Alice-Miranda at the Palace 11

by Jacqueline Harvey

  ‘Whatever.’ Caprice grabbed it and charged off.

  Alice-Miranda, Millie and Sloane heard the thumping footsteps and went to investigate.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Millie called out to Jacinta, who was heading down the spiral staircase.

  ‘Caprice says we should try to find a way out through the cellar,’ Jacinta replied.

  ‘We’ll come.’ Millie rushed after her, with Alice-Miranda and Sloane on her heels.

  Caprice opened a small door on the ground floor and the children scrambled down a small set of steps to what seemed more like a half-height storeroom than a proper cellar.

  ‘What are we looking for, exactly?’ Jacinta asked.

  ‘You know – trapdoors, sliding walls, the usual stuff you’d find in scary old buildings like this,’ Caprice said.

  ‘Sometimes there are bodies buried in cellars,’ Millie whispered.

  Sloane shuddered.

  Alice-Miranda noticed the girl’s discomfort and took her friend’s hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. ‘Millie, I’m sure that’s not the case,’ she said, though truthfully she couldn’t be sure at all. Especially not at a palace where there might even have been a battle or two over the centuries.

  The girls spent the next half an hour scouring the walls and floors, looking for anything that might lead them outside. But there was nothing – not even a loose flagstone.

  Upstairs, Sep and Lucas left the twins to their fiddling and went to explore the sitting room where Alice-Miranda and the girls had been earlier.

  ‘What do you make of this beast?’ Sep asked. The boy walked over and stood inside the hearth of the enormous fireplace.

  Lucas looked at the stone surrounds. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do you remember seeing any chimneys?’ Sep asked.

  ‘Mmm, no, just those four turrets,’ Lucas replied.

  Sep looked up. ‘That’s weird. It seems the fireplace is just for decoration.’

  ‘Maybe the chimney’s been blocked up to keep animals out,’ Lucas suggested.

  ‘Who knows? These buildings have probably been changed a zillion times over the years.’ Sep kicked his foot against a loose stone. A horrible grating sound of stone on stone assaulted the boys’ ears.

  ‘What’s that?’ Lucas rushed forward. The entire side of the fireplace had disappeared, revealing the narrowest of staircases. ‘How …?’

  ‘Quick,’ Sep said. ‘Get the others. There may be a way out of here after all.’

  Back at the palace Vincent Langley was about to blow a fuse. He’d searched high and low for Braxton Balfour and couldn’t find the man anywhere. Mrs McGill had telephoned from the farm shop to say that they were about to close and no one had come to collect the order. Vincent was furious. He would have to do it himself, or there would be nothing for the Prime Minister’s dinner.

  He picked up the telephone and dialled Marian Marmalade’s extension, tapping his foot impatiently as it rang for what seemed like an age before the woman answered.

  ‘What time should I arrange for the children to have their supper?’ Vincent barked down the line. The arrival of the Samoan Prime Minister had thrown his entire evening schedule into disarray, and to top it off, he’d received no word about the children’s supper all afternoon.

  Marian hesitated. ‘They’re running a little late from their outing.’ Truth be told, Mrs Marmalade had just left Her Majesty’s chambers, completely shocked by what she’d learned.

  ‘Don’t blame me if the children don’t want to eat the congealed mess that will await them if they ever come back,’ Langley blustered.

  ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Mrs Marmalade didn’t like the tone of the man’s voice one little bit.

  ‘Exactly what I said,’ Langley spat, then slammed down the handset.

  Marian Marmalade sat for a moment, thinking about the children and where they could be. All of a sudden she felt a strange prickling sensation in the backs of her eyes. Without warning, a tear sprang, then another and another. She quickly retrieved a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed them away, then hurried from her office into the hallway, where she almost charged straight into the man she’d just been speaking to.

  Mrs Marmalade flinched. ‘Oh, I thought you were in your office.’

  It would usually take a good ten minutes to walk from Langley’s office to the kitchens.

  The man said nothing.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Marian demanded. ‘You had a lot to say just a moment ago.’

  Langley cleared his throat and mumbled something indecipherable.

  ‘Well, seeing as though you’re here,’ Marian continued, ‘I forgot to mention that the Prime Minister would like to have a bath before dinner. You need to go and draw it immediately.’

  Langley glared at her.

  ‘What are you waiting for? Go on!’ Mrs Marmalade snapped, waving the butler away.

  The man couldn’t believe his bad luck. He’d been on his way to get changed at least four times when various palace staff had intercepted him and insisted there were urgent jobs he had to do right there and then. He wondered where on earth the real Vincent Langley had got to.

  Meanwhile, downstairs, the real Vincent Langley snatched up his car keys and raced out the back door, bubbling and hissing about what he’d do the next time he saw Braxton Balfour.

  ‘What are you shouting about?’ Caprice yelled as she stomped back upstairs, annoyed at having wasted another hour. ‘Whoa!’ the girl gasped as she entered the sitting room and realised what all the fuss was about. ‘Where do they go?’

  Sep shrugged. ‘I don’t know but they must be inside the external wall. Imagine how thick it is.’

  ‘How come we never knew about this?’ Louis’s eyes were on stalks.

  ‘Come on, then.’ Edgar just about bowled Sep out of the way to reach the top step.

  ‘Edgar, do you think just a few of us should go down? Those stairs are so narrow,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘It would be silly for all of us to get stuck and make it impossible for Mr Bunyan to find us.’

  ‘Alice-Miranda’s right,’ Sloane said.

  ‘But I want to see what’s down there,’ Caprice bleated.

  ‘We’re going. It’s our tower,’ Edgar spoke for himself and Louis.

  ‘Well, Millie and Alice-Miranda are the smallest,’ Jacinta reasoned. ‘They should go first.’

  It was true. The girls stood a much better chance of negotiating the tiny stairwell than the rest of them.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Caprice whined. ‘I want to go.’

  ‘Oh, be quiet, Caprice!’ Lucas had heard enough of the girl’s whining to last him all week.

  The girl looked as if she’d been slapped with a wet fish. ‘I don’t care what you say, Lucas. I’m going with them,’ Caprice retorted.

  Edgar passed Alice-Miranda a torch. ‘You’d better take this if you’re going first.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She smiled gratefully, then stepped carefully onto the widest part of each narrow tread.

  Millie was right behind her, and Caprice had barged her way in between Millie and the twins.

  ‘Can you see anything yet?’ Jacinta called out.

  ‘The stairs seem to go on forever … ever … ever,’ Alice-Miranda’s voice echoed back.

  ‘Can’t you go any faster?’ Caprice grumbled.

  Alice-Miranda ducked as the ceiling sank even lower. ‘Watch your heads!’ she said just as Louis cracked his forehead on a stone.

  ‘Ow!’ the boy complained.

  ‘She told you to watch out,’ Millie said with a grin. Served him right, she thought.

  The staircase wound around the building at least three times before Alice-Miranda spotted a small door up ahead. The dark wood was intricately carved with what looked like hundreds of tiny birds and there was a tarnished brass nameplate in the centre.

  ‘Fiona?’ Alice-Miranda said with a frown. The rest of the children huddled around behind her.

  �
�Do you think someone lives in here?’ Millie said.

  ‘As if,’ Edgar snapped. ‘We’d know if they did.’

  Millie turned and looked at the lad. ‘You didn’t know about the secret staircase.’

  Edgar shot Millie an evil stare.

  ‘Didn’t you say something about those men in the woods talking about someone called Fiona the other day, Caprice?’ Louis asked the girl.

  Caprice nodded.

  ‘That’s strange,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘When we were playing dress-ups and Millie and I had to go to the toilet, we heard Mr Thripp talking about a Fiona too.’

  ‘Go on, then. Open the door,’ Louis said to Alice-Miranda.

  She reached out and tried to turn the handle but it wouldn’t budge. ‘It’s locked.’

  ‘Well, that’s disappointing.’ Millie turned to go back upstairs.

  But Alice-Miranda wasn’t ready to give up yet. She shone her torch on the door, taking in all of the tiny creatures. There were wrens and blue jays, and a slightly bigger owl was perched in the bottom corner. The panel was so busy it was hard to make out each bird.

  ‘What is it?’ Millie asked.

  ‘There!’ Alice-Miranda pointed. ‘Can you see it?’

  The children peered up, wondering exactly what they were supposed to be looking at.

  Alice-Miranda jigged about excitedly. ‘It’s a peacock.’

  ‘So what?’ Caprice said. ‘How’s that going to help?’

  Millie bit her lip. ‘Do you really think it could work?’

  ‘Louis, can you help me?’ Alice-Miranda asked. ‘I need a leg-up.’

  ‘Okay. I have no idea what you’re doing but I suppose there’s no harm trying.’ The boy leaned down and clasped his hands together.

  Alice-Miranda climbed up and Edgar helped to steady her. She reached as high as she could and poked the peacock in the eye.

  All of a sudden, there was a whirring sound and clanking followed by a whoosh of air.

  ‘Wow,’ Millie breathed as the door creaked open.

  ‘How did you know to do that?’ Louis asked, his eyes almost popping out of his head.

  Alice-Miranda shrugged.

  ‘We saw your grandmother do it when she took us up to the attics,’ Millie said.

  ‘That’s so unfair! Grandmama never takes us up there,’ Louis sulked as he and the girls followed Edgar into the room.

  ‘What is this place?’ Alice-Miranda asked.

  Rusted metal cabinets lined the walls and in the centre sat a vast machine. It had discs and dials and looked like something you might have seen on television during an early NASA space mission.

  ‘It’s a computer,’ Edgar said. ‘It looks like one of those ancient mainframes from when computers took up whole rooms.’

  ‘What’s it doing here?’ Millie said. ‘And who does it belong to?’

  Alice-Miranda shone her torch onto what looked like the control panel. Spelled out in bold letters were the words ‘Forensic Investigations Overseeing National Alliances’.

  Millie frowned. ‘What does that mean?’

  Caprice walked over to take a look as well.

  Alice-Miranda traced her fingers over the letters. She stopped and looked at the first letter of each word. Caprice did too. At that extact moment, both girls came to the same realisation. ‘Fiona!’ they cried out.

  ‘What did you say?’ Millie asked.

  ‘Fiona – she’s not a person, she’s a computer.’ Alice-Miranda thought for a moment. ‘I wonder what Mr Thripp is really up to.’

  ‘Does it still work?’ Caprice said. ‘It looks pretty dead to me.’

  ‘There’s one way to find out,’ Edgar said. He reached out and pressed a big green button in the centre of the console. The machine zipped and buzzed and within a few seconds the panel lit up.

  ‘Good evening, Chief, how may I be of help?’ a cheery voice said.

  Caprice almost leapt out of her skin. The children looked at each other.

  ‘It thinks we’re its boss,’ Millie whispered.

  ‘Who are you?’ Edgar asked tentatively.

  ‘My name is Fiona,’ the machine replied.

  ‘Fiona, who owns you?’ Louis asked.

  ‘SPLOD,’ the machine said.

  ‘What’s SPLOD?’ Caprice blurted.

  ‘The Secret Protection League of Defence,’ Fiona replied.

  ‘What’s that?’ Millie asked.

  This time Louis answered. ‘It’s the most important spy organisation in the country. It protects our family from any threats. We don’t know very much about it, but Father has told us a little bit. Gee, I wish we’d known this was here before. We could have had heaps of fun.’

  ‘This computer looks so old and it had to be turned on,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘Don’t you think that it would be more modern if it were still in use? Maybe there’s another one somewhere else.’

  ‘Ask her?’ Edgar suggested, motioning to the control panel.

  ‘Fiona, are you still in use?’ Alice-Miranda asked.

  ‘I am officially retired. Fiona 2.0 is now in charge.’

  ‘Where is Fiona 2.0?’ Edgar asked.

  ‘She is located at headquarters.’

  ‘Fiona, who’s the boss of SPLOD?’ Alice-Miranda asked.

  ‘Marjorie Plunkett,’ Fiona replied.

  Alice-Miranda gasped.

  ‘I knew she wasn’t a milliner!’ Millie exclaimed. ‘She didn’t even know what Alice-Miranda was talking about when she complimented her on the hat Aunty Gee wore to the garden party.’

  ‘Do you think she was the person Mr Thripp was talking to when we were in the attic?’ Alice-Miranda asked. ‘Do you remember what he said about chess and moving kings and queens?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Louis and Edgar said in unison.

  ‘Millie and I found a copy of King George’s abdication document from years ago but it only had one signature and the space where it should have been witnessed was blank, then we overheard Mr Thripp saying something about Fiona being under their control and that things would soon be right,’ Alice-Miranda explained. The girl’s eyes suddenly lit up as something dawned on her. ‘I think he wants to get rid of Aunty Gee!’

  ‘But then father would be King,’ Edgar said.

  ‘No, if King George never signed the abdication document properly, Lloyd Lancaster-Brown would become King, and Marjorie would be Queen when she marries him. We heard Mr Thripp say that he couldn’t stand your father. He wants to put someone else on the throne,’ Alice-Miranda said. She left out the part about them being young and beautiful. It was obvious that Mr Thripp wasn’t talking about Freddy and Elsa. ‘Come on, we need to find a way out of here and get back to the palace before it’s too late.’

  While the rest of the children had been focusing on Fiona, Caprice had been huffing and blowing about being bored and hungry. She’d begun investigating the contents of the drawers that lined the circular room.

  ‘Caprice, are you coming?’ Alice-Miranda turned and called to the girl.

  ‘What is she looking at now?’ Millie said impatiently.

  ‘I think you’re going to want to see this.’ Caprice held up an official-looking document. She had found it in a file containing papers bearing the royal seal.

  Alice-Miranda rushed over to take a look. ‘Is this what I think it is?’ She pointed at the two signatures at the bottom.

  ‘Move it!’ Edgar shouted. ‘Marjorie Plunkett gets to be Queen over my dead body!’

  ‘What’s taking them so long?’ Jacinta asked.

  She walked over to the window and peered out at the sparkling lights of the palace in the distance. Then she scanned the grounds closer to the tower. The dull glow of torchlight flickered in the trees.

  ‘There’s someone coming!’ she yelled. ‘Here, help me get their attention,’ she said, and flicked the torch on and off.

  ‘We could use morse code,’ Sep said. ‘SOS.’

  He and Lucas had been studying the for
m of communication as part of the next level of the Queen’s colours award.

  Sep flicked his torch on and off with three quick flashes, then three long ones followed by another three short ones. He repeated the sequence over and over.

  ‘What’s that?’ Braxton looked towards the tower. ‘There’s someone up there.’

  Lydie pulled back the hood of her cape and glanced at the building. Her body stiffened.

  ‘Do you want to turn back?’ Braxton asked her.

  The woman stood resolute. ‘No.’

  ‘What if someone sees you?’ Braxton asked.

  ‘Maybe it’s time they did,’ Lydie replied.

  Braxton looked back at the tower. ‘It’s probably those horrid grandsons of Her Majesty’s,’ he said. ‘They’re always disappearing somewhere and no one can find them.’

  Lydie stared at the blinking lights. ‘No, it’s morse code,’ she said.

  ‘Morse code?’ Braxton repeated. ‘What are they saying?’

  Lydie watched again to be sure. ‘SOS,’ she said. ‘Whoever it is, is asking for help.’

  ‘Sloane! Jacinta!’ Alice-Miranda shouted as the children ran up the stairs. They were puffing and blowing as they reached the fireplace.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ Edgar said, surprised to find the room empty. He ran out into the hallway, calling out to the other kids.

  ‘We’re down here,’ Lucas yelled back. ‘Mr Balfour’s outside and he’s going to try to open the window.’

  Alice-Miranda led Millie, Caprice and Louis out into the hallway and followed Edgar down the stairs. ‘We’ve got to get back to the palace,’ she said.

  ‘Where did those other stairs go?’ Jacinta asked.

  ‘There’s a secret room with this big old computer and it’s called Fiona,’ Millie blurted.

  ‘Why do we have to get back to the palace in such a hurry?’ Sloane asked, bewildered.

  ‘Because we think Mr Thripp is going to make Aunty Gee abdicate,’ Alice-Miranda explained.

  ‘How do you know that?’ Sloane asked.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ Millie said and started to explain.

  The children could see Braxton’s face at the window.

  ‘Hello Mr Balfour,’ Alice-Miranda called out. ‘Thank you for coming. Did something happen to Mr Bunyan? We thought he’d be here ages ago. Anyway, there’s no time to lose. We need to get back. Aunty Gee is in danger of losing her crown.’