Alice in Wonderland - crime fiction - 2 pairs

Today's #afewwordsaday #KAFWAD submission

Why not join me? Today's prompts are below. Prompts for the rest of the week are in a separate post just below.

14th September 2015

Prompts / date	14th  September 2015
FMS Photo a day	I’m proud of this
Text type	Crime fiction
Sentence type	2 pairs
Story	Alice in wonderland

Crime fiction	When fitting your narrative to a crime genre, the focus has to be on a central mystery. In this case, there is a perfect scenario in Alice in Wonderland – but you could twist the narrative of any story to create a crime scene.
2 pairs	Atmosphere: 2 pairs of related adjectives to start sentence each pair is followed by a comma, each pair separated by ‘and’. Exhausted and worried, cold and hungry, they did not know where they were.

The Queen of Hearts was proud of her tarts, but someone stole them! Who was it?

‘AAArrrrggghhh!’ A loud and terrible scream reverberated, echoed and ricocheted around the kitchen, down the corridor, into the great hall and out of all the windows into the courtyard and the gardens. All living creatures within the castle felt their blood chill slightly, petals fell from flowers and birds fell silent. There was no mistaking that this was the war cry of the Queen and they had all experienced the Queen’s anger first hand.

At moments like this, they could be forgiven for wondering what an irony it was that she was ‘The Queen of Hearts’. It was widely believed that she had no heart at all, or if she did, it was made of stone. The population of the castle hurried into the Great Hall to await their fate, or at least to discover what had caused the Queen’s rage this time.

‘WHO HAS STOLEN MY TARTS?’ bellowed the Queen to the assembled throng. All hung their heads, averting their gaze from this wild Medusa, muttering their innocence. ‘OFF WITH ALL THEIR HEADS!’ she screamed at the guards, louder than ever.

‘Now, now, my dear sweet pumpkin,’ coaxed the King, ‘let’s find another way to settle this.’

Within a few minutes an identity parade was set up, consisting of every single living creature in the castle grounds and household. From the sleepy Dormouse to her son, the Knave. Each was to look her in the eye and assert his, or her, innocence.

‘It wasn’t me.’

‘I didn’t eat you tarts.’

‘I’m innocent!’

‘I don’t even like jam, your majesty!’

Each animal and person in turn, looked at her with innocent faces and wide open eyes. There was no one left except her very own son.

‘How can you even think for a moment it might be me?’ he said sulkily. The clever King replied,

‘Maybe the culprit has crumbs on his chin?’

Before he had time to think, the Knave quickly wiped his mouth.

‘Aha! You villain! You Knave! You will have a trial and then I shall have your head chopped off!’

Uncovered and ashamed, trembling and terrified, he was tied in chains and led off to face the court.