"Liar," Bonita accused with a happy grin.

"Had to have at least once," Daisy added with a helplessly apologetic shrug, an open palm indicating the daughter, who the mother was now tugging even faster.

"Why do we always seem to have that effect on people?" Daisy pondered aloud.

Bonita compressed her lips, her shoulders rising so high that they almost touched her ears. She shook her head in agreeably wondering concession. "Damned," she said, as they trailed the mother and daughter into the main room.

The room was circular, dark, and cold, with the thickest set of reinforced vaulted doors that Daisy had ever seen; and which also kind of made you think, only this time, Miss Chance wasn't providing any clues. With only the barest pinpoints of ceiling lighting to guide them, the real illumination in the room came from the cases displaying the jewels.

Oh, great, Daisy thought, feeling like something of a Druid. Now we're all going round in circles.

"Oh, look, dear!" cried the older woman from earlier, now in line ahead of them. She tugged on her daughter's sleeve, pointing. "It's the Queen's hat!"

And Daisy, bumping her from behind, found herself face-to-bulletproof-shield with the Imperial State Crown, the Star of Africa-a diamond as big as a post-Apartheid raised fist-being the dominant feature in the jewel-encrusted setting.

"However does she hold it up on her head?" the older woman, who was from Woking (might as well learn everything about her while we can) was asking. "Why, you'd think it would fall straight down onto her nose!"

Daisy could no longer help herself. A feeling of hysteria had quite overtaken her and, as it bubbled up from her stomach, she doubled over laughing.

"What's so funny, you?" the woman from Woking asked accusingly as she whirled round, hands on her impressive hips. Clearly, she'd had enough. "There's no cause to be laughin' at the Royal Nose."

"I wasn't laughing at that," Daisy sputtered, endeavoring to recover herself.

Woking Woman waited, rather impatiently.

"It was that thing you said before," Daisy tried again. "About it being 'the Queen's hat.' It was as though... as though..." Daisy was briefly overcome by a second wave of laughter. "As though you thought you might be able to pick one up for yourself at Harrods' January Sale!" she finally finished, before going off again.

Woking Woman and Woking Daughter simply stared at her for a very long time, their joint expressions one of perplexity.

"Well, dear," the older woman said, just prior to leading her very patient daughter away one last time, "I always say that they may think that they won the war, but any country that produces that many lunatics, well, they might as well all call themselves Australia and have done with it. Convicts, lunatics; it's all the same thing, really, when you get right down to it. If you're one, then chances are you're probably the other. And if you're the other, then you most certainly ought to be the one. That's what I always say. Australia, America. If only they could all be trained to just stay at home."

"Do you think it might be us?" Daisy asked in genuine puzzlement, as she watched their retreating forms.

"Damned," Bonita concurred a second time.

"Where the hell is Klosters, anyway?" Daisy asked, as they neared the exit. Her mood was beginning to sour.

Charles had recently advised her that, once the holiday rounds of parties were finished up with, he should like to take her skiing there in January. Great, Daisy had thought, herself a latent control freak who had never relished any sport that removed both feet from direct contact with the earth. She had always thought that even the dentist's drill wouldn't be such a big deal, if they would only allow you to keep one foot on the ground. And, as for childbirth or jumping out of planes, well...

Bonita shrugged. "Damned," she reiterated her main point, making it an even three.

"Damned if I know either," Daisy echoed, testily, as she booted the exit door open.

This touristy display of violent and maladaptive disregard-more typical of her fellow countrymen than of herself-succeeded in proving the Woking Woman right and causing the security guard (who was also really a nice man, named Bob, in another life) to frisk her for weapons; whereupon, at Daisy's urging, he phoned the palace, only to learn that she indeed was-as she had claimed-practically One of Them.

Which was, somehow, hardly surprising.

3.

"What do you mean that the Mistress of the Robes has absolutely nothing to do with the Queen's wardrobe?" Daisy was practically screeching, as she trailed Sturgess into the palace's estate-sized kitchen.

"Ah, Mr. Sturgess, you've arroived jest in the nick o' time," greeted the Master Chef, a man of reputedly limited culinary skills, who had at least managed to get the Child/Prudhomme girth right. "Oi've been 'opin you'd pop in."

Up until very recently, the Master Chef would have rather been eviscerated with a shrimp deveiner than be heard to have spoken such words out loud. But, in the past few months, he had noted a slow change coming about in the formerly starched-shirt valet-a loosening up of his taste buds, if you will-that was downright endearing. Having previously only shown any real depth of interest in satay, the sensitivity of Sturgess's palate had been increasing by leaps and bounds, until now his presence had become a welcome addition to the Kitchen. Were it not for the fact that the Master Chef's own abilities to discern gustatory nuances of flavor had been dulled by the lifelong, daily, ingestion of three-fifths of Port, two packages of cigarettes-causing him to flick ashes onto the partridge and piss under the pear tree, before serving holiday dinners-Sturgess's help might not have been quite so necessary. But such was the stuff that the palace staff was made up of, and there seemed to be nothing else for it but to pitch in where and when one was needed.

"Wot do you think?" the M.C. asked, stirring a stainless-steel pot that was easily large enough to accommodate Daisy. "A little garlic, maybe?"

Sturgess accepted the wooden spoon from the tottering gourmet. "Mm, sorrel soup," he said. "Lovely." He tried some more. "But you cannot put garlic in it, you know."

"Whyever not?"

"Because the Queen hates garlic. How many times do I have to tell you? She cannot eat anything that will make her smell like anything."

"Well, Oi don't see wot the big bloody deal is. Oi've read those arteecles too, you know. Oi know that when she goes to those less-civilized places, down underneath the world, that she has to eat wotever they bleedin' well give 'er. If hippo tartare is on the menu at the Pygmy Pub, then tha's wot Ol' Lizzie eats." The MC was getting hot under his stained collar, waving a large knife in one hand and a head of elephant garlic in the other. Through his purple alcoholic haze, he was beginning to remember why he had never liked Sturgess in the first place. Bleedin' sot was always thinkin' 'e knew better'n anybody else.

"You can't tell me differen', cause Oi knows-"

"Yes, of course," Sturgess soothed. "You are absolutely right. When Her Majesty is on the road, she must behave as custom demands. But when at home, well... she cannot very well have guests saying that the Queen seemed nice enough but that her breath stank. I mean to say that, surely a man of your vast intellectual powers can plainly see..."

The M.C. wasn't quite sure if his leg was being pulled, but what he did in fact see was the day's third fifth, gaping a seductive invitation from the counter. His bloodshot left eye beginning to droop somnolently in its general direction, he decided to let bygones be. "Well, tha's awright then. Just so long as you know 'oo knows wot aroun' 'ere."

"Yes, by all means have some more to drink, my good man," Sturgess placated, reasoning that it was far better to have the meat be basted in liquids of questionable origin than to be carved up himself.

"Sturgess," Daisy implored, stamping her little foot. "You're not paying any attention to me!"

"Did you say something, dear?"

"Stop guzzling soup and look at me!"

"Oh, all right," he said, turning to face her. "What seems to be the problem now?"

"I want to know what you meant before, when you said that the Mistress of the Robes had nothing to do with the Queen's wardrobe."

"Her having something to do with the Queen's wardrobe? What peculiar ideas you Americans will insist on having. The Mistress's job is that of most senior Lady-in-Waiting."

"But, I don't get it," Daisy said. This "waiting" stuff, especially, had really thrown her for a loop. Having herself lived a life where it took every fiber of her being, at times, not to rail out loud at the tyranny of the unforgiving minute, it was impossible for her to understand how anybody could simply wait for a living.

"There is nothing to get, Daisy," Sturgess responded tiredly. Sometimes he found himself experiencing an almost sacrilegious longing for The Other One. At least she hadn't needed to have every little thing spelled out for her. Oh, well, he sighed, they could probably do a lot worse than Daisy.

"The Mistress is in charge of Waiting. Now, then, the Queen's wardrobe, which I take it is the main thrust of all of this, is attended to by Dressers."

"Not a Mistress."

"No."

"And Charles...?"

"... is the Prince of Wales."

"I know that," Daisy said, exasperated. "I mean, Charles doesn't need a Mistress to dress him either?"

"No. His Highness has me."

"Then, if I needed-"

"Ah! I get it! The day of that State Banquet will be arriving before you know it, and you don't have a clue as to what to wear! Not to mention, the trip to Klosters..." Sturgess began ticking off the upcoming events, using his fingers. "Oh, and riding clothes, of course. Why, we need to get you your very own Dresser, someone to fit you out with clothes. Come along," he beckoned, striding briskly from the kitchen.

But I don't want to be part of a costume party, the increasingly naggy voice inside of Daisy's head whined, as she struggled to keep up.

Sturgess turned to her, on his face a look of excitement. "I don't know why I never thought of this before, but you're going to need so very many things now." And he proceeded to describe, in detail, the contents of the Queen's wardrobe: the medals, the badges, the orders, etcetera, ad nauseum; and what was entailed, in the way of excess baggage, for even a short journey to another country. The picture that he painted led Daisy to believe that, shortly, she would definitely no longer be able to fit it all into one carry-on bag.

"And that's just the beginning," Sturgess went on, envisioning the future for the first time, for he was, of course, in on everything. "Why, if you are going to be Queen someday-"

Here Daisy shrieked out loud, causing Sturgess to clamp one large hand over her mouth. She was beginning to feel like the malcontent heir in an old Monty Python routine.

"But, Sturgess," she pleaded, once he had removed the muzzling hand. She strived to keep her voice down and the whine out, but the latter proved to be too much to ask of her. "I don't want to be Queen."

"Want to be Queen?" he asked incredulously. "What an absurd notion." He was looking at her as though she were starkers. "Of course you don't. Nobody in their right mind ever does." He shook his head in dismay. Those silly Americans. What would they think of next?

4.

"La-ta-ta-ti; la-ta-ta-ta." The Prince of Wales was singing Daffy Duck's theme song as he did up the cravat on his suit. Or maybe it was the bow tie on his tux? At any rate, it was some article of clothing, some accessory that required manual dexterity in putting it on if one did not wish to make a complete ass of one's self. But Sturgess, for once, was too caught up in the knot of his own thoughts to pay any heed to the fashion quagmire that his Lord and Master was rapidly looping himself into.

Sturgess was concerned about the little American.

"I'm concerned about the little American," he said, speaking his thoughts out loud.

"Miss Chance?" the Prince asked, absentmindedly, as he went practically en pointe in front of the high mirror, trying to get a glimpse of what kind of visual effect his handiwork had created.

"No. The other one."

Nope, that definitely would not do. The tie had about as much to do with symmetry as a Kandinsky nude or as England did with Ireland.

"You cannot possibly mean The Other One," the Prince said, unraveling the whole thing with a surprising degree of equanimity and seeming, really, quite eager to give it another go. "Surely, you must mean This One."

"Whatever," came the rather flip response. There really was no point in trying to discuss anything of a serious nature with His Highness when he was in one of his ridiculously precise semantic modes.

Sturgess had been growing concerned, of late, with Daisy's seemingly sudden shift in attitude. She had appeared so enthusiastic at first, so Yankee gung-ho about everything. Well, he thought with a heavy inward sigh, that worm hasn't taken very long to turn. But, then, everybody knew that the Americans had the attention spans of hyperactive children. Why, hadn't they, in point of fact, actually invented some disease called ADD? To him, it had always sounded like a bunch of poppycock, really; just another excuse for ignoring your teacher or your boss or your own mum even ("Go greet Uncle George with the news? I thought you said I should pee on his shoes"). But still...

"How do you think that it is going?" the Prince asked, jumping up and down in front of the highly placed mirror. Really, integrity in interior design was one thing, and all very well and good, but it would be nice, if only for a change of pace, to have a shop-style dressing-room glass so that one could have some idea of what one really looked like.

"I think that it would be best, at this juncture, to proceed with caution, Sir." Sturgess's mind was still on Daisy. Had he known that the advice that he was dispensing was, almost down to the exact word, that which was being handed out as commonly as tea and crumpets at the Pakistani Embassy these days, he might have chosen his own phrasing more carefully. But as it was...

"Yes, I think I see what you mean," Charles conceded ruefully, endeavoring to gracefully extricate his forefinger from the central knot. "Tricky things, aren't they?"

Sturgess noticed the Prince's fashion impasse for the first time. He sighed more heavily still. "Do you need some help with that, Sir?"

"Well, perhaps, if you would just... er, that is to say, mm..."

The Royal chin was lifted, regally, skyward and the valet commenced to straightening the bow.

"La-ta-ta-ti; la-ta-ta-ta." The theme song was being whistled now. Badly. "La-ta... Was there something that you wished to talk to me about before?"

The valet finished his duties and, bestowing upon the Prince of Wales an unprofessional-yet astoundingly comforting and encouraging-paternal pat on the arm, made the decision to give it all up as a bad job.

"Never mind about that now, Sir. Ye just do the very best ye can. It's all that anyone's really ever wanted from ye anyway."

5.

Daisy Silverman was dressing in camouflage.

She, too, had an important date to get ready for, a momentous occasion to look forward to, some enchanted evening in her imminent future.

Too bad, then, that she was feeling so thoroughly disenchanted.

But, if it was indeed true that the Queen ate hippo tartare when she had to take the show on the road, and if there were still people on the face of the planet who were silly enough and energetic enough to try to act like Romans when in that foolishly passionate and passionately foolish country, then Daisy could certainly learn to do her share of adapting too. Although it did seem highly probable that, when Darwin had been postulating his theories on natural selection, he had not necessarily had the Royal Family and their entourage of hangers-on in mind.

In an effort to blend in with her surroundings, then, she was wearing a red evening gown. And, while that color had speedily been transformed, to her eyes, from vivid to vapid-in about the same amount of time it would take one to say "No more John Major for me" three times fast-through the sheer overwhelming proliferation of it around her, she was hoping it would prove to be just the ticket. For she was filled with an odd mixture of trepidation and boredom at the prospect of the evening ahead. How strange to feel so concerned about the impression that one created while, at the same instant, not really caring what anybody thought at all. If she could just get through it without making a complete and utter ass out of herself...

Sheathed in flaming red satin-from thin shoulder straps, through heart-shaped neckline and waist snug enough to please Scarlett O'Hara, all the way down to flared skirt above restlessly tapping foot encased in pinching heels, that were not dyed to match but had actually been created in that color for her alone, she was hoping that, if she could no longer pass for a wallflower, perhaps she might be taken for an original cabbage rose: a relief from the endless, expected expanse of plush red carpeting that seemed to extend as far as the eye could see.

Daisy's disenchantment with everything had really all started on the previous day, during a private little luncheon with the Queen.

Oh, the food had been fine, of course, never anything to worry about there. True, it was a bit on the blandly rich side, as always-all cream and no garlic-but there was certainly plenty of it. No, one would have to really work at it to starve to death around here.