Two Weeks with the Queen

  Then he realised he didn’t know which station he had to get off at for Buckingham Palace.

  ‘’Scuse me,’ he said to the twenty people nearest to him, ‘which station do I get off at for Buckingham Palace?’

  No one answered. No one even looked at him.

  Perhaps they’re all French tourists, he thought.

  He said it again, louder. The twenty people nearest to him all stared intently into space. Which wasn’t easy as the only space on the train was up near the ceiling.

  Colin decided to look at his map.

  Three stations later he’d managed to get it out of his pocket.

  He was just wondering if taking some of his jumpers off would make enough space to fold it out when the train stopped at the next station. The doors slid open and everyone got off at once.

  Colin was swept off with them and carried along the platform in a tidal wave of bodies and up an escalator and past the ticket collector and out into the street.

  The city roared all around him. He got his breath back and folded out the map.

  A black man with a yellow beanie stopped and looked over Colin’s shoulder.

  ‘Where you going to?’ he asked.

  ‘To see the Queen,’ said Colin.

  The man grinned and pointed up the street. ‘Give the old girl my regards,’ he said.

  That’s good, thought Colin as he walked along the street, at least she’s approachable.

  It was the biggest house he’d ever seen.

  There must be hundreds of rooms in there, he thought, staring up at the rows and rows of windows. And twenty or thirty toilets.

  Folks at home’d call it a palace, thought Colin, and they’d be right. The front yard alone was as big as a footy pitch, and all gravel.

  Colin was impressed. Mrs Widdup had had her front yard gravelled, and even the cost of that little bit had meant she hadn’t been able to afford a front fence. She’d had to put up chicken wire.

  The Queen hadn’t had that problem. Her front fence was black and iron and three times as high as Colin with gold spikes on top.

  Her front gate was bigger than Colin’s house.

  And shut tight.

  Colin looked around for a bell.

  There wasn’t one.

  Then he noticed a large group of tourists nearby. They were taking photos of a guard in a red tunic and a big black furry helmet.

  Colin pushed his way through the throng.

  ‘’Scuse me,’ he said to the guard, ‘I’m here to see the Queen.’

  The guard didn’t move a muscle.

  Colin couldn’t understand it. This one definitely couldn’t be a French tourist.

  Colin said it again, louder.

  The guard didn’t even look at him.

  ‘Hey,’ yelled a French tourist to Colin, ‘you are in my picture.’

  ‘Please tell the Queen that Colin Mudford is here from Australia,’ said Colin to the guard.

  A Spanish tourist stepped forward grinning.

  ‘And Manuel Corbes from Madrid,’ he said.

  Colin and the guard both ignored him.

  ‘I need the Queen’s help,’ said Colin to the guard.

  The guard ignored Colin as well. Colin moved round so he was directly in front of the guard’s unblinking gaze.

  ‘It’s an urgent medical matter,’ said Colin, speaking slowly and trying to move his lips so that if the guard was deaf he could lip-read.

  ‘My . . . brother . . . Luke . . . has . . . got . . . cancer.,’

  ’My brother’s got dandruff,’ said an American tourist loudly, ‘but that don’t mean I go round messing up other folks’ photo opportunities.’

  Colin felt himself beginning to get angry.

  ‘Look,’ he said to the guard, ‘just let me in and I’ll explain inside.’

  ‘Me too,’ said the Spanish tourist. His friends laughed.

  The guard was as motionless as the stone lion on the gatepost behind him.

  Colin controlled himself

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I know you’re probably not meant to open the gate and you probably get people lying through their teeth all the time, but I promise you I’m telling the truth and if you open the gate I’ll explain everything to the Queen and you won’t lose your job or get sent to Northern Ireland.’

  The gate stayed shut.

  Colin lost his temper.

  ‘You’d better open that gate,’ he yelled at the guard, ‘cause when the Queen finds out you’ve kept a kid with cancer waiting she’s gunna do you.’

  A hand dropped on to Colin’s shoulder.

  He spun round and found himself face to face with the shiny buttons of a policeman.

  ‘All right,’ said the policeman, ‘break it up. Come on, move along. You lot are never satisfied. We put a guardsman out here to stop you sticking your cameras through the railings and dropping them and what thanks do we get? Go on, you’ve had your lot for today.’

  The tourists wandered away muttering and glaring at Colin.

  ‘Right, son,’ said the policeman, ‘what’s your problem?’

  ‘I need to see the Queen about my sick brother,’ said Colin.

  The policeman gave a hollow laugh.

  ‘Oh really. Well I suggest you ring her up and have a chat about it. If I see you hanging around here again you’ll be the one who’s feeling sick.’

  The first phone box didn’t have a phone.

  The second one had a phone but no receiver.

  The third one had a phone and a receiver but all that was left of the phone books was a pile of ash on the floor and the coin slot was clogged up with bubblegum.

  Colin looked at it and felt like crying.

  It had taken him an hour to find these three phone boxes. He’d walked miles, he had a headache from the roaring traffic and his mouth tasted as though he’d been sucking an exhaust pipe.

  He didn’t cry.

  Instead he crossed the road to a large and very posh hotel. He went up to a large and very posh doorman in a green and gold uniform.

  ‘Can I use your phone, please?’ he said.

  ‘Are you a guest at this hotel, sir?’ asked the doorman, glancing down at Colin’s elastic-sided boots. One of them was even more scuffed than usual where he’d kicked the third phone box.

  ‘Look,’ said Colin, ‘I’ll give you ten pounds if I can use your phone.’

  He held out one of Mum’s brown ten pound notes.

  The doorman took the ten pounds, folded it up very small, tucked it firmly into Colin’s shirt pocket, and directed him to a phone box that worked in a quiet street round the corner.

  Colin ran to the box and pulled the door open. There was a phone. With a receiver. And phone books. He started hunting through them.

  Q for Queen.

  Nothing.

  P for Palace.

  Nothing.

  R for Royal Family.

  Nothing.

  B for Buckingham.

  Someone had torn out all the pages up to Carruthers.

  He rang the operator.

  ‘Have you got a number for the Queen, please?’ he asked.

  The operator hung up.

  Colin went out and bought a can of lemonade and asked for the change (nine pounds 30p) in 10p pieces.

  Then he rang The City of London Information Centre, The Houses of Parliament, The Home Office, The Times, The London Transport Information Centre and Harrods.

  Nobody would tell him the Queen’s telephone number.

  He carried on ringing.

  The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Royal Albert Hall, The Royal Festival Hall, The Royal Opera House Covent Garden and The Royale Fish Bar, Peckham.

  The man in the Royale Fish Bar gave him the number of a man who used to deliver fish to Buckingham Palace.

  The man who used to deliver fish to Buckingham Palace gave him the number of the man in charge of catering at Buckingham Palace.

  The man in charge of catering at Buckingham Palace gave
him the number of the Public

  Relations Office at Buckingham Palace.

  Colin dialled the number.

  He asked the man who answered if the Queen could come to the phone and the man said that all communications with the Palace had to be in writing and that trouble-makers would be prosecuted.

  Then he hung up.

  That night Colin helped Aunty Iris dry up the tea things and then sat down and wrote the Queen a letter.

  Dear Your Majesty The Queen,

  I need to speak to you urgently about my brother Luke. He’s got cancer and the doctors in Australia are being really slack. if I could borrow your top doctor for a few days I know he/she would fix things up in no time. Of course Mum and Dad would pay his/her fares even if it meant selling the car or getting a loan. Please contact me at the above address urgently.

  Yours sincerely,

  Colin Mudford

  PS This is not a hoax. Ring the above number and Aunty Iris will tell you. Hang up if a man answers.

  He went out and posted it straight away.

  Then he waited.

  Chapter Eight

  Three days later he was still waiting.

  Sitting at the breakfast table he heard the postman pushing letters through the flap in the front door.

  He raced out into the hall and scooped them up off the mat.

  Gas bill, Reader’s Digest, local church magazine, a small parcel from Birmingham that rattled . . .

  Nothing from the Queen.

  ‘Don’t fret, love,’ said Aunty Iris, taking the letters from him. ‘You only left six days ago. Takes at least seven days for a letter to get here from Australia.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about seven days,’ muttered Uncle Bob from behind his newspaper. ‘What about that Christmas card? Came via Israel.’

  Aunty Iris gave Colin a little hug. ‘Feeling a bit homesick, are you, pet? Give Mum and Dad a quick ring. Go on, we don’t mind, just the once.’

  ‘No, it’s OK, I’m fine,’ said Colin. ‘Thanks, anyway.’

  Part of him wanted to, desperately, but the other part didn’t, not till he could tell them to whack the linseed oil on Luke’s cricket bat, he was coming home with the world’s best doctor.

  Why hadn’t the Queen replied?

  She must have a writing pad. She must have to answer letters all the time.

  Colin had a sudden vision of the front door at Buckingham Palace, letters pouring in through the flap and piling up in great mountains all down the hall, with a queue of postmen outside waiting to push sackfuls more in.

  Of course. What a dill he’d been.

  He’d have to see her in person.

  Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob were putting their coats on for work.

  ‘Alistair,’ called Aunty Iris, ‘those kelp tablets have come and they’re on the bench in the kitchen. Take two every hour with water and if you go into the garden wrap up and no climbing. And I don’t want you out near that traffic. Bye.’

  The front door closed.

  Colin looked at the marmalade jar in front of him on the table. By Royal Appointment to Her Majesty The Queen. What did he have to do to get to see her, become a marmalade manufacturer?

  ‘Colin?’ said Alistair.

  For three days he’d been stuck in the house with Alistair, who wasn’t allowed to do anything even remotely interesting in case he hurt himself Even though the doctor had said that not only was Alistair not sickening for anything, he was the healthiest thirteen year old he’d ever seen apart from the dandruff.

  Three days of questions about Australia.

  ‘Have you really ridden a trail bike,’ asked Alistair, ‘or were you just pulling my leg?’

  ‘Yamaha 250,’ said Colin, ‘twin exhaust, cross-country gear ratios.’

  Alistair’s eyes shone as he chewed his bacon.

  ‘Must have been brilliant.’

  ‘It was OK till the brakes failed and I went off a cliff.’

  ‘A cliff?’ Alistair stared at him in admiration.

  Colin pulled himself together. This was what it had been like for three days, him exaggerating and Alistair wide-eyed with admiration and him exaggerating even more.

  It had gone on long enough.

  He looked at Alistair.

  ‘Wanna help me save Luke’s life?’

  Alistair stared back, suddenly alarmed.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he stammered. ‘I’m not allowed to give blood, Mum won’t let me.’

  Colin told him about the Queen and how he’d been trying to get to see her.

  Alistair’s eyes bulged.

  Then Colin told him what he’d decided to do now.

  If Aunty Iris had been there she would have told Alistair to put his eyes back into his head.

  ‘What’s all this got to do with me?’ croaked Alistair.

  ‘Simple,’ said Colin.’ I need someone to give me a leg up.’

  Buying the rope was simple enough once Colin had persuaded Alistair that it was OK to go to the shops.

  ‘Mum doesn’t like me going,’ said Alistair, hanging around the front gate.

  ‘What?’ said Colin. ‘Does she think a bus is going to mount the kerb, weave through all the other shoppers, carefully avoiding rubbish bins and brick walls, and flatten you?’

  ‘Well, one could do, couldn’t it?’

  ‘OK,’ said Colin, ‘you stay here.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Alistair.

  The alarm went off under Colin’s pillow and for a moment he thought Luke had borrowed Dad’s electric drill again. His heart leaped. It had been bad enough the first time, Luke trying to repair the loose drawer in Colin’s room and drilling through six pairs of underpants.

  Colin opened his eyes and remembered where he was.

  Then he remembered why he’d set the alarm.

  He pulled the dock from under the pillow and peered at it in the darkness.

  Three-thirty.

  He got out of bed and got dressed as quickly as he could, which wasn’t that quickly because his body was shivering all over and his fingers were going numb with the cold.

  He felt under the bed and slid out his footy bag. He peered inside. The rope was still there. He pulled his two jumpers up under his armpits, wound the rope round and round his middle, tied a knot, and pulled the jumpers back down over the rope.

  Then he crept into Alistair’s room and shook Alistair awake.

  ‘I took the pills,’ mumbled Alistair, ‘honest, Mum.’

  ‘It’s time to go,’ whispered Colin.

  Alistair opened his eyes and blinked at Colin.

  ‘I’m scared,’ he said.

  ‘Get dressed,’ said Colin, ‘or we’ll miss the bus.’

  ‘Mum doesn’t let me go into town by myself,’ said Alistair.

  ‘You won’t be by yourself,’ said Colin. ‘I’ll be with you.’

  ‘What if you get shot?’

  ‘OK,’ said Colin, ‘you stay here.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Alistair.

  ***

  The driver of the night bus gave them a suspicious look as they got on and paid their fares.

  Colin held his breath.

  It was probably just that not many kids caught the 3.50am bus into town.

  ‘It’s a real pain having to start work at 4.30,’ Colin said to Alistair. ‘Still, that’s the price we have to pay for owning our own milk: bar.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Alistair.

  The driver handed over the tickets and they hurried upstairs and sat at the back.

  They travelled in silence for a few minutes, then Alistair turned to Colin.

  ‘What if they’ve got dogs?’ he said.

  ‘They haven’t got dogs,’ said Colin.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It was in our local paper at home,’ said Colin. ‘A couple of years ago a bloke got into Buckingham Palace at night and the next morning when the Queen woke up he was sitting on the end of her bed looking at her. He didn’t have a single
dog bite on him.’

  ‘I remember that,’ said Alistair.

  ‘If he can do it, I can,’ said Colin.

  ‘They put him in a loony bin,’ said Alistair.

  Colin began to wish Alistair hadn’t come.

  They got off the bus in the middle of the freezing, empty city and Colin looked at his map under a streetlamp.

  ‘What if we get lost?’ said Alistair.

  ‘We won’t,’ said Colin.

  ‘It could take them days to find us,’ said Alistair. ‘We could starve. If we don’t die from the pollution.’

  ‘You don’t have to come,’ said Colin, crossing the road towards the park.

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Alistair.

  The park was black. They walked next to the railings for a long time.

  ‘What if she wakes up and sees you sitting there and gets such a fright she wets the bed?’ said Alistair suddenly. ‘Do you know how many years in jail you’d get for making the Queen wet the bed?’

  Colin sighed.

  ‘I’m not gunna break into her bedroom, Dumbo,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait in one of the toilets. When she’s got up and had her breakfast I’ll pop in the dining-room and have a word with her then.’

  They turned a corner and there was the Palace.

  Instead of the roaring traffic and milling tourists of three days ago, the huge space in front of the Palace was silent and empty.

  Except for two policemen standing by the gate.

  Alistair gave a little whimper.

  Colin grabbed him and moved him along the railings, keeping out of the light from the streetlamps.

  The policemen didn’t look over.

  Colin steered Alistair round a bend and there in front of them, stretching away as far as Colin could see, was the back wall of the Palace.

  They crossed the road and stood at the base of the wall. It was three times as high as Colin and on the top were sharp black metal spikes.

  ‘Don’t let those spikes touch you,’ said Alistair, trembling.

  ‘I’ve got four jumpers on,’ said Colin, lifting .the top two and unwinding the rope from round his middle.

  He tied a lasso knot in one end and while he was doing it, he suddenly remembered all the lasso knots he’d tied with Doug Beale those afternoons they’d spent lassoing Doug’s younger sister Gaylene.

  He looked up and down the road.