The flash of her aunt’s camera caught her attention
and she turned to see Mabel standing at the long row of large windows. With her
right hand she was taking a photo, while the left one held the gauze curtains
just slightly to the side. As the girl came up to her, she could see the sight
which Mabel was photographing. The entire square below was a sea of orange! She
gasped a little. So many people. All wearing orange crowns, orange t-shirts and
holding orange signs reading, “Dag Beatrix!”, “Hallo Willem!
“Wow, how cool,” she whispered to her aunt,
thinking she still shouldn’t make any noise. Mabel leaned down to her, and with
a grin said, “I just posted the photo to twitter-the people sure seem happy
today.” The girl continued peeking out at the crowd, then she lifted her hand
and holding the curtain away with one hand, but keeping her head behind it, she
began to wave. All of a sudden, through the gauze, she saw the people begin to
wave; frantically, happily! Arms swinging wildly back and forth. The huge crowd
didn’t make a sound, they just waved. “Look,” she said to Mabel, “they’re all
waving back!” And then it hit her, “they’re waiting for me.”
Half an hour later, the girl and her two
sisters were sitting on embroidered, velvet chairs, in their matching
sunflower-yellow dresses, with blue headbands keeping their straight blond hair
in check. Their chairs were placed in a
row, in front of the windows facing the large oval table around which every
chair was taken. On the far side of the table, facing them was their father,
mother and grandmother. An open book, about the size Moses’s Ten Commandments tablets
was placed in front of her grandmother. The entire room was silent as they
watched Queen Beatrix sign her name. Beatrix looked at her son sitting next to her
and with proud, wrinkled eyes, she smiled and slid the heavy book over for him
to sign. All of a sudden, behind her outside, the girl heard a thundering roar
erupt from the crowd below. She looked behind her and then back to her parents.
Their faces were wide with smiles, hearing the cheers and hollering. Beatrix
squeezed Willem’s hand and he took his wife’s, and the three of them enjoyed
this moment for which he had been preparing for his entire life. The people
were ecstatic. They had a new king.
Last night, before her parents had left for the
Queen’s last dinner, she had asked her father, “Papa, how long are you going to
be king?” He looked at her in surprise, smiling and said, “I’m not sure. Why
are you asking?” “Well, I want to plan, that’s all. I want to know when I’m up.”
He gave a chuckle, and just shook his head. “I’ll let you know, don’t worry.”
After everyone around the table had added their
signatures, the girl watched as her grandmother and her parents rose from the table.
Her mother and father came over to them and the girls jumped up and threw their
arms around them. As the balcony doors were opened, the noise from the crowd
was deafening. Her parents straightened themselves out; Maxima reapplied
lipstick and Willem took a sip of water from a glass handed to him by the
valet. She watched as her parents and her grandmother went out onto the
balcony, amid the roaring of the crowd. And then, she heard her grandmother’s strong
voice, as it carried over the square, “I would like to introduce to you, King
Willem-Alexander. King of the Netherlands.”
The girl waited..and waited. It seemed like an
eternity. Finally, her grandmother came back into the room, eyes searching and
then setting on her’s, “Amalia.”
She didn’t think it could be possible, but as
she and her sisters stepped out into the fresh air, the tens of thousands of
people in the square cheered even louder. She laughed a little in the shock of
it. Then she began to wave and wave and wave and wave. The crowd waved back,
flags were flying, and millions of cameras were being held high, pointing at
them. Her father, standing behind her, put his hand on her shoulder and
squeezed it gently. The five of them stood in that moment, waving with gusto,
eyes full of light, and wearing big, bright smiles. The waving continued and
she remembered all of the things her mother had said to her over the past few
days. Wave and smile, wave and smile. But all she wanted to think about was someday
it will be her turn. I am the crown princess.
I started
celebrating my birthday early this year. I figured why not kick things off by joining
the biggest party I could find. So, I did, but instead of a birthday hat I wore
a black fascinator. And, along with
fancy black pants and boots, I packed by bag with my notebook and camera and
boarded the train for Amsterdam. Little did I know that I would be hopelessly
under-dressed. It seems that the one
million other visitors for the king’s coronation had all agreed to wear the
same thing. Every man, woman, child, and even one or two dogs were wearing some
sort of orange crown. Big balloon crowns, mini headband crowns; glitzy, floppy,
paper and plastic crowns. And all I had were feathers.