Valhalla Nights by Bethany Borden (best books for 7th graders TXT) 📕

Chapter One

I sat on the couch with my arms crossed over my chest in utter disbelief. This guy was really incredible. I didn’t even know what to say to him. He allowed me my silence.
“You can’t honestly believe that this plan will work?” I made sure that my astonishment showed in each word.
Lee, short for Liam, just smiled childishly at me. Lee had never spent a single day of his life doing anything productive. He spent his days figuring out ways to wreak havoc and annoy anyone he could. Something that being royalty had allowed him to get away with.
Aeron, our older brother, didn’t have much patience for his games. But then, being the oldest, Aeron was raised much differently than us. He was raised as a warrior and leader. He was raised to be the heir of our father’s entire providence. Whereas Lee and I, well, we were just raised to be spoiled rotten. Lee however took the cake when it came to the rotten part.
“We will be punished for months, you know that right?” I still couldn’t believe it. This was risky, even for him. Yet, there was something almost thrilling about it. I could see where Lee got the appeal. I knew that I should have turned him down, we were both going to fry for this one, but I couldn’t resist.
I followed Lee threw the halls walking as quietly as possible. It would be tricky to get there and back without being seen. There were so many things that could go wrong. First off, the castle is patrolled continuously by the Royal Guard. They patrol the grounds as well as the castle itself. Secondly, there are a large number of servants throughout the castle that work day and night. And thirdly, there was Aeron himself. If we were caught by Aeron, he would be harder on us than our own parents would.
“Don’t they lock that stuff up?” I whispered to Lee, once I was sure we were in the kitchen alone.
“No. Why would they? It’s not like anyone would steal from the King.” Lee responded like I had asked the most stupid question possible.
“The king’s under aged, trouble making children being the one exception.” I grumbled.
Lee turned his head to grin at me. When he did, he bumped into a serving cart, knocking it over and causing the sound of crashing metal to echo loudly. We both instantly froze, listening for anyone who might have heard the noise and come to check it out. After several seconds, neither hearing the sound of someone approaching or voices, I let out a stifled giggle.
“You’re such a klutz.” I teased.
“What are you talking about? You pushed me into it.” He said grinning at me.
“Yeah, considering I didn’t even touch you.”
We started heading forward again and were inches from the cellar door when we heard a voice. It came from right outside the main kitchen door.
“I think it came from inside here.” I recognized the voice. It was one of the kitchen servants. My heart skipped a beat and I looked at Lee in a panic.
Lee was already opening the cellar door and jumping inside, leaving just enough room for me to squeeze by him. Once I was in, he shut the door quickly and silently.
“Get down there. I will stay here. If they find me, I will get them out of here so they won’t find you.” Lee was always looking out for me. Most people thought of him as arrogant and childish, but there wasn’t anything that Lee wouldn’t do for me. I don’t know if it’s because I am his baby sister, or because we are only a year apart in age and very close, or simply because he is usually the cause of my problems anyway. But regardless of why, he had taken the fall for us both on several occasions. I trusted Lee with my life and I was pretty sure he trusted me with his. After all, he never pulled a prank without telling me first.
Once I got to the bottom of the stairs and in the cellar I looked around for the best hiding place. It was dark and hard to see. I didn’t know the cellar’s layout well. There was never a need. The only thing down here is wine and alcohol. Despite the fact that there was little light, and I wasn’t familiar with the cellar, it was easy to see it lacked hiding places. Shelves completely covered the walls, with bottles sitting on them. There was literally nothing in between that could hide someone. My only hope was under the stairs themselves. I sat under the stairs for what felt like an eternity but was probably only minutes. I was still a little panicked. My heart was beating a little bit faster than normal and my hands were feeling clammy. It amazed me how Lee never seemed to get worried. Of course, I think there’s a certain part of Lee that doesn’t mind getting caught because he likes the attention it brings. Finally, I heard Lee descending down the stairs.
“That was close. I can’t believe you knocked over that cart like that. You almost got us caught.” He teased. “Grab as many bottles as you can carry without dropping any. And let’s get out of here before we really do get caught.”
I grabbed three, and he grabbed four. I knew there was no way we would drink this much. Neither of us had ever drank much before. It wouldn’t take nearly this much before we’d pass out but I didn’t ask questions, I just followed his lead. Once in the kitchen again Lee turned right.
“Where are you going?” I asked. The door that leads back to our rooms was to the left. Going right would take us thru the rest of the castle and we would be taking even higher risks of getting caught.
“You didn’t really think just the two of us could drink ALL of this, did you?”
“Obviously not.” I responded. “But wherever you are taking us, is going to get us seen by someone.” I complained. Getting caught was the only pitfall of hanging out with Lee. Unfortunately, getting caught happened a lot more often than not.
“Stop being such a pansy. Just follow me, and stop talking so much or we will definitely be heard.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about myself, you have enough to worry about with those clumsy feet of yours.”
“Funny, you didn’t seem to mind me worrying for you when it was going to keep your ass from getting in trouble.”
“I wouldn’t have had to worry at all if your clumsiness hadn’t brought attention to us in the first place.” Lee’s only response was to roll his eyes.
Once we were back in the main castle our chattering stopped. Lee and I frequently bickered, nothing more than teasing each other. On rare occasions the teasing ends up pissing someone off and a real argument is formed from it, but like I said, it’s rare.
He led us through the halls, taking a long route but one that was less likely to have occupants. Eventually, we came to the door that leads to the courtyard. From there we followed a path that led down into the village. It wasn’t a path that was used by anyone much, mostly the Royal Guard for patrolling. This made me nervous that we would run into someone doing their patrol.
“Hey, Lee?” I asked somewhat sheepishly. I knew Lee didn’t like to talk about Aeron so much.
“What?”
“Why do you think Aeron is so hard on us? It’s not like we really do anything directly to him.” I asked.
“Aeron is just jealous.” His reply was cool and I could tell he didn’t really want to talk about Aeron.
But I pushed anyway. “Why would he be jealous? He’s the one that’s going to inherit the entire Providence of Valhalla and be ruler one day.” It didn’t seem to me that he lacked anything to be jealous of.
“That’s exactly why he’s jealous. He never got to be a teenager. Not really. He’s been training to be king his whole life. He never got to play pranks or sneak to friends houses and get trashed; it wasn’t a responsible thing for a future king to do.”
Suddenly, I felt bad for Aeron. I never thought of the life he had as being hard for him. He always seemed so perfect to be king. He seemed like it was what he wanted, what he was good at. I never even considered that maybe he was good at because he was never given a chance not to be. Maybe being king was what he wanted, because any other choice had been taken from him.
When I saw the first houses of the village approaching, I let out a silent sigh of relief.
From there it was easy to get to our destination unseen. The guards didn’t patrol in the village as thoroughly as the castle. And most of the villagers wouldn’t pay attention to a couple of kids roaming around.
Annabelle was expecting us, so obviously this had been pre-planned. Apparently Annabelle’s parents were both working night shifts in the castle and she was home alone.
We drank most of the night. Annabelle had been a close friend of ours most of our lives. Both of her parents held very high positions in the castle and because of that she was around frequently. She didn’t usually join us in our trouble making though. She knew better. If she got caught, a stunt like this could cause her parents to be fired. Though, it would be unlikely. Our parents knew us well enough to know we didn’t need anyone’s influence to get into trouble.
It was almost dawn before we snuck back into the castle. Sneaking back in was considerably more difficult because of the fact that it was nearly shift change-which means more people moving about- and neither of us could stand and walk all that well. We had to throw ourselves into the bushes to avoid guards twice. And even then it’s surprising our laughing didn’t get us caught.
Once in my own room, it took only seconds for me to crash. I knew that I would have a hangover in the morning. I had never had a hangover before and was hoping it wouldn’t be as bad as I had heard they were. I figured that Lee probably would sleep well past noon so I had plenty of time to recover before he had me out doing something else equally as stupid.

Sitting straight up out of bed, being startled by the door that was storming open, was not the way I had planned on waking. The sound of the door slamming into the wall made me wince.
Aeron was standing before me within seconds. I hadn’t had the time to focus on him entering before he was looming over me. Boy, did he look pissed. It’s not like Lee and I had done anything that terrible. I’m 18 and Lee’s 19; we’re old enough to drink responsibly….somewhat.
“Get up, now!” He ordered.
“What the hell Aeron? Go bug someone else.” I closed my eyes and laid back down. My head was throbbing and the room was spinning. I definitely had a hangover and I was pretty sure I was still drunk. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with Aeron or his moods.