The Ill-mannered Door (humorous sci-fi)

35.1: Shop Till You Drop?

I was the first to arrive at the position that Higgins had taken up just behind some plants outside of a shoe shop. It was a good spot from which to observe the nearby cinnamon bun shop. The smell of those buns nearly enticed me to reveal our position to the queen before the others could arrive, but I dutifully remained in hiding once I had determined that there were no free samples in evidence. I breathed as sigh of relief, though mixed with disappointment, as it's entirely impossible to resist those free samples.

The queen, however, was standing in the long queue at the bakery, anxiously awaiting one of those warm, frosted bits of goodness. The queue was barely moving, so we had her right where we wanted her and the others would have plenty of time to arrive.

The waiting was pure torture, and there were several tense moments as the rich aroma from that shop threatened to lure me out of hiding like a cinnamon siren singing to my nasal passages.

The king was the next one on the scene and seemed quite excited until I moved out of his way and he saw them. It had been the quiet quack that had drawn his attention, and after that there was no breaking his gaze. His beady little eyes were longingly transfixed upon my new purchase.

"Where on earth did you get those?" He said, his lower lip trembling a little.

It had been nearly imperceptible, but I saw it. Oh, yes, I had him right where I wanted him.

"Yes, they're simply smashing, aren't they?"

The king looked down at my old pair of slippers on his feet, looking rather tired now, before he looked back to the shiny new ducky slippers which adorned my feet.

I decided to rub things in a bit and pranced about with little quacks as I, perhaps over-dramatically, modeled them. In my defense, I am in no way typically given to such displays, but I was a bloke on a mission.

The king was simply green with envy by the time Derek rushed up to meet us and said, "Where's the queen?"

Higgins pointed to the queen, who had reached the head of the queue by this time and looked to be purchasing a cinnamon bun.

Derek rounded on us and said, "What have you been doing? Why didn't you grab her?"

The king suddenly snapped out of his covetous daze and said rather loudly, "What? Grab her? Where is my Esmerelda?" as he stepped from behind the plants to look to where Higgins was pointing.

That was when the queen, who had obviously heard the king say her name, turned to look right in our direction just as she was taking a bite of a large, frosted bit of cinnamon heaven.

The king and queen briefly met each other's gaze and then she turned and took off in the other direction, still eating her delightful new purchase with one hand and clutching a large shopping bag in the other.

"Esmerelda!" the king wailed and we all took off in hot pursuit.