What happened at the dinner next . . .

The girl with the enormous jaw left the closet, leaving me in somewhat of a bind. If I was to fulfill my mission, I would have to get into the party for the visiting sovereign, but it seemed unlikely that anyone would accept me as a waiter because of my small stature. And so I darted into the kitchen and doused myself with water when no one was looking. I then struck a pose atop a silver serving tray and slid myself into one of the sub-zero refridgerators. As I closed the door behind me and settled dopwn amidst the crudites and dips, it occurred to me that I might have made a mistake. What if no one ever opened that particular frozen comestible unit?

Not to worry. Sixty chilly minutes later I was taken from the refridgerator shelf by a young waiter named Esteban, who struggled to lift me on the tray. By this time the water had hardened into a glittering sheen, and my disguise as an ice sculpture centerpiece looked as though it would work! In fact it worked too well. I was placed directly in front of the visiting sovereign, who peered at me in amazement and then gave me a sharp rap with a spoon.

"Philip," the visiting sovereign said, "look at this damned thing. It's the ugliest one I 've ever seen. What on earth do you think it's supposed to be?"

"No idea, Lilibet!" Her companion's answer was a little garbled, as his mouth was filled with guacamole. He reached over and poked my extended hand with a knife. "Isn't that interesting, the way they managed to make it look as though there is something colorful in the middle of it. Can't say I like it. Don't like table ornaments to have faces, even if they are blue." Have I mentioned that it was very cold?

I have no idea how much longer I would have been able to keep up the pose, as my teeth had begun to perceptibly chatter, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I was going to take pictures with my arm frozen in front of me (I had cleverly chosen a pose akin to a small jockey, a favorite statue on many of the earthlin --- err, Californians' --- lawns.)

Fortunately I was spared the trouble of finding out when the girl with the large jaw appeared over the visiting sovereign's left shoulder balancing a tray of lobster. At least she was trying to balance it, but her attention was obviously fixed upon the visiting sovereign's tiara to the exclusion of the task at hand. With a free hand, she reached out and touched it.

"Are them diamonds real?" She asked the question in simple wonder. Her speaking voice was nasal, and heavily influenced by the southern region of the northern continent in the western hemisphere. It made her a bit hard to understand, and the visiting sovereign turned to her in surprise.

"I beg your pardon, were you addressing me?"

"Ah was jes' askin' if them sparklers was real!" In her excitement, the large-jawed girl's voice began to change. And as she leaned forward, one of her primary mammalian characteristics popped free and smacked the visiting sovereign in the eye. At the same time the girl dropped the lobster tray and reached for the tiara. For a moment everything was a blur, as lobsters cascaded over the visiting sovereign (two of them had claws hooked to her ears like some kind of demented seafood earrings!), and the two women began to tug at the tiara, one trying to pry it off and the other hanging on for dear life.

"Lilibet!" The visiting sovereign's mate leaped to his feet and threw his arms around the large-jawed woman. "Unhand my wife, Mr. Leno!" His hands met and cupped her primary mammalian characteristic. "Oh my God, what's this? Jay Leno is a woman?!?"

By now guards were rushing the scene and I decided that it would be a good time to make my escape. I began rocking back and forth until suddenly the ice shattered and I was free.

"Dieu et mon droit!" I heard the visiting sovereign cry just before she fainted dead away into the hors d'ouevres. "The lawn jockey is alive. It's aliiiiiiiiiive! Oh my!"

"That's Oma," I heard the large jawed woman snap as I scampered away.