“You must speak up, dear,” the queen said. “Princes shouldn’t mumble.”
“Your Majesty,” Jack interrupted. “I believe that your kind words have taken the prince’s breath away!”
“Hm? Oh, deary my!” The queen released her son from her smothery, motherly hug. “So sorry. Yes, honey?”
Carlos gasped for air. “Dragon … (gasp) … slayer? (wheeze) I can’t … (cough cough) … kill a dragon.”
Cora fluttered her fingers as if to shoo away such a silly remark. “Of course you can!”
“But I’ve never used a sword!” Carlos said. “I’ve never even seen a dragon!”
But the queen didn’t hear him. “Oh, this is so exciting! I’m so excited! You must be so excited, Carlos! Are you excited? Of course you are! For thousands of years Charmings have slayed dragons! And you will follow in their grand tradition! At last, you will do what comes naturally to you!”
“Fart jokes are what come naturally to me,” Carlos said.
His comment made the queen lose the thread of the conversation. “Hm? What? Jokes?” She chuckled a bit. “Oh, no, honey, you don’t tell jokes to dragons—you slay them. But don’t worry, you’ll learn. You will be trained to fight.” The queen trembled with delight. “In fact, you are very, very lucky!”
“I am?” Carlos didn’t feel lucky at all.
“Yes!” The queen was so excited that she began to hop up and down. She became very jiggly. “Because you are going to be trained by your best friend, Gilbert the Gallant!”
Gilbert the Gallant was not Carlos’s best friend. Not even close.
“More like Gilbert the Goofus,” he muttered. This day just kept getting worse and worse.
The queen didn’t hear Carlos’s “goofus” remark. “I know!” she cried. “I am just as excited as you are! I am so glad you two are so close. Gilbert will be a very good princely influence on you. Did you know that Gilbert the Gallant was named Peasant magazine’s Princeliest Prince Alive?”
“Yes,” Carlos said. “You told me.”
“I did?” the queen asked.
“Many times,” Carlos said.
“Then you’re as excited as I am!” The queen snapped open a silk fan and made it flutter in front of her face. Excitement sometimes makes people sweaty. “Well! Anyway! Gilbert is waiting for you in the courtyard right now! So! Let’s get you set up! Let’s turn you into a prince! Let’s make you the Princeliest Prince Alive!”
The queen clapped her hands three times. At once, a swarm of servants thundered into the room, each bearing a weapon. Soon Carlos’s arms were piled high with swords, daggers, maces, bows, and arrows. His armor squeaked and creaked under the weight of it all.
“There!” the queen said. “Have fun! And don’t forget to get stabby!” She spun on her heel to leave but stopped at the doorframe. She faced her son once again and gave him a long, admiring look.
“You are so big,” the queen said. “So brave.” Her voice quivered as a happy tear formed in the corner of her eye. “I am so, so very proud of you.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Carlos felt his ears get hot.
Then, in a flurry of silk, Queen Cora swooshed away down the hall.
CHAPTER 3
“Keep the tip of your sword up, Carlos,” Gilbert the Gallant said. “You’re slaying dragons, not salamanders.”
Gilbert chuckled at his little joke.
Carlos didn’t. Leave the jokes to the professionals, he thought.
Gilbert the Gallant, the soon-to-be-king of nearby Ever-After Land, was everything Carlos wasn’t: tall, muscular, poised, and proper. He also walked around in his armor as if it were as comfortable as a bathrobe.
How can Gilbert stand wearing this tin tuxedo? Carlos wondered. He fidgeted and twitched as pointy bits of metal jabbed his back, front, sides, arms, legs, and left butt cheek.
Gilbert always wore armor, but he never bothered with a helmet. That would hide his sly, knowing smile. Aside from stabbing things, Gilbert’s favorite hobby was smiling slyly and knowingly.
A helmetless head also showed off Gilbert’s handsome face; flawless, ebony skin; and elegant nose, which looked as if it were always smelling something wonderful. (And Gilbert’s nose usually was, for fair maidens regularly offered him flowers.)
Gilbert the Gallant’s most striking feature, however, were his eyes, which were deep, dark, and confident. Gilbert was always confident in his princely abilities. And, today, he was confident that he could turn Carlos into a prince, too.
But Carlos was not confident that he could become a prince. And the longer he trained with Gilbert, the less confident he became.
“Raise your sword, and let’s try again,” Gilbert said. He also possessed the princely trait of patience. “Keep the blade up, now. Pay attention to that.”
Carlos was paying attention. At least, he was trying to. The reason his blade kept tilting toward the weeds was because it was so dang heavy. How was he supposed to slay anything with a sword he could hardly lift?
“All right, then,” Gilbert said. He effortlessly raised his own sword and positioned his feet just so. “Come at me, and I will do my best to defend myself. Aim for my heart. Show no mercy.”
Carlos took a deep breath and steadied himself. Stab Gilbert’s heart, he thought. Got it.
Carlos wished he had a squirting flower woven into his chain mail. An unexpected spray of water into Gilbert’s eyes would be useful right about now.
Unfortunately, Carlos had nothing to rely on but his sword.
Using both hands, he lifted the blade, pointing the tip as best he could in the direction of Gilbert’s armor-covered heart. Carlos’s arm muscles trembled under the weight.
The rest of Carlos trembled, too, but for a different reason.
He was trembling with anger.
He was angry that his dad was forcing him to be a prince. Angry that he had to kill a dragon. Angry that his sword was so heavy. Angry that he had to spend the afternoon with stupid, perfect Gilbert. Angry that his armor poked and stabbed him every which way. Angry that his jester hat was still stuck in the chandelier. And angry that he was hot and tired and busy and bored—all at the same time.
Never in his life had Carlos felt stabbier.
He furrowed his eyebrows and focused on his target with the intensity of a laser.
“Aim right for my heart, Carlos,” Gilbert said.
“Oh,” Carlos replied through gritted teeth, “don’t you worry.”
It was now or never.
ATTACK!
This is what happened next:
1.With a determined roar, Carlos lunged.
2.With little effort, Gilbert swatted his sword away.
3.Without further prompting, the sword leapt from Carlos’s hands, soared through the air in a beautiful arc, and, with a stout CHUNK!, stuck into the ground some ten feet away.
The two princes regarded the faraway sword for a long, uncomfortable moment.
“Um … better!” Gilbert said finally, wearing a smile that didn’t quite match the look in his eyes. “Much better than last time. Yes. Very good, Carlos. Very good.”
Gilbert cleared his throat and continued, “Perhaps, however, the broadsword is not exactly the right weapon for you.”
Earlier in the lesson, Gilbert had come to the same conclusion about the mace, the bow, the dagger, and the quarterstaff.
“So!” Gilbert said. “Shall we give the hatchet a try, then?”
“I’m afraid there’s no time for that,” a distant voice said.
Carlos and Gilbert turned toward Fancy Castle to find King Carmine leaning out of an upper window. “How is the training coming along, Gilbert the Gallant?”
Gilbert bowed to the distant figure. “Very well, Your Majesty. Your son is a quick study.”
“Excellent,” the king said. “I need to put his skills into practice. A dragon has been spotted in the Somewhat-Enchanted Forest. Carlos, will you be a good boy and go out and slay it for me?”
Carlos’s armor rattled in alarm. “Wait. What?!”
“I need you to slay the dragon, please,” the king said.
“I can’t slay a dragon!” Carlos’s voice suddenly became shrill, squeaky, and unfamiliar. “I’ve only trained for one day! And I can’t do anything!” He pointed an accusing finger at Gilbert. “He’ll tell you! He’s trained me on five weapons so far, and I stink at all of them!”
Gilbert, in his elegant, polite, and princely way, supported Carlos’s position. “Prince Carlos could, perhaps, benefit from a bit more training, Your Majesty.”
“There is a beast lurking in the forest, Prince Gilbert,” the king said. “It is not going to wait for Carlos to finish his training. A properly motivated dragon can torch a hundred villages in a single day. Carlos needs to go now.”
“NOW?!” Carlos shouted. His head filled with a jumble of panicked, jostling shouts. This is ridiculous! I’m supposed to be a jester! I’m supposed to be practicing stilt-walking and card tricks and playing pop-song parodies on the lute! I can’t slay a dragon! I’ll be killed! Roasted alive! Turned into an appetizer! Doesn’t Dad understand that? Doesn’t he care?!
Carlos didn’t say any of these things, but King Carmine seemed able to read the boy’s mind.
“Son,” the king said, “I know how frightened you must feel. I was frightened when I fought my first dragon. My father was frightened when he fought his first dragon. As was his father. And his father’s father. And so on. But we fought through that fear, Carlos. All of us. And you will, too. As a prince, you must protect the subjects of Faraway Kingdom.”
Then the king added, “It is your duty. Your Charming duty.”
Unfortunately, Carlos was too upset to think of poop jokes at a time like this.
CHAPTER 4
Pushing a wheelbarrow piled high with weapons, Carlos slowly, achingly, began to roll his way toward the Somewhat-Enchanted Forest.
King Carmine was there to see his boy off. “Are you sure you don’t want to ride Cornelius?” he asked.
Cornelius was the royal horse.
“No. I’d rather walk,” Carlos said.
Carlos didn’t really want to walk. He just didn’t want to be alone with Cornelius. Last week, he had tried out his new hand buzzer on the horse’s backside, and Cornelius had been giving him the stink eye ever since. Cornelius clearly had revenge on his mind.
Better to walk, Carlos thought. Better safe than sorry.
“All right,” the king replied, a bit uncertain. “Just watch out for quicksand.”
This stopped Carlos and his wheelbarrow in their tracks. “Quicksand?”
The king nodded. “The Somewhat-Enchanted Forest is loaded with it. Cornelius knows how to avoid it, if you want to reconsider.…”
Peering over the king’s shoulder, Carlos spotted Cornelius leaning out of his barn stall. Their eyes met.
Oh, you will pay for buzzing my butt, the horse’s eyes seemed to say. You will paayyyyy.
“I’ll stick with the wheelbarrow,” Carlos said.
“Oh, my brave boy!” Queen Cora said. She was also there to see Carlos off. She dabbed happy, sad, and proud tears from her cheeks with a monogrammed hankie. “Give your mother a big hug!”
“Does the hug have to be big?” Carlos asked.
It did. Carlos disappeared into her loving, suffocating arms.
“Oh, this is so exciting!” she cried (while crying).
“Mmmpfh,” Carlos replied.
* * *
Carlos had hardly gone a hundred yards before he regretted not taking Cornelius. Whatever revenge the horse had in mind couldn’t have been worse than wrestling a wheelbarrow through the forest. Every step was an ordeal. Carlos leaned into the wheelbarrow, doing his best to muscle it over the thousands of rocks and roots that studded the ground. Carlos was sweating so much that he was convinced his armor would be rusty by sundown.
“I can’t do this,” he muttered.
As he shoved the wheelbarrow forward inch by inch, a plan formed in Carlos’s mind: He would select one weapon from the wheelbarrow and leave everything else behind. It was the only way he’d be able to keep going.
I’ll take the hatchet, he thought. It was the only weapon in the wheelbarrow that he hadn’t trained with. In other words, it was the only weapon he might not stink at using. He probably did, but he might not. So the hatchet it would be.
Just as Carlos was about to put his plan into action, however, the forest became more accommodating. The path grew smooth and sloped gently downward, pulling the wheelbarrow forward. All Carlos had to do was steer.
His pace quickened. His mood lightened. His mind shifted to a happier place. He watched the squirrels dance and scamper wildly in the treetops. He listened to the playful chirps of songbirds. He took a moment to enjoy the crish-crish sound of his feet stepping on dry leaves.
What struck Carlos most, however, were the trees. Standing tall and straight, they soared into the sky, their topmost branches disappearing into the clouds. He’d had no idea that trees could grow so high. And there were thousands of them, row upon row, like an army of soldiers.
Or, perhaps, like a captive audience.
A smile crept across Carlos’s face.
“Good evening, ladies and ferns!” he announced. “You wanna hear a joke about paper? Ah, never mind—that joke is tear-able!”
Carlos noticed that the clanking of his armor mixed with the crish-crish sound of the dry leaves sounded a lot like applause.
“Thank you, thank you!” he said. “Seriously, though, I really do appreciate all the paper you trees make. I love paper. I love books. I’m reading a great book now about the history of glue. I can’t put it down!”
His armor clanked, the leaves crish-crished. Carlos bowed in appreciation.
“You’re all too kind!” he said. “Here’s another one: How many apples grow on a tree?”
He paused, as if he expected one of the oaks to shout out an answer.
“All of them!” he said. “HA-HA! We are rolling now!”
And, indeed, Carlos was rolling. He had been so focused on telling jokes that he had failed to notice how the ground’s gentle downward slope had become a rather steep hill. His slow stroll turned into a brisk walk and then a wild run.
“Whoa!” Carlos yelled. He dug his heels into the dirt, but gravity had taken over. The wheelbarrow wrenched itself from Carlos’s grasp and lurched down the hill without him.
“Wait!” he shouted. “WAIT! STOP!”
The wheelbarrow, as if responding to Carlos’s command, obeyed. It slowed down. It wobbled and shuddered. After reaching the bottom of the hill, it skidded to a gentle stop.
None of the weapons had fallen out. Nothing was damaged.
Carlos let out a long, relieved sigh.
But then the ground beneath the wheelbarrow blurbled and blorped.
Quicksand! Carlos realized.
In an instant, the wheelbarrow, along with every sword, dagger, shield, mace, bow, arrow, quarterstaff, and hatchet in it, was swallowed by the earth.
The last item, Carlos’s helmet, bobbed on the surface for a moment. The feather on top seemed to wave good-bye. Then it blurble-blorped into the quicksand, too.
“Oh, come ON!” Bubbling with frustration, Carlos folded his arms over his armored chest and stewed. What now? he wondered. He couldn’t come up with anything. He certainly couldn’t be expected to slay a dragon after losing all his weapons. And his helmet. And a wheelbarrow.
All he could do at this point was …
Go home!
Carlos brightened. “Oh, that’s a shame! But I have no choice!”
He turned on his armored heel and, with a merry clank and clunk, started back toward the castle.
Maybe this will teach Mom and Dad a lesson, he thought. The very idea gave Carlos an extra spring in his step. They’ll see that I’m not supposed to run around the woods hunting dragons. They’ll see that I’m not supposed to be a prince. They�
�ll finally understand that I’m meant to be a jester! They’ll have no choice but to let me continue my training. They’ll have no choice but to—
Carlos awoke from his daydream with a start. A distant, unfamiliar sound had broken his concentration.
He paused and listened.
The distant sound repeated itself. But it wasn’t so distant this time.
The sound was more distinct, too.
It was a roar.
A dragon’s roar!
A chill of terror zipped up Carlos’s spine.
CHAPTER 5
Carlos broke into a run.
CLANGITA BANGITA CLUNKITA CREAKITA CRASH!
Gah! He couldn’t be noisier if he had a marching band strapped to his back.
Running in heavy armor couldn’t be slower or more exhausting, either. Carlos had hardly begun his sluggish sprint before he stared to wheeze.
He needed to get rid of this stupid suit of armor once and for all.
Carlos clanged, banged, clunked, and creaked, half running and half crawling toward a cluster of boulders. It was as good a hiding place as any.
He flopped behind the largest boulder and landed on a bed of sharp stones. The armor protected him from injury, but it also thundered in protest, announcing his location to anything within shouting distance.
So much for hiding. Carlos could only hope that the dragon was hard of hearing.
He yanked off his iron gloves easily, but the thick leather straps that held his other armor in place were much more stubborn. Time and again he almost—almost—managed to get the buckles undone. But then his nervous hands would slip, the buckle would refasten itself, and he’d have to start all over again.
The sharp edge of the armor cut his index finger.
“Ow.”
The straps pinched his pinkie.
“Ow.”
He stubbed his ring finger.
“Ow.”
He bent back the fingernail on his thumb.
“Ow!”
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