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Driving Lessons Chapter 64 - Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves
England laid on another uncomfortable bed in another sub-par hotel. The remote control worked this time, but was sticky with some indescribable substance. He had clenched his teeth and used it anyway to switch on the television so he could watch the highlights of the FA cup final. The match he'd missed because of the indescribable figure in the bed too close to him. Too close because he'd tried to shove the adjacent twin bed as far away from his as possible and failed.
He was still a little drunk and had a raging headache. Part of this could be attributed to the hair-raising mad-dash drive down the M25 and then being stuck on the said motorway for 3 hours in the largest traffic jam ever seen by normal beings.
England had also received around 20 texts and voicemail messages (he refused to answer his phone) from various people including America ("Yo Dude where are ya? Uncle Hamish and Uncle Bryn are in jail!"), Belarus ("You will pay for this.") And more concerningly the Queen's human servants who threatened England with the loss of various limbs if he did not give himself up and surrender the priceless tiara he had stolen. France had received texts from a certain British Princess imploring him to return. England hated him.
Finally, after England had battered France several times around the head with his iPhone (this did not do the contraption any good but it made England feel much better) he accidentally set off some mindless 'app' called Google maps and a lady started telling them where to go. England felt like telling everyone where to go. But then he realised he could actually tell the lady where he wanted to go and she would tell him. He realised that if he said his home which was a place he really wanted to go but he knew that he would be inconvenienced by having to explain how he'd stolen a priceless antique tiara belonging to a former queen, caused a food fight and destroyed a royal bride's veil and her wedding cake. He really needed to think up a plausible explanation. At the moment he couldn't think of one. Where did people go when they didn't want to be found? He settled on Slough and so that was where he and France was. In a Travelodge in Slough. Which was actually just ten minutes down the road from Windsor Castle. So really he thought, all those guests could have just ambled their way there instead of to their posh hotels.
When they had checked in, England had shuddered when the woman had told them there were only 'double rooms' available. He'd begged her and then said to her that his sanity depended on her finding them a twin room. There was no way they had enough money between them for two rooms. France's total amount of money in his pockets was a one Euro note (he said coins ruined the line of his pantaloons) and England fared no better. His credit card was declined as was his bank card, and he had the sum total of forty-one pounds and 51 pence in his wallet. It was a sad state of affairs. They had just enough for one room only with change for 51 pence. The receptionist must have taken pity on England and told them the very last 'discount' room available was on the ground floor behind the kitchen overlooking the bins. It thankfully had a double bed that was two single beds zipped together. England almost kissed the woman and threw his money on the desk and grabbed the key from her. She raised an eyebrow. He didn't care that he'd dripped lemon sponge on her carpet and hurried down the corridor, hoping against hope that France did not follow and would somehow disappear in a broom cupboard with a hapless hotel employee. It was not to be.
England spent a very sweaty but productive hour unzipping the mattresses and shoving the two beds as far apart as he could. There was still not enough distance between them. Nowhere near. He resolved that only having the English Channel between them would suffice in the future.
So here they were. Here they bloody were. England sighed dramatically.
"Mon cher, why don't you have a cup of tea to cheer yourself up?"
"The teabags have bits of string attached, the kettle is disgusting and the milk is UHT," England replied, not even looking at the Frenchman.
"Ah never mind…" France replied. He obviously wasn't even listening, he appeared to be flicking through an issue of Vogue and smoking a foul-smelling cigarette, despite the room being 'no smoking'. England hoped the sprinkler system would go off and France would be kicked out. France had divested of his purple suit and fedora and was wearing a pink bathrobe (where he'd got this from was a mystery, certainly the hotel bathroom did not have any - England had checked) and the priceless Queen Mary tiara.
France held up the magazine and showed England an advertisement for transparent trousers. England cringed.
"I wish I was someone else," France told England suddenly.
"So do I," England muttered, trying to watch the television.
"Zen I could kiss me," France said and returned to his magazine.
England decided he might as well be in hell.
America jogged up the driveway of 69 Trafalgar Gardens, otherwise known as Arthur Kirkland's abode, ignored the overflowing bins, the over-run herbaceous borders and the fact that he'd merely abandoned his huge hire car in the street. "Yo dudes, I'm home!" He yelled as he entered the back door. He stopped and then went back outside and looked at the back garden. A goat looked back at him. He shrugged and went inside.
"I'm home!" He yelled again and looked around the kitchen. It didn't look too disastrous. In fact, it looked clean. The kettle didn't have anything growing in it and there was no hobo living under the table. Definitely an improvement on the last time Prussia and Denmark had been left unsupervised in someone's house. As it was, Prussia sometimes liked cleaning and had gone through the kitchen looking for beer. He'd been disappointed to find none and so he and Den had attempted to brew their own using a very bad home brew kit bought on Ebay. Which led America to the sitting room…
"Oh wow!" America said, looking around the room and up at the ceiling. It looked as if there had been an explosion.
"Yo man!" Den appeared. He was wearing a sombrero (Russia's) and wearing a lei necklace. He looked happy and drunk. They made an elaborate fist-bump/handshake greeting and then hugged each other.
"Missed you, man!" America yelled. "What happened in here? Artie dude is going to kill you!"
"Explosion!"
"Wow…"
"Beer."
"An explosion of beer?" America's admiration of his friend went up a notch.
"Ja."
"Wish I'd been here," America said wistfully.
"Ja, it was something else. The home-brew didn't work out. Pru got caught up in the blast though," Den said.
"No! Oh my God!"
"Ja. I thought for a while he was going to be okay… but it wasn't to be… It's what he would have wanted."
America's blue eyes filled with tears. "I mean I knew he was an ex-Nation and one day that would be it and he would just fade away like erm… thingy and thingy…" (America tried to think of names of ex Nations and failed.) "But man, he's too young to die! I think I can still hear his voice…" he said wistfully.
"Ja, he's upstairs singing in the bath," Den said, oblivious to the American's sadness.
America recovered quickly. "So he didn't die then?"
"Nein! He got covered in beer and the blast flung him outside into England's geraniums. He's completely ruined them."
"I've been to a wedding," America told him with a hint of bravado as if that was more exciting than brewing your own beer and blowing it up.
"That's pretty boring," Den said.
America shook his head, "You should have been there!" He said.
"Unless it was a wedding where someone vomited on the bride, started a food fight and rode a horse though the church, then yeah it was boring!" Came a voice.
"Pru!" America exclaimed and proceeded to repeat the elaborate fist-bump/handshake ritual with the Prussian.
"But why did you do the home brew when I wasn't here? You always do fun stuff when I'm not with you!" America whined.
"We did those prank-calls on Switzy last time didn't we?" Pru said. He was not wearing a sombrero. He was wearing America's cowboy hat, along with America's 'Toy Story Woody' fancy dress outfit.
"You said though that next time you did something crazy you'd wait 'til I was with you!" America said.
"What about that time we left that herd of yaks on Russia's front lawn?" Pru said.
"I wasn't there," America said. "You know I'm not allowed to go to Russia's house." He sulked. "Anyway why are you two dressed like that?"
"Magic Roller Disco!"
"Oh wow!" America said as they led him into Arthur's basement. There was a mirror ball and a disco beat pounding out of a cheap music player. They'd scrubbed England's pentagram off the floor and chucked his 'high altar' out of the way. "Where did you put the dead kings?" America asked, knowing full well that there were usually plethora of England's dead kings down here.
"Chucked them out," Prussia said.
Den nodded but looked worried.
"It's not very magic though is it?" America asked.
"Well listen up, buttercup, we had to get rid of all England's cheesy magic crap because it was weirding out Den," Prussia said.
"Ja," Den agreed.
America shook his head. "Anyway, you guys, do you want to see my video of the wedding?"
"Is it a Nation wedding or a human wedding?" Pru asked.
"Human."
Prussia looked disappointed. "It can't be as good as old Fritz's wedding in 1733! Mein Gott! There was so much drink! Mind you there had to be - he couldn't stand the bride!"
Den frowned at this. "Was I invited? I can't remember?"
"Nein," Prussia said. "Sorry…"
"Never mind. He was a nobhead."
"He was not! He was bloody great! Everybody should have Frederick as their second name. Even if they're not men!"
America had no idea what they were talking about. European history was completely confusing to him. "Anyway, this vid is completely brilliant."
"Can't be. We weren't there," Den said.
"Yes but there was a cake fight. Uncle Hamish and Uncle Bryn fought with Artie dude. Belarus was there and that's always another level of crazy and Artie ran off with France."
"Hmm… Okay let's have a look," Prussia said, looking a bit put out.
"We should have been there. They didn't invite us," Den whispered to his friend in German.
"What's that?" America called. He hated it when they used foreign language he didn't understand - which was any but English. It made him feel excluded, less of one of the Awesome Trio. And he loved being in the Trio. He'd got a letter saying he could be and everything.
"Nothing," Den muttered and they trudged back upstairs to watch the 'vid' on America's phone whilst sat on England's beer-soaked sofa.
"Do you think my derriere would look big in this?" France asked England, holding Vogue up and pointing at some ridiculously overpriced piece of tat.
England made the error of actually looking across and then missing a goal. "Oh buggering hell!"
"Hmmm…" France muttered. "Perhaps not."
"I bloody missed the bloody goal!" England swore. "Idiot Frenchman."
"A Frenchman scored?" France asked, suddenly looking a little more interested.
"French are rubbish at football," England said, grumpily. (He would eat his words later in the year.)
There was banging on the wall next to them. "Keep it down in there! Some people are trying to work!"
England frowned. It wasn't the first time that evening they'd been told to be quiet. First was when they'd been moving the beds around. The second time was when France had had a very noisy bath (England didn't know anyone else who bathed as noisily as France, it was utterly bizarre and he still came out smelling of garlic and roses).
"Oh shut your cake hole!" England yelled back.
France looked shocked as if England had sworn.
"Well…" England muttered.
"You shut up! You sound like a bunch of perverts!" Came the voice.
England then began to suspect who it was… "Peter?" He shouted.
Silence.
"Why do you zink it is your son, mon ami?" France asked, painting his toenails.
"Because he's on the run isn't he? And it's just the sort of thing he would say."
"On ze run? But surely he would go to South America, non? Zat is what we are going to do. Well, we will when I get myself some new clothes. I cannot arrive in Peru like zis."
England glanced across at him, "No, indeed." He said and then shouted, "Peter? Is that you? You scoundrel!"
Silence.
England jumped off the bed. "I'm going to go and knock on their door. I bet it's him. He did a runner with all those Nations' money. Poor America's gold credit card has been cancelled."
"He should not be in so much debt. He also needs to get a better boss like mine," France replied nonchalantly and obviously not caring.
England ignored him but opened the door and strolled down to the next door and knocked.
A large intimidating man in sunglasses and a black suit opened the door. He looked vaguely familiar but as England was rubbish with names and faces, he didn't think anything of it. "I think I may have the wrong door," he said quickly and wandered back down the corridor to the door on the other side of their room and knocked.
A man in pyjamas answered. He looked annoyed. "Excuse me, but would you mind not banging on our wall?" England asked.
"Are you the dickhead who's been moving beds around and shouting in French?" The man asked.
"No," England replied and hurried back to his room. Which was locked.
He knocked three times. "France," he said and knocked again three times. "France." He said again. He repeated this several times and there was no answer.
He was locked out.
As much as Prussia wanted to hate the wedding vid, he didn't. He and Den were laughing so hard one of them had fallen off the sofa and was clutching their stomach by the end of it.
"Kesesese! This is killing me!" Prussia said from the floor.
The other (Den), was still wiping away tears of both joy (he loved weddings) and hilarity and hugging America. "I love you, man!" He said in his high emotional state. "That's the funniest thing I ever saw!"
"Especially when that woman with red hair and horrible skirt jumps on top of Arthur and Wales!" Prussia agreed.
"That's Uncle Hamish." America said, feeling quite protective over his Uncle, despite the fact that last time he'd seen him, they'd been fighting each other.
"I'm going to ring out for pizza," Den said.
"Nein! Don't! We'll get Romano again telling us to fuck off and throwing a stale pizza with weird toppings at us!" Prussia implored from his prone position on the floor.
"You ordered pizza without me?" America asked. "What else have you two been doing without me? I thought we were the Awesome Trio?" He felt very left out.
"We painted England's bathroom in the colours of the Prussian flag," Prussia told him.
"And your bedroom we painted in the colours of the Danish flag," Den told America.
"But it looks like the Austrian flag," Prussia grumbled.
"Doesn't," Den replied.
"Does. You did it on purpose," Pru shot back.
"Why would I do that?" Den said.
"Dunno, but you did," Pru said.
All this was said in a bizarre mix of German and Danish and then they began fighting.
America sighed, got up and went outside and stood in the back garden. He really did not want to take sides.
"I hope you're not crushing my gardenias," came a voice from over the fence.
"George? King George?" America asked, peering over.
It was George IV, the next door neighbour - actually the ghost of George IV who had eloped and married the next door neighbour.
"I'm called George King now," the King replied. He was still fat, America noted. "Why are you still here? I thought Arthur said you were going back home to America?" King George said and said the word 'America' with a grimace.
America felt a twinge of homesickness. "I was… Hey you were a king once…"
"I was! I was a very great King!"
"That's not what Artie said. He said you were pretty bad."
"What?"
"Not as bad as King Henry though."
"Henry the Eighth?"
"No, Henry the Sixth. He said he caused a war with flowers or something. Don't know. I wasn't really listening."
"Idiot American. You should have stayed under my father's control," George said.
"He said he was a tree though," America said.
"True that."
"So, as you're a king and wise and all that. Do you think I should go home? My country kind of needs me."
King George sighed. "I doubt that."
America thought about that. "Artie says I should though. But I think he needs a carer."
"He has France," King George said.
"Mind you it'll be Independence Day soon and I should be home for that," America said.
"Then there's your answer," King George said, going back inside his house.
"Is that it? Is that all the advice you're going to give me?"
Evidently so, for King George slammed the door shut.
America thought about it. Considering the fact that England would be arriving home at any moment and blame them all for the state of the place and he would be lumped in with this, then the idea of flying home was looking more and more appealing. Apart from having no money. That was a problem.
As if he were psychic, Prussia yelled, "Yo Alfie man! I think we may have solved our ongoing cash flow problem. Me and Den may never have to work again!" (Not that they'd ever truly worked.)
"Cool. It's not selling Artie's old socks on eBay is it?"
"No."
"Or running those battle re-enactments again. Cos that didn't go down well last time with Russkie dude."
"No."
Prussia dragged him into the living room where Denmark was sat watching the news headlines his mouth open.
"So? Someone kicked over a bin in Little Farting by the Sea. Ooh big deal big crime wave," America said.
"No. Look," Prussia insisted.
The royal wedding highlights then came on.
"By marrying a prince? Sorry Den but I doubt you're his type."
Den looked upset at this.
"No, look!" Prussia said.
And America did look.
There was a newsflash and a newsreader was reading out a 'breaking news' item:
"One of the jewel thieves is described as wearing an ill-fitting suit now covered in cake, medium height, scruffy hair and had a strange smell, the other was described as wearing a purple Chanel suit, a fedora and was also of medium height with blond hair. The two had somehow eluded the security at the wedding and escaped with the Queen Mary Bandeau diamond tiara which is described as priceless. The Royal Family have put up a reward for £100,000 for any information relating to the whereabouts of the tiara and the subsequent arrest of the thieves." The newsreader said and then added, looking over the top of his spectacles with a hint of disbelief, "The public are being warned not to approach the perpetrators directly as they can be dangerously stupid."
America looked at Prussia and then at Denmark. "So?"
"England and France!" Pru said. "Your vid shows them buggering off in that Porsche with that crown thingy on France's head!"
"Yeah but…"
"I can just see them driving off like Thelma and Louise into the distance."
"Yeah but…"
"One hundred thousand pounds… we could share it. Imagine all the beer we could buy…" Den said.
"Yeah but… we can't just dob Artie in like that. I mean I know he's has got it. I bet it fell into his pocket or something… I'm sure he's going to take it back…"
"You could fly home for Independence Day Business class…" Pru said. "Ring him, dude and ask where he is. He'll answer you. He hates me. And Den."
"Hey!" Den remonstrated.
America sighed and rang Arthur's number, feeling quite bad at the same time.
"See! No answer! I bet him and Francy-pants are halfway to Peru now!" He said quickly and pressing disconnect (before Francy-pants could scramble to it…)
"They're not that clever," Pru said shrewdly. "We'll have to think of something else…"
Meanwhile, England was hammering on the door, his hotel door, "France open this bloody door before I hammer your head in!" He hissed, hoping that that big bloke in sunglasses didn't come out and pound him into the door. He still suspected Peter, his wayward son was in there. And he suspected that the big bloke was a CIA man, probably Marcel or Gaston or somebody. France was ignoring him.
In fact, France was sealing their fate by checking in on Facebook, the wily international jewel thief that he was, and posting a picture of himself on his Facebook page wearing the tiara and showing his location as 'Travelodge, Slough'.
It would be a race against time as to who would get there first - the police, the Awesome Trio or somebody else…
Author's Note:
Thank you again all those who have reviewed this fanfic, it was never going to be this long… but then of course the wedding had to be included.