play. Unfortunately, Apple Blossom doesn't
entirely get that luxury. She has her morning lessons with Beryl, as
well as her education and training in becoming the Greenwood's future
queen. Her teachers must be doing an excellent job with her, as she
is already as much a little queen as she ever could be.

Apple
Blossom has yet to tell Beryl that she will be studying under me. She
might be telling her right now, and I have a feeling that it will
give poor Beryl a case of the vapors. But her parents have already
given me their seal of approval, though it was a very reluctant one.
They were even more reluctant when they were told that Katie was
going to be my teaching assistant. They said several words to Apple
Blossom in tree-elven, which Apple Blossom later toldin her own diary, but I could tell that
she would listen once I started reading. I took out my diary, turned
to the page, and began to read.

Ever
since my adventures in the Greenwood had begun, I'd marveled at just
how much my diary—my very own life—had become a story. To Apple
Blossom, it was
a story, a story to listen to and comment on, to interject and
question, the equivalent of any other good book. Until today, I had
never shared my diary-story with anyone but her. But now, I regarded
the increasingly-attentive eyes of Katie and Hannah as I read this
small passage that featured nothing truly remarkable. I recounted
Janelle's fear of the spiders, the ugly sight of the spears lined up
along the Bell's Rush (I saw Katie's face fall as I admitted that I
resented