“Are you King Rufus’s valet?” Myrtle asked of a rather startled looking man in a formal suit, holding a mobile phone to his ear.
“Yes,” he stuttered. “I don’t mean to be rude, but who are you?”
“I am Violet, Head of the Fairy Godmothers,” said Violet. “You rang me.”
“Yes, but I thought you’d just send someone to handle things, I didn’t expect you to come yourself! Or that you’d bring people with you,” he added looking quizzically at Myrtle and Rosemary and then back at Myrtle.
“Today is your lucky day,” Violet smiled. “We have a new apprentice Fairy Godmother come to see what the work is like,” Violet nodded towards Rosemary.
“Hello, my name is Rosemary,” she smiled.
“And this is Myrtle, who is here to supervise her,” Violet added.
“And Violet, the Head of the Fairy Godmothers, is here to supervise me because this is my first day as a supervisor,” smiled Myrtle.
“And also because my computer decided to do an update and if I am lucky it should be finished in a day or two,” said Violet, deciding that the whole truth would be a good idea.
“We have that sort of problem with computers as well,” sighed the Valet. “Do you have someone who knows about them to sort out the problems that always occur when you have a big update?”
“Yes, Ethel,” Violet smiled. “I left my laptop with her, she knows what’s what in that regards, but she does seem to get things done better if I don’t watch over her all the time.”
“Take good care of Ethel,” said the Valet. “We had someone like that, his name was Liam,” he sighed.
“What happened to Liam?” asked Myrtle.
“Is this relevant to the problem with King Rufus?” asked Rosemary. “Because from where I am standing we are in danger of getting side tracked into small talk.”
“It might be,” said Myrtle.
“Don’t interrupt,” Violet told Rosemary.
“He had a row with Rufus and left,” sighed the Valet. “The computer system went down two days later. Rufus said he could sort it, but everything just got worse and nothing he did seemed to make any difference, all the files started to delete themselves, including the arrangements for the conference. That is when he decided that he didn’t want to be King any more and that he was going fishing.”
“Has he gone fishing,” asked Violet. “Or just threatened to go?”
“He’s gone,” sighed the Valet. “And before you ask, no we don’t know where he has gone to.”
“And you don’t have anyone who would know?” asked Myrtle.
“Liam usually went with him,” said the Valet. “And we can’t find him either.”
“So what would you do?” Violet asked Rosemary.
“Go to my tutor and tell them I don’t understand the problem,” said Rosemary.
“That is not an option,” Myrtle smiled.
“So what will you do?” the valet asked. “Because the conference starts tomorrow morning.”
“First, I think we should get Ethel over here to sort out your computer system,” said Myrtle.
“But she’s busy working on my laptop,” said Violet.
“That will spend at least twenty-four hours churning through uploading files, so she wont need to do anything to it till it has finished doing that,” Myrtle smiled.
“If it’s the update I think it is, it could be up to thirty-six hours doing that,” said Rosemary.
“In the mean time she could be here looking through the computer system to see what Liam did to spanner it and then find out what Rufus did to make it worse,” said Myrtle.
“You think that Liam did this?” asked the Valet.
“He’s the computer geek,” said Rosemary. “So he’d know how to make a right mess of the computer system.”
“Then Rufus thinks he knows how to sort it, makes it worse and decides to head off and leave us to sort it out for him, again,” said the Valet.
“Does he do this often?” asked Violet.
“It isn’t usually the computers,” said the Valet. “But, it’s like this conference thing. He was out hunting, forgot where the boarders were and before he knew it, he’d ridden through land belonging to at least three of our neighbours, creating a fair amount of chaos in the process.”
“Hence the conference,” said Myrtle.
“He said he’d taken care to stay in our boarders,” sighed the Valet. “But they had tracked his route and it clearly shows that that is not the case.”
“And the tracking system, can we access it?” asked Myrtle.
“Wouldn’t be much good if you did,” sighed the Valet. “That was the first of the systems to crash.”
“So first things first,” said Violet. “I’ll ring Ethel.”
“But what do we do?” asked the Valet.
“You have important guests due to arrive,” said Myrtle. “You must do the usual things that you do to make them welcome.”
“They will expect to see the King,” said the Valet.
“The phone isn’t working,” said Violet.
“The signal tends to be a bit up and down,” said the Valet.
“I shall nip back and talk to Ethel,” said Myrtle giving her wand a quick flick.
“I always thought that Fairy Godmothers were very slim and graceful,” said the Valet, looking slightly worried.
“Normally they are,” said Violet. “Myrtle is a special case, she happens to be pregnant.”
“So she didn’t eat all the pies,” he laughed. Rosemary looked confused.
“No, she didn’t,” said Violet. “Do you need our assistance with preparing for your esteemed guests?”
“No, the staff know what to do,” he smiled.
“Then may I suggest that you take us to the King’s rooms so that we may see if we can find any clues as to where he has gone,” Violet smiled.
“I’ve looked around and found nothing,” said the Valet. “I wouldn’t want you to waste your time.”
“We have to check everything out,” said Rosemary, sounding as if she was quoting from a text book. “Even if it is only to confirm what we have already been told. We are, after all, the professionals and we may notice something that everyone else has missed.”
“If you insist,” muttered the Valet. “But I think you are wasting your time and the first of the delegates will be here shortly.”
“All the more reason to get started,” Violet smiled. “Is there any special ceremony planned to great them?”
“Not as far as I know,” said the Valet. “They will be arriving early so they can start work fresh in the morning.”
“Then we had better get to work now,” Violet smiled. “Lead on,” she added to the Valet.
By Janice Nye © 2021
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