Queen of the Island
AMESSENGER was riding along when he saw a beauti- ful dome and at once knew it was the dome of the Cathedral of Juliana of Trelawne at Basileus, so he spurred his horse but little did he know that that was to be his future kingdom. He was of kingly race and his name was Edward Jewel.
After King Edward was Albert who was a bold man, he married Guinevere and she suited him: she was stout and she was squat and round-faced and grey-haired with a bun at the back. He was always going out to battle and some people said to get away from her! And he sometimes thought so him- self and one time he told Lord Chancellor Cary that he stayed on an extra hour of battle to get away from her, but she wasn't that bad, he really thought, but that's that.
Their son was Alfred and he married Juliana. She was a young girl with long golden hair and some people say that the line, 'Her golden hair was streaming down her back,' was written for her. Her husband, King Alfred, was very hand- some: he had dark hair and was fairly tall: They had a baby called Albertina Veronica Angelina.
One sunny morning Juliana woke up early. She quickly woke Alfred and said: 'This is the day when we go to colonise islands for Trelawne. Let's get up.'
They got up and by half past eight they were out on the dock. The gangway was being lifted up and Albertina was saying `Ta-ta' to the people on the shore. They steamed very quickly out of the harbour and were soon at the desert island after spending a comfortable night in the cabin.
Juliana, Alfred and Albertina were sitting by the shore on the desert island when suddenly Juliana said : 'Let's light a fire.' And they did. Then they got stones and built a small stockade with no roof but just large enough for them to lie down in. Alfred said : 'What are we going to eat?' and Juliana answered : 'I saw some sheep on the hillside and we can kill those and have them. Let's begin. Alfred! You go and get some mud and make a little bowl: it doesn't matter if it's not very good, but I expect it will be, if you do it. Lend me your battle-axe and with that and my sword we should be able to kill the sheep.'
And with that she goes off and climbs up to the place where the sheep was but to her dismay it wasn't a sheep but a baby tiger. She put her battle-axe down and drew her sword and dug it into his heart and carried it down on it. As soon as she got there she found Alfred had made a beautiful bowl, just a plain one, of course, which as soon as she saw it, she had an idea and the word Woad jumped to her mind. She did not tell Alfred of this but just told him to skin the sheep as this was the thing he was very good at. She went off and took out a pocket knife and carved very delicately on the soft mud the head of a tiger and so this bowl was to be kept for eating tiger, as it was a delicate dish but it was not so delicate if you happened to chance to eat one of the very old tigers but young tiger was very delicate. Meanwhile, Alfred made a lot of other dishes and had skinned the tiger and had just put it to boil in his dish when Juliana came in with a bowl which had the picture of a tiger swimming in the blue sea. Alfred gasped in admiration and Juliana said: 'I'll do lots of them with different heads for different meals.' Then she took off lots of them, while Alfred looked after the tiger and put it in its beautiful new dish and said: 'My mouth waters for this' but soon Juliana returned and on her arm she had a basket which was full of fruit and so they sat down and began their meal. It was a delicious meal : first course was tiger which was served with Juliana's sword, then afterwards they both went to bed.
The next morning they went hunting. They were just going to kill a lion when a tigress came up and looked mighty fierce so both Juliana and Alfred drew their swords and killed them both. Then up came the lioness and the tiger but they were a bit tougher than the others and their squeals brought litters of baby lions and tigers. Juliana said, 'Aren't they sweet? but we have got to kill them because they may kill us.' So they began on the elder ones first. They killed them off and the younger ones ran off, all except one which followed Juliana and Alfred back to the stockade and they decided to keep this baby lion as a pet. Juliana was now going to get the dinner: it consisted of pheasant, grouse and the breast of a tiger spread on a walnut table. When I say table, I mean just a piece of wood on the ground. Afterwards they had ice cream and fruit slush while the baby had special fruit and icicles and sucked bones. After dinner they thought they would just go out and take the baby with their pet lion. It looked queer to see a party like that going out but when they got back, it was almost dark and that night they had an early night.
Next morning Juliana woke up and went out with the lion to milk the goats. When I say Juliana went out with the lion I don't mean the lion milked the goats but the lion went out hunting while Juliana milked the goats. When she came back, to her dismay she found a tiger on Alfred's bed. Immediately she slung her bow on to her hand, pulled the string and loosed an arrow fly. It hit the tiger but it hit Alfred, but it only glanced through his hair, then Juliana picked up her sling • and shied a stone. This was better aimed. It hit the tiger in the nose. It did not seem to like this so it jumped down off Alfred's bed and looked as if it were going to spring. Juliana quickly drew her sword and Alfred jumped off the bed and together they fought the tiger. They didn't kill it but at that moment the pet lion came in and quickly they went away and the lion soon chased the tiger out.
The next day a helicopter came and picked them up and when they got home they saw the flag of Trelawne waving on the quayside. Decorations were in the streets, spot-lights spot- lighting the cathedral but that was all they could see for the moment. When they got nearer they saw a fun fair and as it was the month of May, they saw a merry Maypole with rib- bons of every colour and design, striped ones, spotted ones, patterned ones and every sort. They landed on the tower of the palace and the people cheered for three hours without stopping.
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