Now that I wasn’t feeling so nervous, I realized I was hungry. I had been so busy packing a present for the Queen, I had forgotten about the emergency bag of candy I had meant to bring.
“Do you think the Queen would mind if we had one of her cookies?” I asked Tom.
He shook his head eagerly. “She must have lots in her kitchen. Especially if she has tea every day!”
He ripped open the packet and passed me one of the thick crumbly cookies that lay inside. It was the most delicious cookie I had ever had—probably because I knew it was meant to be eaten by the Queen.
We each had another one on the train, and after just a few minutes, the train lady announced, “The next station is Green Park. Please alight here for the Jubilee and Victoria lines.”
I like the train lady. She has a nice voice. I imagine she looks like Mary Poppins and sits at the very front of the train next to the driver in her own special chair. It must be fun going through all the stations and telling people which ones are coming next.
We hurried off and followed the signs to the taxis. Running up the stairs, we found a long line of black cabs waiting in a row. Inside the one at the front was a man with curly red hair. He was eating a sandwich and bobbing his head along to the radio station.
When he saw us looking at him through the window, he rolled it down and leaned out.
“What can I do for you two?”
“Please, we need to get to Buk-King-Ham Pa-lace,” I said, just as loudly and clearly as I could—because I remembered Uncle Lenny saying that there was nothing taxi drivers hated more than people who didn’t say where they wanted to go clearly enough.
The Taxi Man leaned out his window and looked around.
“Why are you on your own?” he asked, frowning.
“Um…we’re meeting our teacher there. We’re on a trip and we got separated from our class and our teacher said that if anyone got lost we had to meet the class there,” said Tom, all in a rush.
The Taxi Man frowned again and rubbed his chin.
“All right,” he said eventually. “Hop in! And be quick about it! I ain’t here to be chauffeuring lost kids around all day! You’re lucky it’s only a few minutes away and I’ve got tykes of me own!”
We jumped in quickly. The Taxi Man locked the doors and, in a single move, swerved off. As he drove out onto the main road, he looked at us in the funny rectangular mirror that cars always have right at the front. Uncle Lenny says they’re there so that drivers can check the traffic behind them. But I think they’re there so that drivers can look at people sitting in the backseat when they think no one is looking at them.
“What will you be doing at Buckingham Palace today, then?” he asked.
“We’re going to meet the Queen,” said Tom before I could stop him.
“Is that right, now?” asked the Taxi Man, looking at us again in the mirror. His eyes were smiling.
Tom clapped his hands over his mouth and didn’t say anything else. But the Taxi Man just laughed and said, “Well, when you see her, say hi for me.”
I nodded, and the Taxi Man laughed again.
After a few minutes, the taxi came to a stop in traffic.
The Taxi Man looked at his watch. “Ah…they’ll be doing the Changing of the Guard soon. You’ll have to walk from here, I’m afraid.” He turned around to look at us and pointed to his right. “See those arches there? Just walk under them and keep going straight down this big red road, okay? The palace is right at the end, past the fountain.”
Tom nodded and took out the exact money it said on the meter.
The Taxi Man shook his head. “Don’t worry. This one’s on me! Just tell your teacher to be more careful next time.”
“Thanks,” said Tom as we jumped out. “You’re the best taxi driver ever!”
The Taxi Man drove off, laughing.
“I like London taxi drivers!” said Tom, taking out another two of the Queen’s cookies and stuffing them into his mouth. “They’re beh-er than eh New York ones!”
“So do I,” I said, watching as the taxi disappeared out of sight.
“There are so many police,” whispered Tom as we walked down the big, bright red road. Everywhere we looked, there were lots of orange cones and cars flashing their blue lights and police in yellow jackets sitting on horses.
“I know,” I whispered back. We didn’t really need to whisper, but seeing so many police cars and officers was making us both nervous, especially as we weren’t with a grown-up. “Come on,” I said, pulling Tom behind me. “Let’s go!”
We walked just as fast as we could. But the red road was long and it felt as if we had been walking for miles before we finally saw the fountain the Taxi Man had told us about. “Look!” said Tom, pointing up at the giant black gates of the palace. The spiked points looked like they had been dipped in gold and there were hundreds of people everywhere. It looked like this:
“There must be something happening,” I said, looking around. “I don’t remember it being this busy when I came with Mum.”
The road ahead of us was filled with hundreds of people, lots of them with cameras around their necks. Some were talking and waving to the policemen, others were climbing the giant fountain and sitting on its short walls, and yet more were leaning against the gray barriers that had been placed all along the sides of the sidewalk. There were people with large cameras resting on their shoulders, looking like they were getting ready to film something, and huge helicopters that looked like giant dragonflies hummed in the sky above and made the air shake.
“Maybe someone special’s coming to visit?” suggested Tom.
“Let’s go over there and find out,” I said, pointing to the two biggest gates that lay in front of the palace. Each gate had a golden crest that was almost as big as me stuck on it and showed two lions dancing in front of some large spiky leaves. Two police officers, dressed all in black and with large stars in the middle of their helmets, were sitting on horses in front of the gates, silently observing the crowds.
“Are those the Queen’s police?” asked Tom, pointing to them. “Shall we go and ask them if we can see her?”
I shook my head. “The Queen’s Extra-Special Police are the ones in the red jackets and giant hats. They’re the Guards of the Palace—so we have to ask one of them. Come on. I’ll show you!”
Holding each other’s hands, we zigzagged our way through the crowd until we found a tiny gap in one of the gray barriers. Squeezing through it, we ran across the big red road until we reached the barriers next to where the big black and golden gates were. Trying to say, “Excuse me!” and “Sorry!” as we pushed our way past the crowds was hard work, but after a few minutes we finally reached the palace gates.
“See?” I said, pointing through the railings. “Those are the Special Guards! We need to get near one of them.”
Tom pushed his face through two of the railings and stared at the palace guards. You can tell right away they’re more special than the normal police because they wear bright red coats with extra-shiny buttons, and they have coins on their chests and huge hairy hats that cover half their eyes. They also carry extra-pointy guns and stand as still as statues inside special tiny black houses.
The palace guards both suddenly said, “Hut!” and marched across the front of the palace like toy soldiers.
“Why do they say ‘Hut’?” asked Tom, watching with his mouth open.
“Because they’re swapping huts,” I said, remembering what my mum had told me when I had asked her the same question.
“Oh. Cool,” said Tom. “So what do we do now? How do we give them our note for the Queen?”
“I don’t know,” I said, realizing that I must have remembered things wrong. When I had come with Mum, I was sure the guards had been standing much closer to the front gates. Now they were so far away we couldn�
��t even send them the note by airmail—even if we could make it into a paper airplane that could fly straight!
I was wondering what we should do when, in the distance, a bell chimed eleven times.
When it had finished, a man in a bright blue tracksuit top standing next to us shouted, “They’re gonna start any minute now! Time to get your cameras ready!”
A large group of people standing in front of us quickly got out their cameras, and everywhere I looked, hundreds of people began doing the same thing.
Then, suddenly, everyone fell quiet. I looked back through the gates toward the palace. Both of the palace guards were standing extra still, and, like a candy wrapper being crunched together every few seconds, we heard the distant sound of marching.
“LOOK!” cried Tom, clinging to the gates for a better view. He pointed toward the water fountain where, from far away, little dots of red and black and gold were marching and playing trumpets and drums.
“Let’s get to the front,” I whispered, and, saying “Sorry” and “Excuse me, please,” we pushed our way back to the front near the gray barriers.
“Look—over there!” said Tom, prodding me as he pointed to where the two large palace gates stood closed. “There’s none of these barriers on the sidewalks there—see! We might be able to reach the guards better from there.” I leaned forward just as far as I could and looked more closely.
Tom was right.
There were no barriers on that part of the sidewalk at all—which meant anyone standing there could easily pass a note to one of the guards as they marched into the palace!
“You’re right—let’s get closer,” I said.
But before we could push our way over, we heard a police officer shout, “Everyone, stand back! Stand back! The gates will now open!”
As the crowds surged forward and forced us to press up against the barriers, we saw the large, gold-crested gates begin to swing open from the inside. The palace courtyard was now filled with lots of palace guards who had silently joined the two we had seen before and were all standing still.
“Whoa—that’s AWESOME!” cried Tom, his eyes wide and his cheeks pink as he pointed back up the main road toward the fountain. What had seemed like tiny flashes of red and gold and black from a distance had now transformed into hundreds of tall soldiers marching in time, as drums and trumpets filled the air. Led by a man dressed in a shimmering golden jacket who was carrying a stick topped by a diamond that was as big as a doorknob, they all marched toward the gates with a rush of energy that made the ground shudder.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I had never, ever seen anything like this in real life before.
“Ten! Hut!” shouted someone from behind the palace gates. All the soldiers immediately stamped the ground with one foot and swiveled around on their extra-shiny black boots to face the open gates.
“The man in the gold coat,” said Tom, poking me in the arm. “He must be Extra Special—let’s give him the note! But look…they’re going in now!”
Everyone around us flashed their cameras as the man in the golden coat and the palace guards behind him marched closer and closer to the gates.
The other guards waiting in the palace courtyard suddenly began to march on the spot, before beginning to march out through the gates.
“Oh! I GET IT!” exclaimed Tom. “They’re changing over! So those ones are going home, and those ones behind the man in the gold coat are going to stay here with the Queen!”
“But”—I turned around—“that means the gates are going to be shut—as soon as the swap is done…and…” And when they were, we wouldn’t have another chance to get our note to the Queen.
Tom looked at me with his mouth open, and I looked back at him with my mouth open, and I could tell we had both thought the exact same thing.
Feeling my hands start to shake, I pulled the note out of my coat pocket and held it out. We had to do it—we had to! It wasn’t every day that you got to go to the Queen’s Palace and see her Special Guards so up close! But even though I tried to make my voice come out, it stayed stuck in my throat.
“Those…those are HUGE!” said Tom, looking at the guns the soldiers were holding over their shoulders. I was looking at them too. They were long and had extra-pointy ends that suddenly looked more sharp and shiny and much more pointier than they had just a few minutes ago.
The man in the golden jacket and all the palace guards behind him were now beginning to march past us. In just a few seconds, they would enter through the gates. And when they did and those gates were closed, there would be no chance of telling the Queen about Ahmet—and it would be all my fault.
I clutched the note tightly. I could feel my heart thumping in my throat and my fingers beginning to sweat.
And then, somehow, I began to move.
I think when you’re the most scared you’ve ever been in your life and have to do something you’ve never, ever done before, your brain switches off and your arms and legs do all the thinking for you, which is why you feel as if you’re moving underwater. That’s what happened the moment I began running. I felt as though I were running underwater, and as if someone else were doing everything for me. When, of course, they weren’t. It was all me.
I felt myself clambering over the barriers in front of me and slowly running out onto the red road. I could feel people’s eyes turning to watch me and a sudden breeze on my face. From underneath my feet, I could feel the surprisingly bouncy surface of the road as if it were a soft red carpet, and in my hands I could feel the rough edges of the note. All around me, the sound of drums and trumpets and the crunching of boots faded away. And then suddenly I was there…standing behind the last row of the Queen’s Special Guards as they were walking into the palace. I watched as my right hand lifted itself higher and higher and higher, until it finally touched a red-coated elbow. And without me even telling it to, my mouth opened and shouted, “EXCUSE ME, SIR!”
And that’s when everything went funny.
Because suddenly the world sped back up, and there were people gasping and cameras flashing and hooves thundering and helicopters helicoptering, and before I knew what was happening, a looming tower of policemen with extra-shiny stars on their helmets surrounded me, blocking out the sky. Everything started to fade away into a sea of black. I felt my legs wobble like a big plate of jelly and a crashing in my ears began to roar as the ground rushed up to meet me.
When my brain woke up again and I opened my eyes, I was lying on something soft and could see a blur of flashing blue lights and lots of police cars everywhere.
“Right, into the ambulance we go,” said a voice.
Tom was standing next to where my feet were. He was crying and saying “friend” a lot to a London police officer. But standing behind him were two of the Queen’s Special Guards!
Forgetting that I had been frightened, I sat up and cried out, “Please!” And, realizing the note was still in my hand but all scrunched up now, I held it out to them and said, “Please—you have to give this to the Queen.”
The London police officer who had been talking to Tom walked up to me. “Now, you just calm down and take it easy. You did a dangerous thing today. These are trained combat officers,” he said, pointing at the Queen’s Special Guards. “They’re trained to stop anyone attempting to hurt the Queen.”
“But…but we didn’t want to hurt the Queen!” sobbed Tom, his face red and wet.
“We know that now, son, but we can’t be too careful, can we?” said the officer, his voice not as strict as it was before.
One of the Queen’s Special Guards came over to me. “Let’s have a look at this note, then, shall we?” he said gently, holding out his hand.
I passed it to him and watched his face as he read it. Sometimes people won’t tell you what they’re really thinking, so you have to watch their face extra ha
rd and see if they give any clues away. I didn’t expect a Special Guard to do anything with his face—especially not one who worked for the Queen—but this one chuckled and then handed it over to the other Special Guard standing next to him who had more medals on his chest. He smiled too. I don’t know why, because it wasn’t meant to be funny.
This is what the note said:
Dear Your Highness Majesty Queen of England,
We wrote you a Letter on Friday about Ahmet, our friend who’s a Refugee Boy and put three stamps on it so that the Royal Mail would get it to you faster. We’ve come to see you today because it’s Wednesday already and we thought the Royal Mail might have lost the letter and as the gates are closing on Friday, it means we haven’t got much time to find Ahmet’s family and bring them here so they can all live together.
We’re outside the gates now. Tom’s got brown hair and I’ve got dark brown hair and we’re in our School uniforms which are dark blue and gray with pictures of a ship and a book on it so that you can see us easily.
We can’t stay later then half past one because if we don’t get home by the end of the school day then our mums and Tom’s dad and Josie and Michael will worry. Please let us come and see you as soon as you’ve finished your brekfast.
Yours Sinseerly, Me and Tom
P.S. We’ve got extra tea bags for tea.
“Hoping to have tea with the Queen there, were you?” asked the second Special Guard as he shook his head. “Here, take a look at this,” he said, passing the note to a police officer who was standing opposite. She read it and said, “Well, you don’t see notes like that every day.”
A paramedic woman in a dark green onesie looked at the note too. “Awww. Sweet,” she said. Then she made me lie down again and started pushing the bed onto an ambulance.
“But I don’t want to go to the hospital! Please! No!” I shouted, starting to feel scared. I don’t like hospitals. The last time I saw Dad was when he was in a hospital, and I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t ever see one again. Not ever.
The Boy at the Back of the Class Page 12
