In her later years, the Queen rarely entertained herself with fantasies of beheadings, but this was proving to be one of those times. Unfortunately-or, fortunately, depending on your perspective-as she studied the quaking Master of the Household, she realized that she hadn't a clue as to who best to start with.

Oh, double "oh dear," she thought. If the Houses of P. ever got wind of this, next year's Civil List would be reduced to zippo. As that now wretched American girl might say.

Deck the halls with balls of Daisy,

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

She will make the Monarch crazy...

It really was enough to put One off One's kippers.

23.

It was Tuesday morning, and the Prime Minister had come to call. This, in and of itself, was in no way out of the ordinary. Traditionally, every British Prime Minister-whether liked or, in some cases (Ma-GGIE) disliked by her-had a standing Tuesday morning meeting with the Queen, whenever she was in residence and Parliament was in session.

And oh boy, was she in residence that morning.

As the P.M. cooled his heels outside of the 1844 Room, he reflected upon the fact that this was to be no ordinary weekly audience. He would neither be giving the standard report on the state of the nation, nor would he be offering up little tidbits of gossip concerning the waywardness of M.P.s. Instead, he would be addressing his attentions to a discussion of The Crisis.

Finally granted admittance, the Prime Minister entered, striding purposely across the white-and-gold room, only to be stopped dead in his tracks by the Negress head clock. A rather ornately over-the-top timepiece, it utilized one eye for counting the hours, while the other marked off the minutes. The damned frightful thing always gave him the willies, as if he might somehow be personally responsible for Kenya. Eerie witch. Be that as it may...

He shook it off.

"We cannot have this," he pronounced magisterially, or at least as magisterially as a man with a large forelock-that no amount of hairspray could contain-could muster. Not even giving proper salutations to the Queen who had stood in half-profile waiting for him, still as a postage stamp, in the center of the room, he barreled on. "She must be stopped. The American simply must go."

The Queen of England turned fully forward, drawing herself up to military posture, as she returned the P.M.'s steely-eyed stare.

"I shall look into it," she said grimly.

Clearly, the shit had hit the fan.

So, obviously, Parliament knew all about Daisy. And, if one cruel stepsister knew about her, it could only be because of one reason: the press, being the other cruel stepsister, had told them. The two stepsisters having reared their ugly heads simultaneously, like two sea creatures-journalism and government being the Scylla and Charybdis of the modern world-one could say that the gloves were finally about to come off.

This, of course, left one burning question still loose out there in the world: who was the cruel stepmother?

Okay, so maybe two. (And the second one kind of has two parts, but the answer is the same, so you shouldn't quibble.) Who had narced on Daisy? Who sent the message in A Box?

Ars longus; vita brevis.

Death even more brevis.

Get the message... Daisy?

24.

Fleet Street had finally gotten ahold of Daisy.

And the resultant experience had left our girl feeling as though she had undergone an invasive procedure, quite possibly at the perfection-seeking hands of an anal-retentive proctologist.

The press was lying about Daisy on a regular basis now, the slander coming fast and furious, like spitballs when teacher's back is turned. This made it increasingly difficult not to give way to hating, and, it certainly was a Herculean expectation, to demand that our girl no longer deal in lies of her own.

"DOES THIS WOMAN HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO TOPPLE THE MONARCHY?!" screamed the headlines on People magazine.

Beneath the banner was a photo of Daisy's startled face. Snapped as she ran from the press-the gates of Buckingham Palace separating her from them-the black iron bars made her look as though she were in prison, the bags under her eyes giving her that distinctly raccoon-ish air.

And, in the lower right hand corner of the cover, there was a smaller shot of Bonita, looking rather like a Medici in profile. The smaller banner whisperingly screamed: "The Mysterious Miss Chance: Governess to the Tidy Bowl Cleaner... OR... Procurer of Verboten Imports for a Prince???"

News of Daisy's exposure had obviously hit the other side of the Atlantic as well and, in a beautifully appointed and completely unused kitchen in Westport, Connecticut, a large blonde woman in a red and green holiday muumuu sat at the butcher block table-heavy elbows on table, pinky thoughtfully inserted into mouth, bulk precariously balanced on a too-narrow stool-as she pored over the contents of her favorite 'zine.

"I knew it, I knew it!" she cried, seeing the jailbird face gazing out at her from the cover.

"Knew what, dear?" came the perfunctory response from the breakfast nook, where Dr. Reichert sat, stirring his coffee as he read the newspaper. Well, he thought, you had to give her some form of encouragement. Sometimes.

"Daisy Silverman! Remember that girl that I said that I saw in Scotland? You remember the one-at the Queen's Garden Party? And I told you how she was really our cleaning lady but that she told me this outlandish story about only being a double banger or something like that? And, anyway, that girl was with the Prince of Wales, and sure, I thought it was strange. I mean, what could little Daisy Silverman be doing with the future king? But then I remembered that she didn't work for that cleaning company that we use-what's their name again? Kwality Kleaning? It'll come to me. Anyway, I remembered that she didn't work for them anymore, and that nobody there could tell me where she'd gone when I tried to hunt her down, after that new girl that they sent over made such a mess with the toilets. Anyway, I got to thinking and, when I put two plus two together, I realized that the crazy girl that I saw in Scotland just had to be Daisy... and here it is! Right in People magazine! You see, it's true: I was right. Oh, I know you sometimes think I'm crazy myself, but-"

"Oh, give it a rest, dear," came the mutter from the beleaguered Dr. Reichert. Nope, on second thought, he realized, it never did do anybody any good to give the old girl any encouragement at all. Ever since their return from that Scotland trip, his wife had been seeing phantom cleaning ladies everywhere she looked. And it was beginning to drive him crazy.

More Prozac. He'd definitely have to up that Prozac dosage.

25.

At the northeastern end of Hyde Park, near the Marble Arch and on the ancient site of Tiburon gallows, exists the Speaker's Corner. On this geographical spot, where those condemned were once allowed to freely speak their minds, grew a tradition in more modern times. On Sunday mornings, and on evenings during the summer months, basically any Tom, Dick, or Erika was allowed to mount the soapbox, so to speak, there to air their personal views on just about anything to anybody who might care to pay them heed. The events in London, of late, causing some people to feel even more opinionated than usual, this public pontificating was now taking place on a weekday, even though the city happened to be in the midst of its winter season.

Oil and water; Nancy and Raisa; monarchy and democracy. Well, if you were going to grant people the basic democratic right to free speech, then you were going to have to expect a little insurrection every now and again.

The topic open for discussion would appear to be the Future King of England's engagement to a commoner, a foreigner, a Jew, and a cleaning lady-all rolled into one.

Erika Swythe was speaking now, but that was nothing new. Erika Swythe had been addressing the topic, heartily, for some two hours now.

"Now, then, the ways I understands it, is that this Archbishop character says that this is all hunky dory. And it's a fine thing to say that wot people be doin' behin' closed doors is their own business, but that only holds true if wot they're doin' isn't everyone else's business. If you take my meaning. Why, just the other day, I tol' my son, Bernie, I says: 'Bernie, don't you dare put your filthy drawers out on the line without puttin' some soap on 'em first, or I'll whack you with my fist.' Those were my exact words, yes, they were. And he did, too. If you ask me, the whole world would be a much better place if corporals were punished. And that goes double for some o' them wot think they're better'n the rest o' us. If they had to bend over and take it every now and again like we do, well, you can bet they'd think twice first, they would. You'd better believe it..."

26.

The Queen's own private dick, who operated under the title of Chief of Security, wasn't having a very good afternoon. He quaked before his boss, as she stood there, holding the damning sheets with both hands.

"You were responsible for vetting Ms. Sills-or, perhaps One should say Miss Silverman? The toilet bowl cleaner?-HOW COULD YOU NOT HAVE KNOWN? Was there not any information on her passport-like her NAME, for instance-that might have tipped the hand? The report of your initial investigation stated nothing about the fact that she is JEWISH. Was your snooping so lackadaisical that it failed to turn up this rather salient tidbit of information?"

"Actually, it... it did, Ma'am."

"It WHAT?"

"The information was there."

"It was there and you failed to mention it? Why?"

The Chief of Security cleared his throat nervously, coughing into a fist that was clenched tightly enough to strangle a plover.

"It, er, didn't, er, seem worth mentioning at the time."

"My son, Heir to the Throne, has been escorting this... this... woman all over the Kingdom, with the intent of marrying her, and you didn't think it was worth mentioning to Us that she just happened to be of the Jewish faith, or that her chosen field of economic endeavor just happened to include PLUNGING HER ARM IN AND SCRUBBING UNDER THE RIM OF TOILET BOWLS?"

The Chief of Security squirmed. "But she seemed like such a nice girl, Ma'am. And, you know yourself, the Prince hasn't looked so happy in years. If ever, come to think of it. And, besides, Ma'am," he added hastily, "it wasn't as though I'd found out that she was an axe murderess or anything drastic like that. Now that, you can be certain, I definitely would have reported." The Chief of Security thrust back his shoulders, pretending an indignant response to the perceived offense to his dignity that even he could not quite convince himself that he felt.

This was the worst day in the history of Palace Security since that scandal in the early '80s, when those idiots had fallen asleep at the switch, allowing that nut Michael Fagan free entree into the Queen's boudoir, compounding their colossal boner by refusing to respond promptly when summoned by their Monarch for assistance in the removal of the intruder. Why, they'd all but turned down Her Majesty's sheets for the man. Surprisingly, the Queen had taken that entire episode quite well. Considering.

Her reaction to this, on the other hand, was much stronger-not to say, angrier, in a very Henry VIII sort of way. And the entire matter was being laid at his feet.

"Not an axe murderess? Oh, my, We are grateful," his boss was saying now.

The Chief of Security breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps this wasn't going to be so bad after all.

"We must content Ourselves with THAT, must We? Not an AXE MURDERESS? The next thing One knows, there will be strange men IN OUR BED AGAIN!"

The injustice of it all! he thought to himself, as he shifted his bulk from one bunioned foot to the other.

His mother was right: he should have become a bobby instead. Might as well serve the common good. For all of the gratitude he was getting around here.

27.

If the episode involving Fleet Street had shared similar characteristics with an unpleasantly thorough rectal exam, the ensuing encounter with The Firm was fast taking on the flavor of the Inquisition. They were once again all back in the Queen's Royal Closet, only this time, there wasn't any banquet awaiting any of them-unless, of course, you consider Sizzled Daisy to be a newfangled R.F. version of missionary stew. For, they had her submissively seated in a chair-albeit with comfy cushions-while they most politely took turns circling around her, like cannibals with good party manners. As she squidgeed around in her seat, Daisy realized that the balance of power had definitely shifted again.

"Did you really touch my son's person with those... cleaning lady's hands?" the Queen asked.

"You're a fine one to go around telling others how to act, when you yourself are no more than-" and here the Queen's little sister's cheeks filled up with air, like a balloon, while she strained to think up a scathing enough epithet to affix to her own accusation, "-no more than a product of imagination."

"I say, Aunt Margaret," Prince Andrew generously conceded, impressed, as he stood there with his hands in his pockets, "that was rather articulately put." Then he began to circle Daisy, thoughtfully, yet eager to ask the one question that had been burning in his mind for some time now, but which he had never had the chance to query her about before. For, while he had danced with Daisy before, had enjoyed ample opportunities for leering at her, he had never really felt that he'd had the right opening for asking his question. But now, thankfully, he could finally put it to her.

Bending down so that his face was level with hers, he asked his question with a patently admiring incredulity. "Did you really say that books on tape were the literary equivalent of the vibrator?"

Before he could achieve the fulfillment of an answer, however, his sister had to go and shove her big nose into things.

"Mummy, does this mean that I can't take Daisy to Africa with me?"

"Except for that one dance in Scotland, I never even got the chance to play with her," Edward added, petulantly, waging an internal debate on whether or not he should stalk off to phone Jodie to tell her that there was going to be a slight change in the script.

"What is wrong with you people?" Daisy cried in exasperation. She was having some trouble digesting the fact that while her own relationship with Charley lay shattered at her feet, the only thing that they seemed to be concerned with was their own petty problems.

"You people are like a bunch of caged animals," she continued. "Sometimes, I think that you spend too much time together, all cooped up in this place. In fact, I think that you all should just get-"

"DON'T YOU DARE!" roared the Duke, sighting along his extended arm with its accusatory finger, as though it were a fencing sword. "Don't even think about it! After all of the faith and trust I put into you... Now we shall probably have to all go back to watching Oprah."