When Ben was a little boy his Mom bought him a jigsaw of guards standing outside Buckingham Palace. They were as red as Mounties, but with very silly hats, and looked like his Dad, only not as handsome. Sometimes his Dad went on patrol, and wouldn't talk about it when he got back. Maybe it was a secret, and sometimes he guarded the Queen.
When Ben was a little boy, he ran around the cabin on a big snow day. The drifts were heaped as high as the roof. His mother sweated and dug through the whiteness so she could feed the dogs, and he wanted to play in the dim blue shade of the tunnel she'd carved.
"Sorry, Ben. You can't play out today."
And he got cranky, and jumped off things, and banged and kicked the walls.
"You want to play guard? I'll be the Queen."
So he stood guard over his mother, while she made them tea with the Good China, and put on an English accent, and told him that he should always be polite and thank people kindly, because you never knew who was secret royalty.
"Maybe everyone is," she said, and tapped her nose. He nodded wisely like he understood.
When Ben was a little boy the winter melted toward spring, and a bad man came to kill the Queen. She made Ben hide in the closet. He stood guard like a good soldier in the dark, but when the bad man went away the Queen wasn't there anymore. Just a strange shape across the threshold, that wasn't Mom at all.
Now Ben is a man, and he walks with his back straight, and his shoulders square, and doesn't jump about and bounce off walls. She never did tell him to stand down.