I was still thinking about ways to get Oliver and Sarah together when I returned to the Corgi Room after dinner that night. I knew that it was the right thing to do, but how? It wasn’t easy when I couldn’t just talk to them and make them understand.
No, this was going to take some work. Some thinking, and some planning.
I wished I had Claire and Amy’s DVD collection to help me, but as it was, I’d have to rely on my memory. I didn’t think I’d even seen a TV in any of the rooms I’d explored in the Palace. They had to be there somewhere though, right?
In fact, I was so distracted by my thoughts, that I didn’t notice that Vulcan and the others had stopped just inside the door. I stepped in and, in a flash, Vulcan was on me, snapping his jaws near my side – not close enough to hurt, but enough to give me a scare.
‘Hey!’ I jumped back. ‘What’s that for!’
Vulcan circled around me, teeth still bared. The Dorgi sat so close to the ground he was a good few inches shorter than me, and his stumpy legs made it hard for him to look threatening. But he was definitely trying.
‘Okay. Why don’t we calm down and talk about this,’ I said, taking small steps to stay out of Vulcan’s range. I was a lover, not a fighter. Well, I wasn’t much of either, but I was pretty sure there was no way to look good after a fight with a stumpy Dorgi who’d hardly ever even left the Palace.
‘Yes, let’s,’ Vulcan snarled. ‘Let’s talk about how you’re bringing our reputation as Royal Pets into disrepute. About how you’re an embarrassment to your breed.’
‘An embarrassment? Me? How?’ Now I was totally baffled. I’d been doing everything just the way Willow had told me – making sure I was there for meals on time, exploring the Palace like I had every right to be there, and taking walks in the grounds. What was I doing wrong?
‘Fraternising with servants.’ Vulcan spat the last word like it was one of those Amy never let Jim use when the children could hear. ‘We saw you, walking in the garden with the housemaid. And talking with that senior footman. It has to stop.’
‘This is about Sarah? And Oliver?’ I shook my head, still confused. ‘What on earth is wrong with spending time with the humans?’ They’d been a lot nicer than the dogs had to me, for a start.
‘They’re not just any humans though, are they,’ Willow put in. She was sitting off to one side, watching my encounter with Vulcan with obvious interest. And I was in no doubt as to whose side she was on.
I looked around for Candy. She sat huddled a little further back, near her basket, also watching. But her expression was far more conflicted than Willow’s.
‘Sarah’s lovely,’ I said, stubbornly. ‘She’s kind and friendly, she takes me out for walks, and she even feeds us most of the time! Why on earth wouldn’t I want to be friends with her?’
‘Because she’s not one of us,’ Willow said, calmly.
‘What? A dog?’ This was all very confusing.
‘She’s a servant,’ Vulcan snarled. ‘We are Royal Pets. Part of the Royal Family. We rule this Palace.’
‘Exactly,’ Willow agreed. ‘We are important. Everyone else – everyone outside the family – they’re our inferiors. Here to serve us – not to be our friends.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I admitted.
‘Of course you don’t.’ Willow gave a small shrug. ‘Because you don’t belong here.’
So we were back to that. ‘Maybe I don’t. But at least I’ve got to know some of the people who keep this place running. At least I don’t just expect them to open doors for me and feed me and walk me and clean up after me, without giving anything back at all.’
‘But that’s the point,’ Candy said, her voice softer than the others. ‘That’s what they’re here to do. They’re not our owners – the Queen is. Nobody else matters to us, except Her.’
‘Well, I’ve never even met the Queen. And the moment I do, she’ll probably be kicking me out. So I think I’ll make my friends wherever I can find them.’ I turned my back on them, preparing to head back out. I’d had enough of this nonsense.
‘Maybe we should try and get rid of you sooner then.’ Vulcan lunged forward again, his jaws wide open and his teeth flashing as he launched himself at my side.
I hit out with my paw, trying to protect myself, but Vulcan was determined. Every time I managed to dodge his mouth, or his claws, he’d just regroup and attack again. I didn’t want to hurt Vulcan – and even if I did, I knew that if I injured another dog that would probably be the end of my stay at Buckingham Palace.
On the other hand, I really didn’t want to get mauled either.
‘Wait!’ I half expected that to be my voice, but it wasn’t.
It was Candy.
‘Vulcan, don’t.’ She darted forward and put her trembling body between me and the other Dorgi. ‘Don’t hurt Henry. He didn’t know he was doing anything wrong.’
‘I still don’t,’ I grumbled, and Willow looked at me with amusement. Apparently this whole situation was very funny indeed to her.
Candy shot me a ‘shut up!’ glare, and I did as I was told. For once.
‘Look, Henry won’t be here long, right? And as soon as people realise the mistake, they’ll know he wasn’t one of us anyway. So what difference does it make who he’s friends with?’ Candy sounded persuasive, but Vulcan didn’t look like he was buying it.
‘It matters,’ he said, stubbornly. ‘What if the other humans get ideas? That senior footman of his always takes his morning break at that time. I always see him, coming back in just when we’re going out to enjoy the gardens. Yesterday, he even said “hello” to us! What if he starts trying to stroke one of us? Or, worse of all, thinking of us as his pets?’
‘You are pets!’ I said, a little too loud.
‘But not their pets,’ Willow said, agreeing with Vulcan. Of course. ‘They don’t own us, you see. And they can’t start getting ideas that they have any authority over us.’
This was an alien idea to me. As much as I was part of the Walker family, I knew that Jim and Amy were in charge of me – much the same way as they were in charge of Jack and Claire. The thought of the dogs having the power over the humans in the Palace – except for the Queen, of course – was just weird.
‘I think the thing is,’ Candy started, and everyone turned to look at her, ‘Henry is just a friendly dog. He makes friends with everyone. He can’t help it.’
‘Why are you defending him?’ Vulcan asked, suspiciously.
‘Because …’ Candy sighed. ‘Because he was friendly to me, even though I’d given him no good reason to be.’
I looked down at the ground, a little embarrassed. ‘You needed a friend. What else was I supposed to do?’
‘Ignore me. Leave me alone. Pretend I hadn’t woken you up with my bad dream.’ Both Willow and Vulcan looked slightly guilty at Candy’s words. I’d assumed they’d just slept through Candy’s nightmare, but now I wasn’t so sure.
‘Yeah, I couldn’t do that,’ I admitted. ‘It’s just not in my nature.’
‘And that’s what I mean,’ Candy said. ‘See? He’s just a friendly dog.’
Vulcan huffed disapprovingly. ‘Fine. But as far as I’m concerned, the sooner She gets home and kicks you out onto the street, the better.’
‘Understood,’ I replied. At least I knew not all the Palace Dogs felt that way.
Willow didn’t say anything, but she did look at me curiously. I wondered what she made of all this.
But most of all, I wondered what their owner, Her Majesty, would say when She found out everything that had been going on in Her absence.
Later that night, once we were all tucked up in our baskets, I heard Candy jump down and pad across the Corgi Room towards me.
‘You can come up, if you like,’ I murmured, when she paused beside my basket. ‘Unless you’re worried about what your friends will say.’
With a long sigh, Candy hopped up and joined me.
‘They just don’t know what to make of you,’ she said, as she settled down, curling around my body as easily as if we did this every night.
‘I’m a dog, the same as them,’ I pointed out. ‘There’s really not all that much to be confused by.’
Candy gave a muffled laugh. ‘Are you kidding? You’re from a whole different world.’
Was I? I suppose I was. My life with the Walkers was nothing like their life in the Palace. Although, I had a feeling that if they ever met Amy and the others, they’d see that our relationships with our owners weren’t as dissimilar as they thought.
‘Has it always been just the three of you?’ I asked. Maybe if I understood them better, I could help them understand me.
‘No.’ Candy’s voice was small and sad. ‘There used to be lots of us. When I was first born …’
‘Wait, you were born here at the Palace?’
‘Of course!’ Candy looked surprised I’d even asked. ‘Where else would I have been born?’
‘I don’t know. I just …’ I couldn’t remember the place I’d been born, where I’d lived before the Walkers brought me home. But it must have been somewhere. I knew, from hearing Amy and Jim talking, that I’d had a mother, and siblings.
I just couldn’t remember them being family to me the way that the Walkers had, ever since.
‘The Queen … she breeds us, you see. Or rather, she always used to. We come from a long line of Royal Dogs, you know. Can trace our ancestors back generations and generations.’ Candy gave a small smile. ‘Which is why we think they’re so important, I suppose.’
‘Family are important,’ I agreed. ‘I just don’t think it really matters if that family is human, canine, or any other sort of family.’ I thought about Sookie. How was she coping without me there? Even when we fought, or when she was cruel, she was still family. We were still the only two animals the Walkers had to look after them.
Could Sookie really do that, all on her own? Especially now, when things were so strange at home?
I hoped so.
Remembering something Willow had said on my first day at the Palace, I frowned. ‘Willow said that the Queen wasn’t getting any more pets. That Monty was an oddity.’
‘Yes?’
‘But there used to be more of you. If you were bred here, I mean, there must have been other dogs. Older dogs, or brothers and sisters?’
Candy’s smile didn’t reach her chocolate brown eyes. ‘Time was, there used to be lots of us. Someone once described us as a moving carpet, there were so many dogs, running along in front of Her. But now it’s just the three of us. The others all passed on, one by one.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Losing a friend – a family member – that must be incredibly hard. It wasn’t just like Jim not coming home. This was never seeing someone you loved, ever again.
I could hardly imagine it. Or, I couldn’t have, before I came to the Palace.
Even now, I knew that, if I never made it home, the Walkers would go on without me. And while that was true, there was always the hope that we’d meet again, somehow.
Candy didn’t have that hope.
‘Holly was the last,’ Candy said, softly. ‘She was a corgi, like Willow – and you. She and Vulcan, they were very close. I think he misses her most of all. I don’t think he’s been truly happy again, since she passed.’
I felt an unexpected surge of sympathy for Vulcan – something I didn’t think I’d ever experience. No wonder he’d hated me so much on sight – another corgi coming in, taking the place of his best friend. He probably wouldn’t like Monty all that much more, either.
It didn’t change how Vulcan had treated me. But at least it helped me understand him a little better.
Candy yawned again, her jaw cracking with the effort.
‘You should get some sleep,’ I said.
Candy nodded. ‘Night, Henry.’
I waited for her to jump down and go back to her own basket, but instead she snuggled up beside me and closed her eyes.
After a moment, I did the same.
Looked like I’d made one doggy friend at the Palace, after all.