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“Mummy! Mummy! Mummy look, look what we found! Mummy!”
Gwen rolled over in bed and hid her face in the bed covers.
“Mummy! Mummy! Mummy, wake up Mummy!”
“What do you want?” Gwen groaned into the pillow.
It was Saturday. Saturday was Gwen’s favourite day. She had no Queen duties, and it was usually the one day a week when she got a precious lie in. Not today, apparently.
“Just look mummy!”
Gwen opened her eyes, and peered at the gap in the bed curtains the small excited voices came from.
There, peeking through, were the smiling faces of Tom and Natalia. And at the sight of her two children, Gwen burst with laughter.
Sitting atop the head of the young prince was the largest feather hat known in the kingdom. It was a hat Gwen remembered well. It was that hat - the one Arthur had pranked Merlin into wearing in his first few months as servant.
“Where did you find that, you two?” Gwen asked, drying amused tears from her eyes with the corner of the bedcover.
“It was in Uncle Merlin’s box of surprises. Do you like it, Mummy?” Natalia asked happily.
Ah, Gwen should have guessed. It could have been worse. Once, Merlin’s box of surprises had been filled with enchanted blueberries which made very rude noises when you bit into them. Not to mention the flying paper dragons that breathed real flames. There were still scorch marks on the curtains from that surprise.
Gwen opened her mouth to reply, but before she could say anything her son had clambered up and plopped the infamous hat onto her head.
“Come see in the mirror, Mummy!”
He pulled her by the arm off the bed, through the curtain into the cold room, and toward the mirror. Yawning, Gwen plodded behind.
At the sight of her reflection wearing the feather hat, she had to stifle giggles once more, and shook her head. “I cannot believe you woke me up for this,” she laughed, grinning down at her two ridiculous children. “Where is your uncle anyway? Isn’t he supposed to be taking you to see the dragons this morning?”
Tom shrugged. “Daddy threw something at him and called him a rude name,—” he began, as his sister sniggered behind him, whispering “dollophead” in between giggles. Tom nudged her to be quiet, and continued his explanation, “—and then Uncle Merlin sent us upstairs to you, because he said he was going to go catch Daddy to give him back his donkey ears.”
Natalia was giggling. “Daddy ran away so fast.”
Gwen rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help join in her daughter’s laughter. Then she took the hat from her head and plopped it down onto Natalia’s soft brown curls. “There, it suits you far more than me I think.”
The little girl stood admiring herself in the mirror, batting away the attempts by her brother to take back the hat for himself. Gwen smiled, it really was a fabulous hat.