The Secret Promise

by Paula Harrison

  “Denny! Come back!” shouted Emily, dodging around a stone fountain.

  She chased him past a row of high fir trees, nearly running right into a very tall man. Darting sideways, she just managed to avoid him. But then she lost her balance, fell into a tree, and got a face full of needlelike leaves.

  “Aha! The red-headed princess! I was sure we would meet again,” said a deep voice.

  Emily recognized the man with the purple hat, whose room she’d stumbled into the day before. Her heart sank. It was the worst luck to bump into him.

  “It was so nice of you to drop in yesterday,” said the man, showing his teeth.

  Emily assumed it was supposed to be a smile, but she couldn’t help thinking of a shark. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I went into your room by mistake,” she said, jumping to her feet.

  The other princesses came running up, and Denny darted around in circles barking at everyone.

  The man showed a flicker of a frown when he saw the dog, but it was gone in an instant. “So where are you all off to?” he asked.

  “We’re going for a walk in the forest, My Lord,” replied Lulu.

  The frown returned. “That’s not a good idea.” The man paused. “It’s so easy to get lost out there.”

  “That’s okay. I have a compass to check our direction,” said Jaminta, getting the small round compass out of her pocket to show him.

  “Good day to you, My Lord,” said Clarabel.

  All the princesses curtsied and continued across the garden.

  The man didn’t reply, but stood watching them, his dark eyes cast into shadow.

  “Who is that?” asked Emily. “And why doesn’t he want us going for a walk?”

  “That’s Duke Raven,” Jaminta told them. “My dad told me that he lives in this kingdom and he’s a cousin of King Gudland. Maybe he really thinks we’ll get lost.”

  Ahead of them, a golden gate towered, gleaming in the sunshine. This was where the castle grounds ended and the forest began. Clarabel put Denny’s leash on to stop him from running too far away.

  They walked through the gateway and the trees stretched out in front of them. Shafts of sunlight drifted through the branches. Leaves rustled here and there as mice and squirrels scurried around.

  “Which way to the place where we rescued the deer?” asked Lulu.

  Jaminta looked around and checked her compass. “We turned right over here. So we should be heading southwest.”

  They walked together, searching for any glimpse of metal on the ground.

  “None of this looks the same as last night,” said Emily suddenly.

  “Well, it was really dark, even with the light from Jaminta’s bracelet,” Lulu pointed out.

  “But there were tree roots everywhere, and I can’t see any here,” said Emily.

  Jaminta looked at her compass again. “Maybe we should spread out a little more, but not so much that we can’t see each other.”

  The princesses spread out through the trees and continued walking in the same direction.

  Emily’s stomach rumbled, which made her think about the chocolate cake in the picnic basket. Then her foot hit something and she grabbed on to a tree trunk to keep herself from falling over.

  “Hey!” she yelled. “There are lots of tree roots over here.”

  The princesses came running up.

  “Yes, this looks like the right place,” said Clarabel. “Remember how the deer was lying right next to the bottom of a tree?”

  They searched all the trees nearby. Denny snuffled at the ground and wagged his tail excitedly.

  “Look!” Clarabel pointed to a patch of ground with strange scrape marks on it.

  Emily bit her lip. “Maybe this was the place. But where’s the trap?”

  Jaminta walked around the tree trunk, peering at the ground. She bent down next to a large footprint clearly marked in the soft forest earth. “Look at this,” she said grimly. “Someone came here and took the trap with them.”

  “That’s terrible!” snapped Lulu. “First they set the trap and now they try to pretend it was never here.”

  “Now we have nothing to show King Gudland,” said Jaminta.

  “They could come back with more traps and nobody would stop them!” cried Clarabel. “So many deer could get hurt.”

  “Wait!” Emily’s face suddenly lit up. “Maybe we can stop them! I know a way we can find out secrets and move around the forest without anyone ever seeing us.”

  “Really? How?” asked Lulu, her lionlike eyes widening.

  “We can turn into ninjas!” said Emily.

  The princesses’ mouths dropped open.

  “Really?” said Jaminta.

  “Really!” said Emily. “We can be just like ninjas, and I know who can show us how to do it.”

  After checking on the deer in the shed and finding it some more food, Emily took the girls back to her room in the West Tower. The room had been cleaned and the sofa scattered with soft red cushions.

  “Hey! Ally left slippers out for all of us,” said Emily, wiggling her toes into red slippers dotted with diamonds. “Almost like she knew we were coming.”

  She handed out the jeweled slippers to her friends: green to Jaminta, yellow to Lulu, and blue to Clarabel. Then she took one look at Clarabel’s sad face and sent an order down to the kitchen for hot chocolate.

  “I’m just thinking of the little deer,” explained Clarabel. “What if he’s missing his friends? What if there are more traps out there that we didn’t see?”

  Emily flopped down onto the sofa. “I know,” she said. “I’ve been wondering the same thing. But Ally will help us find out.”

  There was a knock on the door, and Ally came in with four steaming mugs of hot chocolate and a plate of golden pancakes.

  “This is Ally, everyone,” said Emily.

  “Your Majesties!” said Ally, smiling. “I saw you walking across the garden a few minutes ago, so I sent another maid to get those slippers. Is there anything else that you need?”

  “We need your help, Ally,” Emily told her, taking a big slurp of hot chocolate. “We need to learn how to be ninjas.”

  “Emily!” warned Ally. “That part of my life was a long time ago, and I don’t talk about it these days.”

  “You can trust these princesses. Honestly, you can!” promised Emily, and the other princesses nodded.

  “Do you know lots of ninja moves?” Lulu asked eagerly.

  “Did it take you long to learn them?” added Jaminta.

  Ally pulled up a chair, her face serious. “Learning ninja skills takes lots of patience and hours of practice. But why do you want to know? What do you want to be ninjas for?”

  “We think that someone’s trying to trap the deer in Mistberg Forest without King Gudland finding out about it,” said Emily.

  “But why?” Clarabel burst out. “Why are they doing it?”

  “Maybe they want to catch a stag to take his antlers?” said Lulu. “That kind of thing used to happen where I live. Poachers came to trap animals for horns or antlers. We’ve driven those people out of our kingdom now.”

  “So you want to find out if there are more traps?” asked Ally.

  “Yes,” said Emily. “We also want to find out who’s leaving them.”

  Ally tightened her lips. “They’re probably doing it at night so that no one sees them. It’ll be dangerous out there.”

  “But if we can move around the forest without anyone seeing us, we’ll be fine,” said Emily. “We need to be ready to go out there tonight. Tomorrow’s our last day here, the day of the Grand Ball. After that it will be too late. You will help us, won’t you, Ally?”

  Ally smiled. “Well, Your Majesties!” she said with a bow. “It just so happens that you’ve asked exactly the right person.”

  Ten minutes later, Ally and the princesses stood on the castle lawn. The girls had swapped their long dresses for tank tops and skirts in light colors.

  Emily’s pink top sp
arkled with silver thread and she’d pulled her red curls back into a ponytail.

  “Don’t we need to be camouflaged?” asked Jaminta.

  “Not always,” Ally told her. “I learned ninja skills from an old master when I trained as an undercover agent many years ago. You have to blend in, wherever you are and whatever you’re wearing. You have to be swift and cunning.”

  “So, how do we practice?” asked Lulu, eager to get started.

  “Well, there’s your target.” Ally jerked her head toward the other side of the garden, where the four princes were playing soccer. Prince Samuel’s orange vest lay on the grass near the goal. “Get that vest and bring it back here without being seen.”

  “That’s impossible!” declared Jaminta. “They’re going to see us.”

  “I’ll go first! Let me try!” said Lulu, her eyes gleaming.

  The other princesses sat down on the grass to watch. Lulu put on her dark sunglasses and sneaked toward the princes using the cover of nearby bushes.

  She used her acrobatic skills, running and diving into a forward roll to keep herself hidden. But when she got closer, the tallest prince saw her and waved.

  Lulu came back, grinning. “I was so close! Who else wants to try?”

  First Jaminta, then Clarabel, tried to reach the vest. But they, too, were spotted at the very last moment.

  Emily’s heart thumped faster. Silently, she tiptoed across the grass and crouched behind a stone statue of a horse and rider. She peeked around the corner of the statue. The boys were only a short distance away across the grass, but there was nothing else to hide behind.

  How could she reach the vest without being seen? Then she heard sniffing behind her. Denny the dog was exploring the garden.

  “Here, boy!” whispered Emily.

  Denny came bounding over. Emily quickly searched for something to throw. There was a stick on the ground nearby. It was small, but it would have to do.

  “Denny,” she hissed, lobbing the stick high over the grass. “Fetch!”

  Denny galloped after the stick, right through the princes’ game of soccer.

  Emily seized her moment. She sneaked across the grass, snatched the vest, and returned to the safety of the statue. The boys were too busy looking at Denny to notice.

  “Good job!” said Ally approvingly as Emily returned with the vest.

  “I was lucky.” Emily laughed. “I had some help from Denny!”

  “A good ninja uses whatever they can find,” said Ally.

  Just then, the smell of sausages floated toward them.

  “They started the barbecue,” said Ally. “Why don’t I give you some more ninja training after lunch?”

  “Great idea!” agreed Lulu.

  But as the princesses walked over to the courtyard where the barbecue was cooking, a wail sliced through the air.

  “My vest! It’s gone!” cried Prince Samuel.

  Emily made a face. “Oh, I forgot! I should take it back.” She ran across the lawn and handed the orange vest over.

  “What were you doing with my vest?” moaned Samuel.

  “Nothing. It’s completely clean,” said Emily. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I won’t borrow it again.”

  Prince Samuel’s face puckered like a squeezed plum. “Mother was right,” he said. “You princesses are nothing but trouble!”

  By the end of the day, the princesses had learned how to spot good hiding places, how to blend in with their surroundings, and how to slip in and out of rooms unseen.

  The only mishap had been when Lulu crept into the kitchens and surprised the cook so much that he had dropped the gigantic raspberry cake he was holding. It had splattered across the floor in a large, sticky mess. However, once the princesses had helped him clean up, he had willingly forgiven them.

  Emily smiled as she got ready for the evening banquet. The plan was a good one. They would sneak into the forest and hide there until they discovered who was laying the traps. Then they would tell King Gudland. Once he found out what was really happening, the deer would be safe again.

  After a splendid dinner that the princesses were too excited to eat, they slipped out of the Banquet Hall one by one. Then they all gathered in Emily’s room, having exchanged their ball gowns for dark tops and black velvet pants.

  “These pants will be much easier to climb trees in,” said Emily. “Is everyone ready?”

  “Yes!” said Lulu and Jaminta.

  Even Clarabel nodded, although she looked a little pale.

  Four princess shadows flitted down the stairs and out the back door by the kitchens. They reached the golden gates for the second time that day and paused. The moon shone down, turning the forest a beautiful silver.

  “We have to stay together all the time,” whispered Emily.

  The others nodded.

  They walked stealthily toward a huge oak tree, avoiding twigs that would crack and snap, the way Ally had shown them.

  Emily had noticed the oak tree earlier that day. It had branches low enough to climb up on and plenty of room to hide four princesses.

  Pulling themselves up, they climbed from branch to branch. Then they tucked their legs in carefully and prepared to watch and listen, unseen.

  Jaminta’s bright emerald bracelet was tucked deep inside her pocket. Everything had to stay completely dark.

  For a long time, there was nothing. Just the hooting of an owl and the scuffling of a little creature on the ground. Lulu shifted impatiently.

  “Stay still,” hissed Jaminta. “You’re wobbling the whole branch!”

  Then, far in the distance, a tiny light bobbed up and down. It disappeared for a moment and then returned again. As it grew bigger, they heard the rhythm of footsteps and the murmur of a voice.

  The princesses froze like little mice when a cat passes by. At last the light came close enough for them to see its owner. Two dark figures walked along together, stopping here and there to put something down on the ground.

  “They’re setting more traps,” whispered Emily.

  The two figures crunched closer, grumbling as low branches caught their heads. They stopped right underneath the princesses’ oak tree.

  The girls held their breaths.

  “How many more do we have to do?” said a man’s voice.

  “Two more,” replied another man. “Then we’ve put down all ten of them.”

  Emily let out a gasp, then covered her mouth with her hand. She remembered seeing the men before.

  “Did you hear that?” asked one man.

  “Hear what? Nothing’s coming near us while you’re stomping along like a giant elephant,” said the other. “Come on.”

  It seemed like forever until the men moved away. When their light had disappeared completely, the princesses clambered down and dropped one by one onto the soft earth.

  “We have to find King Gudland right now!” said Clarabel, her face pale. “Lots more deer could get trapped.”

  “I’ve seen those men before,” said Emily. “They were the ones inside Duke Raven’s room when I went in there by accident.”

  “Ready, everyone?” Jaminta got her emerald bracelet out of her pocket to light the way. “Watch your feet! Those traps could snap shut on us just as easily as on a deer.”

  They ran as fast as they dared back past the golden gates and into the castle garden. Long shadows streamed behind them in the moonlight.

  Quickening their pace, they sped over the lawn, across the courtyard, and through the back door, reaching the entrance to the Banquet Hall, hearts drumming.

  The Banquet Hall was empty, the plates and dishes from dinner already cleared.

  “They must be in the drawing room,” said Lulu.

  They raced across the Banquet Hall and down another corridor toward a closed door.

  “Who goes there?” Two guards in red uniforms stepped forward, blocking their way.

  “We’re the visiting princesses,” said Emily. “We need to speak to King Gudland.” In h
er black velvet pants and with no tiara, she suddenly realized she didn’t look very much like a princess.

  “All the kings and queens are taking part in the royal council meeting,” said the second guard. “No one is allowed in.”

  “But we have to go in!” insisted Lulu. “The Mistberg deer are in danger. There are traps in the forest.”

  “Please let us in,” begged Clarabel.

  But the guards shook their heads. “Sorry, our orders are to let no one in until the meeting is over.”

  “When will they be finished?” asked Emily.

  Jaminta answered her. “Not for a long time, I bet. My dad says those meetings go on until late into the night.”

  The princesses trailed back down the corridor to the Banquet Hall.

  “We can’t give up now. We’re princesses,” said Emily simply.

  “We’ll just have to figure it out ourselves,” said Lulu, putting her hands on her hips.

  They paused, thinking hard.

  “I know how to make some deer noises,” said Clarabel. “I can mimic their danger call to warn the deer away from where the traps are.”

  “And I worked on some new jewels this morning,” said Jaminta. “They’re diamonds that light up like magic when they’re close to metal. We can use them to find the traps quickly.”

  Emily’s eyes sparkled. “And we’ve got our ninja moves.”

  “And our acrobatics,” added Lulu.

  “We can do this! Let’s go!” said Emily.

  The princesses raced to Jaminta’s room to collect the new jewels: a handful of diamonds that sparkled like stars.

  Then they sprinted faster than ever toward the forest, their only thoughts for the safety of the deer. No one wanted to say it, but they all knew that the next trapped deer could be seriously hurt, or even worse.

  They skidded to a stop in front of the golden gates.

  The gates were closed. A huge gold padlock held them tightly together.

  “What happened?” Emily gasped. “They were open a minute ago.”

  A shadow stepped out from behind a nearby statue. “I don’t think princesses should be wandering around in the forest,” said a deep voice. “They might get in my way.”