“Don't you guys have any goal in mind other than eating us out of house and home?” Her Co-majesty Meghan cried as the two Kings and the Duke ordered their sixth Mega Mac. The two Co-majesties, the two Kings and the Duke had been battling outside for the past three days, with weapons varying in destructive ability from Mozart to mockeries of Tenacious D. But eventually both sides had had to call a truce before they collapsed from exhaustion. They had entered McDonald's to negotiate a compromise, but the two Co-majesties did not at the time realise that the two Kings and the Duke would take FULL advantage of the free meal.
“OK, we'll talk.” sighed King One, as if the effort of peeling the gherkins off his sixth Mega Mac was deserving of a medal. “But first I need a drink. Get me one of those new ones, what are they called? Sola's, or something?” He beckoned to the nearest frog waiter. “Waiter, get me a large Sola.” The other four looked up quickly. King Too coughed and said “Uh…don't you remember last time David?” King One stared hard at him.
“What are you talking about? I don't ever remember drinking a Sola before.”
“But you couldn't even walk properly after….” His voice trailed off as he watched King One drink the entire large Sola without pausing for breath. King One put the cup back on the table, sat silently for a minute and said “ Oh, yeah. Now I remember.” He hunched over the table and groaned, “I'm not hungry anymore.” The company stared at him with horrified expressions. Her Co-majesty Kim turned angrily to the frog waiter. “A little less than the lethal dose next time, you idiot!” She hissed, and then spun around to face the others. “All right, if we get you one more meal, will you talk then?” King Too and Duke agreed to this, but King One remained hunched over the table with his head buried in his arms, emitting a muffled groan at the mention of a free meal he could not partake in. Her Co-majesty Kim turned to the waiter again. “Meghan and I are finished eating, and apparently so is King One, so get a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese for Duke and….”
“Oh S**t!” Kim's order was interrupted by a curse from King Too.
“What's the matter?” she asked. King Too was staring down at his left hand with a panic-stricken expression on his face. He looked up at Her Co-majesty Kim and shrieked, “I just broke my nail! It got caught in a crack in one of your stupid tables!” Her Co-majesty Kim gazed at him empathetically for a few moments. She then turned back to the waiter. “And get a salad for King Too.”
After King Too and Duke had finally finished eating, the two sides began to negotiate. “We cannot begin our talks seriously until our Duchess arrives. We have no idea where she is. I could have used her piano skills during the battle,” Her Co-majesty Meghan said, as she looked worriedly towards the door. As if on cue, the Duchess glided into the room and sat down as though she had only gone to freshen her make-up. However, it was plainly obvious that this was not what she had been doing, because her make-up was smudged beyond belief and her hair was a mass of tangles. “You look like you just came through a famine!” Her Co-majesty Kim exclaimed, staring at Lorna's dishevelled appearance with shock. “Yeah, well it looks like you guys caused it!” Lorna said, gazing at the mountain of polystyrene packages and uneaten gherkins on the table.
“Where were you?” Her Co-majesty Meghan inquired.
“Nowhere.” The two Co-majesties did not ask any further questions, assuming that she had been doing another one of her “background checks” on Steven.
The two Co-majesties began immediately to frantically gather as many make-up and hair accessories as they could find, so as Lorna could be made presentable. If the Co-majesties had not been so busy, if King One had not been slouched in agony across the table and if King Too had not got Crazy Frog stuck in his head yet again (to try and distract himself the pain of his broken nail, no doubt), perhaps someone would have noticed the hurried conversation that took place between the Duke and the Duchess. “Did you steal those files?” Duke asked.
“Yes. I posted them to you.”
“Posted them! Posted them! What did you do that for?” whispered Duke fiercely.
“I couldn't think of a safer way. At least they won't be able to pin it on us; you already planted the false fingerprints. I would like to hear you come up with a better idea.” Lorna hissed, stalking off to the toilet to fix her appearance.
“If she wasn't a girl I would bitch slap her…with a brick!” muttered Duke to himself as he glared after her.
Lorna returned after fifteen minutes, looking much better. She sat down at the table as if nothing had happened. “I'm absolutely starving!” she exclaimed. “Waiter! Get me a breakfast roll.”
“I am sorry, Madam,” the frog said, “but it is exactly one second after ten thirty. We cannot serve you breakfast.”
“I thought breakfast ended at eleven?”
“No Madam.”
“Alright. Get me a salad then.” Lorna sighed.
Eventually, all six were prepared to hold talks. Her Co-majesty Meghan was the first to speak. “OK, so what do you guys actually want? And don't say another meal, or I will probably kill the nearest person to me!” If she had not been sitting in between both Duke and King Too, it would have been quite likely that there would have been a funeral the next day.
“So, what do you want?” Her Co-majesty Kim asked them again.
“Well, if we can't ask for a meal, then can we just have the McDonald's franchise?” asked King Too.
“NO!” yelled the Co-majesties and the Duchess simultaneously. “This is our stronghold and it is perfect, because there is a McDonald's in every country in the world,” the duchess explained. “However, we can offer you Burger King or Abra Kababra, or if you would prefer we could offer you a totally different franchise…” she looked across the table at King One, who had not moved. “…in the pharmaceutical sector, for example.”
“I like the sound of Burger King better.” King Too said decisively. “Don't worry about David, he'll feel better once he gets sick.”
At that moment, their talks were interrupted by the arrival of Mikaela, Tadhg and Steven (much to the delight of Lorna). Mikaela had been requested to come, as she was the Royal DJ and the kings, queens, duke and duchess were in no mood to play music themselves. Obviously, Tadhg followed like a puppy, and Steve came because he thought that there might be a chance of a free meal, even if it was only one of Kim's jelly tots that she would inevitably drop on the ground.
The three newcomers ordered and sat down. “Well this is a fine gathering, isn't it?” Her Co-majesty Meghan said, while she was looking through the list of CDs they had, trying to decide which Mikaela should play. “As a matter of fact, all of our closest friends are here, around this little table…” Her sentence was cut short by an explosion in the rear of the restaurant. The entire back wall of the restaurant collapsed. “Oh, yeah, except for Adam.” Meghan said, without looking up from the list. Adam, after spending about five minutes struggling out from underneath the pile of rubble, which he had somehow managed to trap himself under, came and sat down with the rest of the group. “Ya know, you could have used the door.” Her Co-majesty Meghan said, without lifting her eyes from the list of CDs (she was down to either Queen or Dire Straits at this point).
“Yes, but you would have been expecting that.” Adam said.
“Yeah. We were all dumbfounded when we heard that explosion. We had no idea who it was.” Her Co-majesty Meghan replied in a bored tone, after finally choosing Dire Straits*.
“Anyway, I'm famished.” he said, “Waiter, get me a Mega Mac.”
“I am sorry Sir, but the explosion has destroyed the kitchen. We cannot cook any more meals.”
“What! What kind of idiots are you frogs! Who in their right mind would put the bloody kitchen right beside where I was going to blow through the wall! That's absolutely stupid!” Adam reached over and pulled the frog's ID badge off his shirt. “I'm not giving this back until you say you're sorry.”
The others were in shock. “What will we do until this place is fixed! We'll starve!” wailed Her Co-majesty Kim, looking lamentably at the ruins of the kitchen.
“Well, we could always take a holiday. I am getting a little bored of this place.” said the Duchess. “How about the Ritz?”
“Works for me.” said her Co-majesty Kim, turning abruptly on her heel and walking towards the door. “Let's go. There's a helicopter outside.”
She held the door open for everyone else to pass through first. King One barely managed to stagger to the door. He probably would have made it to the helicopter, if King Too had not told him some joke just before he got in. King One started to laugh, and then he collapsed in on the ground, rolling around in agony. King Too got on the helicopter, looking satisfied.
Adam was the last to leave. Her Co-majesty Kim pulled him aside on the way out. “Give the frog back his badge, Adam,” she said.
“I will if you give me the business homework.”
“Oh shut up!”
*I was listening to Private Investigations while writing this sentence.