The Fairy's Return and Other Princess Tales Page 9

  Seven

  Sonora dreamed it was her wedding day. The great hall was filled with guests. Prince Melvin XX stood next to her. The Chief Royal Councillor was reciting the wedding ceremony. The prince hadn’t moved once the whole time. He’s like a block of wood, Sonora thought.

  The ceremony was almost over. The Chief Royal Councillor said, “Prince Melvin XX, will you say a few words?”

  The prince began to speak. Sonora saw a hinge at the corner of his mouth. She looked at his arm next to her. It was carved of wood! He was a big wooden puppet.

  “Weddings are good. Everybody has fun at a wedding. There’s always . . .”

  Everyone clapped. Prince Melvin XX kept right on talking. Sonora screamed, “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa . . .”

  When Prince Melvin XX didn’t return to Kulornia, King Stanley CXLIV sent a messenger to Biddle. The messenger came back and told the king about the journey the royal family was thought to have made. King Stanley CXLIV reasoned that the prince must have left with them. He wondered where they’d gone and hoped it was a good place for an Honest, Traditional, Brave, Handsome, Strong, and Tall Man of Action who was also a Good Dancer.

  Five years passed. King Stanley CXLIV died, and Prince Melvin XX’s younger brother, Prince Roger XCII, was crowned king of Kulornia. His first act as king was to annex the kingdom of Biddle, the kingdom without a king.

  The saying “Princess Sonora knows, but don’t ask her” spread from Biddle to Kulornia.

  Queen Hermione II dreamed that Sonora was a little girl again. She was in the queen’s lap, talking about the hissing turtle. Sonora said that the turtle hisses to fool people into thinking it’s a whistling teakettle. Then why does the teakettle whistle? the queen asked. Because it doesn’t know how to sing, Sonora explained. And Queen Hermione II thought, She’s an extraordinary child.

  Ten years passed. The shepherd Elbert’s son Elmo was four years old. Elbert dragged his long ladder to the hedge again. He climbed the ladder with Elmo in his arms. “See,” he whispered into his son’s ear. “They’re all asleep. Fast asleep.”

  King Humphrey II dreamed that he was writing a proclamation making the beaver the Royal Rodent of Biddle. He wrote each word as clearly as he could. But as soon as he finished a word and went on to the next, the letters in the last word changed. For instance, “beaver” changed to “molar,” and “rodent” changed to “jerkin.” It was very annoying.

  “HE CLIMBED THE LADDER WITH ELMO IN HIS ARMS.”

  Every few years, Elbert’s sons and grandsons and great-grandsons climbed the ladder to look at the sleeping court of Biddle.

  Fifty years passed. Prince Melvin XX’s grandnephew, Prince Simon LXIX, heir apparent to the throne of Greater Kulornia, had a son. Prince Simon LXIX’s wife, Bernardine LXI, the princess apparent, invited the fairies to her son Jasper CCX’s naming ceremony. She invited all eight of them, including Belladonna, so no one would have hurt feelings.

  There was trouble anyway. The fairies started arguing over who was the most powerful. Adrianna bellowed that she was the most powerful and she could prove it. So she turned the princess apparent into a shoehorn. Not to be outdone, Allegra changed the princess from a shoehorn into a baby troll. Then Antonetta turned her into a lady’s wig. In the space of a half hour, poor Bernardine LXI became a piccolo, a crab apple tree, a quill pen, and a green peppercorn.

  In the end they turned her back into a princess. But no one was certain if they had turned her into the same princess she was before. She was a little different from then on, maybe because one of the fairies had made an eensy teensy mistake, or maybe because the experience had been so terrifying.

  Whatever the reason, when the princess apparent gave birth to a daughter two years later, no fairies were invited to the new baby’s naming ceremony. Prince Simon LXIX worried about fairy revenge, but there was none. Each fairy blamed another fairy for the ban, so they didn’t get mad at the prince, but they didn’t give the child any gifts either.

  And that was the end of the custom of having fairies at naming ceremonies.

  Prince Melvin XX dreamed about armor. He was polishing all the parts of his armor. While he polished, he named each piece. “One polished helmet. One polished visor. One polished haute-piece. One polished pauldron.” And so on.

  Eighty-three years later, Prince Melvin XX’s great-grandnephew, King Jasper CCX, had a son, Prince Christopher I, or plain Prince Christopher.

  Even though the fairies didn’t give him any gifts, Christopher had a loving heart. He was smart, but not ten times as smart as everybody else. And he was handsome, pretty handsome anyway. But mostly he was curious. When he started talking, his first word was “why.” And most of his sentences from then on started with “Why.”

  Why is your nose above your lips and not somewhere else?

  Why are diapers white?

  Why do you have nails on your fingers and toes? Why don’t you have them anywhere else?

  Why are peas round?

  Why do birds have so many feathers?

  He’d ask anybody anytime. The noble children of Kulornia liked Christopher, but they hated playing with him. If they were playing ice hockey, for example, he’d stop the game to ask why ice is harder to see through than water. If they were racing, he’d halt right before the finish line and ask why grass doesn’t have leaves. Once, Christopher and his best friend, the young Duke Thomas, were watching a tournament. Just as the two champion knights galloped at each other, Christopher nudged his friend and pointed at a flock of geese flying above the stadium. “Look.” Thomas did while Christopher whispered, “Why don’t they flap their tail feathers too?” By the time Thomas looked down again, one knight was lying in the dirt and the other was trotting out of the arena.

  Occasionally Thomas could answer one of Christopher’s questions, but not often. Christopher’s page could answer a few more questions, but then he’d be stumped. Christopher’s tutors could answer even more, but then they’d be stumped. His parents could answer yet more, but they’d finally be stumped too.

  When they were stumped, they all said the same thing. They all said, “Princess Sonora knows, but don’t ask her.” And when he asked who Princess Sonora was, they all told him it was just an expression. There was no such person.

  It was the answer he hated most in the whole wide world.

  Eight

  As Prince Christopher grew older, he tried to answer his own questions. He read as much as he could in King Jasper CCX’s library. He found some answers, but not enough, never enough.

  Whenever his research got interesting, something always took him away from it. He’d have to practice his jousting. Or he’d have to try on a new suit of armor, or attend a banquet, where his father would forbid him to ask the guests even one single measly question.

  A week after Christopher’s seventeenth birthday, he was in the library, trying to find out if a dragon ever burns the roof of its mouth. A stack of books was piled next to him. He picked up the top one, Where There’s Dragon, There’s Fire. One of the chapters was about dragon skin. Did skin or something else cover the inside of a dragon’s mouth? He opened to page 3,832.

  A Royal Squire came into the library. “Majesty, the king wants you to come to the audience room.”

  Christopher slammed the book shut. It never failed.

  Ten shepherds and one sheep faced the king in the audience room. As soon as Christopher took his place next to King Jasper CCX, the oldest shepherd began to speak.

  “Highness, something terrible is happening to our sheep. See?” He pointed to the sheep. “She’s going bald. They all are. In the spring, there won’t be much fleece for us to sell.”

  Christopher saw big bald spots on the sheep’s back.

  Another shepherd said, “In the winter, they’ll catch cold. It’s only October, and they’re already starting to sneeze.”

  The sheep sneezed.

  King Jasper CCX said, “God bless you.” Then he called for his Chief Royal Vete
rinarian.

  The Chief Royal Veterinarian spread a smelly ointment all over the sheep’s bald spots. Then she gave the shepherds a vat of the ointment to spread on all the sheep.

  A week later the shepherds and the sheep were back in the audience room. The bald spots were bigger. The sheep sneezed twice.

  The Chief Royal Veterinarian told the shepherds to keep putting the ointment on the sheep. She also gave them medicine for the sheep to drink.

  Two weeks later the shepherds and the sheep were back. Now the sheep had no wool left, and she never stopped sneezing.

  The Chief Royal Veterinarian shook her head. “I don’t know the cure,” she said. “Princess Sonora knows, but don’t ask her.”

  “THE CHIEF ROYAL VETERINARIAN SPREAD A SMELLY OINTMENT ALL OVER THE SHEEP’S BALD SPOTS.”

  King Jasper CCX asked Prince Christopher what he thought.

  As usual, the prince had a question. “Could we send for all the shepherds in Greater Kulornia? Maybe one of them knows how to cure the balding disease.”

  It was done. Shepherds came from all over Kulornia and also from the land that used to be Biddle. Four hundred shepherds camped outside Kulornia castle. One of them was Elroy, Elbert’s great-great-grandson.

  King Jasper CCX talked to half of the shepherds, and Prince Christopher talked to the other half. The first one hundred and ninety-nine shepherds Christopher talked to said their sheep weren’t getting bald and they didn’t know how to cure the balding disease.

  The last shepherd Christopher spoke to was Elroy.

  “Are your sheep going bald?” the prince asked.

  “No, your majesty.”

  “Do you know how to cure the balding disease?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t, your highness. Princess Sonora knows, but don’t ask her . . .”

  Christopher turned away.

  “. . . because she’s asleep.”

  Christopher spun around. “What? What do you mean, she’s asleep?”

  Elroy told Christopher everything. He told about the ladder and the hedge and the sleeping oxen and the sleeping wagon driver and the sleeping butcher. Halfway through the story, Christopher started jumping up and down, he was so excited. When Elroy was finished, Christopher ran to his father. King Jasper CCX was talking to his last shepherd.

  “Sonora lives!” Christopher yelled. “She sleeps! She lives! She can tell us about the sheep! She can answer all my questions!” He shouted to a squire, “Saddle my horse!”

  But Christopher was too excited to wait. He ran after the squire and saddled his own horse. Then he rode to his father.

  “Sire! I’m off to old Biddle Castle.” He galloped away, calling behind him, “To wake the sleeping princess!”

  Nine

  After two days of hard riding, Christopher and his horse saw the hedge. The horse reared up and wouldn’t go a step closer. Christopher jumped off and walked the rest of the way.

  The hedge looked wicked. It was taller than the castle back home, and it was full of thick, hairy vines and thorns like spikes and waxy red berries that practically screamed, “Poison!”

  Christopher wondered what the name of the vine was and what the berries were like. He smiled. Sonora would tell him.

  It was going to take days to get inside. His sword wouldn’t cut more than one vine before he’d have to sharpen it. Well, he might as well get started. He pulled the sword out of its sheath and walked toward the hedge, pointing the sword ahead of him.

  It didn’t touch so much as a leaf. A hole opened in the hedge and grew bigger and bigger until it was big enough for Christopher to step through.

  Was it a trap? Was there really a princess named Sonora, or was a prince-eating ogress inside? Was Elroy the shepherd her messenger?

  He had to go on. He had to find out—even if he died trying. He stepped through the hedge.

  It snapped shut behind him. Oh no! It was as thick as before. He pointed his sword at it. Nothing happened. The hedge—or Sonora—wanted to keep him here.

  He was at the edge of the moat. How was he supposed to get across? He could swim across if he was sure that the crocodiles were asleep, but he wasn’t sure and he wasn’t going to dive in to find out.

  What? Lightning flashed out of the blue sky and struck a tree on the castle side of the moat. Whoa! The tree came down, making a rough bridge.

  Christopher crossed slowly, stepping carefully between the branches. On the other side of the moat, he climbed a shoulder-high wall. Then he jumped down into a field of weeds so dense and tall that he didn’t see Prince Melvin XX sleeping only a few feet away. The prince slept on the ground now. The bench he’d been lying on had rotted and fallen apart twenty years ago.

  The weeds were brown and dying because it was November. Christopher wondered if this had once been the garden. He heard a rumbling. It stopped. There it was again. And again. Was it the breathing of the Sonora monster who lived in the castle?

  He looked up. One of the castle’s towers had crumbled, and an eagle perched atop another. Ivy climbed the walls. The pennants flying above the entrance archway were tattered rags.

  Rumble. The earth trembled a little. Rumble.

  Something rustled near Christopher’s feet. Aaaa! A rat as big as a cat scampered across his boot. Christopher thought he should leave the garden. The bees were probably as big as pigeons.

  Rumble.

  The shepherd had said something about a wagon on the drawbridge and a butcher in the courtyard. He pushed through the weeds toward the entrance.

  Rumble.

  He reached the courtyard. There was the butcher! Possibly the Chief Royal Butcher, although you couldn’t tell by the rags he was wearing. His shirt was so frayed and tattered that his belly showed through. He was slumped across his butcher block, next to a pile of bones. Fresh meat a hundred years ago, the prince thought.

  And there was the carpenter, bent over a sawhorse, his saw at his feet. He was lucky he hadn’t cut himself when he’d fallen asleep.

  Rumble. Louder.

  Or maybe the carpenter wasn’t sleeping. Maybe they had all been turned to stone.

  “Hey, wake up!” Christopher yelled. “Time to get up.”

  Nobody moved.

  Rumble.

  Christopher ran to the carpenter, who was closest. “Wake up!”

  The man was filthy. His skin was coated with mud and dirt and dust and who-knew-what-else. Christopher wrapped a corner of his cloak around his hand. Then he pushed the carpenter’s arm without letting his skin touch the carpenter’s skin. The arm moved! It wasn’t stone. He felt the carpenter’s skin through the cloak. It was warm and soft—skin, not stone.

  Christopher shook the arm. “Wake up! Listen! I command you, wake up!”

  The carpenter slept on. He breathed in. His nostrils flared and his chest heaved. He breathed out, and the rumble started again.

  It was the carpenter breathing! No, it couldn’t be. One person couldn’t breathe that loudly. Christopher backed up so he could watch the butcher and the carpenter at once.

  The butcher breathed in and the carpenter breathed in. The butcher breathed out and the carpenter breathed out—at exactly the same time.

  There were more people in the courtyard. Two men, possibly nobles, had been standing and talking when they’d fallen asleep. A cobbler had been shaping leather on a last. A laundress had been washing a mountain of clothes. Rags now.

  They all breathed in and out at the same time. After a hundred years, they must have gotten into the habit of breathing together. That was what made the rumble.

  Christopher went to each of them. He yelled in their ears. He shook them. He hollered, “Fire!” He yelled, “Food! Aren’t you hungry?”

  He yelled to the wagon driver and the oxen on the moat. But he was afraid to go to them. The drawbridge was rotting. If he stepped out on it, it might give way.

  He tried to wake the dog, lying with his head on a bone. He tried to wake the cat. He told her about the huge r
at that had run across his boot. The cat and the dog, Christopher decided, were sleeping because they were pets. The rats weren’t pets, so they were awake.

  Anyway, nothing worked. He couldn’t wake anybody up.

  What if Sonora wouldn’t wake up either?

  Ten

  The castle doors were halfway off their hinges, so Christopher was able to open them only wide enough to slip through. Inside, he heard the flapping of wings. Bats. Birds too, from the droppings in the dust on the floor. He sneezed. He looked behind him, and there were his footsteps, sunk into a hundred years of dust. He took another step. His boots didn’t make a sound because of the dust.

  It was dim in here, in the great hall. The sunlight was weak through the grimy stained-glass windows. Even the broken windows didn’t let in much light, because they were draped with cobwebs.

  He crossed the hall. Where should he look first for Sonora, and how would he know her when he saw her?

  People were everywhere, just as they would be on a busy day in Kulornia castle. “Wake up! Wake up!” he shouted. Nothing happened. He had stopped expecting anything, but he kept trying.

  He shouted at everybody. But he shook only the women, and only women who looked like they might be a princess. He didn’t bother with somebody who was making a bed or stirring an empty pot. He tried not to touch anybody with his hands. The people were all so filthy.

  Nobody on the first floor would wake up, and it was probably useless to go upstairs and search the bedchambers. They had fallen asleep in the middle of the day, so why would anyone be in bed? But he had come all this way, and he had waited all his life to get his questions answered. Besides, he couldn’t leave even if he wanted to, because of the hedge. He returned to the great hall and climbed the staircase.

  Most of the bedchambers were empty. But Christopher found King Humphrey II and Queen Hermione II on the bed in the royal bedchamber. It was sweet, Christopher thought. They were holding hands. The king snored so loudly that he probably made half the rumbling. What was left of the curtains fluttered whenever he breathed out.