Collie in the Realm:

An American teenage cheerleader at boarding school overseas faces trial on capital charges of sneaking onto Palace property and capturing images of top secret military equipment on her camera while taking what she thought were just harmless tourist pictures of the handsome young Crown Prince of the Realm.

A 15-year-old American girl on trial abroad as a spy will face the death penalty if convicted....at fifteen years of age, Colleen Lee "Collie" Knight is still years away from adulthood in her American homeland.  However, in the Realm teens enter adulthood at age fifteen, and while in boarding school as an American foreign exchange student living and studying in the Monarchy of the Kingdom's Realm, ninth-grader Collie became an adult on the day she celebrated her fifteenth birthday.  The fact that she's an American citizen studying abroad does not mean that Collie will be permitted to remain in childhood in their Kingdom, and while she's in the Realm she'll be treated as any other young adult woman would be treated.  No longer a child by Realm standards, under their law Collie Knight is an adult and fully eligible to be sentenced to death for a capital crime if she's convicted at trial.  When informed by the Leader of the Realm's Grand Council that she will be tried as an adult and executed by firing squad before her sixteenth birthday if convicted on charges of spying, Collie faints at the stunning shock of the totally unexpected news that could mean she only has a short time left to live.  She'd heard that her host country's laws were strict, but had absolutely no idea that she could become a condemned criminal for some harmless schoolgirl mischief when sneaking onto the Palace grounds with her boyfriend and taking some innocent pictures of the handsome young Crown Prince and the rest of the Royal Family reviewing a prototype of the nation's newest military armor.              

Waves of homesickness and a deep longing to be with family and friends in the land of her birth temper moments of joy for this fifteen-year-old American teenage girl imprisoned overseas.  With all her heart, the frightened teen wishes that she might be released from confinement and allowed to fly far away from the Realm to return home to her parents and little sister.  With her family in America and not allowed to be with her at trial, Collie is forced to rely on her own resources in defending herself, and it makes her feel that the burden of this is more than she can bear all alone in this foreign land of strange laws and customs.  There are those in her host country who are kind and caring, and they do what they can to ease the suffering she must endure during incarceration and to help keep her spirits up as she faces the greatest ordeals of her young life.  The stories Collie remembers reading from her Catholic Children's Book of the Saints that tell of teenage girls and young women of faith throughout history who faced their persecution, imprisonment, torture, trials, convictions, and even death sentences and executions with courage, grace, and dignity help her find a place of inner peace and calm serenity amid the wild and confusing turmoil that often surrounds her.        

Some hope to use Collie's trial as a tool to advance their own personal political influence and power within the legal and military structures of the Realm, and they don't view her as a wrongfully accused innocent young teenage girl with hopes and dreams for her future, but rather as a stepping-stone that will allow them to advance at the price of her intense sorrow at being thought of as a spy and her many tears in prison as she fears that even in innocence she might have to face a sentence of death --- this is the price that they are only too willing for the jailed and vulnerable American girl to pay on their behalf to further their own selfish interests.  And sadly, there are some in the Realm who have even darker motives in their persecution of Collie Knight....  The conviction and death sentence against this American ninth-grade girl that they require to further their personal ambitions means dredging up some of the mistakes Collie made in her past and portraying her to the subjects of the Realm as a student who has already clearly shown the world that she has a well hidden dark side to her soul when she betrayed her former best friend at her middle school in Texas when they were both cheerleaders in seventh grade and training together to one day make the Senior Cheerleader Team at the local high school.  Because Collie lied to the authorities in her own home town, will anyone in the Realm believe her when she swears to tell only the truth to them at her trial?  The answer becomes obvious to all when the majority of those who will decide her fate no longer appear to be fully confident that what she's telling them is the whole truth, and when they quickly lose interest in listening to her repeated protestations of innocence, then young teenage Collie's fate seems sealed....

Should the young American foreign exchange student be found innocent of spying, then she'll be swiftly deported back to the USA for her crime of trespassing on Palace grounds and exiled for the rest of her life from ever returning to the Realm.  However, should she be found guilty of spying and taking a photograph of military hardware to sell to a nation hostile to the Realm, then Collie will be condemned to die before the year has ended.  Her executioners will ensure that she is granted a merciful death because the vast majority of Realm subjects have no desire to subject their prisoners to mental or physical torture or cause the condemned prisoners in their custody to suffer needlessly.  Those of the Realm who have come to care for her, and there are many, will do all they can to help Collie face her death with courage and dignity, and they'll expect her to stand before the firing squad fearlessly with her eyes uncovered and unflinchingly look the members of the firing squad directly in their eyes as they level their rifles to point straight towards her heart.  She will be given the opportunity to receive the last rites of her Roman Catholic faith just before her scheduled time of execution, and will be permitted to say her final prayers aloud as the squad leader makes the necessary  preparations moments before the projectiles are to slam into her heart .  Both a blindfold and cigarette will be offered to her, and she will be given the opportunity to smoke the entire cigarette before the firing sequence begins.  Should she wish it or the squad leader determine it necessary, Collie will be assisted in remaining standing perfectly still and upright by a harness attachment holding her securely to a wooden pillar, ensuring that the squad members are able to perform their duty without causing her physical pain.  She is welcome to accept or reject the offer of the cigarette or blindfold, and she is strongly encouraged by those in the Realm who have come to love her and deeply care for her to flatly reject the offer of the blindfold.  However, they do explain to her that should she accept the blindfold, then it will be gently positioned to cover her eyes without hurting her, and the squad leader will not make her feel ashamed or embarrassed in the slightest at her wanting the comfort of being blindfolded for her execution.  Collie's family members and those she requests be allowed to be with her on her final day on earth will be allowed to remain with her on death watch, and able to calm and comfort her as she awaits the end of her life on earth.  Her execution will be carried live throughout the Realm and abroad on television, and those in her homeland of the United States of America will be able to witness her last hours and understand that she was well treated during her final hours and died without physical suffering.  Collie knows that many of the Realm hate her and believe that she had intended to betray their nation's security for money, and therefore they feel she's a traitor to the nation that was a good host to her.  As much as she fears her death, she prays that those who hate her will come to learn the truth someday and understand that in life she was an innocent girl who was trapped in a web of circumstantial evidence, and an innocent victim of verbal trickery, deceit, and outright lies from those she'd trusted to help her... Then they'd understand that she never meant to cause any harm to the people or Royal Family of the Monarchy of the Kingdom's Realm, and that she was never a spy in the service of any foreign nation!  Collie prays for forgiveness for all those sins that she's ever committed in her short lifetime, and that she might be granted a measure of peace during the hours of suffering when she ponders her situation and is tempted to give in to despair.  She prays that she'll be capable of gracefully accepting a sentence of death if she must, and somehow find the courage to stand in front of her executioners with the brave demeanor that those who love her in the Realm would find admirable.   

Although many subjects of the Realm believe America on the verge of collapse and Americans to be a weak people living in a nation fading into the pages of history, most of them are willing to give Collie an opportunity to demonstrate her courage during what may be her final months on earth.  As she says her prayers each night before laying down to sleep, Collie wonders if she'll ever be found innocent and set free to return to America, or if she'll be forced to remain caged until her captors find her guilty and come to take her from her cell and lead her to the execution chamber to have her death sentence carried out by their military firing squad.  Collie knows that all those of the Realm who have come to love her and care about her will expect that she die bravely if she's found guilty at trial of spying, and she wonders as she confronts the very real possibility of her own death at age fifteen if she'll have the courage to look her executioners in their eyes without breaking down in tears and begging on her knees that they grant her mercy, spare her life, and set her free to return home to her mommy and daddy, and to live with her young elementary school sister in the room they'd once shared before she journeyed as an American exchange student to this strange yet oddly enchanting and endearing land that is the Monarchy of the Kingdom's Realm.

Collie's suffering, tears, and her inner strength during her time of captivity begin to influence and work a subtle change upon some of those who have rushed to judgment in their condemnation of her.  True, her tears are looked upon as weakness in the Realm, but they also serve to wash away some of the hate in the hearts of those people of good will who had opposed her without knowing who she really was, and her flashes of strength during deep times of suffering cause stirrings of compassion within them.   Those of the Realm who look closely at her for the first time begin to believe that they were mistaken in many of their initial judgments of her, and understand that she is a young woman who should be treated with merciful compassion, as well as the harsh justice that she would deserve if convicted under their strict legal system.   However, the ranks of those who oppose her also contain several who well understand that she is innocent of the capital charges against her, but strive to have her convicted for purposes that have nothing to do with either justice or mercy....and these are the ones she would fear most, if she but only knew who they were.  As in the profoundly sad and unfair persecution of college student Amanda Knox overseas, the arrest and trial of Colleen Lee "Collie" Knight in the Realm is in large part due to her social and cultural background, and because she's a citizen of a nation she loves, defends, and is proud to call her home.