02 Dear Your Majesty

Dear Your Maiesty Judy Moody was feeling purpler than a princess. Like a queen! Under her bed, she found the royal purple T-shirt she had gotten all the way from for-real England. It had a crown on it and said KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON. Judy took out her best permanent marker and added LIKE A QUEEN. Her heart stepped up a beat. Keep calm and carry on? How could she keep calm when she had just found out she was related to a queen? Judy could not wait to write to the queen and break the good news. She could not wait to tell her they were almost cousins! Stink came home from karate. "Why is your hair purple? Is that snail snot? Or were you using my zombie stuff?" "Stink, guess what. I'm practically a queen! Ask

Grandma Lou." "Grandma Lou had to go home," said Stink. "Well, she told me our name goes back to old timey England and I'm related to Queen Elizabeth the First. No lie!"

"Queens got their heads chopped off. No thanks." "For your information, a queen gets to live in a castle and drink tea and play Monopoly all day and boss people and own as many dogs as she wants. And she doesn't have to do homework. Ever." "Well if you're royal, then I am, too." "Yeah, a royal pain." "Hardee-har-har," said Stink. "I wish so bad I had a lucky sixpence for every time you said that, Stinkerbell." Before Judy could start her letter to the queen, Mom called, "Lunch!" Judy duct-taped a construction-paper tail of peacock feathers to the back of a kitchen chair. "From now on, this will be the royal chair. Like a throne. Only I get to sit in it." She hung a sign on the back of the chair.

QUEEN JUDY'S ROYAL CHAIR SIT AT YOUR OWN RISK (THAT MEANS YOU, STINK), OR: 1. Be banished to the Tower of Moody (aka the attic) 2. Polish the royal silver 3. Off with your head Judy sat upon her throne. "Mom, Dad, we need to talk." "Uh-oh," said Mom. "Uh-oh," said Dad. "What did we do now?" he teased. "Since I'm a royal now, I should have two birthdays. The queen's birthday is in April, like mine, but she has another birthday with a big fat party in the summer." "I think I see where this is going," said Dad. "We could celebrate my real birthday in April.

Then, in summer, we could have a second giant party with a parade and fireworks and pony rides and a bouncy castle. Did I say fireworks? Maybe we even could shoot off a cannon. What do you say?" "Then I get two birthdays, too!" said Stink. "I think one birthday is plenty for an eight-year-old," said Mom. "Not even if we skip the cannon?" Judy asked. "Not even," said Dad. Judy slumped back in her throne. "Can we at least have the Drooping of the Colors?" "I think it's Trooping the Color," said Mom. "What's that?" asked Stink. "You fly a lot of flags," said Judy. She held up a British toothpick flag and waved it half-heartedly. "If I can't have two birthdays," said Judy, "how about I get a nanny? Someone like Mary Poppins to teach me stuff. She could come live with us and I'd call her 'Miss' and we'd sing all the time and have tea parties on the ceiling and fly around on her umbrella. Her brolly, I mean."

"Who knows," said Mom, "maybe a magic English nanny will get blown by the east wind right over to 117 Croaker Road." "Okay, okay," said Judy. "But can we at least have jam pennies? Those teeny-tiny sandwiches with the crusts cut off? That's what the queen eats at teatime." "What's so great about being related to a queen anyway?" asked Stink. "I mean, it's not like we get to live in a castle or swim in a moat or something." "Or something," said Judy. "But we had a royal cousin who was locked up in the Tower of London, Stink. No lie." Stink bolted up in his seat. "Wait! What?"