Charles, Camilla tour stops off in capital

WASHINGTON — So first there was lunch at the White House (lemon sole, petite asparagus, golden pea tendrils). Then there was dinner at the White House (celery-and-shrimp soup, buffalo medallions, Chartreuse ice cream). And in between there was that obligatory adventurous outing for very, very important people who visit official Washington, D.C.: a trip to see the common folks.

For Prince Charles and his new wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, that meant sojourning Wednesday to southeast Washington, accompanied by first lady Laura Bush, to the School for Educational Evolution and Development, a charter school that is home to 320 public-school students. There was the usual diverse array of suspects on hand for the event: Mayor Anthony Williams, City Council members Linda Cropp, Carol Schwartz and Marion Barry (who seems to recall he met Prince Charles once before, in the '80s, but was rather fuzzy on the details).

Rolling up in a motorcade in the early afternoon, the royal couple received a much more enthusiastic greeting from the gaggle of students lining the school's front driveway than they had earlier in the day at the White House, where perhaps a dozen were on hand — the regular mix of school kids and foreign tourists looking for something to photograph. Only two people waved at the arriving royals.

"I think I'm the only one here for Camilla and Charles," said Linda Hartwick, a stout Scottish lady holding a placard reading "Queen Elizabeth, Camilla Is Not Welcome in the USA," as she clutched a framed poster of the princess she adores — the late, lovely Diana.

"I think Charles has nerve bringing her over here," said Hartwick, 46, who runs a bed-and-breakfast in upstate New York. "She's not Princess Diana and she never will be."

Poor Camilla also took her lumps at the first stop on this U.S. tour, in New York, where her attire was dissected in the press and the New York Times was catty about the meaning of her black stilettos ("really, really trying.") But make the audience a group of eighth-graders, and the duchess knows how to work a room.

"Do they work you quite hard?" "How much homework?" Then, a little slyly, "Now, what are the punishments?"

Told the fallout for school infractions, Camilla arched an eyebrow. "So you miss all the fun? So it's not worth doing, then!"

The duchess then moved on to other topics, such as the quality of the cafeteria food, drawing a table-wide groan. And a minor disaster was averted when another student, Drew Johnson, rescued Camilla's errant earring as it tumbled onto his desk.

"It's very rare for royal people to come to our school," Denzell Grimes said.