The Micki Adventures

                                            by Linda Bindner

Chapter 15: The Queen

        That smile was the last good thing that happened for a long time.  By appealing to Hammondy for help, Micki had gone too far, and she knew it.  The Queen was calm on the outside, but furious on the inside.  Micki could tell by the way her skin crinkled around her narrowed eyes every time she looked at her on the way back to the palace in Ruralusia.

The second they all arrived at the palace again on that strange day, Al was sent home, Micki was given a bath, and her punishment began.

        Micki was confined to her room until further notice.  Her meals were left outside her door.  She ate alone.  She was allowed to see no one, not a maid, not the Tutor, not Rachel, and most importantly, not Al.

        But It had all been worth it.

        As long as she kept telling herself that, Micki figured it was bound to come true eventually.

                                                ~~~

Exactly one month later, Micki was staring out her window at the boring palace play park for the one hundred millionth gazillionth time since her punishment began.  She closed her eyes and held her breath, wishing harder than she ever had in her life that when she opened her eyes again, something would have changed.

One swift glance out her window told her all she needed to know.  No matter how hard she’d wished, nothing at all had changed.

Dead leaves met her gaze, all piled on brown grass.  The play park was depressingly empty and abandoned.  A gray lake lay under an even grayer sky.  All of it promised rain.  It was the bleakest sight Micki had ever seen.

The only good thing about any of this was it reminded Micki of the day she’d met Al.

But the similarities ended with its looks.  It was no longer warm.  Cold wind scuttled dead sticks across the play park.  The leaves on the trees in the forest behind the palace were turning brown and orange and red and falling to the ground in piles.  Shem the groundskeeper would need to rake them up soon or he’d have a huge mess.  Crows flew in flocks of ten or twenty from branch to branch, perching where they could, cawing and making an awful racket.  Clouds scudded across the sky.  The wind whistled mournfully around the palace.  The cold air flowed in, but Micki kept her window wide open in hopes that something… anything… would change.

But no, it was all the same.  Micki heaved a disappointed sigh and turned back to her room.

Her room was as boring as ever, just like it was outside.  She didn’t even have anything to clean to keep her occupied.  There were no clothes from yesterday strewn about the floor.  Her bed was neatly made.  Even all her toys and books and playthings were put away.  This was probably the cleanest her room had ever been.  At least, during a time when she was in charge of it.

On the upside, she had made new friends in the four princesses of Hammondy.  Relations between Hammondy and Ruralusia were better than they had ever been before.  And she had solved what to do about The Disease.  Well, sort of.

Okay, maybe ‘solved’ was too strong of a word.  She had thought of a place to start looking for a treatment, maybe even a cure if they were very lucky.  But it was just a place to start.  She hadn’t even heard what anyone was doing with that idea, no matter how much she listened to the maids through her closed door.  Maybe they had all deemed it a stupid idea created by a very naive ten year old girl.  Maybe it had already been explored and nothing had come of it.  Maybe the healers were still working on it, together with the healers and doctors from all the other countries.  Maybe the Disease was vanquished by now and she was a true hero.

Maybe she should stop thinking so much.

Maybe she should do something before she went crazy.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Micki sighed again, and the sound hung heavy in the cold air.  But she didn’t close the window.  An open window at least gave her the illusion of freedom, as if she was staying in her room voluntarily rather than by royal order.

On the other hand, Micki was only able to successfully pretend about her punishment for just so long before reality came crashing back down.  This was one of those times.

She was on the verge of becoming completely and irrevocably depressed when something happened that hadn’t happened all month.  In the middle of the morning, at a time when it wasn’t mealtime, someone knocked on her door.

The sound cracked across her empty room, startling her so much that she fell off the padded seat fronting the window to land in a heap of material on the floor.  In a flash she was on her feet and running across the room to goggle at the door.  Was it a maid, come to tell her to close her window?

“C… c...” Micki tried to say, but it came out in a stuttered croak.  It had been so long since she’d talked to anyone that her voice sounded strangled.  She cleared her throat, then tentatively tried again.  “Come in?”

The Queen strode in as if the sun was shining and all was right in the world.  “Good morning!”

Micki was so shocked that she could think of nothing intelligent to say.

A grinning Princess Rachel followed her through the door, giving Micki yet another shock.

Rachel took one look at her and laughed.  “Sit down before you fall down.”

Without a single protest, Micki instantly plopped into the nearest seat at the lunch table.  It was a good thing the chair was already pulled out.

“Em,” said the Queen as she shut the door behind them.  “We need to talk to you about something very serious.”

Micki blinked.  Was she in trouble again?  Well, in more trouble?  Then she gasped a breath as a thought suddenly occurred to her.  “Did my idea about the survivors work?  Did you even find a cure?”  Excitement tinged her voice.

“No.”

Micki’s disappointment must have shown on her face, for the Queen quickly added, “But the healers have learned a lot in the last month.  There have been fewer deaths.”

Wrinkles creased Micki’s forehead.  “Then do you want to tell me that I’m being punished some more?”

The Queen actually laughed.  “Of course not.  In fact, you can consider your punishment over.”

Micki’s forehead wrinkled even more.  “Then what did I do wrong?”

Rachel slyly grinned.  “Nothing… this time.”

Queen Madge didn’t even bother to send her ‘the look’ to shut her up, but got right to the point.  “Em, what do you think about Rachel resigning and you becoming the next Queen?”

What?

Micki’s mouth fell open wide to match her goggling eyes.  She shook her head back and forth to clear her mind.  “Wait.  Maybe I didn’t hear you right.  Did you -?”

“You heard right,” The Queen said, highly amused now, judging by her smile.  “Rachel and I have been talking about this for at least a month.  So, what do you think?”

Micki’s mind went blank.  She couldn’t think.  She couldn’t move.  She couldn’t even feel her tongue.  “Uh…” she said, sounding dumb.  “Uh…”

Rachel giggled.  “Well, this is something new: Em is speechless.”

That made Micki gape even more.  When was the last time Rachel had giggled?  She was always in too bad of a mood to giggle.  She was always too worried to giggle, too serious.  Now that she thought of it, had Rachel ever giggled?

“Close your mouth, Em, before you swallow a fly,” Rachel suggested.

“But… but..!” gasped Micki.  “How..?  Why..?”

Rachel rolled her eyes.  “I told you she’d take it this way,” she stated to Queen Madge.  “Em is nothing if not predictable.”

Rachel sounded like they were discussing what to take on a picnic.

With a huge effort, Micki collected her scattered wits enough to wail one complete sentence.  “You’ve both gone crazy!”

Queen Madge laughed.  “I assure you we’re not crazy.  As I said before, Rachel and I have been talking about it for the last month.”

“I’ve actually been thinking about it for more than a year,” Rachel casually commented.

A year?  Micki hadn’t known any of this.  Rachel set to be the next Queen was one of those things that she had never thought to question.  It was irrefutable, a fact she had counted on without even realizing she was doing it.  Now all of a sudden they wanted to take that all away?  And they expected her to just roll over and let them?

But the Queen insisted they weren’t crazy.  Therefore, there was only one plausible explanation that she could think of: they were lying to her.

Anger at possibly being tricked surged through her.  “Tell me the truth, or else!”

Rachel gusted a huge, irritated sigh, as if she was giving in to the inevitable.  “Why do you always have to know everything, Em?  Can’t you just say yes and let us get on with our lives?”

Micki scowled.  “No.  I want to know what’s going on.”

Rachel looked with raised eyebrows towards the Queen, silently turning the conversation over to her.

Queen Madge calmly pulled a chair from the table and sat beside Micki, looking suddenly much more sober.

Micki doubted their motives even more.  “Really and truly, am I in trouble?”

The Queen gave a gentle smile.  “No.  Though I don’t blame you for thinking that you are, though I told you your punishment is over.”  The Queen folded her hands in her lap as Rachel sat next to her.  “Em, we want --”

“Why do you want me as Queen instead of Rachel?” Micki asked, unable to hold the question in any longer.  “Give me the reasons.”

“All right,” replied the Queen with a nod.  “You and Princess Rachel aren’t all that different… until you look beneath the surface.”

The Tutor was always telling her to ‘look beneath the surface’ too, but Micki had never understood that phrase.  Things like ponds and lakes and bathtubs had a surface, things filled with water.  Though people were made of a lot of things, including water, they weren’t made of just water.  People didn’t have a surface, they had skin.  But skin wasn’t as clear as water.  How was she supposed to look through something that wasn’t clear?

“That doesn’t tell me anything,” Micki announced.  “Say something more specific.”

“All right, fine,” said Queen Madge.  “The way you just took off for Hammondy on your own --”

“I wasn’t on my own,” Micki quickly reminded, thinking that this really was about more punishment.  “Alice and Al went with me.”

The interruption did more to perturb the Queen, it seemed, than remind her of anything she didn’t already know.  “By ‘on your own’ I meant that you didn’t have royal permission.  Now can I go on without pointless interruptions?”  She glared until Micki nodded once.  “Good.  Going to Hammondy on your own wasn’t necessarily a good idea, but it shows initiative, which is definitely a quality that the Queen needs.”

“But Rachel shows plenty of initia… whatever,” Micki argued.

“Initiative,” the Queen automatically corrected.

“Rachel’s full of it,” Micki said, though she wasn’t sure exactly what she was claiming.

“Don’t make me laugh!” Rachel scorned, as if she knew exactly what ‘initiative’ meant.  “I never would have thought of going to Hammondy on my own.  And even if I’d thought of it, I wouldn’t have followed through with the idea.”  She shivered, making her hair dance across her shoulders.  “From what Mom has told me, King Feston sounds like an awful person.  I don’t know how you could stand him, let alone talk him into what you did.”

“I didn’t do it alone,” Micki instantly clarified.  “I couldn’t have done it without Al and the four ‘K’s.”

“That’s another thing a good Queen does,” said Queen Madge before Rachel could ask for more details.  “She always acknowledges those who help her.”

“But Rachel does that all the time,” Micki argued.

“You knew enough to ask for help before you needed it,” the Queen next pointed out.  “Being able to ask for help is an excellent quality to have.”

“I bet Rachel asks for help all the time,” Micki countered.

“Phooey!” Rachel emphatically said, “I hate asking for help.”

“You do not,” Micki said.  “I’ve seen you do it.”

“Then you’ve been imagining things,” Rachel told her.  “Asking for help is like saying you can’t do something.”

“But that’s silly!” Micki argued.  “Things are never that simple.”

“Things are that simple,” said Rachel.  “You just like to make things complicated.”

“I don’t make things complicated,” Micki said, trying to keep her voice even and calm, though she really wanted to yell.  “It just means that it’s not a good idea to do whatever it is on your own, not that you can’t do it at all.”

Before Rachel could argue some more with her, Queen Madge quickly changed the subject.   “You care about others,” she said to Micki.

Micki countered, “Rachel cares about others… I think.”

“I care for everybody but you,” Rachel snarkily said.

Micki stuck out her tongue at her.  It was as if they were still arguing, but doing it silently.

Ignoring them, the Queen looked again at Micki.  “You’re patient, you’re kind --”

“It’s true that Rachel is kind, too,” Micki cut in, “but I can’t argue that she’s really impatient.”  She made a face at Rachel.

Her mom didn’t stop to tell Micki to behave.  “You have an imagination.”

“Except I can’t imagine a patient Rachel,” Micki said, pleased with the joke.

         The Queen gave a definite impression that she wasn’t amused, but didn’t elaborate.  “You’re competitive without being manipulative.”

        What did competitive mean?  And what was manipulative?  Micki was glad to agree even though she didn’t completely understand.  “True.”

        “You think outside the box,” the Queen went on.

Micki’s brows met over her eyes in a frown.  Did that mean she stood outside a box, thinking?  But that was dumb.  “What?”

“That’s just an expression adults like to use to feel smart,” Queen Madge honestly replied.  “It means that you can see solutions others can’t see at all.”

That didn’t really clear things up much for Micki.  “You mean that..?  I still don’t get it.”

Rachel growled low in her throat.  “It means you’re stupidly stubborn.”  Then she gave her head an energetic shake.  “That was mean of me.  Sorry.”

Micki goggled again.  Had Rachel just apologized?

The Queen didn’t give Micki the time to grow too astonished.  “Last but not least, you’re sensitive.  Though you’re also a bit dramatic.”

“Rachel’s sensitive,” Micki automatically refuted before her mom’s last comment fully registered.  “Hey!  I am not dramatic!”

“You’re joking, right?” Rachel sarcastically asked.  “You’re the most dramatic person in the entire palace.”

Micki jumped up, her hands balled into fists, ready for a fight in a flash.  “I’d rather be dramatic than -!”

“You’re only looking for attention,” Rachel insisted.  “Does sliding down the banister of the Grand Staircase rather than walking down it like a normal person sound familiar?”

Micki scowled at her sister.  “At least I let myself have some fun.  You’re always too serious!”

Rachel’s chair scraped on the floor as she shot up.  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.  At least I act like an adult instead of a two-year-old.”

“Enough!”  The Queen heaved air like she’d run a marathon.  “The way you’re both behaving right now, I’m not sure I want either one of you to be the next Queen, no matter what attributes you have.”

That was enough to defuse the argument in a hurry.   “What are attributes?” Micki asked.

Rachel drew breath to make a reply that was sure to be scathing, but Queen Madge silenced her with only a look.

Micki was impressed by how her mother was able to stop people from misbehaving without having to say a word.

The Queen explained to Micki, “Attributes are personality traits.  I’ve just pointed out several of your attributes.”

Maybe the way the Queen used ‘the look’ was one of her attributes.

Micki had to think fast to squelch her following laugh.

         She must have been successful, for Queen Madge went on, “A Queen also needs to stand up for people unable to stand up for themselves.  You were very fast to stand up to the Hammondy King when he was less than pleasant towards his daughter in their throne room.”

        Micki wrinkled her forehead in confusion.  “You mean when I told him to be nice to Kallie?”

        “Who’s Kallie?” Rachel asked as her own fists relaxed again.  “I thought you called your friend Al.”

        “I do,” Micki assured.  “Kallie is one of the four ‘K’s.”

        “The four whats?”

        Micki found herself explaining all about the Hammondy princesses.  “What’s it called when four kids are the same age?” she asked her mom.  “It’s not twins or triplets.”

        “They’re quadruplets.”

        “Oh.”  Micki whispered the name to herself so she wouldn’t forget.  “I’ve never heard of that.”

        The Queen gave a wry smile.  “It’s rare to have four children at once.  I wonder how their mother copes with them.”

        “They’re mother’s dead.  Kendra told us,” Micki absently said, still trying to remember the name so she could tell Al if she ever saw her again.

“Wait - I’m confused.”  Rachel’s nose wrinkled and she shook her head back and forth.  “You said her name was Kallie.  Who’s Kendra?”
        “She’s another of the four ‘K’s.” Micki explained.  “There are four of them.  That’s why they’re called quadrupts.”

        “Quadruplets,” Queen Madge corrected.

        “Yeah, that,” Micki said.

        The Queen amazingly didn’t correct Micki about saying yeah instead of yes.  “You also stood up for that man in the market square who couldn’t pay his taxes.”

        Micki shrugged, making light of that long ago incident.  “Well, that guard was hurting him, so I just yelled something to make him stop.  I didn’t even think.  I just knew I had to do something.”

        Queen Madge nodded in understanding.  “In that case, thinking about what to do would have just wasted time.”

        Rachel huffed a sigh.  “I would have thought for so long, it would have been too late to do anything.  But you just jumped right in, without thinking… as usual.”  She shook her head again.  “I could never do that.”

        Queen Madge gently said, “But that’s how a Queen needs to be.”

        Rachel actually shuddered.  “It’s not for me.”

Micki didn’t understand what Rachel’s problem was.  “Don’t you want to be the next Queen?”

Rachel looked straight at Micki.  “I never did.”

Like a lightning bolt, Micki suddenly understood.  “That was why you were always in such a rotten mood, wasn’t it?”

Indignant, Rachel huffed.  “I wasn’t ever in a rotten mood.”

“Yes you were.”

Even the Queen gave a nod.

“Okay,” Rachel reluctantly admitted.  “Maybe I was.  But I couldn’t help it!”

Micki’s brow wrinkled.  “That drunk man couldn’t help drinking, either.  But this isn’t the same thing, is it?”

“No,” said the Queen.

Rachel cut her off.  “See, I would never have figured that out.  You’re much more… what’s that called?”

“Intuitive,” Queen Madge told Rachel.  “Em has finer instincts than you do.  She automatically understands things like that.”

Micki could tell by the tone of her voice that she wasn’t being judgmental, just honest.  “It’s not like I do that on purpose.”

“No, but a Queen needs to have good instincts like that, good intuition.  And as sorry as I am to say it, Rachel doesn’t have those instincts.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Rachel immediately said.  “I’m not.  I’m just glad that I don’t have to try to have them anymore.”

“Oh,” Micki said, remembering something.  “It’s like how you wanted to send soldiers with the ambassadors to Hammondy for protection, but Mom said no, that they would look like an invasion force.  I saw that right away, but you didn’t.”

“Yeah, see, that’s just what I mean,” Rachel gushed, sounding strangely grateful.  “If you take over from me, I can stop pretending to understand stuff like that.”

A new thought occurred to Micki.  “So, you’re saying that by taking over from you, I would be doing you a favor?”

Rachel wasn’t so hesitant.  “A big one.”

“Oh.”  That put this situation in a whole new light.  Micki decided to look at this as a good idea for the first time.  She’d never considered being the Queen while Rachel was still alive and well.  “What would I have to do that’s different?”

“For starters,” the Queen said, “I would take over your training from the Tutor.”
        Micki jumped.  “You mean all this time the Tutor’s been training me the way you’ve been training Rachel?”

“Yes.”

“In case something ever happened to you and Rachel, right?” she said to make certain.  But the following silence unnerved Micki.  Had she gotten it wrong?   “I’m the in case child, ain’t I?”

“Aren’t I,” the Queen corrected, “and is that what you really thought?”

“Well, ain’t I?”

The Queen didn’t bother to correct her again.  “Of course not.  You were never an in case child.”  She breathed an upset sigh.  “I can’t believe you thought that way.  I can’t believe I didn’t know”  Then he gave her head a vigorous shake as if to shake out all these ideas.  “Well, you don’t have to think that way any more, Em.”

“Especially if you take over for me,” said Rachel.
        “I haven’t said yes,” Micki warned.

“But you will,” Rachel said with confidence.

What would it really mean for her if she trained to be the next Queen?  Rachel would be her advisor then.  It made ruling a country seem not so scary.

Rachel’s confidence wavered when Micki didn’t immediately agree with her.  “You will, won’t you?”

Micki was still thinking.

Rachel’s expression fell with a comical swoop.  “Please don’t make me beg,” she begged.

Micki burst out laughing.  “Rachel, actually begging.  Make a note of this, Mom.  It may never happen again.”

Rachel scowled.  “Don’t joke at a time like this.”

Micki pensively regarded her mom.  “Will I still get to see Al?”

“Of course.”

“What about the four ‘K’s?”

“Staying in contact with them can do nothing but help relations with Hammondy.”

Micki’s expression turned sly.  “Can I still slide down the bannister?”

Rachel gave a typical frown.   “Is that all you care about?”

Micki’s laughter peeled through the room.  “Okay, okay, I’ll do it!”

Queen Madge smiled while Princess Rachel wilted in relief.  “Excellent!” the Queen exclaimed.  “Ruralusia will benefit from --”

But Micki wasn’t listening.  She jumped up and ran for the door.

Queen Madge also rose.  “Where are you going?”

Micki paused at the door long enough to yell, “Just wait till I tell Al!”  Then she was gone.

THE END