The Queen, seated on a chair at the front of the library, was treated to an unpolished but unique musical performance of Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’. Tommy fluttered the notes on the recorder with his nose. The three rats tippy-toed up and down on the timpani drums. Olive played the trombone with enormous restraint and at a safe distance from others. And Fumble, bless his warm and fuzzy heart, waltzed around the library, bells dangling from his antlers, singing, ‘I have rhythm in my hooves! I have melody in my antlers! I have music in my soul!’ So light were his steps, so melodic his bells, that one could not help but be swept up in the joy. The Queen smiled, nodded and began to tap her toes.
Thus encouraged, Mrs Groves conducted with ever-increasing vigour and the music built to a crescendo. Bozo and Boffo cavorted around the library, clanging heads between cymbals. Sparky Burns set fire to Elizabeth-Jane’s double bass while she was still playing. Scruffy and Shaggy threw back their heads and howled. Thistlebloom hid in the cupboard and wailed. Num-Num gobbled up three tambourines and Mr Pennyfetherill’s top hat. And Mrs Groves’ baton flew from her hand and hit the Inspector of Schools in the eye.
Bullet Barnes, sensing that the time was right for a dramatic conclusion, lit his cannon and shouted, ‘Three! Two! One!’
‘Spring’ reached its verdant conclusion.
The musicians bowed.
Num-Num hiccupped.
The Queen clapped.
BLOOP!
An enormous bubble squeezed its way out of Bullet’s cannon and floated across the library.
BLOOP! BLOOP! BLOOP!
Giant bubbles filled the air.
‘Beautiful!’ sighed Olive.
‘Magical!’ sang Wordsworth.
‘Dreamy!’ cooed Anastasia.
‘Help!’ cried the Inspector, for the largest of bubbles had landed on his head and swallowed him whole. He floated up into the air, across the library, past the Queen and out the window.
‘Help! Help!’ he bellowed as he drifted up, up, up into the sky and over the treetops. ‘Somebody get me down!’
‘I’ll do it!’ hooted Valerie the owl. She flapped her wings, flew out the window, soared into the air and burst the Inspector’s bubble. Literally and figuratively.
POP!
The Inspector plummeted back to earth, where he landed in the middle of the fish pond.
He was not amused. In fact, he said a number of cruel and nasty words, which caused even Cracker the parrot to blush.
Personally, I think he should have been delighted that fortune (and Valerie) had given him a safe landing. But, as Wordsworth explained over the pages of his Little Blue Book of Wise and Witty Sayings, the Inspector was a glass-half-empty rather than a glass-half-full kind of fellow. He did not know which side his bread was buttered on.
‘Oh dear!’ cried Mrs Groves. ‘Oh, goodness gracious me!’ She whipped off her bonnet and used it to fan her face. ‘I do believe that our orchestral performance is at an end, Your Majesty. Rather a surprising conclusion, but one does not wish to be bored to tears by such things and we certainly did end with a bang . . . or rather a pop . . . and then a splash . . .’
‘One was definitely not bored,’ declared the Queen. She looked around the library at the unruly mob of students and the smouldering remains of the double bass. ‘It is rather refreshing to see an institution where the students are encouraged to express themselves . . . even when those selves are extremely unusual. You have no idea how dull it is to visit one school after another, greeting row after row of students who have been turned into unthinking little robots. But your students, Mrs Groves . . .’ Her Majesty struggled for words. She patted her hair and raised her eyebrows. ‘Surprising, yet refreshing!’
Mrs Groves curtseyed and blushed with pleasure. She grabbed the Queen’s hand and drew her towards the door. ‘Now, Your Majesty, let’s go for a quiet little stroll. Just you and me, alone together. I can show you every nook and cranny of my esteemed boarding school and tell you all about my naughty boys, talking animals and circus performers.’
Olive nudged Eduardo in the side. ‘Look at that! Things are going rather well . . . as long as you ignore the manner in which the Mayor and his wife are gaping at us . . . and the nasty words that the Inspector is shouting from the fish pond . . . and the fact that a horde of hungry Venus flytraps has just chased the royal corgis down the corridor . . .’
‘The Queen does seem to be enjoying herself,’ Eduardo agreed.
Our heroine smiled. ‘I do think we’re on the home stretch. We have nothing to fear.’
‘Eek!’ squeaked Wordsworth, scuttling up onto her shoulder. ‘Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.’
For at that very moment, Pig McKenzie arrived, dressed in a suit of lime-green sequins. Glittering garishly, he pirouetted into the room, squeezing in between the Queen and Mrs Groves.
‘Greetings and salutations, Your Magnificent Marvellous Majesty!’ He tucked his silver cane beneath his arm, doffed his top hat and bowed. Deeply. In a manner most vulgar, his lime-sequined bottom pointing right at Olive.
‘I really should be dashing down to the soup kitchen to feed the smelly tramps some of my nourishing banana and turnip broth,’ the pig snorted, ‘but first I shall join you on the guided tour of Groves. I have many a charming anecdote to share about my fellow students, and one or two about our school captain that will curl your toenails and crumple your crown.’
The pig smirked back over his shoulder at Olive. Clutching the Queen’s elbow with one fat trotter, and Mrs Groves’ with the other, he embarked on one of his long and ridiculous tales as he led them down the corridor. ‘Allow me, Dear Lofty Highness, to tell you an amusing yet valiant story about the time I lost my tail! I was working in the jungles of deepest darkest Africa, building shelters for homeless bilbies, when a piranha leapt out of the Mississippi River . . .’