boy who offered her a bouquet of them instead of roses. It was almost as if that girl hadn't known that a common meaning of camellias was unpretending excellence or something.
So though she had just arrived in the ballroom, she, who was named after an energy unit, was now on her way to track down the head gardener who was hopefully living up to his title and hanging out in the gardens, which wasn't terribly far from the ballroom. After all, the guests had to be able to go somewhere scenic if they were tired of socializing or had some shady business they wanted to conduct.
Since the tea party, the garden had changed for the fancier. At least half the bushes had been pruned into the shape of exotic animals, and all the ones that hadn't yet been shaped were being slaved on by gardeners practically swimming in sweat. The gardeners who weren't covered in their own blood, sweat, and tears because of hedge shaping were splayed flat out on the grass with tape measures to ensure that not a single blade was half a centimeter too long. It wouldn't do if any noble happened to float out into the garden for a midnight rendezvous and notice that one piece of grass was two millimeters longer than the others.
Near a rosebush pruned into the majestic figure of a fire-breathing dragon, a significantly more important looking gardener was barking orders to his sadder, sorrier-looking counterparts. Calorie decided that he had to be the head gardener. The fact that he was the only one wearing a hat despite all of them having to work under the merciless noon sun basically confirmed her beliefs.
"Excuse me sir, but are you the head gardener? The head maid says to have camellias ready for the ball," she stated.
The head gardener squinted at her then nodded.
He turned to the gardeners assembled before him. "You heard the maid. Send word to the butlers for the camellias to be shipped soon as," the head gardener pondered for a moment before looking back to Calorie. "When does she need the camellias by?"
"Err," Calorie struggled to think of a response. Like a computer, she was unable to generate responses unless programmed to, and the head maid had not entered any instructions for this particular command. "Like…as soon as possible?"
Thankfully, the head gardener seemed to think this an acceptable response and nodded again.
"Soon as possible then," he called back out to the rest of the gardeners who responded with an exhausted 'yessir.'
Her job finished, Calorie scuttled back to the ballroom to report to the head maid that the mission had been accomplished, which the head maid acknowledged with a head tilt of approval.
However, just before the head maid could assign Calorie to one of the wretched tasks the other maids were being forced to toil away on, one of her comrades called to her. Calorie could not recall having ever heard a voice so beautiful as the one of her current savior.
"Calorie, over here." The summon came from a nondescript maid loitering near one of the windows.
Though Calorie had miraculously managed the memorization of all the castle's particularly twisty corridors, she had yet to begin keeping track of all of her colleagues' names. To be fair, it was incredibly difficult to match the right names to the right face when they all looked about the same (Calorie included), save for the minor differences in eye and hair color.
"Wait, not Calorie," another maid interjected. "Calorie, one of the higher ups needs you."
"Oh, who?"
"Her Highness. She's currently in her room with Lady Bolita."
"Got it, thanks." Calorie bobbed her head like a chicken pecking at feed, then sped to Auricularis' quarters. If those two hadn't been working as hard at planning their grand departure as she had been getting ready for the ball, she was ready to risk it all and beat at least two years of life out of them.