Andy had just asked him for his left arm, and he was not willing to part with it. It was his arm, for God’s sake! But the offer had been tempting. He was giving up his prized moustache.

Joseph had always wanted a moustache. It would look good. Extravagant! Mwah! Perfecto Patronum! Etc., etc. Anyways, it had even come with the pack! But the Queen. She discarded it like she discarded all of her subjects: savagely, ruthlessly, and carelessly.

The thought of the Queen made him uncomfortable, but there wasn’t much he could do to cozy up in a space tinier than the Queen’s heart. He tried to twitch his left leg a little, but only succeeded in looking like a demented penguin. A fat, demented penguin.

In such a cramped space, exercise was not very easy, so they often got cramps. Cramps, with pain like nothing anyone has ever known. The rotund shape of their prison was peppered with dust and lint, and the whole place was littered with electrical wires from the prisoners who had lost it. One had to move like a ninja to avoid being electrocuted. The wires didn’t have enough power to save their hosts, but enough savagery to make anyone who came close very sorry.

He managed to crawl over to The Wall and humbly bowed his head to the image of The Emperor Queen, the only one who ever commanded The Queen. The image was not very artful, but there is very little a man could do with a broken screw and Jojo’s toenails.

Their world was quite limited, quite literally, and their owner cum Queen was not coming to save them. God knew when her mother would make her clean the toy box.

Author: Neil Kabra, 13 years old from Hyderabad