David Walliams - The Beast of Buckingham Palace

“ALFRED!” she shouted over her shoulder, struggling with the soldiers to make them stop.

Because their faces were hidden behind gold skull masks, it was impossible to guess what they were thinking. The royal guards remained silent throughout, which only added to the sense that this was a nightmare.

“Mama! Where are they taking you?” demanded Alfred.

“GET BACK INSIDE YOUR ROOM, ALFRED! AND LOCK THE DOOR!” she shouted back.

“But…!”

“NOW! AND PROMISE ME YOU’LL STAY THERE!”

The boy did not reply.

“Promise!” she pleaded.

“I promise!” he mumbled.

Shocked at what he’d just witnessed, Alfred retreated and slammed his bedroom door shut.

SCHTUM!

He stood dead still, unable to move. It was as if he were underwater. That too made it feel like being in a nightmare.

But this was no nightmare. This was really happening.

As if to prove that, tears welled in the boy’s eyes, then streamed down his face. His mother, who he loved more than anyone, was being dragged away in the night, and he was helpless to stop it. Alfred looked around his bedroom. There were silver-framed photographs of her everywhere.

Here she was reading him a bedtime story.

There she was pushing him on a rocking horse.

Here she was helping him draw a picture.

There she was playing with his train set.

Here she was painting his face like a lion.

There she was helping him blow out all the candles on a birthday cake.

Here she was giving him a teddy bear.

In each picture, the young boy was basking in the glow of her love.

In one of the photographs, Alfred was dressed up in a suit of armour as Richard the Lionheart. Richard I was a heroic king from the twelfth century, who led crusades in far-off lands. Alfred picked up the picture, and studied it.

Lionheart.

That was his mother’s pet name for him.

Tears welled in the boy’s eyes. He always felt unworthy of that name. He felt nothing like a hero. Having been ill all his life, Alfred was used to being an object of pity. Sometimes he even pitied himself.

Tears ran down his cheeks.

He felt helpless to stop his mother being dragged away by the royal guards.

Other important people had mysteriously disappeared in the night over the years.

The prime minister.

The chief of police.

The head of the army.

Even Alfred’s grandmother had suffered the same fate.

Lionheart.

His mother’s voice calling him that name circled round and round in his mind.

Lionheart.

Lionheart had been a mighty warrior. Alfred needed to summon some of his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-ancestor’s spirit, and do something. Anything.

“Lionheart!” he said out loud, and, despite what he had promised his mother, he opened his bedroom door.

Alfred limped down the corridor, steadying himself on the sideboard to catch his breath. Quite a few paces ahead, the royal guards’ cloaks fluttered as they bustled the boy’s mother along. Alfred tried to speed up, but in doing so he stumbled over a rug…

THOD!

…twisting his ankle.

“OUCH!”

With no chance of catching up with them, he thought of Richard the Lionheart, and called out, “I C-C-COMMAND YOU TO ST-ST-STOP!”

Not only was Alfred out of breath, but he was not used to giving orders. As a result, the words came out wonky. Despite Alfred being royal and these being the royal guards, the pair of faceless fiends ignored him. The Queen turned her head and shouted back to her son.

“PLEASE, ALFRED! I DON’T WANT YOU TO SEE THIS.”

There was a look of terror in her eyes. A look the boy had never seen before. His mother had always been a wonder at pretending everything was tickety-boo when it clearly wasn’t. She would always make up stories to cover what was really going on.

The sound of an explosion in the middle of the night was “nothing more than a thunderstorm”. She would then stroke Alfred’s head until he drifted off back to sleep.

After his grandmother had mysteriously gone missing one night from the palace, Mother would make believe that Grammy had written postcards to him. She was the “Old Queen”, his father’s widowed mother, and much loved by the boy. Alfred always called her “Grammy” because when he was little he couldn’t say “Granny”. His mother would read these postcards aloud to him as she put him to bed at night.

It was only when Alfred grew older that he suspected his mother had written all the postcards herself.

When he asked whether they would ever set foot outside Buckingham Palace, the Queen would take her son on an imaginary flight around the world.

“Hold my hand and together let’s fly up, up, up into the air, across London, across the sea, over the pyramids of Egypt, down the Grand Canyon of America, along the Great Wall of China and back to Dear Old Blighty in time for tea.”