Cleo wao be a knight, like the knights from her storybooks, from whie of the nannies read to her and her big brother Fritz in the evening. The five-year-old girl was fighting a dangerous dragon that had kidnapped a princess. Ceously, she peted with her swainst the mohe dragon wao cook soup from the princess. With peas! She couldn't let that happen! The dragon was big and very strong, but Cleo was stronger.

  "What are you doing with my wooden sword, Cleo?", Fritz interrupted the fight for life ah.

  Cleo snorted. "I'm fighting a dragon! Don't you see that? I'm busy right now!"

  "Dragon?" Fritz frowned. He was two years older than Cleo and today was his seventh birthday. He had received the wooden sword at breakfast. The ifts would be given at the celebration iernoon. A small coffee party with a few selected guests and their children. Cleo had taken the sword out of his room because she needed a sword to save the poor princess!

  "This is my sword, Cleo. I want it back!" Fritz grimaced.

  "But I have to fight the dragon!" Cleo poie vase that served her as a dragon. "Don't you see how dangerous he is? I have to save the princess!" Now she poio a mop leaning against the wall o the vase. Servants had probably fotten it there.

  "Cleo! You have your own toys! Py with your stuff!" Fritz snatched the wooden sword from her and marched away angrily.

  "You're mean! Because of you, the dragon makes soup out of the princess. With peas!", she called after her brother. Then she looked at the mop. "I'm sorry princess, but the dragon won! He defeated me!" Theatrically, she fell to the ground in front of the vase.

  "What are you doing, princess?" A servant looked down at Cleo in amusement.

  "I’m dying!" Cleo stuck her to. "Don't bother me!"

  "If that's the case, I'll just get the mop quickly, then you die in peace!"

  "In peace?" Cleo frowned. "What does that mean?"

  "Undisturbed", replied the servant, ughing. "But maybe you want to die in your room? Where no one actally steps on you? Or you could py with your dolls instead?"

  Cleo sat up. "Dolls are stupid!"

  "Oh, certainly not. You have such adorable dolls. You could have tea with them." With a wink, the serva Cleo alone.

  Cleo went back to her room, offended. She didn't like it. The fabric aper showed colorful flowers and everywhere were dolls and stuffed animals. She wanted a wooden sword. One like Fritz had! What was she supposed to py with dolls?

  A few hours ter, she was sitting at the coffee table in a light green dress with ugly ruffles and watched in a bad mood as her brother received the most amazing gifts. Nice shoes, new clothes - no stupid dresses with frills! -, books and another wooden sword, and a shield made of wood. For tea and coffee, there was Fritz's favorite pastry and strawberry cake. The adults talked about b topics.

  Opposite Cleo sat a girl who seemed just as annoyed as she was. She wore a yellow dress and her hair was eborately pinned up. Instead of eating her cake, she took it apart and examihe individual yers. Cleo watched her with i.

  "Charlotte! Stop the mischief!", reprimahe girl's mother. "Cake is for eating! Yetting your dress dirty!"

  The girl snorted and looked at Cleo, whose own pte also resembled a battlefield.

  A loud screeterrupted the coffee gossip. Cleo's two-year-old sister Lea had enough of sitting and tried to get out of her chair, which her mother wouldn't allow. "Stop it, Lea. We're eating now!", she said to the angry toddler, who didn't want to hear about it and was eventually carried away by her father.

  Finally, the children were allowed to leave the table to py in the garden. Of course, there was no ck of admonition to all girls not to get their clothes dirty.

  Cleo and the irl, Charlotte, quickly found each n the other children, including the stupid Fritz, who did not want to share his sword, they pyed in one of the wells. The two girls took off their shoes, climbed into the well, and engaged in a proper water fight.

  "Mom will se!" Charlotte giggled and squirted Cleo wet.

  "My mom too! But that doesn't matter. I don't like the dress!"

  "I don't like my dress either!", agreed Charlotte. "I wao put on the blue dress! That one is muicer than this!"

  The day ended with both girls being pced under house arrest, but they didn't care. They were friends now.

  When Cleo was on her way to the academy a few years ter to finally start csses, she couldn't wait to be with her best friend every day for three years. Treat luck, the two were in the same css and Charlotte's room was not far from Cleo's apartment, which she had to share with Fritz, who was now in his third year. Unfortunately, Charlotte shared her room with audent who found Charlotte annoying and Cleo too 'ungirly'. Therefore, the two spent most of their time in Cleo's apartment, where a housekeeper and a servant, who share a small room, watched over her like two chaperones. Everything fun, the two knew how to prevent it. On behalf of the Queeheless, Fritz mao celebrate regurly. Where he did not want to tell Cleo.

  "We have to get rid of the two somehow!", murmured Charlotte, who had pulled one of Cleo's gray knitted sweaters over her school uniform. The two girls had made themselves fortable on Cleo's bed.

  "And how?" Cleo wore the boys' school uniform because she wouldn't let anyone vince her to wear the right uniform. The headmaster had finally agreed to let her wear the boys' uniform after she had appeared in css in pajamas for a week in protest.

  Her mother, of course, had heard about it, the teachers were petty, and she had written her a very long, detailed penalty letter. Cleo had proudly framed it and hung it o her bed.

  "I don't know... But if we want to sneak into a pub in Castle Town, then we have to distract them somehow..." Charlotte sighed. "That will never work, right?"

  "Sneaking into the capital te at night? We would have to walk. The carriages don't leave so te anymore... And if I let the servants order a carriage, mom will find out about it."

  "But it would be so funny! Rebellious! We are sixteen! We should do such stupid things!" Charlotte sighed.

  "We could put a wet sponge on the door of our tomorrow instead", Cleo thought. "And when our css teacher es... Oops!"

  Charlotte ughed aed her head in Cleo's p. "We definitely should do that!"