Long Live the Queen Read online

  For Ruth

  ALSO BY GERRY SWALLOW

  (AKA DR. CUTHBERT SOUP)

  A Whole Nother Story

  Another Whole Nother Story

  No Other Story

  MAGNIFICENT TALES OF MISADVENTURE

  Blue in the Face

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter

  1

  Elspeth hated school, and the idea of returning to it in less than a week was unbearable. How could she go back to such a tedious place after a summer of frequent and wonderful trips to New Winkieland, where she had argued with rocks, made friends with a blabbermouth stick, and had witnessed a pillow fight between two pillows named Andy and Kyle? (Not that it matters, but Andy won by technical knockout.)

  You see, in New Winkieland, just about everything—from sticks to shrubs to pillows—is alive. And once school started, Elspeth would have to curtail her visits to this magical place to which she traveled by means of holding her breath until she passed out. Each time she awoke to find herself in the land of Humpty Dumpty, Little Bo-Peep, Georgie Porgie, and the Cheese. You know, the one so very fond of standing alone.

  In New Winkieland, Elspeth had made the kind of friends she had never been able to in her own world. Dumpty referred to Elspeth’s world as the Deadlands, because it was simply that by comparison—dead, as lifeless and devoid of spark as any of her teachers at school. For instance, Elspeth felt convinced that there were B-movie robots with a greater capacity for voice inflection than her Advanced English teacher, Mrs. Weed. And then there was Mr. Evans, the P.E. teacher, who smelled of stale cigars and was so out of shape he used a whistle app on his smartphone, being that he lacked the energy and lung capacity to operate an actual whistle.

  Yes, Elspeth hated school. Yet here she was, preparing for the start of another academic year by engaging in one of her least favorite activities: back-to-school shopping at the mall, which seemed to be an annual exercise in determining just how badly her mother could embarrass her by using words that no longer exist.

  “Here,” Delores Pule said, using her thin, brittle-looking fingers to hold up a pair of jeans from the forty-percent-off rack. “Try on these dungarees. They’re on sale.”

  “Mom,” pleaded Elspeth in the kind of harsh whisper that can only be delivered by a mortified twelve-year-old. She nervously scanned the store for anyone she might know. “They’re jeans, not dungarees.”

  “You know what I mean. Now try them on while I go take a look at the sneakers.”

  Sneakers? Dungarees? How old was her mom? A million?

  Actually, Delores, with her rigid posture, poofy, cotton-candy-like hair, and frequent use of outdated phrases, was quite a bit older than the mothers of Elspeth’s classmates. It was only after Delores had passed her childbearing years that she and her husband, Sheldon, decided to try adoption, a process that proved to be highly discouraging.

  Part of the problem was that Mr. and Mrs. Pule were quite adamant that they wanted a girl. Actually, this was a stipulation that was insisted upon by Mrs. Pule, who had always found boys to be too rambunctious.

  “But I think it would be every bit as nice to have a boy,” Sheldon once suggested.

  “Absolutely not,” replied Delores. “They’re always running around, knocking things over, and making disgusting noises with their armpits and with other parts of their anatomy. We will wait for a girl and that is that.”

  And so they waited. Soon four years had gone by, and the Pules considered giving up and instead adopting a puppy or a stretch of highway. Then one day, while Mr. Pule was out of town on business, Delores received a call from a lovely woman at the adoption agency named Mrs. Hubbard. The news was just what they had been waiting for but had practically given up on. The agency had taken in a one-year-old girl, and the Pules just happened to be next on the waiting list.

  Two days later, they walked into their apartment toting a precious bundle of joy along with a second bundle full of other stuff you need in order to take care of the first bundle: diapers, miniature jars of mashed peas, earplugs . . .

  Sheldon and Delores doted on the child to the point of spoiling her silly, and, despite an astonishing lack of physical resemblance between Elspeth and the Pules, the girl grew up believing that Sheldon and Delores were her birth parents. And though they insisted they had fully intended on telling her the truth once she’d turned twelve, Elspeth wasn’t so sure that she would have found out if she hadn’t encountered her actual birth parents, quite by coincidence, while visiting New Winkieland.

  It’s one thing to find out you’ve been adopted by way of accidentally running into your biological mother and father and quite another to discover that they are people you’ve always thought to be fictional characters. Imagine, for instance, learning that you are the son of Romeo and Juliet or the daughter of Mary Poppins and Zeus. (Not likely as, to my knowledge, the two never dated.)

  In Elspeth’s case, she initially struggled with the idea before coming to terms with the fact that her real parents were Jack and Jill—two people known to the world mostly for their inability to successfully negotiate a hill while carrying a bucket of water.

  As unlikely as the whole thing might have seemed, Elspeth suddenly found herself with two sets of parents: one with whom she lived in the greater Seattle area and another who resided, hidden from the “real world,” in the land of nursery rhymes, known once again as New Winkieland now that Elspeth had helped restore Wee Willie Winkie to his rightful place upon the throne while casting out the horrible King Krool.

  She was reliving that moment now as she stood in the changing room surrounded by so many angled mirrors that she could actually see the back of her own head, which ached with boredom and an intense longing for the wild exhilaration that could only be had by leading an armed rebellion against an evil tyrant.

  Here in the Deadlands, Elspeth was just another middle schooler, destined for a middling life of great inconsequence and staggering mediocrity. But in New Winkieland she was a legend. In fact, during her most recent visit several weeks ago, she was both flattered and slightly embarrassed that King William the Umpteenth had commissioned a statue of her likeness to be erected in the castle courtyard.

  “They’re a little big around the middle,” said Delores, tugging at the waistband of the sale-priced jeans and pulling Elspeth out of the daydream and back to the Deadlands. “You could wear a belt with them. I think it would look very sharp.”

  “Sharp?” said Elspeth, staring blankly at the back of her head.

  “Yes. You know, snazzy.”

  Elspeth and her mother left the mall and walked out into a rain-soaked parking lot with two pairs of snazzy dungarees (jeans), two pairs of slacks (pants), a pair of sneakers (tennis shoes), and six new pairs of skivvies (underwear). This rather unimpressive haul had more or less exhausted Elspeth’s back-to-school clothing budget. The Pules were not wealthy by any means. In fact, you would be hard pressed to call them middle class. Sheldon Pule was employed as a door-to-door hearing aid salesman while her mother worked f
rom home part-time preparing other people’s tax returns.

  That home was in a small, four-story apartment building covered in white stucco and dotted with small outcroppings of concrete and iron that were barely big enough to be called balconies, but were anyway, and were crammed with barbecues, bicycles, and a host of other odds and ends.

  From her pocket, Elspeth fished out her set of keys, which included one for the main door to the building, one for the door to the apartment, and a mail key. Having keys of her own still held a certain novelty, since she’d only been given them upon turning twelve several months before. And though she rarely went anywhere without at least one of her parents, the keys were symbolic of the fact that she now could if she wanted to.

  She held the door open for her mother, and in they went. The interior of the building smelled exactly as you might expect just by looking at it, though perhaps a bit more on the cabbagey side thanks to an old German couple who had moved in next door to the Pules.

  And when Elspeth unlocked the door to apartment 207 and she and her mother walked in, they found it to be more cabbagey than usual and especially quiet. Elspeth’s father was currently at the other corner of the country, in Florida, attending the annual convention of Worldwide Hearing Aid Traders (also known as WHAT?), where he was due to receive a special award for twenty years of dedicated service.

  “What’s the matter, dear?” asked Delores. It was a question she had posed frequently to her daughter in recent months: a question that Elspeth had answered in identical fashion each time.

  “Nothing. Everything is just fine.”

  But that’s exactly what was the matter. Everything was just fine, which is just dandy if just fine is what you strive to be. And though there was a time when Elspeth considered just fine to be a perfectly adequate way of feeling, that had all changed now that she’d discovered a world so full of life and so ripe for adventure.

  To feel fine was akin to feeling nothing at all as she did now, walking into the small apartment where everything was just as drab and predictable as when she had left it two and a half hours before. There was the coffee table that still featured a small bit of Elspeth’s golden hair—stuck between the wooden frame and the glass top—as a result of Elspeth passing out and smacking her head on it.

  And though the collision had left a good-size lump on her forehead that remained for weeks, the coffee table had absolutely nothing to say about the encounter and simply went about its business, resting lifelessly in front of the couch, which apparently had no opinion whatsoever as to people sitting upon it.

  Yes, everything seemed to be just as it always was. And it continued to seem that way until Elspeth walked into her bedroom and heard the squishing sound and felt the cold water seep in through the sides of her old “sneakers.”

  The sound and the sensation startled her, but not to the extent that one might think. Though it hadn’t happened in quite a while, this was not the first time a puddle of water had appeared on her bedroom floor.

  Once thought to be the result of a plumbing problem originating in the apartment above, Elspeth had since solved the mystery of the recurring puddle (which may or may not be the title of a Nancy Drew book Elspeth had once read). As it turns out, every magical kingdom that has a way in must also have a way out, and the way out of New Winkieland just happened to be at the bottom of an abandoned well.

  The passageway had been discovered by none other than Jack and Jill, who, upon finding it, had used it on a regular basis to enter the Deadlands for a chance to look upon their precious daughter as she slept, each time leaving a sizable splash of water on the bedroom floor until the carpet became discolored and mildewed.

  “I need you to try on these galoshes to see if they still fit,” said Delores, appearing in Elspeth’s doorway and holding a pair of what most people born in the last century would call boots.

  “Great. Here we go again,” Delores scoffed, when she saw that her daughter was standing in the middle of a puddle in the middle of her bedroom. “I thought we had this problem all taken care of. Well, I’ll have to go find Mr. Droughns and tell him the leak has returned.”

  “Sure,” said Elspeth, distracted by the knowledge that her biological mother and father had been in her room quite recently. Immediately, Elspeth began to worry. After all, this was the first time Jack and Jill had come to visit her in midday. Before now, it was always between midnight and early dawn. So why were they suddenly willing to risk being seen in the light of day? After all, if Delores had walked in on them she would have immediately called the police, who, most likely, would have had a very hard time believing any explanation Elspeth might provide.

  “Yes, Officers. It’s all very simple. You see, these are my real parents, Jack and Jill. You know, the ones who went up the hill to fetch a pail of water? Anyway, they did not break into the apartment. They arrived here quite legally from the magical kingdom of New Winkieland by way of a secret passage at the bottom of a well.”

  “I see. Well, thank you, young lady. That certainly explains everything. Have a good day.”

  Delores went off to find Mr. Droughns, the building superintendent, and Elspeth plopped down upon her bed. She picked up her plastic fashion doll, the one her parents had bought for her to replace the one she’d lost. She had yet to give it a name. What was the point? It was just a doll. As Elspeth looked into its unflinching eyes and ran her fingers down its long auburn hair, more than ever she missed Farrah, who would never visit her in the Deadlands for fear that she might turn back into a lifeless plastic toy like the one Elspeth now held.

  She let out a deep sigh, and that sigh quickly turned to a scream when she felt a light tapping upon her ankle.

  She jumped to her feet, causing the doll to fly from her vanishing lap and tumble to the floor very near the puddle. She spun around quickly to find, poking out from beneath the bed, a stick. And not just any stick.

  “Guess who?” said the skinny, gray stick with a broad smile.

  “Gene,” gasped Elspeth. “What are you doing here?”

  “You’ll never guess in a million years.”

  It’s raining, it’s pouring,

  the Deadlands is boring.

  Sat on my bed, a stick then said,

  “I come with news and a warning.”

  Chapter

  2

  That Gene was here in the Deadlands, still alive and as gabby as ever, gave Elspeth hope. Perhaps Farrah, too, could one day return for a visit without reverting to a lifeless state. Then again, Gene was originally from New Winkieland and had never been anything but alive and insufferably chatty.

  And despite having the ability to speak, a walking stick in New Winkieland is no different than a walking stick in the Deadlands. Neither can actually walk, which means that Gene had to have gotten where he was with some help. Sure enough, there soon came a muffled grunt from under the bed.

  “Pardon me. Would you mind?”

  A hand emerged from the darkness. Elspeth reached down, took the hand, and tugged. She leaned back and pulled on it until a tall, thin man slid out from beneath the bed. The man was Georgie Porgie, also known as King William’s chancellor and Chief Secretary of Puddin’ and Pie.

  “Georgie.” Elspeth beamed. “What a surprise.”

  Georgie took Gene in his other hand, jammed the stick into the carpet like an astronaut planting a flag on the surface of the moon, and, with a grunt, pushed his lanky frame to its feet.

  “Hey, easy!” protested Gene. “I’m a stick, not a handrail.”

  “Sorry,” said Georgie, using his stickless hand to brush off the front of his puffy white shirt. Apparently Delores had been far too busy in recent weeks preparing taxes and looking for back-to-school bargains to find time to vacuum under Elspeth’s bed because Georgie was positively covered in dust. In fact, clinging to his thin, yellow mustache were a couple of those bunnies of the dust variety.

  “You’ve got something right there,” said Elspeth, touching the part of
her face that might feature a mustache if she had been able to grow one and had been inclined to do so.

  Georgie quickly wiped the small clumps of dust from his face. With a look of disgust, he shook them from his hand. They floated peacefully to the floor like snowflakes, except that, unlike snowflakes, scientists cannot say with absolute certainty that no two dust bunnies are alike.

  “How long have you been hiding under there?” asked Elspeth.

  “Not sure,” said Georgie. “My watch stopped working when I jumped into the well.” He held his wrist to his ear to see if anything had changed since he last checked his waterlogged watch.

  “And why are you here?” Elspeth urged. “Is something wrong?”

  “Is something wrong?” said Gene. “That would be the understatement of the century.”

  Georgie glared down at Gene. “Do you mind? The king has entrusted me with the dissemination of this news, which should be delivered with tact and decorum, two things you seem to be completely without.”

  “Ha!” scoffed Gene. “I have more tact in my left knothole than you have in your entire body.”

  “Well, that’s classy,” said Georgie.

  “I am one slick stick,” Gene said proudly.

  “What is it?” Elspeth persisted. “Is it Jack? Is he okay?”

  That Elspeth would make such an assumption was not surprising. After all Jack was a large man with little regard for his own well-being when it came to diet and exercise. His idea of health food was a hot dog in a whole wheat bun or bacon grease that had been freshly squeezed.

  “He’s fine,” said Georgie, bringing Elspeth a measure of relief that would not last long. “I’ve come here on official royal business.”

  “You’ve come here?” Gene said with a deliberate clearing of his throat. “Seriously. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.”

  “Okay,” Georgie reluctantly agreed. “We’ve come here on official royal business. It’s about Queen Farrah.”

  “Farrah?” Elspeth repeated. “Is there something the matter with her?”