Two Weeks with the Queen by Morris Gleitzman Page B

him exaggerating and Alistair wide-eyed with admiration and him exaggerating even more.
    It had gone on long enough.
    He looked at Alistair.
    â€˜Wanna help me save Luke’s life?’
    Alistair stared back, suddenly alarmed.
    â€˜What do you mean?’ he stammered. ‘I’m not allowed to give blood, Mum won’t let me.’
    Colin told him about the Queen and how he’d been trying to get to see her.
    Alistair’s eyes bulged.
    Then Colin told him what he’d decided to do now.
    If Aunty Iris had been there she would have told Alistair to put his eyes back into his head.
    â€˜What’s all this got to do with me?’ croaked Alistair.
    â€˜Simple,’ said Colin.’ I need someone to give me a leg up.’
    Buying the rope was simple enough once Colin had persuaded Alistair that it was OK to go to the shops.
    â€˜Mum doesn’t like me going,’ said Alistair, hanging around the front gate.
    â€˜What?’ said Colin. ‘Does she think a bus is going to mount the kerb, weave through all the other shoppers, carefully avoiding rubbish bins and brick walls, and flatten you?’
    â€˜Well, one could do, couldn’t it?’
    â€˜OK,’ said Colin, ‘you stay here.’
    â€˜I’ll come,’ said Alistair.
    The alarm went off under Colin’s pillow and for a moment he thought Luke had borrowed Dad’s electric drill again. His heart leaped. It had been bad enough the first time, Luke trying to repair the loose drawer in Colin’s room and drilling through six pairs of underpants.
    Colin opened his eyes and remembered where he was.
    Then he remembered why he’d set the alarm.
    He pulled the dock from under the pillow and peered at it in the darkness.
    Three-thirty.
    He got out of bed and got dressed as quickly as he could, which wasn’t that quickly because his body was shivering all over and his fingers were going numb with the cold.
    He felt under the bed and slid out his footy bag. He peered inside. The rope was still there. He pulled his two jumpers up under his armpits, wound the rope round and round his middle, tied a knot, and pulled the jumpers back down over the rope.
    Then he crept into Alistair’s room and shook Alistair awake.
    â€˜I took the pills,’ mumbled Alistair, ‘honest, Mum.’
    â€˜It’s time to go,’ whispered Colin.
    Alistair opened his eyes and blinked at Colin.
    â€˜I’m scared,’ he said.
    â€˜Get dressed,’ said Colin, ‘or we’ll miss the bus.’
    â€˜Mum doesn’t let me go into town by myself,’ said Alistair.
    â€˜You won’t be by yourself,’ said Colin. ‘I’ll be with you.’
    â€˜What if you get shot?’
    â€˜OK,’ said Colin, ‘you stay here.’
    â€˜I’ll come,’ said Alistair.
    ***
    The driver of the night bus gave them a suspicious look as they got on and paid their fares.
    Colin held his breath.
    It was probably just that not many kids caught the 3.50am bus into town.
    â€˜It’s a real pain having to start work at 4.30,’ Colin said to Alistair. ‘Still, that’s the price we have to pay for owning our own milk: bar.’
    â€˜Eh?’ said Alistair.
    The driver handed over the tickets and they hurried upstairs and sat at the back.
    They travelled in silence for a few minutes, then Alistair turned to Colin.
    â€˜What if they’ve got dogs?’ he said.
    â€˜They haven’t got dogs,’ said Colin.
    â€˜How do you know?’
    â€˜It was in our local paper at home,’ said Colin. ‘A couple of years ago a bloke got into Buckingham Palace at night and the next morning when the Queen woke up he was sitting on the end of her bed looking at her. He didn’t have a single dog bite on him.’
    â€˜I remember that,’ said Alistair.
    â€˜If he can do it, I can,’ said Colin.
    â€˜They put him in a loony bin,’ said