“What on earth are you doing here?” asked Ben. “Er… I mean, what on earth are you doing here, Your Majesty?”
“I like to come here when I can’t sleep,” replied the Queen. She spoke in that instantly familiar posh voice of hers. Ben and Granny were surprised to see she was wearing a nightgown and little furry Corgi slippers. She was also wearing the coronation crown on her head. It was the most magnificent of all the Crown Jewels. The Archbishop of Canterbury placed it on her head when she was crowned Queen in 1953. The crown, which dates back to 1661, is made of gold, encrusted with diamonds, rubies, pearls, emeralds and sapphires.
It was an impressive look, even for the Queen!
“I come here to think,” the Queen went on. “I got my chauffeur to bring me over from Buckingham Palace in the Bentley. I have my Christmas address to the nation in a few weeks, and I need to think carefully about what I want to say. One always finds it easier to think with one’s crown on. The question is, what on earth are you two doing here?”
Ben and Granny looked at each other, ashamed.
Being told off was bad enough at the best of times, but being told off by the Queen was on a whole other level of being-told-offness, as this simple graph demonstrates:
“And why do the pair of you smell like poo-poo? Well?” pushed Her Majesty. “I am waiting.”
“I am solely to blame, Your Majesty,” said Granny, bowing her head.
“No, she’s not,” said Ben. “It was me who said we should steal the Crown Jewels. I talked her into it.”
“That’s true,” said Granny, “but it’s not what I meant. I started this whole thing, when I pretended to be an international jewel thief.”
“What?” exclaimed Ben.
“Pardon?” said the Queen. “One is terribly confused.”
“My grandson hated staying with me on Friday nights,” said Granny. “I heard him one night, calling his parents and complaining about how boring I was—”
“But Granny, I don’t think that any more!” protested Ben.
“It’s all right, Ben, I know things have changed since then. And in truth I was boring. I just liked to eat cabbage and play Scrabble, and I knew deep down that you hated those things. So I made up stories from the books I read to entertain you. I told you I was an infamous jewel thief called ‘The Black Cat’…”
“But what about those diamonds you showed me?” said Ben, feeling shocked and angry that he’d been deceived.
“All worthless, dear,” replied Granny. “Made of glass. I found them in an old ice-cream tub at the local charity shop.”
Ben stared at her. He couldn’t believe it. The whole thing, the whole incredible story, was made up.
“I can’t believe you lied to me!” he said.
“I— I mean…” said Granny, falteringly.
Ben turned to glare at her. “You’re not my gangsta granny after all,” he said.
Then there was a deafening silence in Jewel House.
Followed by a rather loud and rather posh cough. “Ahem,” said an imperious voice.