by James Comins
“I don’t know, Elbert. ‘E didn’t say,” shouted Flo.
“Well, ask ‘im!”
Flo leaned her hairy troll face out the window. “How do you do, my pretty sprat. Are you an ‘appy fishbone?”
The shepherd’s son shrugged. “I’m okay, I guess.”
“He’s guessing, Flo,” sighed Elbert.
“I ‘eard him, I’ve got hears. Maybe you ought to ask ‘im,” said Flo.
Elbert cleared his throat and looked down at the boy. “You should clap yer hands,” he shouted.
The stone shepherd’s son clapped his hands. Clop. Clop.
“ ‘Ow about yer feet?” asked Elbert. “Is they dancin’ feet?”
Shrugging, the shepherd’s son did a little dance. Clump. Clump.
“Can you sing, my fishtail?” asked Elbert.
“I don’t know,” said the shepherd’s son, “but I can play the violin.”
“Well, let’s ‘ear it wiv our hears!” said Flo.
So the stone shepherd’s son played the song to charm a dragon to sleep. It wasn’t perfect, but the melody was nice, and the little violin had a hauntingly sweet sound. At the end of the song, the shepherd’s son stuck his pinkies in his ears and played the last note.
“ ‘E is okay, Flo,” mumbled Elbert sleepily. “No guessin’ about it. Jest ‘ave to listen to ‘em proper.” Elbert and Flo leaned their elbows on the windowsills and drifted off to sleep.
The tower itself yawned with its wooden shutters and sat down in the middle of the avenue, snoring.
The stone shepherd’s son climbed up the porch steps and tiptoed inside.
Chapter Seven
The violin music had made everything in the tower sleepy. All the canaries in their wicker cages were asleep. They had tucked their heads under their wings. All the mice were asleep, their tails curled around them. The stone shepherd’s son picked one up. It yawned and fell asleep in his hand. He set it down again.
He tried to climb the stairs, but the stairs were asleep, too. When he put his foot on them, they sagged sleepily and wouldn’t support his weight. After all, he was made of stone.
In the kitchen, next to the sleepy cheeses and the sleepy cookies, was a little pair of doors. Inside was a cart that could scoot up and down. After climbing in and scooting upstairs, the stone shepherd’s son stepped out of a second pair of doors and found himself in a spirally mushroom garden. Grass, twigs and hollow logs spiralled around the middle of the tower. And in the center of the spiral stood a little mushroom man.
“Excuse me,” said the stone shepherd’s son, “I’m looking for the royal ladies. Have you seen them?”
“Maybe,” said the mushroom man.
“Do you know who I mean?” asked the shepherd’s son.
“Probably,” the mushroom man replied.
“Can you tell me where they are?”
“Perhaps.”
The stone shepherd’s son got frustrated. “C’mon! Tell me!”
“Later. If I feel like it.”
The stone shepherd’s son thought for awhile. “Will you tell me where they are if I give you a windflower seed?” He held the seed out to see.
“Nope,” said the mushroom man. “Don’t need a windflower seed.”
“How about half a Bonanza? I’ll give it to you later.”
“What’s a Bonanza?” asked the mushroom man.
“Um, it’s Bodacious,” said the shepherd’s son.
“Only half a Bodacious Bonanza?”
“You only gave me half an answer!” said the shepherd’s son angrily. He crossed his arms. “Fine. Will you tell me where the royal ladies are for a whole Bonanza?”
“Nope,” said the mushroom man.
“Hmm,” said the stone shepherd’s son. “Will you tell me if I teach you a trick?”
The mushroom man’s eyes lit up. “I love tricks,” he whispered. “Is it a card trick? A coin trick?”
“It’s a word trick,” the shepherd’s son said.
The mushroom man danced around. “Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!”
“Where are the royal ladies?”
“The top floor! You have to say the magic words to get there! Squinky squinky squinky!”
All of a sudden, the spiral garden turned into a spiral staircase, rising up and winding around the tower towards the top.
“Now teach me the trick!” shrieked the little mushroom man.
“The trick,” said the stone shepherd’s son, climbing up the staircase, “is to ask the right question.” He climbed his way to the top.
Chapter Eight
When he got there, he found a ladder and a trap door. Above the trap door was birds. Birds of all colors, birds of all sizes. Parrots and finches and penguins and crows and buzzards and ostriches. It was a circus of weird birds. They crowded around the trap door, squawking and clucking and getting in the way of each other. The stone shepherd’s son could hardly climb into the room.
After shooing the birds away, the shepherd’s son looked around. The tower’s attic was one big round room. Off to one side were newspapers scattered on the floor. To the other side was a bunch of tapestries. They were draped over a fort made of pillows. Out of the fort crawled the tin princess.
She was the same age as the shepherd’s son. Even though she was made of crumbly tin, she was very pretty.
“Who are you?” asked the tin princess suspiciously. “Are you someone important? I’m only friends with important people.”
The shepherd’s son frowned. How should he answer? He remembered what his father had said: no stone was ever dishonest. But lying seemed a good option if he wanted to make friends with the princess. And he did.
Instead, he asked the marble man’s question.
“Why?” he asked her.
“Why what?” she replied grumpily.
“Why are you only friends with important people?”
“Because they make me feel important,” the tin princess said. “Duh.”
“But you are important,” said the shepherd’s son. “You’re the missing princess, right? Everyone’s supposed to be out looking for you.”
The tin princess shuffled her toe. “No one’s looking for me. Nobody cares. But it doesn’t matter. I like it better here with all my dinosaurs. It’s better than being out there with all the people.”
“Why?” asked the shepherd’s son.
“They’re very good dinosaurs,” she answered.
“They’re just birds.”
“No they’re not!” the tin princess shouted. “Birds are dinosaurs because I say. I’m a princess! And anyway, you haven’t answered my question. Are you important?”
“I can play the violin,” the shepherd’s son said.
“Wow! I always wanted to learn the violin. Can you teach me?”
“I guess. I mean, sure. But the king said you ought to come home.”
“Why should I?” said the princess, crossing her arms royally.
“Well, your dad is worried. He offered a Bodacious Bonanza to anyone who brings you and your mom back home.”
Her eyes went wide. “My mom? What’s wrong with my mom?”
“She’s missing, too. If she’s not here in Spiral Tower, maybe the Bad Birds of the Skies got her.”
All the birds in the room started screeching and clucking and running and flying around.
“You shouldn’t mention the Bad Birds,” the tin princess whispered. “They scare my dinosaurs. But if--” the tin princess lowered her voice--“if they have got my mom then we’ve got to go after them. Come on!”
“How can we go after Bad Birds?” asked the shepherd’s son. “We don’t have wings.”
“Sure we do! My dinosaurs always keep a few extra pairs of wings lying around so visitors can fly with them.” The tin princess climbed up her fort to the rafters and pulled down two of the biggest kites ever. They had long rope ladders and handles to steer with.
“We can catch a good breeze when the tower gets moving ag
ain. So play the wake-up song, stone boy!”
“I don’t know a wake-up song.”
“It’s the opposite of the sleeping song I heard you play! Sheesh,” said the tin princess.
“Wait. How come you didn’t fall asleep?” he asked her.
“Because I have tin ears. C’mon. Play it.”
So the shepherd’s son tried to play the song backwards. It took a few tries, but eventually he figured it out. The tower and everything in earshot woke up. Right away the room tipped to the side and the tower started bumbling through the streets again.
“Let me say goodbye to Flo and Elbert before we go,” said the tin princess.
But the trolls and the little mushroom man were already climbing up the hatch.
“Bless your heart, that was the best nap I’ve ‘ad in a month of Sundays,” said Flo.
“We’re going away,” the tin princess interrupted. “We’ve got to go look for my mom,” she added.
Elbert pointed to the stone shepherd’s son. “Well, this ‘un’s a good ‘un,” he said to the tin princess. “You look after ‘im, now.”
“I will,” she said.
The mushroom man danced over to the shepherd’s son. “I’ve been trying to figure out the right question,” he said. “Can you tell me it?”
The shepherd’s son smiled. “Maybe,” he said.
“We gotta go!” said the tin princess. She threw open the big windows, gave one of the rope ladders dangling off the kites to the shepherd’s son, and tossed the kites out the window of the running tower. The kites snagged the breeze and flew out into the air. Waving goodbye, the tin princess and the stone shepherd’s son climbed up the ladders and were sucked out the window.
Chapter Nine
Soon they were flying over the city. “Whee!” shouted the tin princess. Sunlight reflected off her tin nose and her tin clothes and her tin shoes as if they were mirrors.
“Where are the Bad Birds?” asked the stone shepherd’s son from his kite.
“Up!” called the tin princess. She flew higher and higher, and the shepherd’s son flew after her.
A huge dark buzzing cloud rushed toward them.
“Is that the Birds?” asked the shepherd’s son. The princess nodded. She flew around the edge of the dusty gray cloud.
“Why don’t we go through the middle? It’s just a cloud,” asked the shepherd’s son.
“Propellers!” the princess shouted back.
“What?” said the shepherd’s son. But she didn’t answer.
When they reached the top of the dark cloud, he saw what. The Bad Birds weren’t real birds. Instead, they were iron monsters with sharp claws, long metal beaks, and spinning propellers that kept them afloat.
“Let’s follow them back to their nest. Maybe my mother’s there,” said the princess.
They soared over hills, valleys, fields and rivers. The stone shepherd’s son pointed out his father’s farm.
“Wow!” the tin princess said. “You must have all the stones in the world!”
“They’re a lot of fun to raise,” the shepherd’s son said. “They’re always curious and they stay snuggly even when they get big.”
“You should tell me about it sometime,” said the princess. “Not now, though.”
They passed beyond the edges of the golden king’s kingdom and kept going over a quilt of farms.
“How much farther can the Bad Birds’ nest be?” the tin princess shouted.
“Dunno. How come the Bad Birds don’t hear us talking about them?” the stone shepherd’s son shouted back.
“Because they’re stupid,” said the princess. “And because they’re robots.”
The two followed the stupid robot birds to a giant cave halfway up a mountain. All the Bad Birds rushed into it, fooomp. A wisp of smoke drifted out after them, smelling like oil. The shepherd’s son and the princess landed the kites on a ledge and peered inside. It was pitch dark.
“Um,” said the shepherd’s son. “I guess I’ll wait here. Maybe. Um.”
“Are you scared?” The tin princess stared at him. “You are. You came all this way and now you chicken out?”
The stone shepherd’s son folded his arms. “I’m not a dinosaur,” he said.
She laughed. “Then c’mon! We’ve got to find my mom.” Taking a deep breath, the princess stepped inside the cave.
Chapter Ten
“It’s really dark in here,” she called back. “Do you have a flashlight?”
“I have some fire,” he replied uncomfortably, taking out the little charcoal heart with the flicker of flame around it. “But there’s nothing to burn. Just stone and tin and a big iron mountain.” The shepherd’s son looked glum. “I guess we could use the violin as a torch.”
The tin princess ran back out to scold him. “No way! You’re going to teach me to play it, remember? You said so.” She thought for a moment. “We’ll have to use one of the kites.”
So they tied one kite to a rock and broke the other one into a pair of torches. “I hope we can get back home with one kite,” said the shepherd’s son.
“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I didn’t trust the kites!” exclaimed the tin princess.
The torches lit up right away, and they could see inside the cave of the Bad Birds. It was a giant staircase leading down into the mountain.
“Why do birds need a staircase?” asked the shepherd’s son.
“The staircase is probably for the people who control the robots.”
The staircase was a wide, straight diagonal line, down down down. Each step was as tall as the torches, and climbing down them was like tumbling down a stack of kitchen tables at night. After hours of jumping and stumbling, they reached the bottom.
“It’s so hot. It must be a million degrees down here,” said the tin princess. “I thought it would be cold underground.”
“I think I know where we are,” whispered the shepherd’s son. “This is where all the fire people live. They’re really nice people.”
“If they were nice, why would they need evil robot birds?” the tin princess asked.
“Maybe they aren’t really evil,” the shepherd’s son answered.
“Humph. I’ll believe that when my mom’s back home in the palace.”
Together they walked through a big square arch into a cavern. Spiky stalacmites stuck out from the floor; on top of each one sat a Bad Bird. Their propellers had slowed down, spinning only to help them keep their balance.
“I think they’re asleep,” said the stone shepherd’s son. “Let’s hurry.”
“It would look braver if we marched in slowly in the face of danger,” the tin princess said smugly.
“What if they wake up?”
“Hm.” The princess hurried up.
The cavern went on and on. Spikes stuck out from every direction and on each one was a robot bird.
At the narrow end of the cavern was a tunnel heading into the earth. And in front of the tunnel was a giant venus flytrap. As they approached, they saw that it had uprooted itself and was walking over to the sleeping Bad Bird on the last stalacmite. The bird woke up suddenly, but it was too late.
“It’s chomping it! It’s chomping it!” the tin princess squealed. “Quick, save it!”
“Save a Bad Bird? Why?”
The princess spun around.
“What do you mean, why? Save the stupid bird, stone boy!”
He shrugged and played the song to snooze a dragon. The princess covered her tin ears, just in case, but nothing happened to the venus flytrap.
“The plant doesn’t have ears,” the shepherd’s son said.
“Well, save the bird some other way! Quick!”
“I could spin its propeller with a wind seed. But I don’t see why we’re saving one of the Bad Birds,” replied the shepherd’s son.
“We’re saving it because it needs saving! Hurry up and do it.”
So the stone shepherd’s son bit down on the windflower seed and sneezed a ga
le. The Four Winds spun out of his nose, blasting the cavern with breezes at a hundred miles an hour. Shrieking, the tin princess flew away into the tunnel. But the Bad Bird’s propellers came free, and it zoomed out of the venus flytrap’s chomping mouth.
The shepherd’s son grabbed the little robot bird and ran into the tunnel. The plant followed, thrashing its roots and snapping its giant red fangs and slithering.
Chapter Eleven
The shepherd’s son ran like crazy, outpacing the plant, and came to where the tin princess lay sprawled.
“Are you okay?” the shepherd’s son asked.
“My tin’s all crinkled. How dare you sneeze on a princess?” she grumped, smoothing out her dress.
“I saved the bird,” said the stone shepherd’s son, holding it out.
“Well, at least you did that right. My dress is all scrumpled. You scrumpled me all up. It’ll take me twenty minutes to get the scrunkles out!” She threw a pebble at him.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Cause the plant’s after us now! Run!”
The shepherd’s son helped the princess up and they ran through the tunnel to where it came out into an underground palace. Two guards made of fire stopped them with heavy iron spears.
“Halt! Who goes there?” one of the fire guards said.
“We’re being chased by a robot-eating plant!” shouted the shepherd’s son.
“The venus flytrap is there for a reason,” replied the other guard. “It keeps the Bad Birds from getting in.”
“I thought the Bad Birds were yours,” said the puzzled princess. “Don’t you control them?”
“Why would we need evil robot birds? They try to peck our charcoal. They’re a nuisance. And no one wants anything like that around,” said the first guard.
The shepherd’s son hid the little ticking bird in his pocket.
“So whaddya doing here, anyways?” asked the second fire guard.
“Uh, she and I, we’re looking, um, for her--” stuttered the shepherd’s son.
“I’ll handle it,” the tin princess whispered, and pushed him aside. She faced the guards importantly and lifted her nose. “Ahem. I, the official Aluminum Princess, most esteemed daughter of His Royal Awesomeness and Superness the Golden King, declare that I am here, underground, at the bottom of Some Big Mountain, and, and, and you fire people should take me to your leader. Ahem.”
“Aluminum?” the shepherd’s son muttered to her.