Sterling Silver Saves the Queen

September 3, 2010Leave a comment

Secret Agent Sterling Silver pressed his ear against the floor to better hear the conversation beneath him.

“No one will ever find it,” said the woman’s voice.

“It won’t matter of they do,” said the man. “They couldn’t stop it anyway. Did you put it where we discussed?”

“Yes, it’s room 412. But instead of putting it….I put it under the…”

Sterling strained to hear, but still some words were lost.

“That will do. It is set for four o’clock?”

“Yes.”

“She should be…in plenty of time.”

Sterling Silver had heard enough. It was clear there was a bomb, and it was already set. Quietly he stood up and slipped out the door. It was important that the conspirators did not know they had been discovered. They might set it off early, and who knows how many people would be killed. Four o’clock. That was the time that the queen would be giving her speech in the lobby of the prestigious St. Anne’s Hotel. That could only mean that Room 412 was in that same hotel. He had just enough time to get there.

Fortunately, his top secret super speed spy car was waiting for him by the back door. He sped along, taking the corners at high speed, using one hand to call up the the floor plan of the St. Anne. Just as he suspected, Room 412 was directly over the lobby. Skidding to a stop in a side alley, Sterling swung up onto the window ledge of the second floor. He knew there would be dozens of guards around the hotel to watch over the queen, and he didn’t have time to explain to them why he needed to get to the fourth floor. Pulling a tool from his back pocket, he pried open the window and slipped inside. In moments he was opening the door to room 412.

Now he only had to find the bomb. He checked his spy watch. Ten minutes until four o’clock. There was no time to waste. What was it that the woman had said. It was under something. What could it be under? Quickly he checked the bed, the chairs, the end tables. Nothing. Now it was only five minutes until four. Sterling stood perfectly still and used all his spy senses. Time passed, but he forced himself to be still and listen. Was that a noise he heard? The slightest little ticking coming from behind the curtains…under the window! In a flash Sterling was throwing back the drapes and dropping to his knees in front of the small bomb.

A clock counted down the time until the explosion. There was only one minute left. Sterling pried the cover off and studied the cords underneath. There was a red one, a black one, a green one, and a yellow one. Every spy knows that you have to cut the correct wire if you are going to stop a bomb from exploding. Cut the wrong one and the whole thing blows up. But Sterling Silver did not get to be the number one secret agent in the country by cutting the wrong wire. Without hesitation, he cut the red wire. The countdown on the bomb stopped.

Then behind him he heard a quiet click. Slowly he turned.

A man was standing between him and the door, holding a gun in his hand. It was pointed at Sterling. “Now you will turn around,” said the man. “And you will replace that red wire with the one I am holding out to you.”

Sterling watched the man take a new red wire out of his pocket.

“Move slowly and make no sudden moves, or I will shoot you. Do not stop, or I will shoot you. Have the bomb working again in three minutes, or I will shoot you. Take the cord now.”

“I don’t think so.” Quick as lightening, Sterling grabbed the cord and yanked, causing the man to stumble forward. There was a bang! as the gun went off, but the bullet went through the window. Sliding forward, Sterling knocked the man’s legs from under him, then whipped around and snatched the gun from his hand. In less than thirty seconds, the man was tied up and laying on the bed.

Downstairs the queen was beginning her speech. No one had any idea of the catastrophe that Sterling had just averted, and they never would. It was important that it be kept a secret how close the queen had been to danger. He smiled to himself as he cleaned up the mess and prepared to take the gunman down to the police station. Secret was just the way Sterling Silver liked it.

The Slowest Elephant on Earth

September 1, 2010Leave a comment

Edward the elephant was slow. He was very slow. He was very, very, very, very, very, very, very slow. He was so slow that he was regularly passed by snails and tortoises. He was so slow that he would often only get halfway to where he was going when it would be time to turn around and go home again. He was so slow that in all the time it has taken me to write these words, he would only have taken one step. At the most.

Edward’s mother was always trying to make him hurry up. She wanted him to keep up with the rest of the herd. The other mothers offered her advice about how to make him go faster. But nothing she tried worked. If she nagged him, he just put his head down and kept. moving. slowly. If she punished him for arriving late, he just took the punishment and kept. moving. slowly. If she promised him rewards for moving more quickly, he never earned them because he kept. moving. slowly. Finally, Edward’s mother gave up and let him be.

All of Edward’s friends made fun of him for being so slow. They made jokes and called him names and did all the mean things friends do when they aren’t really being friends. Only once did anyone ever actually ask Edward why he moved so slowly. But he talked so slowly that no one stayed around to listen to the whole answer. Edward just shrugged and kept. moving. slowly.

It wasn’t easy being slow. Edward had to find his own place to eat because if he went grazing with the herd all the good leaves would be gone long before he could get to them. He had to find his own watering hole because he was always the last to arrive and the water was all muddy by the time it was his turn. And of course, Edward missed out on all the elephant parties because he could never get there before they were over. Being slow got a bit lonely at times.

The one really good thing about moving so slowly, though, was that Edward had plenty of time to look around him. And he noticed everything. He noticed that there were over three hundred shades of green in the trees and grass around him. He noticed that the birds flew in certain formations depending on the weather that was coming. He noticed that some elephants always stayed close to the group and others liked to wander off on their own.

Naturally, then, he was the first to notice that the river was drying up. First he noticed that the level of water was a tiny hair lower each day. Then he noticed that the air was more dusty than before. Then he noticed that the leaves were a little more crispy than before. These changes were so small that no one else had time to notice them at all.

Edward tried to warn the herd leader that the river was drying up and soon there would be no water. But the herd leader got impatient with how long it took Edward to say things, and he sent him home without listening. Edward tried to warn his mother and his friends, but they just laughed at the idea that he might know something they did not. Finally Edward knew he was going to have to take matters into his own hands.

The next day, Edward slowly gathered up a pile of leaves. It took him all day to get as many as he needed. The day after that, Edward went to the river and gathered water in jugs to carry on his back. He was so slow at scooping water that it took him the whole second day just to fill two water jugs. Finally, on the third day, Edward set off alone to walk upstream and find out what was wrong with the river. Everyone laughed when they saw Edward preparing for a long journey. They said he would need three weeks just to get out of their camp. Ignoring them all, Edward moved slowly along.

Every day, Edward walked along the river, looking around him for signs of what had gone wrong. He traveled many, many days before he saw what he was looking for. Up in the hills, where the river flowed down out of the mountains, Edward saw a place where a landslide had thrown many tiny rocks into the river. The river was choked down to a narrow stream coming through that place and every day more pebbles slid down the mess and choked the river more. It would be an enormous job to clean away all those pebbles and free up the stream. It would also have to be done very slowly or it would only cause another avalanche that would make things worse. Fortunately, Edward was used to things taking a very long time to accomplish, and he certainly had no intention of being reckless or quick.

For two weeks, Edward moved those pebbles, one at a time, out of the river. When he finally finished, the river ran free and clear again and was back up to its normal height. Edward wondered if anyone back home would notice the difference. He figured they wouldn’t. He figured they would never know what he had done and how he had saved them all. Edward smiled to himself. He knew, and that was enough. With his head held high, Edward turned downstream and kept moving slowly toward home.

Three

August 25, 2010August 25, 20101 Comment

Once upon a time there was a three-headed monster, and he was the only one of his kind. He did not look at all like what you would expect a three-headed monster to look like. His three heads didn’t sit next to each other on giant broad shoulders. Oh no, his three heads sat one upon the other upon the other on top of very normal man-sized shoulders. As you might imagine, this made him extremely tall, so tall that he was always hitting his top head on doorways as he walked through them. For that reason, the top head was convinced that he had the hardest lot in life.

“The two of you are so lucky that you are not on top,” he said to the other heads. “I’m always getting bashed on things. I have a permanent lump right here on my forehead. When it rains, I’m the one who gets the wettest. When it’s hot out, I’m the one who gets sunburned. And when we walk under the trees, the branches get caught in my hair.”

“Your hair!” exclaimed the middle head. “Your hair is exactly why it’s so much harder to be me. You keep growing your hair so long and it tickles the top of my head. And the hair on the bottom head tickles my chin. You don’t know what I suffer from tickles all day long. And when the wind blows, it’s even worse. All that hair from above and below gets in my eyes so that I can’t see and in my nose and makes me sneeze terribly.”

“Your sneezes!” snorted the bottom head. “Don’t tell me about your sneezes. They are exactly why it’s so much worse to be me. Every time either one of you sneezes or coughs, it flies all over me. Nothing could be more disgusting. Plus I can’t see anything from down here, and I’m forced to carry around the weight of the two of you all day. It’s very hard on my neck.”

This sort of bickering and fighting is how the three heads spent all their free time. The arguments tended to get repeated a lot because the they never had anyone to talk to but themselves. A three headed monster is quite terrifying to look at, so no one ever came around just to chat. It didn’t help that the monster got his food by hiding behind trees along the road and jumping out at passing travelers, scaring the lights out of them and then stealing their food. That was not the sort of behavior likely to make friends. And worse, it was starting to get harder and harder to get enough food that way, due to the fact that no one wanted to travel on a road known to be guarded by a three-headed monster.

Fewer and fewer travelers passed that way, and the three-headed monster got hungrier and hungrier, and the three heads fought more than ever. They knew they needed a new way to find food, but they couldn’t agree on the plan. The top head thought they should travel to the other side of the mountain where there was a different road and there might still be many travelers to scare. The middle head thought they should join a traveling circus and earn money as a circus act. The bottom head thought they should make a huge hat to cover the top two heads and then go and find a regular job in the village. Round and round and round they went.

“You really should listen to me,” said the top head. “I’m so much higher up, I can see farther and hear better. I’ve heard all about how busy the road is on the other side of the mountain. We’d live like a king.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said the middle head. “There may be travelers there now, but after a few weeks of us scaring them all, they’d soon go another way and we’d be right back where we started. My idea is the best. The circus is full of people like us. They would take us in a minute because we’d be sure to draw a crowd.”

“A crowd who would only be coming to make fun of us,” said the bottom head. “I do not intend to spend my life being laughed at by children eating popcorn. I would have thought you’d have had more pride than that. It would be no trouble at all to get a nice comfy hat to cover you both, and we could get a respectable job in no time.”

Naturally, the top two heads wouldn’t hear of being covered up like that, so the argument went on and on. Probably they would still be arguing to this day if a very brave hunter hadn’t come by while they were fighting.

The hunter had heard the rumors that a three-headed monster lived along this road, but he was too brave to be put off by that. He wasn’t even sure he believed it. But as he came through the woods, he heard the three voices raised in anger and soon he saw them, perched on top of each other and all talking as loud as they could. They were talking so loudly, in fact, that they didn’t hear him get out a bow and arrow and aim it just at their one heart. They were so distracted by their quibbling that they barely even felt the arrow go straight through, and the middle head was still making a very good point when the whole monster toppled over dead.

The hunter carried the three-headed monster all the way back to the village, so that everyone could see it before it was buried. And the three heads who could never agree on anything all ended up in the same grave.

Sir Woozy

June 14, 2010August 25, 2010Leave a comment

Once upon a time there was a knight named Sir Woozy. He lived in a very remote part of the kingdom where there were many beautiful trees and lakes and mountains but not a single dragon, monster, or evil wizard to be found. Sir Woozy was thankful for his strong castle and his lovely surroundings, but he was bored. Knights like to put on their armor and go out to fight. The only time Sir Woozy ever saw his armor was when he was polishing it, and it didn’t need polishing very often because it was never used enough to get dirty. Sir Woozy was so bored that he started poking around his castle, examining all the dungeons, peeking into every attic, and opening any locked chests that he came across. That was how he found the horn.

The horn was inside an old wooden chest. It was big and heavy, so that Sir Woozy almost couldn’t lift it. But he slowly put it up to his lips and made one short blast. Instead of a bright trumpet sound, the horn made a loud roar, exactly like the roar of a dragon. Sir Woozy blew the horn several times. It sounded so real! He almost wanted to rush out and put on his armor to fight the dragon. But of course, there wasn’t any dragon.

Then Sir Woozy had the best idea! He didn’t have any real dragons to fight, but he could still pretend. It would be better than sitting around his old castle all day doing nothing. So Sir Woozy headed up into the mountains and found a very deep, very dark cave. He knew it was just the sort of cave a dragon would want to live in. He went home and put on his armor and buckled on his sword and shield. Then he loaded the great horn onto his faithful horse. He rode up into the mountains, gathering firewood as he went. When he arrived at the cave, he went deep inside and built up a great big fire with lots of smoke. The cave got so dark and smokey and had such mysterious fiery light in the corners that Sir Woozy was just a little bit afraid. Then he blew the big horn. ROOOAAAARRRR! The dragon roar echoed off the walls of the cave. Sir Woozy drew his sword. He may have only been fighting smoke and shadows, but he was having a great time! When he was good and tired, he let the fire die out and went home to rest.

After that first day, Sir Woozy often went to his cave to fight his pretend dragon. He liked pretending. It was almost as fun as fighting for real. Things went on like this for several weeks, until at one morning, just as Sir Woozy was mounting his horse to head to the cave again, some of the leaders from the nearby village came to his castle gate. They told Sir Woozy that a terrible dragon had taken up residence in the mountains nearby. No one had seen it yet, but the villagers had all heard its roars and see smoke rising up from the mountain. Everyone in the village was terrified and no one wanted to go out after dark any more.

At first, Sir Woozy was very excited. After all his practicing, he was going to get to fight a real dragon. He lifted his sword and told the men to show him where the dragon lived. They led him to the foot of the mountain and then pointed up in the direction of the dragon’s lair. Sir Woozy’s heart sank. They were pointed toward his cave. There was no dragon after all. It was just his horn and his smoke that had terrified the villagers. He began to be very embarrassed. He didn’t want to admit to the men that the dragon was just him playing a pretend game. Knights weren’t really supposed to play imaginary games like that. So instead, he just nodded at them and rode up the mountain.

On the way to the cave, Sir Woozy did some hard thinking. He knew that he had to stop fighting his pretend dragon since it was causing so much fear for the villagers. But he also thought that he would rather not admit that there had never been a dragon. He decided that he could pretend to kill the dragon. Then no one would ever have to know what he had been doing.

So one more time, Sir Woozy lit the fires. One more time, he sounded the horn. One more time, he drew his sword and attacked the dragon. But this time, he clashed his sword loudly against his shield. He yelled. And finally he blew one last blast on the horn and threw a stone loudly against the cave wall. The imaginary dragon was dead.

Sir Woozy rode down the mountain with his head held high. In the village, everyone came out of their houses and cheered. They offered him food and wine. That night there was a huge party to celebrate Sir Woozy’s triumph over the dragon. Sir Woozy couldn’t help feeling proud even though he knew he was a fake.

Everything would have been fine if the king hadn’t decided to visit. As it was, not only the king, but the queen and a whole crowd of lords and ladies and knights arrived at Sir Woozy’s castle just a few days after his supposed battle with the dragon. Of course, the leaders of the village told the king all about how Sir Woozy had fought and killed the dangerous dragon. And of course, the king was very impressed and wanted to find a way to honor Sir Woozy. Sir Woozy felt so ashamed. He knew he should tell the king the truth, but he also knew that the other knights would laugh at him. So he said nothing while the king planned an elaborate ceremony to present Sir Woozy with a medal of bravery. But every time he thought about it, his heart felt a little heavier and his stomach twisted a little tighter.

Finally the day of ceremony came. Sir Woozy stood in front of the king and queen with all the lords and ladies and knights looking on. The king made Sir Woozy kneel. Sir Woozy felt a little sick. The royal page brought out the medal of bravery, resting on a pillow. Sir Woozy had to shut his eyes to keep from fainting. The queen took the medal on its ribbon and prepared to place it around Sir Woozy’s neck. Sir Woozy looked up into her kind blue eyes. He couldn’t do it.

“No,” said Sir Woozy. “I don’t deserve this.”

Everyone gasped, then stared as Sir Woozy told the true story of the imaginary dragon. When he was done, no one said a word. Some of the knights looked angry. Others looked like they would laugh. The king looked confused. But the queen still looked kind. She leaned over and whispered something in the kings ear. He nodded. Then the king took the medal of bravery and placed it around Sir Woozy’s neck.

“Sir Woozy,” said the queen. “It took more bravery for you to tell us the truth than it would have taken to fight ten dragons. You do deserve this medal.”

Everyone clapped and cheered.

“And now,” said the king. “Let’s ride. We need to find this knight some real dragons to fight.”

Monster versus House

May 27, 2010August 25, 201011 Comments

Once upon a time there was a giant monster named Ralph. He was orange all over and had short little legs, a big fat body, crazy long arms, and a giant eye in the middle of his forehead. In short, he was ugly, as all good monsters should be. He was also ravenous, as all good monsters should be. Ravenous means that he could never get enough to eat. He would wake up in the morning and eat a forest for breakfast. Then in the middle of the morning, he would snack on some semi trucks. For lunch he might eat a skyscraper and wash it down with a swimming pool. Even with an afternoon snack of swing sets, by dinner time, he be hungry enough to eat a whole zoo.

As you can imagine, he created fear and panic wherever he went, because people never knew when he might come along and eat their home or their school or their workplace. It’s hard to sleep at night when you never know when your roof might disappear and a giant eye look in at you. And it’s very boring at the park when all the swing sets have been eaten.

One little boy in particular was very upset about it all. The day his favorite park was eaten, he came home and cried for three hours. His house echoed his cries sadly. The next day his school was devoured. He wasn’t quite as sad about that, but he did complain a lot that night. His house liked it much better when it could hear him happily playing and not whining. The day after that, when all the firetrucks were consumed, he sat without saying a word, hugging his little toy fire truck. This was too much for the little house, which loved the boy and proudly bore his crayon marks in its walls along with his scuff marks on its floors. That night the house made a difficult decision. While everyone inside was sleeping, the little house very carefully shook itself and…woke up.

You may wonder why your house has never woken up. It is because houses were built to be passive, watching the lives of their families as if dreaming. These dreams carry on in memory long after a house is empty and even when it is knocked down. Only very rarely does a house come awake to actively change things. And when it does, it can only be awake for a short time, and after that it dreams no more. So you can see why this was a difficult decision for the little house.

It had decided just in time. The next day, Ralph showed up in the little boy’s neighborhood. He started munching trees and then quickly moved on to buildings. He gobbled up the corner convenience store and then munched through every house on the street. At last he came to the little boy’s house. With a monsterly rumble he opened his giant mouth to take a bite.

Then the window shades blinked up, the front door opened wide like a mouth, and the house echoed back Ralph’s roar, only much, much louder. Ralph was so stunned that he stopped mid-bite to stare at the house. The house just sat there blinking its windows at him. Once again Ralph opened his mouth wide, thinking to take off the whole roof at once. With a little shudder and a jerk, a pane of glass from the window flew out of the house and straight down Ralph’s throat. He choked a little. While he was still choking, another pane of glass was thrown right up his nose. Ralph sneezed a big sneeze that bent all the trees back. While he was still trying to recover from his sneeze, a doorknob hit him square in his giant eye. That one really hurt. With his eye closed, he couldn’t see anything. But he could feel it as shingles from the roof began pelting him from every direction. Bellowing with rage and pain, Ralph turned and ran blindly down the street and out of town.

No one in that city ever saw Ralph the monster again.

As for the little house, it was a pitiful looking wreck with no windows, no doorknob, and only half a roof. But in the yard was a little boy, jumping up and down and laughing fit to burst. The house creaked and sighed, a happy sigh that sounded just a bit like “good-bye….”

(This one happily coincided with prompt #5 over at Mama Kat’s. Check out all the other entries!)

The Princess in the Bottle

May 22, 2010May 22, 20101 Comment

Once upon a time there was a young man who had no home and no family. His life was a life lived on the road, traveling from place to place, finding work whenever he needed it and adventure even when he didn’t. His only companion was an old gray horse, who through some long ago mistake had been named Black. The young man’s name was Peter, which means Rock and was a much more fitting name.

A traveling life makes for many stories, but the greatest tale of young Peter’s life started with a small creek and a fishing line. Peter had always been an excellent fisherman, so whenever he had nothing else to eat, he would look for a long stick, tie on his string and hook, and catch himself a fine supper. On this particular evening, the fish were biting well, and Peter had just caught enough for a feast when his eye fell on something glittering among the rocks on the bottom of the creek. Without a second thought, he reached down and pulled up a sparkling glass bottle with a red cork in it. The sight of this bottle was so amazing that Peter immediately dropped his line of fish. It wasn’t the lovely shape of the glass or even the brilliant color of the cork that caused such astonishment; it was what was inside the bottle. This bottle didn’t hold wine or vinegar or water. It didn’t even hold a perfect model of a ship. It held a princess.

Peter could not believe his eyes. Inside the bottle was a princess so tiny and so beautiful that he thought he must be dreaming. As you can imagine, he lost no time pulling the cork out of the bottle. As soon as he did, he heard a tiny, beautiful, but very angry voice saying, “Why did you drop the fish?! I’m starving!”

That was the last thing that Peter expected to hear. But the thought of a tiny, beautiful, starving princess was more than he could bear, so he quickly caught a few more fish and roasted them over his fire. When they were cooked all through, he broke off a small piece and dropped it into the top of the bottle. The princess ate it, quick as a wink, and asked for more. Peter passed her bits of fish through the opening of the bottle until finally she was full. She was much less angry now. She even thanked him for the food in a very polite voice.

As for Peter, he was not at all interested in eating. He just wanted to hear how a princess came to be in a bottle. He could see very well that she wouldn’t fit through the opening. The princess told him that her name was Selina and that her father was the king of a neighboring kingdom. It seemed that her father had done something to anger his chief magician who had punished his king by shrinking his only daughter and trapping her in a bottle. Once she was trapped, the magician had carried her secretly out of the castle and thrown her into a nearby river. The river carried her far away, out of her father’s kingdom and down to this point where it dwindled to a tiny creek, and she had finally come to rest among the rocks. The king did not know what had happened to his daughter, only that she had disappeared.

“So I knew that no one would be looking for me,” finished Selina, “and I was quite sure that I was going to die of starvation in this horrid bottle. Until you came along, that is, and I saw your fish. Nothing ever looked or tasted so good.”

“Isn’t there anything I can do to help you get out of that bottle?” asked Peter.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Selina sadly. “My father’s chief magician is very powerful. I doubt that anyone could undo one of his spells, and I’m sure he wouldn’t want to do it himself.”

But Peter had not spent his life traveling for nothing. Once, several years before, Peter had met an old woman who was said to have magical powers. Peter thought he would visit her and see if she knew any way to reverse the spell.

It was a journey of several weeks to reach the old woman. Peter carried Selina in her bottle in front of him as he rode Black, and positioned her near the fire at night to keep her warm. Every morning, he baked a little cake of flour and passed pieces through the opening of the bottle for Selina’s breakfast, and every night he fed her fish or nuts or berries that he had found through out the day. They passed the evening talking and telling stories and sometimes Selina would sing one of the many songs she had learned from her mother. Those were happy weeks, though Selina was very tired of being in her bottle, and at last they arrived at the old woman’s cottage.

When Peter showed the old woman the bottle and told her Selina’s tale, the old woman sighed a very big sigh. She picked up the bottle and studied it closely. “Yes, yes,” she said. “I’m afraid there really is no other way.”

“No other way?” asked Peter. “Then there is one way at least!”

“Yes, there is a way. There is always a way. I’m sorry to say it young man, but it seems you are going to have to drink it.”

Peter was confused. “Drink it? Drink what?”

“Drink what’s in the bottle.”

Peter was even more confused. “But Selina is in the bottle. Only Selina.”

“No, not only Selina. Selina and something else.”

Peter studied the bottle closely. He couldn’t see anything in there but Selina.

“Pour it out,” said the old woman, handing Peter a cup.

Selina braced her arms and legs on the glass and nodded at Peter. Peter shrugged and tipped the bottle over the cup. A stream of dark red liquid poured into the cup, filling it to the brim.

Peter was astonished. There hadn’t been any red liquid in the bottle before. At least, none that he could see. But there it was in the cup before him. It didn’t look very tasty, but if it would free Selina, he was willing to try it. He picked it up.

“No! Wait!” shouted Selina. “You don’t know what it is. What will it do to him?” she asked the old woman.

“I don’t know,” said the old woman. “But it won’t be good. There’s no doubt that it’s some sort of poison.”

Selina was horrified. “You can’t drink it! It could kill you!”

Peter just looked at her, and his eyes were as calm and steady as a rock. He had just realized something. He had just realized that even if this poison killed him, Selina would be worth it. Still keeping his eyes only on his princess in the bottle, he picked up the cup and drank down all the poison.

The effect was instantaneous. Peter’s eyes closed, he gritted his teeth to keep from yelling from the pain. Then the pain slowly, slowly grew less and less, and the world faded from his sight. Peter was dead.

In that same moment, the glass of Selina’s bottle disappeared, and she was standing there fully grown. With a sob, she threw herself down on Peter’s chest. She cried and cried until she couldn’t cry any more, and as she cried she felt something strange. The old woman was holding the cup up to Selina’s cheek, capturing all her tears. When Selina finally calmed, the cup was full. Quick as a wink, the old woman tipped the cup and poured Selina’s tears into Peter’s mouth.

He coughed. He sputtered. Then he sat up. Selina was so happy to see him alive, and Peter was so happy to see her free of her bottle and back to her normal size that neither of them could say anything. They just sat and looked at each other happily for a long, long time.

And then they thanked the old woman, got onto Black, rode to Selina’s home, and lived happily ever after.

The Mad, Bad King

May 8, 2010August 25, 20101 Comment

Once upon a time there was a mad, bad king, who didn’t want anyone to be happy. He had never had any happiness himself, and he did not think it was fair for anyone else to have something the king didn’t have. Getting rid of happiness is harder than it seems, though. Happiness is sneaky and has a tricky way of popping up when you least expect it.

At first, the king just made a law saying that no one was allowed to be happy. Whenever his soldiers caught anyone smiling or laughing or doing something fun, they would capture that person and put him in the dungeons. This didn’t really work, though. Pretty soon the dungeons were full, and there were lots of people still being happy out there.

The king gave his soldiers a new order. Anytime they saw someone being happy, they were to take away whatever it was that made them happy. At first it was easy. If a little boy was having fun riding his bike, the soldiers would take the bike away. Then they would take away every bike in the kingdom, so that no one else could enjoy one either. If a little girl smiled while eating a lollipop, the soldiers would take away all the lollipops in the kingdom, just in case they made anyone smile. Pretty soon there were no toys in the whole kingdom. All the candy was gone, too. Then one day, a soldier saw a woman humming while she watered her roses. The next morning, all the flowers in the kingdom had been dug up and thrown away. The day after that, the king saw a family playing happily with their puppy dog. He immediately made his soldiers round up all the puppies and kittens in the kingdom and lock them away in the dungeons. Of course, to do that, they had to let all the prisoners out, which made them and their families very happy, but they had learned their lesson, and they did not act happy until they were all at home and had closed the doors and curtains and no one could see them.

For a while, it seemed that the king’s plan was working. He never saw anyone smile or laugh or sing or dance. Everything was just as gloomy as the mad, bad king himself. But then spring came. The trees started budding. The sun was shining, the air was warm, and the sky was bluer than blue. People began to stay outside as much as possible and have picnics and talk with their neighbors. Children ran around together and played tag. Babies crawled on green grass with little gurgles of delight. The mad, bad king was furious. But who could get rid of spring?

The king called in the most famous magician in all the world. He offered him all the gold in his treasury if he could make it cold and miserable again. The magician agreed. The next morning when everyone woke up, the ground was covered in snow. A cold wind was blowing. Things were very quiet and dull in the kingdom that morning. Hardly anyone came out of their houses. But then in the afternoon, some of the older children put on coats and hats and scarves and came out to dig tunnels through the snow. Once the ground was cleared a bit, the younger children came out, too. Some of them started to build a snowman. Then some fathers and mothers came out to admire the snowman. Pretty soon, most everyone was outside. A few people started a snowball fight. Some women handed around hot chocolate. It was obvious that everyone was having a good time.

The mad, bad king was enraged. He called for the magician again and demanded that he make the snow go away. The magician just shrugged his shoulders. The king didn’t have any money left to pay him this time. He had used all his gold getting the magician to make the kingdom cold. The king yelled and screamed and finally called for his soldiers to put the magician in the dungeons. The soldiers rushed toward the magician with their swords raised. The magician just calmly raised his hand and said a few words very quietly. The soldiers stopped, waiting for something magical to happen. Nothing happened. After a moment, the bravest soldier stepped forward again and tied up the magicians hands. Then the magician did a very strange thing. He began to jump up and down and make noises like a monkey. The soldiers thought he had gone crazy, but then they heard a strange noise behind them.

“He, he, he, ha, Ha, Ha, Hee, Hee, Hee, HAR, HAR, HAR!” The mad, bad king was laughing. He laughed so hard that he fell on the ground. He laughed so loud that some of the soldiers started to giggle, too. Pretty soon everyone in the room was roaring with laughter. When things finally calmed down, the king stood up and ordered that the magician be released.

“I feel so good!” he said. “I feel… I feel…HAPPY!”

The magician’s last spell had worked. The mad, bad king was not mad or bad any more.

So they all trooped out of the castle to play in the snow, and the king invited everyone in the kingdom inside afterward for hot chocolate. All the puppies and kittens were released from the dungeons, and someone found all the toys and candy hidden away in the storerooms. After the best party you could ever imagine, they all proceeded to live happily ever after.

Prince and Princess

May 2, 2010May 2, 20102 Comments

Once upon a time there was a young prince named Leo who lived with his family in a giant castle. Life as a prince is pretty great, but it’s also more work than you might think. True, Prince Leo got to eat off of golden plates at every meal and take a bath in a bathtub the size of a swimming pool every night, but he also had to dress up in stiff clothes for horribly boring formal dinners and copy lines over and over to make his handwriting as fancy as possible. Even his favorite parts of being a prince were hard work. Every morning he had to practice horseback riding and sword work and archery. And every afternoon he studied ways to break through evil enchantments.

Prince Leo had an older sister named Princess Elena. Princess Elena was about to be 15 years old, and everyone was planning a huge birthday party for her. Her father, the king, had ordered his cooks to make the biggest feast anyone had ever eaten in the castle. Her mother, the queen, had ordered the most beautiful dress of shimmering purple made for her to wear. Prince Leo worked hard in all of his free time to make a wonderful present for his sister. Using only his own little knife, he was carving a huge wooden horse for Elena that looked just like her favorite real horse, Fettle. Prince Leo tried hard to keep his present a secret. He only worked when he knew Princess Elena was at her dancing lessons, and he kept the horse in one of the lowest dungeons where she would never go. But Prince Leo knew his sister. He knew that she couldn’t stand secrets. She never said anything, but he was pretty sure that she had spied out what he was working on. He hoped she would still like it, even though it probably wouldn’t surprise her.

Unfortunately, before he could find out if she liked it or not, everyone in the castle got a much worse surprise. On the night before her party, Princess Elena went missing. She had been trying on her party dress one last time when the seamstress was called out of the room. When the woman came back, Princess Elena was gone. They searched the entire castle, but she could not be found. No one had any idea what had happened until one of the servants found a black feather on Princess Elena’s pillow. A black feather: the calling card of the wicked sorcerer Malvent.

Once the king found out that Malvent had taken Princess Elena, he called for all his advisers to meet him in his throne room. The talked long and hard about what should be done. The generals suggested sending out knights to hunt for her, but the king knew that swords and shields would be of no use against a sorcerer like Malvent. Instead, he asked his chief minister which of his men was the most skilled at battling sorcerers spells.

“There can be no doubt,” said the chief minister. “The best man for such a job is Prince Leo.”

The king was surprised and also proud. Prince Leo was still very young. But he was a prince, and he begged his father to let him go and bring back his sister. The king agreed. He knew that Prince Leo had the best chance of success.

That night, Prince Leo studied all the maps and memorized the way to Malvent’s fortress. Then, early in the morning, he set out to rescue his sister. The sorcerer Malvent lived on a jagged mountaintop. The road to his fortress was narrow and steep. Half way up, Prince Leo had to leave behind his horse because the path was just too tight for a horse to pass through. Climbing on foot was cold and tiring work. And it wasn’t just the steep climb and the frigid wind that made it difficult. Soon, a weird mist began to creep up around Prince Leo’s ankles, then his knees, then his waist. Soon he was surrounded by the mist and couldn’t see where he was going. Fortunately, Prince Leo had studied enchanted mists, so he knew just what to do. He reached into the bag at his side and pulled out a special candle that his mother had made. Once he had the candle lit, the love his mother had put into it cleared the mist just enough for him to see where his feet needed to go. Step by careful step, Prince Leo reached the doors to the fortress.

The fortress doors were also enchanted. They would only open with certain words. Fortunately, Prince Leo had studied enchanted doors, and so he knew just what to do. He closed his eyes and remembered all the enchanted passwords he had memorized, trying them out one by one. On his fifth try, he found the right words, and the door opened. Prince Leo walked boldly into the main hall of the fortress. He knew that sorcerers always keep their prisoners high up in the tallest tower, and so Prince Leo began to climb the stairs.

Naturally, Malvent’s stairs weren’t ordinary stairs. When Prince Leo was halfway up, the stairs suddenly began to jump around and almost pitched him straight over the side. Fortunately, Prince Leo had studied enchanted stairs, and so he knew just what to do. Reaching into his bag again, he pulled out a pair of his father’s boots, which he slipped onto his own feet. All of his father’s wisdom which was in the boots helped Prince Leo find just the right places to step as he climbed and climbed those jumping stairs. Finally, he reached the very top, and opened the door in front of him.

Behind the door was a round room containing seven cells. In the cell that was straight in front of him, Prince Leo could see his sister, Princes Elena, sitting on a stool and knitting something large and blue. He cried out with joy, and rushed forward. He was just about to open the door to her cell when he heard her voice from behind him.

“No, Leo!”

He turned and saw his sister in the cell behind him. Then slowly he turned and saw that each of the seven cells had a girl in it. They all looked exactly like Princess Elena. All at once they all began to talk.

“I’m the real, Elena!”

“No, Leo, you know me. I’m your sister.”

“Don’t let any of the other ones out. They’ll turn into monsters as soon as the door is open.”

Unfortunately, Prince Leo had never studied enchanted monsters that look like your sister, and he didn’t know what to do. For several minutes he just stayed right where he was, turning on the spot and staring at all those copies of Princess Elena. Then he had the perfect idea and stopped where he was, looking straight at the first Elena.

“What did I make you for your birthday?” he asked.

“I don’t know! You kept it a secret,” said the first one.

“That’s a trick question,” said the second one. “You bought me some jewelry.”

“No, you wrote me a song,” said the third one.

“You know that it was a surprise,” said the fourth. “I really don’t know.”

The fifth Elena blushed. “You carved me a wooden horse,” she whispered.

And quick as a flash, Prince Leo opened her door and grabbed her hand. She smiled at him, while the other Elenas all turned back into monsters and began gnashing their teeth at him from behind their bars. Leo and Elena ran for the stairs.

They were down all the stairs and almost to the front door when Malvent himself appeared right in front of them. He raised his hands and began to say the words of a spell. Fortunately, Princess Elena had also studied enchantments by evil sorcerers, and she knew just what to do. She grabbed the edge of the blue cloak that she had been knitting in her cell and threw it over the sorcerer. His spell rebounded off the cloak and hit himself. Where once there had been a terrifying sorcerer, there now stood a large gray hippopotamus. The prince and princess ran out the door and down the path. When they reached the point where Prince Leo had left his horse, they found several men standing. The king had sent his men to escort his children home.

Princess Elena had a beautiful birthday party. Among other exciting games and prizes, it featured a ride on a real hippo. And they all lived happily every after.

The Dog and his Sheriff

April 28, 2010April 28, 20101 Comment

Once upon a time there was a dog named Cisco. He had a sheriff named Sheriff Jones. It was Cisco and Sheriff Jones’ job to keep order in the town of Culver’s End, and they took that job seriously. Culver’s End wasn’t a very big town, but there were gold mines up in the mountains near there and lots of men coming and going all the time. Most of them were good, hard-working men just trying to earn a living…but some of them were not.

One of these second kind was a man by the name of Slim Jim Donnelly. He was a black-hearted man, wanted in seven states for every crime from cattle-rustling to train robbery to murder. No one in Culver’s End had seen Slim Jim, but there was a rumor that he was hiding out in the area. Cisco first heard the rumor when he was sniffing out some thieving raccoons near the Black Buffalo Saloon. He trotted straight down to the sheriff’s office and made sure Sheriff Jones moseyed on up the street to hear the rumor, too.

That afternoon, Cisco set out to hunt for Slim Jim Donnelly, with Sheriff Jones riding by his side. Cisco knew all the good hideouts anywhere near Culver’s End. He had been roaming this range since he was just a little pup. Sheriff Jones was useful, too. He was an excellent tracker. It was said that he could track a polar bear in a snowstorm, though Cisco never really did understand what a polar bear was supposed to be or why you couldn’t wait until it had finished snowing to hunt one down. In any case, it didn’t take long before the sheriff saw signs that a large group of men had passed through that area. Cisco soon had the scent as well, the distinct smell of men who were up to no good. The dog and the sheriff followed the scent down to Graveyard Gulch. It was a long and narrow canyon, and Cisco knew that there was a large cave on the far side which was plenty large enough for Slim Jim and his whole gang. Cisco also knew that there was no way to get near the cave without being seen from the opening. If Slim Jim had a guard posted (and he certainly would) they would be spotted right away if they tried to make their move. The best plan was to wait until morning when Slim Jim’s gang headed out and take them by surprise at the canyon mouth.

Unfortunately, Sheriff Jones didn’t know Graveyard Gulch as well as Cisco did. He slid off his horse and began to ease his way toward the cave, using scrub bushes for cover. Cisco tried to pull him back, tried to warn him with a quiet growl, but Sheriff Jones could be stubborn at times. He just told Cisco to “Stay” and kept on creeping forward. Cisco sat down to assess the situation. He knew that the sheriff was going to be spotted soon and taken captive, so he only had a little time to figure out what to do. He reckoned his best chance was to use Sheriff Jones’ capture as a distraction and try to take the men by surprise.

Once he had a plan, Cisco moved quickly. He headed back the way they had come and out around to the other side of Graveyard Gulch to be in position. Sure enough, he was just barely coming up over the rise when he heard some shouts and a loud shot. Cisco truly hoped that the sheriff hadn’t gotten himself killed. He trusted not. Sheriff Jones could be quite resourceful when he needed to. A few steps further and Cisco could see what was going on below. Several men were dragging Sheriff Jones out of the bushes. Judging from the way the sheriff was struggling, he was plenty alive. Now a tall thin man came out of the cave, smoking a cigarette. His men handed him the sheriff’s rifle. All eyes were on Slim Jim as he broke the rifle over his knee and laughed.

It was the moment Cisco had been waiting for. Like a shot out of a gun, he streaked out from behind the rocks and took a flying leap. His timing was perfect. Slim Jim had no warning at all before Cisco landed directly on his chest, knocking him onto his back. The men erupted with shouts and drew their guns, but they couldn’t seem to figure out where to shoot. Slim Jim was rolling around on the ground, trying to keep Cisco away from his throat. Amidst all the chaos, Sheriff Jones was able to wrench his arms free and grab the rifle of the man nearest him. After that, it was only a matter of time before Slim Jim and all of his gang were tied up securely in the cave with Cisco standing guard while Sheriff Jones rode back into town for a wagon to take all the men to jail.

The reward for the capture of Slim Jim Donnelly was $100. Cisco let Sheriff Jones keep the money. His reward was the satisfaction of a job well done. Though he didn’t turn down the steak the sheriff offered him for dinner that night either.

Pirate treasure

April 23, 2010April 23, 20101 Comment

Once upon a time there was a terrible pirate named Captain Stumpy who thought he was the scariest pirate to ever sail the seven seas. He was meaner than the meanest bully and greedier than the greediest miser. He woke up in the morning and started stealing before breakfast and he didn’t stop murdering until he went to bed at night. He had heaps of treasure stored in chests on his ship and he never, ever shared any of it with anyone.

Then one day, after a particularly fierce battle, in which he sunk an unsuspecting ship after carrying off two big trunks of gold, he tried to sail away with an evil laugh as usual. But he couldn’t. His ship wouldn’t move even an inch. Captain Stumpy could see the wind blowing and the sails getting bigger and bigger. But the ship didn’t budge. Captain Stumpy got red in the face. He cursed and yelled and jumped up in down in anger. But none of that helped the ship move at all. The truth could not be denied. The ship was too heavy. All that treasure that Captain Stumpy had stolen was weighing it down. He tried to lighten the load by throwing all his crew into the sea, but it wasn’t enough. So finally, Captain Stumpy loaded four great chests full of treasure and put them in a little boat and rowed them over to a deserted island to find a place to hide them. Captain Stumpy went all the way to the middle of the island and dug a big hole. Then he put all four chests into the hole and covered them over with dirt. Then Captain Stumpy sailed away to steal some more, and he was happy. He knew that no one would ever find that buried treasure.

He was wrong.

What Captain Stumpy didn’t know was that a few weeks before there had a been a shipwreck near that island. A shipwreck with only one survivor, a little boy named John. John had been living alone on that island, eating fish and coconuts and sleeping under the stars. When he saw Captain Stumpy coming, he thought he was going to be rescued. When he saw the black eye patch and the wooden leg and realized who had landed on his island, he was very afraid and hid himself behind some rocks. Still, he spied and saw where Captain Stumpy buried that treasure, and when the pirate was long gone, he went and dug up that treasure and laughed and laughed because now he had enough gold pieces to fill a bathtub but not one place to spend them.

For a whole year, John lived on that island with that treasure before one day a ship came along and rescued him and took him back to the town where he lived. John showed the captain of the ship the pirate treasure swore him to secrecy, and they agreed that half of it would belong to the captain and the other half to John, so that when John finally came home to his aunt and uncle’s house, he had four great chests of gold with him. John and his aunt and uncle were scared to tell anyone about the treasure. They were afraid that bad people might try to steal it or worst of all that Captain Stumpy might hear about it and come looking for John. So instead of buying a big house and new clothes and expensive food, they kept the treasure hidden in a closet and only bought things they needed. And anytime someone in their town fell on hard times or had a special need, John would take a little treasure from the chests and see to it that the person got whatever they needed.

No one ever knew where the money came from until one day when a young washerwoman was in the house washing clothes and she accidentally opened the closet where the chests were kept. She saw the big wooden chests with their iron bindings and she saw the mark of Captain Stumpy on the their lids. The washerwoman didn’t mean to do any harm; she never meant to talk about the chests, but she couldn’t help but tell her very best friend. That friend told just one more friend, and that friend just one more friend, and before long the rumor had been spread that young John had a house full of pirate treasure stolen from Captain Stumpy.

When Captain Stumpy heard this rumor, you can guess how furious he was. He immediately rushed to the deserted island to check on his treasure, and when he found it was missing, he went into such a rage as has never been seen before. He stomped his feet. He screamed and wailed. He hacked at trees with his pirate sword. He pulled out tufts of his beard. That last bit hurt quite a lot, and that calmed him down just a little. Then he jumped onto his ship and sailed as fast as he could to the town where John lived. It didn’t take him long to find John’s house, and when he got there, he cried out in a terrible pirate voice, “AAAAAARRRRRGH! Where is the boy who dared to steal treasure from Captain Stumpy? Come out and show yourself!”

Everyone on the street heard him yelling, and everyone quailed with fear and hid inside their houses. But young John was very brave. He sent his aunt and uncle out the back door to safety and slowly went out alone to meet Captain Stumpy.

When Captain Stumpy saw how young the boy John was, he was angrier than ever, but he just laughed a very evil laugh. “You! You stole from Captain Stumpy? You may be just a child, but that is all the more reason why I should kill you. I won’t have anyone saying that Captain Stumpy could lose gold to a lad. Aaarrrm yourself, boy. My sword is ready for you.”

John did not have a sword or any kind of weapon, so he picked up the only thing he could see that might be of use: an old umbrella that was lying by the front door. With a roar of rage, Captain Stumpy ran toward John and they began to fight. It didn’t take long for Captain Stumpy’s sword to completely destroy the feeble umbrella, and if John hadn’t been so little and quick he would soon have had his head cut off. As it was, he found it very difficult to stay out of reach of that terrible sword. But just when he thought that all hope was gone, he heard a great roar from all around him.

The whole street was full of people. While the two had been fighting, every man and woman who had ever been helped by John had come creeping up, armed with fireplace tools and frying pans, pitchforks and paperweights. When Captain Stumpy saw that he was surrounded, he shook in his boots. In all his days as a pirate, no one had ever stood up to him, and he found it quite terrifying. With amazing speed he took off down the street, leaving John, leaving the treasure, leaving the townspeople. He was happy to have escaped with his own life.

After that story got around, no one was afraid of Captain Stumpy any more. In every port they would laugh when his name was mentioned. Captain Stumpy was so ashamed that he never sailed the seven seas again.

And as for John, he went on living quietly in that town among the best friends a boy could have.