Spending a night in a Palace might be a very big adventure for a rather small dog, but it did make me miss my real life, and my family, just a bit. Who knew what sort of trouble they’d all get into without me there to look after them?
Who would make sure Amy took her daily walks? Or curl up with her to watch romantic movies on Friday nights? Who would eat Claire’s leftovers at dinner, when she smuggled them under the table when Amy wasn’t looking? Who would keep Claire company at night, when she was sad and needed a snuggly, furry body beside her for comfort? She might be too old for teddy bears (most of the time) but she certainly wasn’t too old for me. And most important of all, who would listen to Jack talking about how he missed his dad? I knew he didn’t want anyone else to know that he felt that way. But he needed someone to talk to. He needed me.
They all did.
But it looked like the Walkers would have to learn to manage without me, at least for a little while. Just until I could straighten out this mistake and find my way home.
And in the meantime, since I was in the Palace … I might as well make the most of it. It couldn’t be long now before someone realised what had happened and Amy arrived to take me home again. Yes, there was nothing to worry about.
Not yet, anyway.
Stretching out in my super-soft basket, I took in the rest of the room around me.
Given how grand the Palace was, maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised that the Corgi Room was every bit as luxurious – but I was. Each of the dogs had its own wicker basket, raised a little above the ground for some reason. It made me wonder whose basket I’d borrowed – and when they’d be back to claim it.
Of course! The moment that happened, that was when the humans at the Palace would realise they’d made a mistake, and then I’d be taken home to the Walkers. It was only a matter of time, really.
Except, of course, that while the humans might not have realised they had the wrong dog yet, the other dogs were a lot smarter. It wouldn’t take them nearly as long, I was sure.
There were, as far as I could tell from my observations the evening before, three other dogs in the Palace – one corgi like me, and two others who looked a little like corgis, but not quite. They had longer faces, and bodies, and sat even lower to the ground than I did. I’d intended to ask their breed, but given the suspicious looks they’d given me at dinner the night before, I’d decided to hold off until they got to know me better.
But apparently the Palace dogs didn’t like to wait.
Sitting bolt upright in my basket, I realised the other three dogs were staring at me, no friendliness at all in their gazes.
‘So. You’re the new dog, then,’ the corgi said, spitting out the word ‘new’ like it was a mouldy dog biscuit.
‘Um, sort of?’ I needed to find out what the situation here was before I let slip the truth about my unorthodox arrival.
‘Thought you were supposed to be going with Her on the trip,’ one of the other dogs said. ‘Special treatment and all that.’
Hadn’t the grumpy man yesterday said something about thinking I’d gone with Her Majesty? ‘There was a change of plan,’ I said, thinking how very true that was.
‘Not so special after all, then,’ the third dog said. ‘Well, suppose we’d better get used to you being around. I’m Candy. That’s Vulcan, and this’ – she nodded towards the corgi in the middle – ‘this is Willow.’
Candy seemed friendly, so I decided to try to get some more information out of her. ‘Great names,’ I said. ‘And it’s always lovely to meet another corgi. What’s your breed, Candy?’
‘Vulcan and I are Dorgis,’ she explained. ‘Half dachshund, half corgi.’
Well, that explained the low to the ground thing.
‘It is customary, when someone gives you their name, to return the pleasantry,’ Willow said, in a very high and mighty voice. She almost sounded like Sookie.
‘The what now?’ I asked, having not quite followed the question.
Vulcan rolled his eyes. ‘Your name. It would be polite for you to tell us your name, now you know ours.’
‘Oh, sorry. Henry,’ I said, automatically. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
Willow’s head shot up at that, and she stepped forward to study me more carefully. ‘Henry, is it? We were told the new dog was called Monty.’
Ah. Now I was for it.
I gave a wide, doggy smile, and prepared to charm my way out of it – the way I did with Amy when the odd songbird ended up dead in the back garden. ‘It’s sort of a funny story, actually.’
I related the events of the day before in as entertaining manner as I could. Willow, Candy and Vulcan didn’t find it very funny, unfortunately.
‘So you’re an imposter,’ Vulcan said, staring down his long nose at me.
‘An intruder, even,’ Candy added. She’d seemed like the friendliest of them all to start with, but now she looked anything but. Her eyes had turned cold, and there was no hint of a wag in her stumpy tail.
‘I like to think of myself more as an … unexpected guest,’ I said, trying to make it sound like a joke.
‘We don’t let just anyone into Buckingham Palace, you know,’ Vulcan said. He seemed by far the grumpiest of the dogs, and with the shortest legs. Maybe he had short dog syndrome, I mused. A need to feel more important than he was.
Mind you, he was a Royal Pet. That had to count for something.
Candy and Vulcan turned to Willow, presumably for guidance on what to do next. The only other corgi in the room was clearly the leader of the pack – understandably. Corgis are always the dogs you want to turn to for leadership and good sense.
I just hoped that Willow would come down on my side. She didn’t seem any happier about my presence in the Palace than Vulcan was.
‘Well, I suppose this will all get cleared up when She returns, and tosses you back out onto the streets where you belong.’ Willow sniffed. ‘Until then … it does indeed appear that we have an unwelcome guest.’
Candy and Vulcan echoed the sniff, and turned their backs on me, all three of them padding off towards their own baskets. Willow had made her opinion clear – and the others would follow it.
So much for my making new friends while I was at the Palace. The dogs all hated me and She, whoever she was, would be throwing me out again in no time.
It seemed I was unwanted, unwelcome, and worst of all – unable to get home to my family.
Well. They might have ideas about the sort of dog I wasn’t, but clearly they had no idea what sort of a corgi I was.
Because I wasn’t the sort of corgi who gave up that easily. And they’d all learn that soon enough.
‘I bet you lovely creatures are ready for breakfast, right?’
I raised my head from my paws and saw a blonde human with a bag of dog food standing in the doorway to the Corgi Room.
My saviour!
Who needed the pampered Palace pets, anyway? All I needed was a human that could see sense. I bounded over towards her, hoping I could make her understand, somehow, that I wasn’t meant to be there. That I needed to go home.
She smiled, and bent down to pat my fur. ‘You must be our new boy! I heard you’d decided to stay with us at the Palace after all. Good choice. What was your name again?’ Lifting the tag from my collar, she read it out. ‘Henry. Very