QUEEN'S CHAMBER, BUCKINGHAM PALACE, LONDON
T he Queen of England—yes, that Queen, whatever her name is in this mad book—awoke in the middle of the night, furious and maddened, and slightly scared. She suspected an intruder had been into her chamber in Buckingham Palace.
Of course, the Queen's chambers were immaculately secure, particularly after a thirty-one-year-old psychiatric patient had scaled a drainpipe and sauntered into her chambers a few years ago.
Tonight, laced in her expensive nightgown, she regretted sleeping alone without guards in her chamber. A few guards would have caught the intruder right away.
The Queen had previously caught her guards and footmen stealing from her at her son's wedding. And what in Britain's name did they steal?
The guards dared to steal the Queen's exotic nuts, exclusively imported from Brazil. She ordered all her precious nuts removed to her private chambers and prevented any of the guards from coming inside.
The Queen's nuts drove everyone nuts.
The Queen was known to love two things dearly: Her five o'clock tea parties, which had once been exclusively hosted by the one and only Mad Hatter—but that was a long story she didn't want to remember now. And, of course, her nuts and munchies.
Right now, the Queen tiptoed as cunningly and slowly as a cat, her back slightly hunched, and proceeded to the corridor outside her enchanting bed—her bed was too high; she needed a small stepladder to embark it. Sometimes, she secretly jumped right off it when no one was around. Being a queen, with all of this etiquette she had to fake, certainly bored her sometimes.
The Queen tiptoed on her way to check her endless bowls of exotic nuts in the corridor. She had them set at five-meter intervals, adjacent to the corridor's wall. They were placed on waist-high tables so she could reach them effortlessly. She considered it ridiculous walking back a few meters when the appetite for a nut hit her. A five-meter span between each bowl of nuts was just convenient. Also, laziness sounded like a brilliant hobby.
If queens didn't indulge in laziness, who would? she'd always asked herself.
She stopped in front of a bowl of nuts and dipped a hand inside. Even with her eyes closed, she could almost tell if a few nuts were missing from each bowl.
The Queen gasped. This bowl seemed to be missing a few.
Who's been nibbling on my nuts?
The Queen's face tightened, and her cheeks began to redden.
"All right," she hissed. "I have to make sure before I punish anyone."
She continued walking ahead, targeting a few other bowls at the end of the corridor.
As she walked, one of her dogs came padding and panting toward her. It was a Welsh corgi. She had five of them. Meals were served for each dog in their own bowl, with Britain's flag drawn on the outer shell. The meals were usually readied here in the corridor, with a few precious nuts on the side. The dogs' diet had been meticulously approved by veterinary experts from all over the world. It cost twice the income of a middle-class citizen who had two children to feed on average. But those weren't just any dogs. They were the Queen's dogs—and, in many ways, Wonderland Dogs.
Sure, the dogs never attended the meetings at Parliament, nor did they have a word in the country's economy. But they were important by law. Again, being the Queen's dogs was no joke.
However, nuts weren't allowed in the dogs' diet. But the Queen, being the Queen , broke the law and allowed them a few nuts as a gesture of love and pampering. Anything to make the Queen's corgis happy.
If the Queen didn't break the rules and get away with it, who would? she had reminded herself.
"Sweet doggie." The Queen knelt against the pain in her knees to play with the dog. This one she called Bulldog—he looked weirdly like a bulldog and was excitedly funny. Her favorite dog, Maddog, wasn't here. Probably still recovering from constant constipation, which had been the reason why she couldn't attend the match at Stamford Bridge. "Are you hungry?" She ruffled Bulldog's ears.
Bulldog panted and gave her a sweet look.
"You haven't by any chance been nibbling at my nuts, have you?" she asked the dog.
Bulldog's smile widened.
"You terrible, bad boy." She squeezed his ears. "I told you only to eat those I personally serve you in your bowl." The dog lowered its chin to the floor and sniffed.
"But wait a minute." She rubbed her chin. "You couldn't have eaten any nuts from those bowls." She pointed at the set of bowls by the end of the corridor. They were higher than the rest. To reach them, the dog had to roll the bowl over. "Let's check those. I have marked them."
She walked ahead with Bulldog and grabbed herself a small stepper, specially designed for her to stand up whenever she wished to reach something that was supposed to be out of reach. The Queen was slightly shorter than most queens.
She stood upon it and stretched her hands, pulling the bowl down. This time, she didn't need to dip her hand inside. She had these bowls previously marked with a yellow marker from inside, so she'd know when the level of nuts dipped below the mark. This was her perfectly planned trap for her nasty guards and footmen who were tall enough to get the nuts—if they had sneaked into the chamber.
"Hmm..." The Queen's face reddened again. "So there was an intruder in the chamber a few minutes ago," she said to Bulldog, who nodded obediently. "Did you see the intruder?"
The dog shook its head with bulging Scooby-Doo eyes.
"Bloody traitors!" The Queen jumped off her stepladder and plowed the bowl against a precious painting of Lewis Carroll that hung on the wall. The painting was called Alice's Adventures Under Ground , the original cover of one of the very few original copies that bore this name before changing it into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The painting, an older property of Queen Victoria, was signed by John Tenniel, Lewis' illustrator himself.
In the middle of the corridor, the angry Queen stood with clenched hands and stiffened feet, about to burst into tears like a child. Her shoulders were hunched but stiffened. Her hair thin and uncombed. Bulldog beside her had his tail clutched between his legs. The Queen's wrath wasn't to be underestimated.
"Something isn't right." She gasped again. "This can't be. The guards couldn't have entered and nibbled on my nuts." It briefly occurred to her that she sounded like the evil witch from Hansel and Gretel. "Who's nibbling on my nuts, muahaha! " But she flashed the thought away. "I am sure the chamber is locked. Only I own the remote control to lock it."
Bulldog nodded with approval, as long as it would calm her down. Dogs, in general, knew their owners were a bunch of cuckoos in the head. They had to pamper them and make humans feel good about themselves in exchange for charitable food and shelter. Nothing wrong with fooling a human to get what you want.
"So who's been nibbling on my nuts!" she screamed again from the top of her lungs, her voice echoing in the chamber. "Nuts. Nuts. Nuts! "
She tiptoed, clenched her hands again, and the thin veins on her neck protruded outward. For another brief moment she felt like the Queen of Hearts in Lewis Carroll's book; that scene when she was upset about who stole her tarts. But then again, this wasn't the time for thinking about Wonderland. Her nuts mattered the most.
The anger showing on her face was gradually intensifying. It looked like she could explode like a full-blown balloon.
The Queen's dog had no means to tuck his head inside his body as turtles did, or he would not have hesitated to do it now. The hair on his skin prickled like needles and pins.
Suddenly, the Queen's mobile phone rang.
Now she got really furious. Who dared to call her that late?
Maybe a citizen in need, Your Majesty , her inner voice told her. But she was sure that only a few selected people had her number.
Trotting back to her room, anger spitting out of her ears, she wondered if anyone knew about her secret Facebook profile, but there was no way she'd really give it a thought now.
She picked up the phone and read the caller's name.
Now, this is alarming.
She calmed down a little, as this was an unusually worrying call.
She clicked the answer button. "You know what time it is?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," Margaret Kent, the Duchess, and revered Parliament member, said from another side. "But it's important."
"It better be." The Queen sighed impatiently.
"I know this will sound inappropriate if I ask, but..." Margaret hesitated.
"I hate the word 'but,'" the Queen said.
"Are you missing any of your precious nuts, My Majesty?"
The Queen was silent, and her knees felt wobbly all of a sudden.
"I see," Margaret responded to the Queen's utter silence. "So someone's been stealing from your nuts again. And it's not the guards, I assume."
The Queen nodded. Now, fear wrapped itself around her skin like a pale ghost. Bulldog was really starting to worry. Suddenly, it seemed apparent who took her nuts. The same man who broke in many years ago. It couldn't be. After all these years?
"Is it him ? Is he back?" she asked, watching her dog's ears perk up. Of course, Bulldog must have been confused. What was so utterly scary about a thief stealing nuts from the Queen?
"I am afraid he is." Margaret sighed. "And it doesn't look good. He stole the nuts to remind you he's back. It's a message. A threatening message. We have to get rid of him. We can't handle him, not this time."
"You promised me last week's killings would be the last of Wonderland's nonsense," the Queen retorted. "I can't allow this in my country."
"I know. Don't worry. We'll contain the matter."
"Then do something about it!" The Queen's hands shivered. "Kill him. Do anything. Make sure I never see the Muffin Man again!"