Penelope:
Did I sing or dance? That made me want to laugh. Maybe the queen would consider my singing a comedy act. I halted, despite the fact that the blonde guy was pushing me forward.
“Wait,” I said. “Maybe I can amuse you. Will you send me back if I do so?”
“No,” the queen retorted, sniffing into a scented hankie. (How did I know that? I could smell the thing from here. The odor of a eucalyptus tree. Not difficult to identify. Did the queen have a cold or sinus problems?)
“Then why should I try to appease you?” I prodded, plopping my my hands on my waist like I was solid and resolute about my potential. “I can just let the blonde muscle man put me in the gray room and settle back to relax, as much as I can without my brand new husband, who I’m supposed to be sharing a bed with because it’s our HONEYMOON.”
The queen raised a hand, scanned the situation, as if just taking note that I was being urged out of the dining chamber and she wouldn’t be seeing me for some time.
“Okay. I’ll allow you to speak to your Pooka. That way you can reassure him that you are not hurt. Males always think we’re captured to be tortured, for some reason. Although I would never do that. Not to the mate of a Pooka, anyway.”
The queen flashed a hand signal at the guard, and he picked me up in a vertical position, as if I weighed nothing, and returned me to my original place, standing directly in front of the queen.
“Now entertain me,” the queen said, then sniffed, and blew her nose, most indelicately, into her scented hankie.
I had bargained with something I actually didn’t have, as in talent of any kind. But, a beggar must utilize what talents he has (or doesn’t have) . . . or, at least, fake it.
“This guy has to let go of me first,” I said, trying to shrug off the platter-sized hands clinging to both of my arms.
Another wave from the Eucalyptus-scented hankie inside the queen’s bejeweled hand, and I was free.
I could recite poetry, sing with ear-splitting trauma, dance a foot-flopping mess of a probably falling-down production number, or I could . . . I drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, then commenced.
“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers . . .” I said.
Apparently the queen and her three guards had never heard this tongue twister. Their jaws dropped down, and they listened, spell bound. When I was finished, the favorite guy, the one the queen had so openly kissed, yelled out, “Do it again.”