The Royal Babysitters

by Clémentine Beauvais

  ‘WHAT? Then what are we going to fire at the boats?’

  ‘Ahem,’ coughed someone next to them. ‘Fire what? At what boats?’

  Holly twirled around to face Nestor, who was standing on the beach with a clipboard.

  ‘Oh, erm, hello!’ she chirruped. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’ve come to check that you and your sister are doing your jobs properly. What is this machine? Is it an appropriate toy for children?’

  ‘Oh, it looks big and impressive like that, but it’s just a gadget really. Would you mind helping Pepino take a few cheeses out of the Royal Library and on to the beach?’

  ‘Cheeses?’ Nestor tutted as he jotted down notes on his clipboard. ‘Now let’s see. One prince, two princes … Where are the other four?’

  ‘Having a nap,’ said Holly. ‘Pepino, get some stones, crabs – anything – to put in that catapult!’

  ‘The Royal Cow should be refrigerated,’ Nestor noted.

  ‘She was too cold. Please, Nestor – could you help Pepino move that stone nearer the catapult?’

  ‘I have not received the required Health and Safety training,’ said Nestor. ‘Oh, look – there’s a hot-air balloon up there!’

  Holly looked up. The zeppelin had spotted them – and the flowers were shooting more hummingbirds …

  ‘Throw cheeses at them, Nestor!’ shouted Holly. ‘Pepino! Get that catapult working!’

  Huffing and puffing that he had never been given the proper training, Nestor began to hurl wheels of cheese at the hummingbirds and insects. Pepino, meanwhile, was having less success with the catapult.

  ‘Oh, here we are!’ he finally shouted. ‘Easy-peasy. You have to take out the security hook …

  and the spring will automatically uncooooooooooooooiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil …’

  ‘Tut-tut. That’s another toddler you’ve lost,’ said Nestor, ‘as well as the heir to the throne.’

  ‘Oh, only temporarily lost, I’m sure,’ said Holly, trying to sound cheerful, but trembling a little bit …

  She looked out on to the sea, ready to defend the kingdom.

  And like her sister from the Throne Room, she saw them coming.

  The robotic mermaids.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Back in the castle, Anna and the snake had dragged an unwilling King Alaspooryorick back to the nursery to find out the cause of the explosion.

  It wasn’t a bomb and it wasn’t a cannonball.

  It wasn’t a porcupine grenade either.

  It was the dirty-nappy dustbin.

  ‘Blast it,’ Anna murmured. ‘The King and Queen did tell us to empty it this morning, “Or else they rot and explode”.’

  BOOM!

  ‘Well,’ said Anna to Alaspooryorick, ‘I’m going to empty it. On the mermaids. Come on, Snake!’

  She called the lift, shoved the bin, the snake and Alaspooryorick inside and was about to press the button for the kitchens when –

  ‘Wait a mo!’ said Alaspooryorick. ‘What if that thing explodes again while we’re with it? Plus, it positively stinks! And I can’t even pinch my own nose.’

  ‘Snake,’ said Anna, ‘pray pinch Alaspooryorick’s royal nose.’

  The boa constrictor obliged, Anna pressed the button and the lift moved down.

  Ding! The Kitchens. Doors opening!

  Anna rushed out through the garage door and on to the beach.

  ‘Holly! You’re alive!’

  ‘Anna!’ exclaimed Holly, hugging her sister with relief. ‘I was worried you’d been turned into meatballs.’

  ‘Nope, and I’ve got King Alaspooryorick all tied up,’ said Anna, nodding at the King, who was unsuccessfully attempting to free himself from the snake. ‘And you got the catapult out!’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s not going well,’ admitted Holly. ‘We’ve only catapulted away Pepino and the last-but-one Bertie. Nestor is really good at throwing cheeses though.’

  ‘It’s quite fun too!’ shouted Nestor. ‘The last wheel of brie beheaded three hummingbirds in one go. You weren’t watching, Holly, but I promise you it did!’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ whispered Holly. ‘We don’t have anything to throw at them.’

  She pointed at the Robotic Mermaids, who were getting closer and closer, and starting to throw five-bladed sea-stars towards the beach.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan,’ said Anna. ‘Snake, move down so the King can use his arms. Your Majesty, load this catapult with nappies, if you please.’

  ‘And if I don’t please? Gulp!’

  ‘That’s right – the snake will make sure you please. Get to work!’

  Meanwhile, Anna chucked a large stone into the catapult, and a few seconds later it was crashing down on to a fearsome-looking mermaid. CLANG! The metallic noise resonated along the cliffs.

  ‘Now, the explosive nappies!’ commanded Anna.

  ‘That is NOT the way to dispose of dirty nappies,’ grouched Nestor, interrupting the cheese-throwing to scribble on his clipboard.

  A batch of used nappies flew through the air and crashed into the waves with a SPLOSH!and BOOM!

  ‘You are ruining the coastal shores of Britland,’ said Nestor, ‘with toxic waste and metallic objects!’

  ‘My poor mermaids!’ King Alaspooryorick lamented.

  But the poor mermaids were no match for the exploding nappies, and the insects and hummingbirds didn’t dare get too close to the cheese. Soon enough, all the robotic mermaids had exploded.

  ‘Victory!’ Anna yelled, as she and Holly danced around the beach for a few seconds.

  But a few seconds only.

  ‘Don’t be so hasty,’ said Alaspooryorick in a threatening voice. ‘That was only for starters.’

  The two sisters looked at the calm surface of the sea.

  Which bobbed a little bit.

  And slowly … majestically … silently …

  Something eerie emerged from beneath the waves.

  ‘What on Earth is that?’ asked Anna.

  ‘That,’ cooed King Alaspooryorick, ‘is Ophelia. The hugest and most dangerous robotic mermaid of all!’

  ‘We’ve run out of nappies,’ Holly murmured to Anna.

  ‘Resistance is futile,’ hissed the King. ‘Ophelia commands the cannon on the biggest boat. A cannon strong enough to destroy the whole country. Ophelia?’

  ‘Your Majesty?’ murmured the mermaid’s metallic voice.

  And before the boa had a chance to cover Alaspooryorick’s lips, he said, ‘Activate the cannon.’

  ‘Cannon activated.’ Ophelia whirred and purred. ‘Britland will be destroyed in ten … nine … eight …’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Pepino woke up with a burning headache.

  Where was he?

  He remembered flying.

  WHIZZZZ!

  He remembered saying to Bertie, ‘Woo-hoo, this is fun! But it’s a shame I can only swim where I can touch the seabed. I doubt I’ll be tall enough to do that around here.’

  ‘Boat!’ Bertie had said.

  ‘Very good! You can speak now? How clever of you!’ Pepino had replied.

  ‘Boat!’ Bertie had repeated.

  ‘Where?’

  BAM!

  That was all he remembered. It must mean he was still on the boat.

  With a burning headache! A really, really burning headache.

  He opened his eyes. ‘What’s this? A burning rope! Well, that’s not very clever, letting a rope burn down on a wooden boat! Thank goodness I’m here. Can’t see any fire extinguishers though. Hello, anyone around? There’s a burning rope here! I wonder where everyone is.

  Hello? There’s a burning rope, boat people! It�
�s going straight to – oh!’

  Pepino jumped behind a barrel, covered his ears and waited for the cannon to go off.

  Meanwhile, little Bertie had spotted an albatross.

  ‘Bird! Bird!’

  The albatross, however, wasn’t

  ‘Ouch!’ cried Bertie, as he landed on the flame.

  The rope stopped burning.

  ‘ZERO!’ shouted King Alaspooryorick on the beach. ‘The cannon will now FIRE!’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Are you sure you got the timing right, Your Majesty?’ asked Nestor after another ten seconds. ‘Because it’s been a little while now.’

  ‘Well, let’s try again: ZERO!’

  Still nothing.

  Alaspooryorick huffed and puffed, as the boa tightened his grip.

  ‘What is it, Bertie?’ asked Holly. ‘Why are you tugging at my clothes?’

  ‘He probably needs his nappy changing,’ said Nestor pointedly. ‘You know, that thing good babysitters do?’

  ‘Ophelia!’ Alaspooryorick shouted. ‘Fire that cannon!’

  ‘I have, Your Majesty.’

  ‘No, you haven’t.’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  While they were arguing, Holly removed Bertie’s nappy, loaded it on to the catapult, and shot it straight at Ophelia.

  ‘Noooo!’ cried the King as the robotic mermaid exploded. ‘Life is … life is just … so unfair! Mummy! MUMMY!’

  A window opened on the zeppelin, and a head appeared.

  ‘What is it, honey bunches of sweet-smelling herrings with lemon drops?’ asked old Queen Trudie of Daneland.

  ‘Mummy, I need a cuddle,’ Alaspooryorick sniffed from the beach.

  ‘Let me find my glasses and then I’ll land this thing. Now, where are they? Where can they be?’

  Neither King Alaspooryorick nor his mum saw the Bertie-on-hummingbird-back that was flying straight towards the zeppelin.

  Not until it was too late.

  SHPOK! and PFFFFSSSSHHHHHH …

  The zeppelin began to deflate.

  ‘Oh, crumbs of rugbrød!’ said the old Queen. ‘Just let me knit a parachute and I’ll be down in a second!’

  There was furious clicking of knitting needles, then she perched herself on the window ledge and faster than you can say “parachute” … she landed safely on the beach.

  ‘Oh, Mummy!’ King Alaspooryorick wailed. ‘I’m a rubbish invader!’

  ‘There, there, my little rollmop,’ said Queen Trudie, rubbing her son’s not-very-hairy head. ‘You’ve done very well. You gave it your best. It’s the taking part that counts!’

  While Alaspooryorick was drenching his mum’s royal dress with tears and snot, Anna and Holly spotted Pepino rowing back to the beach in an upturned parasol.

  ‘And he’s got three Berties with him!’ exclaimed Anna. ‘Hurrah!’

  Nestor fished out a small pair of binoculars and looked at the parasol.

  ‘One of them appears to have a burnt foot!’ he said disapprovingly, and wrote down some notes on his clipboard.

  ‘Don’t be such a drag, Nestor – they’re alive!’ said Holly. ‘Oh, Pepino, what happened?’

  The Prince and his little brothers sploshed back to the beach. ‘I landed expertly on the boat with the cannon, protecting Bertie with my own body,’ said Pepino, ‘and then I found the burning rope, and threw it into the water so the cannon couldn’t fire.’

  ‘Liar!’ said burnt-foot Bertie, but everyone just thought he was babbling.

  ‘Genius, Pepino!’ exclaimed Holly. ‘You’re the bravest ever Prince of Britland!’

  ‘That’s not saying much,’ Anna muttered. ‘All the others are babies.’ But she joined Holly and Pepino, who were twirling around on the beach.

  ‘Then I found those two in the upturned parasol,’ Pepino continued, now a bit dizzy from the twirling. ‘They’d been nibbling on the ropes that held the King’s boats together!’

  ‘That’s why they were drifting away,’ said Anna. ‘Good job, princes! Well, we’ve got almost everyone now – one, two, three … four over there … that’s not too bad.’

  ‘Still two down,’ said Holly. ‘Where’s the one that was riding the hummingbird?’

  ‘I’ll see if I can spot him with my binoculars,’ said Nestor. But just then the flying Bertie plummeted down from the sky and landed straight on Nestor’s shoulders.

  ‘Amazing!’ said Holly. ‘All we have to do is ask and they appear. What about the one that ran off on the back of that naked porcupine?’

  ‘Here he comes!’ exclaimed Anna, pointing at the end of the beach.

  ‘And he’s not alone,’ said Nestor. ‘Their Royal Highnesses are back!’

  ‘W-w-what?’ stammered Alaspooryorick, wiping his eyes. ‘Steve and Sheila are back already? Oh, Mummy, we’d better go, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, dear. Besides, it’s almost time for your evening bath. Bye, everyone! Say bye, Allykins!’

  ‘Bye for now,’ he grumbled. ‘But you just wait. I’ll be back soon. With an even bigger cannon.’

  And with that, King Alaspooryorick and old Queen Trudie jumped into a pedal boat, and pedalled away into the shaky sea.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Yoo-hoo!’ the King and Queen of Britland shouted. ‘Surpri-ise! We’re back early!’

  They picked up their Berties and ruffled Pepino’s hair. ‘We found Bertie riding along the path on this cute little naked porcupine. Quite the little knight! How did everything go?’

  ‘Terribly,’ said Nestor. ‘I’m sorry to say Holly and Anna are the worst prince-sitters in the world. They lost almost all the Berties at different points in the day. One has ended up with a burnt foot, none of them has eaten his lunch puree, and only one has had his nappy changed.’

  ‘They seem happy enough,’ said the Queen. ‘Let’s all have some ice cream.’

  The ice-cream van was still there, but without the ice-cream seller, so they helped themselves and left a handful of rubies and emeralds for payment.

  ‘We had a wonderful holiday,’ said Queen Sheila. ‘We went to the swimming pool at the Leisure Centre of the Independent Republic of Slough, where the King jumped from the highest diving board.’

  ‘Oh, it was easy,’ said King Steve. ‘Here’s a picture.’

  ‘And then we had lunch at a fast-food restaurant. It was so exotic! How about you, children?’ asked the Queen. ‘What did you do today?’

  ‘We repelled an invasion,’ said Anna. ‘King Alaspooryorick of Daneland came over with hummingbird cannons, giant squid, robotic mermaids and his mum.’

  ‘They were better invasion-repellers than prince-sitters, I have to admit,’ said Nestor.

  ‘And Pepino did very well,’ said Holly. ‘He remembered how to defeat a giant squid, found the key to the catapult, worked out how to fire it, and put out the giant cannon before it could destroy the whole of Britland.’

  ‘Oh! Pepino!’ the King and Queen cried. ‘Did you really?’

  ‘My friends helped a bit,’ said Pepino, blushing ladybird red.

  ‘Your friends? You made friends?’

  ‘I think so,’ whispered Pepino, sounding unsure.

  ‘He did indeed.’ Holly and Anna smiled, and each put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I will, however,’ said Nestor, ‘give you the list of what they did not do right.’

  He handed them the relevant pages from his clipboard, but the Royal Couple got the wrong idea and used the paper to blow their noses.

  ‘I never thought I’d see the day when our useless, wimpy, good-for-nothing little prince repelled an invasion and made friends,’ said King Steve between tearful hiccoughs. ‘And you helped!’ he said to Anna and Holly. ‘You will b
e rewarded. Very generously rewarded!’

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ said Anna. ‘So it was supposed to be a thousand pounds for the day …’

  ‘Forget that,’ said Queen Sheila. ‘You deserve more!’

  ‘More?’

  ‘Yes, more! And nothing as vulgar as money. You need dukedoms! One each!’

  ‘Good idea, my dear,’ said King Steve. ‘Why don’t you give away Cambridgia and Oxforth? Nothing ever happens there; they’re the most boringly peaceful places in Britland. Only cabbage fields and baaing sheep. They’ll barely need to think about how to govern them.’

  ‘Thanks, King and Queen,’ mumbled Anna. ‘But …’

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘But still no money!’

  It was the morning after, and Anna, Holly, Pepino and Nestor were idly walking along the beach of Doverport, their peaceful little seaside village in South Britland.

  ‘Cheer up, Banana,’ said Pepino. ‘We could always go to your dukedom in Oxforth and eat cabbages!’

  ‘I hate cabbages,’ groaned Anna. ‘We did this job to earn money for the Holy Moly Holiday! And now we’re back to square one.’

  ‘Well, at least now we know we’re not very good babysitters,’ said Holly. ‘We could sell our services as invasion-repellers though!’

  ‘I would advise against it,’ said Nestor. ‘It’s not a very stable career choice. But how about I keep looking for jobs for you, and if I find a good one, I’ll let you know? It’s my job, after all.’

  ‘Thanks, Nestor,’ said Holly.

  Anna kicked a stone, which turned out to be another crab. ‘It’d better come soon, Nestor! I’m not intending to spend my whole holiday in this town, where nothing, and I mean nothing ever happens.’