How Billy Brown Saved the Queen

Billy Brown is mystified to learn that the Queen does not understand a maths problem that is perfectly clear to him. It seems that nobody in the royal household, at court or anywhere in the Queen’s castles can explain the knotty problem to Her Majesty. And so Billy decides that the kind thing would be to go to the royal palace and explain it to her. He persuades his mother to drive him all the way to the palace, and he makes his way right into the Queen’s room and sits down on her bed to explain all about fractions and division. And he succeeds, where everyone before him has failed. The Queen is delighted. So delighted that she becomes firm friends with Billy and his mum and even comes to visit them in their humble abode …

About the Author

Alison Healy has worked as a journalist with the Irish Times for almost 17 years, and with the Farmers Journal for eight years before that. She specialises in food and farming issues and is currently on a career break. This is her first children’s book and she is also ghost writing the autobiography of Anna May McHugh, managing director of the National Ploughing Championships. One of her short stories, `Grace’, was selected for the Stories for the Ear compilation produced by Kildare Arts Service last October. She was also shortlisted in Fish Publishing’s Flash Fiction Awards announced earlier this year.