The Beast of Buckingham Palace
Page 5
Now he really felt he might barf.
“So, Alfred, remember not to sneeze, cough or you know what,” ordered Nanny.
“No, I don’t know what.”
“Bottom burp.”
“Oh yes.”
“Or you’ll give the game away. Ready, my little prince?”
“No!” he replied, pulling the cover back.
“Ah!” cooed Nanny. “You look like you did when you were a baby!”
Alfred didn’t find that the least bit amusing.
“The Lord Protector!” he remembered. “He locked my bedroom door from the outside. We won’t be able to get in!”
“Don’t you worry. Nanny always carries a spare key!” she said, fishing it out of her cardigan pocket.
“Clever Nanny!”
“Now, come on, little baby, back to sleep!” She snorted to herself, her teeth going CLICKETY-CLACK in her mouth.
In a grump now, Alfred pulled the revolting blanket back over his head.
As soon as he had, the old lady wheeled the pram to the correct spot on the floor of the junk room. She turned the hand on the carriage clock anticlockwise, and the pair spun round into the library.
Looking up from the pram, Alfred asked, “What book was that person looking for at this late hour?”
“I don’t have a clue!” replied Nanny.
“You were looking for a book here in the library too, Nanny.”
“Was I?”
“Yes! What was the name of it?”
“SHUSH!” shushed Nanny. “Or someone will hear us!”
With that she wheeled the pram out of the library and down one of the palace’s long sweeping corridors. The wonky wheel made it difficult to steer…
SQUEAK! SQUEAK! SQUEAK!
…and Nanny kept on bashing the pram into the wall.
BONK!
“OW!” complained the boy.
“SHUSH!” shushed Nanny again. Louder this time. The SHUSH was so loud it was hardly a shush at all.
SQUEAK! SQUEAK! SQUEAK!
Then she bashed the pram into the wall again.
BONK!
SQUEAK! SQUEAK! SQUEAK!
And again.
BONK!
Alfred grimaced. At this rate, he’d be lucky to get back to his bedroom alive.
Next, he heard the sound of something trundling.
Oh no, he thought. Not the Octobut! That’s the last thing they needed right now.
“Good morning, Archbishop!” the robot announced.
“Will you be quiet, you blasted thing!” hissed Nanny.
“I have warmed your socks, so they’re nice and toasty!”
The boy thought he could smell burning.
“Out of my way, you metal menace!” said the old lady.
CRASH!
Next, Alfred could feel the wheels of the pram BUMP over something.
CLANK!
Something metal.
He looked past Nanny and saw that the accident-prone robot had lost yet another one of its arms. The one with the little spoon attached for stirring tea was now lying twitching on the floor.
TWITCH!
TWITCH!
TWITCH!
Down to five arms, the Octobut could now be called a Quinquebut, but that just sounds silly.
“I will post your boiled egg on to you!” it called out after them.
“Shush!” shushed Nanny before pushing the prince’s head back into the pram. “Get down!”
As he was wheeled around the palace, Alfred listened intently. He was trying to work out from sounds around him where exactly he was. All of a sudden, he could feel the pram being heaved up the sweeping staircase that led all the way from the bottom of the palace to the top.
“Nanny! There must be hundreds of stairs!” he protested.
“Shush!” she shushed. “Someone might hear you!”
“We are never going to make it!”
“I said shush!”
SHUNT!
SHUNT!
SHUNT!
“Nanny, I’m scared you’re going to let go!”
“I will if you don’t shut up!”
SHUNT!
SHUNT!
SHUNT!
SHUNT!
Now they were halfway up the staircase.
All of a sudden, Alfred heard a voice.
“Nanny?” said the voice.
Not just any voice.
It was
the
Lord Protector’s
voice.
“Nanny, whatever are you doing out of your room at such an ungodly hour?” purred the Lord Protector.
“Just bringing up some clean blankets, sir,” the old lady replied.
Inside the pram, Alfred kept dead still. He could hear in her voice that Nanny was nervous. Her false teeth were CLICKETY-CLACKING in her mouth even more than normal.
“Who were you talking to?” demanded the Lord Protector.
“Myself!” she chirped. “I am a bit barmy like that. Now I must be going…”
SHUNT!
SHUNT!
SHUNT!
“WAIT!” called out the man. “Whatever have you got in that pram?”
Alfred didn’t dare breathe.
“Fresh blankets,” she replied.
The Lord Protector caught up with her, then leaned down and sniffed.
SNIFF! SNIFF!
“They don’t smell fresh,” was his verdict.
“Well,” Nanny hesitated for a moment, buying herself some time, “they’re fresher than the ones I’m changing them for.”
“I find that rather difficult to believe.”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes, Lord Protector, sir. It’s the prince.”
“What’s the prince?”
“He… erm, how can I put this nicely? He wet the bed.”
Inside the pram the prince was seething.
“At his age?” asked the Lord Protector.
“Well, it has been a very difficult night for him. What with that terrible business with the Queen.”
“Yes, yes,” mused the Lord Protector. “What rotten luck having a traitor for a mother.”
Alfred wanted to leap up out of the pram and biff the man on the nose. But he stayed put. The truth was he was stuck.
“I’ve taken the precaution of putting the palace on total lockdown tonight,” continued the Lord Protector. “No one, but no one, is allowed out of bed. Not even the King himself. So, as soon as you have changed those blankets, I want you to go straight back to your quarters. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. For his own safety, I locked the boy’s bedroom door. Here is the key. When you have locked him back in for the night, bring it straight to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now run along, woman,” he ordered.
“Very good, sir.”
Alfred listened as the Lord Protector’s footsteps echoed down the stairs.
“That was close,” hissed the boy from inside the pram.
“I know!” whispered Nanny. “Never mind about you doing a bottom burp, I was so nervous I thought I was going to let one rip that sounded like thunder!”
“Too much information, Nanny.”
“A HONKING HURRICANE!”
“Again, Nanny, too much!”
“A TRUMP TORNADO!”
“I got it, Nanny!”
“A BOTTOM BLIZZARD!”
“GOT IT! Now let’s get going!”
“Oh yes!”
With that, Nanny continued heaving the pram up the staircase.
SHUNT!
SHUNT!
SHUNT!
SHUNT!
SHUNT!
SHUNT!
He could hear the old lady breathing heavily.
“Are you all right, Nanny?” asked Alfred, poking his head out from under the blankets.
“Yes. Just need to take a rest.”
The boy watched as her nose began to wrinkle.
“Are you OK?
”
“It’s these rotten blankets. I think I am going to… ATISHOO!… sneeze!”
She lifted her hands up to her face and let go of the pram…!
“NANNY!” cried the boy as the pram began bouncing down the staircase.
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
The runaway pram was gathering speed.
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
“NOOOOOO!” cried Nanny from way up the staircase.
“YYYEEESSS!” cried Alfred from inside the pram, not sure what else to say.
Nanny began running down the staircase after him, but the pram was going so much faster.
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
Alfred looked up from under the blanket.
Two royal guards on patrol were at the bottom of the stairs. If he didn’t die in a pram crash, they were sure to blast him to pieces with their laser guns.
“HELP!” shouted Nanny.
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
The pram was heading straight for the guards.
NOOOOOO! thought Alfred. He closed his eyes, ready for the worst.
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
DONK! DONK!
Then, STOP! The pram came to a halt. The guards had caught it.
“Ooh, thank you!” cooed Nanny. “Thank you so, so much!”
Alfred opened his eyes. He was alive.
“Now, if you could just carry it back up the stairs for me?”
The prince thought the old lady might be pushing her luck, but to his surprise he felt the pram being lifted and carried up the stairs.
“Ooh, you are strong!” said Nanny admiringly.
Finally, they reached the top of the staircase.
“Thank you kindly!” said Nanny, and the two royal guards made their way back down the stairs.
“You nearly killed me!” hissed Alfred.
“SHUSH!”
Nanny pushed the pram along the corridor towards the prince’s bedroom.
With the key the Lord Protector had given her, she unlocked the door, and wheeled the pram inside. As soon as Alfred heard the door shut behind him, he pulled back the rancid blanket, and clambered out of the pram.
“Right, young man! Any time now!” said Nanny. “Oh, you’re out already! That was naughty! Now straight to bed!”
“I’m lucky to be alive!”
“Yes! I’m sorry about that. Just had an attack of the… ATISHOO!… sneezes!”
The prince wiped a globule of Nanny’s cold, wet snot from his face.
“But thank you for covering for me with the Lord Protector. I know you could get into a lot of trouble.”
“Anything for my little prince,” she said, wobbling his cheek with her hand.
WIBBLE! WOBBLE! WABBLE!
“Now please give me the key,” demanded the boy.
“I beg your pardon?” spluttered Nanny.
“The key the Lord Protector gave you. Then I can get out of my room later tonight, to do some more detective work.”
“You will do no such thing, Your Royal Highness!”
“I command you to give it to me!”
Nanny was having none of it. “And I command you to go to bed! Right now!”
Reluctantly, Alfred got into his four-poster bed. He sniffed himself.
SNIFF! SNIFF!
“PHEW!” he exclaimed. After hiding under those filthy old blankets, he did not smell good. “I’m very whiffy!”
“Then stop sniffing yourself!” ordered Nanny. “And go to sleep!”
With her fingertips she tenderly stroked his hair.
“Goodnight, little one. I love you!”
“I love you too, Nanny.”
“Sleep tight!”
Alfred closed his eyes and listened as she tiptoed out of the room and locked the door behind her.
CLICK!
Sleep? The last thing Alfred wanted to do right now was sleep. His brain was bubbling with a billion thoughts. But he was exhausted. This sickly child had never been out of his bed for this long, and the events of the last few hours had left him feeling spent.
Soon Alfred fell fast asleep,
slipping from one world
of nightmares to another.
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
It was morning, and Alfred was awoken sharply by a knocking on his bedroom door. But it wasn’t someone knocking on the door – it was someone knocking into the door.
Or, rather, not someone but something.
Oh no! The Octobut! The robot butler was charged with waking the prince up every morning. But all it was doing right now was crashing repeatedly into the door.
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
“WAIT, Octobut, WAIT!” It was Nanny’s voice. “WAIT! I haven’t unlocked the door yet! NAUGHTY Octobut!”
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
CLICK!
The old lady opened the bedroom door, precariously balancing the breakfast tray she was carrying in one hand. As soon as the door was fully open, the Octobut trundled SLAP BANG into the doorframe.
DOINK!
Next, it darted into the bookshelf.
SMASH!
The books tumbled to the floor.
THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!
Finally, the Octobut trundled over to the four-poster bed, bumping into a post so hard…
CRUNCH!
…it very nearly made it into a three-poster bed. In doing so, another one of the robot’s arms, the one with the duster attached, broke clean off.
SNAP!
The Octobut now only had four of its eight arms left. A Quadribut.
“Good evening, Empress,” it announced in its posh robotic voice.
Alfred rolled his eyes. Not again!
“It is time to troop the colour… MALFUNCTION! Address the nation… MALFUNCTION! Open a library… MALFUNCTION!”
“I CAN’T CONTROL IT, SIR!” shouted Nanny over the noise. The old lady was so animated her false teeth were CLICKETY-CLACKING like crazy.
“All right, all right, Octobut!” shouted Alfred. “It is all good, thank you! I am awake!”
“Wake up!” said the robot as the fly swatter on the end of one of its arms whacked the boy repeatedly on the forehead.
THWACK!
“Ouch!”
“MALFUNCTION!”
THWOCK!
“Ouuuch!”
“MALFUNCTION!”
THWUCK!
“Ouuuch!”
“MALFUNCTION!”
“That hurts, you mechanical dustbin!” shouted Alfred.
The next whack hit the boy so hard…
THWAAACK!
…that the fly-swatter arm came clean off.
It fell to the floor with a CLANK!
Three arms left. The Octobut, or rather Tribut, was oblivious.
“If that will be all, I must go and water the curtains… MALFUNCTION!… iron the roses… MALFUNCTION!… stir the toilet… MALFUNCTION! MALFUNCTION! MALFUNCTION!”
With that, the Octobut spun around the prince’s bedroom, its remaining arms knocking a table over…
BONK!
…smashing an antique vase to pieces…
CRASH
…and hurling a statue to the floor…
WALLOP!
“Make it stop!” shouted Alfred.
The no-nonsense nanny threw the plate of food she was still carrying down on the bed, then bashed the robot butler with her antique silver tray.
CLUNK! CLUNK!
CLUNK!
Then she bashed it some more.
CLUNK! CLUNK!
CLUNK!
And some more.
CLUNK! CLUNK!
CLUNK!
“Shoo, you talking toilet!” she shouted.
“Congratulations on your coronation!” were its last words as the old girl shoved the robot out of the bedroom, and slammed the door shut.
THUD!
“Thank goodness for that!” said Alfred.
“I wish that thing had an off button!”
“Any news of my mother?” he asked eagerly.
“None,” said Nanny, bowing her head. “I am sorry, my little prince. None at all. All I know is that the Queen is being kept prisoner in the Tower of London.”
Alfred sat up in bed sharply. “Then I need to rescue her.”
Nanny scoffed at the boy’s suggestion. “I am afraid that’s impossible!”
“Why? Nothing is impossible.”
“This is. Outside of Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London is the most heavily guarded building in Britain. It needs to be. It is home to this country’s very worst criminals. Revolutionaries. The worst of the worst. The most dangerous folk. Folk who want to see you dead.”
A look of panic flashed across the prince’s face.
“I pray they don’t hurt Mama!” He held on to the old lady’s arm. “Oh, Nanny. You must help me. Please! I beg you. Mother is going to come to a grisly end in the Tower unless we do something. And fast.”
“There, there!” said Nanny, pulling the young prince to her chest. “Your mother would hate to see you like this, wouldn’t she?”
Alfred nodded.
“She wouldn’t want you to be sad, now, would she?”
The boy shook his head.
“So come on, eat your breakfast.”
Without saying a word, the prince inspected the yellow and orange lump on the chipped china plate. It was, of course…
“Eggy-wegg!” exclaimed Nanny.
“Yes. I can see,” replied Alfred, trying not to sound too disappointed.
“My special recipe!” boasted the old lady. “Eat up!”
Alfred couldn’t face Nanny’s eggy-wegg. Not this morning.
“I’ll have it in a moment, thank you!”
“No, no,” she implored. “Eat it all up now. Every last bit. You are not well, my little prince. You need to get your strength up.”