At Briersville Park, Todson was eating scrambled eggs at the kitchen table.
“Terrible, terrible,” he muttered to himself as he flipped through a newspaper full of horror stories about the recent floods and tornadoes all over the world. A rusty, old-fashioned bell on the wall above the stove rang. “Ah, front door. Wonder who that can be?”
Todson wiped his hands on a napkin and made his way upstairs, taking off his apron on the way. Walking toward the front door, he straightened his tie. Then he peered through the hall window.
“Goodness me,” he gasped. Outside was a grand, long black car with a little flag set on its roof above its front windshield. Checking his hands to see that they were clean, Todson opened the door and found himself looking into the eyes of someone dressed rather like himself.
“Good morning,” Smuthers, the queen’s butler, said. “Is Molly Moon in?”
Todson’s eyes opened wide as he saw the queen herself, dressed in a country coat, talking to a Rasta on the steps below.
“I’m a-a-afraid she’s not,” he stuttered. “But her best friend, Rocky, is upstairs. I could call him down. Could he help? Please come in.”
“Thank you very much,” Smuthers said. Then, in a whisper, he added, “You’ve got a bit of egg on your collar.”
“Ah, thank you.” Todson nodded with a wink. He removed the egg and stepped back to let the visitors in.
The queen smiled graciously as she passed. “Thank you so much.”
“Tank you,” said her Jamaican companion.
“I was lucky, Leonard,” Todson caught the queen saying to the man. “I had Smuthers to talk to. Poor you! You must have thought you were losing your marbles. You know, no one else believed me. Thank goodness for Smuthers.” She paused as she looked at her surroundings. “And thank goodness for the Moon children. I am so looking forward to meeting them.”
Leonard smiled. “Yeah. Feel like I’ve known them for years.”