Amelia slept in the next morning and missed the mailman.
“Was there anything for me?” she said sleepily as she plunked down at the kitchen table.
Diane turned off the blender. Mango was perched on one of her shoulders, Beaker on the other. She had a towel pinned around her neck to catch their messes. “Yes, there is. A letter from England. It says it’s from—”
“ENGLAND! Are you kidding me?”
“No, I’m not kidding. And I’ve been dying for you to wake up so you could tell me—”
“WHERE IS IT?”
“On the table by the front door.”
Amelia raced into the front hall and grabbed the pale-blue envelope. There was her name in beautiful handwriting, and a row of English stamps. And, in the top left corner, the words Buckingham Palace, London, United Kingdom.
Buckingham Palace!
She tore open the envelope. The paper was a matching pale blue with a fancy gold letterhead: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Her heart pounding, Amelia read the letter.
Dear Amelia,
I receive a great deal of mail, but my staff brought your letter to me right away because they thought I would find it amusing.
I did not find your letter at all amusing! My heart goes out to Beaker and Winston and all the other animals you are trying to save.
I know you will be very disappointed, but I’m afraid a donation from me is not the answer to your problems. I admire your efforts in writing to all those celebrities, but I wonder if you are on the right track. Look around you, Amelia. The solution may be closer than you think.
Good luck in your endeavours.
Sincerely,
HM Queen Elizabeth II
Amelia’s hopes crashed around her. Queen Elizabeth wasn’t sending money. Not any! And what did she mean, the solution may be closer than you think?
She couldn’t mean the pickle jar. There was only sixty-five dollars in it after Duke had taken out fifteen dollars for a bottle of Robitusson for Zak. Maybe another twenty bucks coming from Jordan, who was enthusiastically using his second set of cat coupons now, and another five bucks if Mick ever paid up (I knew you couldn’t trust him, Liam had said when Amelia told him she had been back to the house twice, and Mick and the Mustang were never there). She’d been hunting, but she couldn’t find one single coupon for paint or nails or anything that Rachel might use. And who knew if she was ever going to see Strawberry again?
Amelia had forced Duke to tell her how much the stronger drug for Winston was going to cost. Eight hundred bucks!! At this rate, she would have to find thousands of coupons!
She read the letter again, fighting back her disappointment. Queen Elizabeth’s advice didn’t make sense, and Amelia could tell she wasn’t going to change her mind.
But still.
A real letter from Queen Elizabeth. Sent to her, Amelia.
“That’s not really from Buckingham Palace, is it?” Diane called out.
“I’ll tell you everything, Mom. But first I gotta call Roshni and Liam.”
“Let me see this,” Liam said.
Roshni and Liam had rushed over, and they were all in Amelia’s room. The first thing Roshni had done was accuse Amelia of keeping secrets again. Sorry, Amelia had said, but she was too excited to really care.
She produced the blue envelope now, with the letter tucked safely inside.
Liam examined the front of the envelope and then flipped it over. Then he took the letter out and read it aloud.
“This is so amazing,” Roshni said. “She actually wrote to you. Omigod, I am so jealous.”
Liam snorted. “Of what? This? You don’t think this is real, do you?”
“It’s real,” Amelia said. “Look at the stamps. Those are real English stamps.”
“And she signed it,” Roshni said. “HM Queen Elizabeth. Whatever HM means.”
“Her Majesty,” Amelia and Liam said together.
“See?” Roshni said. “That proves it. Right, Amelia? And it’s handwritten. If it was a fake, someone would have done it on a computer.”
“What kind of logic is that? And it doesn’t prove anything.” Liam’s voice rose an octave. “You girls are so gullible. Anybody could have written this letter.”
“What about the English stamps?” Amelia persisted.
“Okay,” Liam said. “I agree it came from England. There is a microscopic possibility it came from someone in Buckingham Palace. Maybe…her maid or her footman or someone. But there’s no way Queen Elizabeth wrote this.”
“Why not?” Roshni said.
“Because Queen Elizabeth doesn’t write to kids she doesn’t even know, that’s why not! She’s, like, BUSY!”
“But she could,” Amelia said. “You have to admit she could.”
“No way. It would just be too weird.”
“Queen Elizabeth does weird things,” Roshni said. “Look what she did at the Olympics. She parachuted into the stadium.”
“That wasn’t Queen Elizabeth!” Liam was practically shouting now.
“Okay,” Amelia said. “You don’t have to believe it, but I do.”
“I know,” Roshni said. “We can take it to the police station and ask them to dust it for fingerprints.”
“What? Like Queen Elizabeth is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list? Roshni, do you know how anything works?”
Amelia was tired of arguing. “I’ll make you a bet, Liam. Your old iPod if I can prove this is real.”
“And what will I get?” Liam said. “When I win?”
Amelia thought. “My entire set of Harry Potter books.”
Liam’s parents didn’t approve of witchcraft, and Liam had been forced to read Harry Potter at the library.
“Deal,” he said.