The old man laughed. In spite of his cantankerous ways, she had caught him red-handed. The rest of the children chimed in and, finally waving them off, he said, “Ok, ok, I will go on with it. My eyes aren’t what they used to be...”
The children went back to their places harrumphing and grumbling but victorious, so he continued.
“Harry gulped, swallowing hard. He knew he could not go back and really didn’t want to go farther, so he just stood there.” The old man waited, pausing for effect, watching the intent eyes of the children around him who somehow reminded him of a school of piranha waiting to bite at the first sign of blood. He waited.
“Ok, what next?” someone said.
“What are you waiting on?” asked another little girl in the far corner who was usually too shy to breathe hard around her prancing teammates.
“I am waiting on my page turner to turn the page,” the old man said patiently. He looked at the little boy standing beside him who sheepishly reached up and turned the imaginary page. “There now... Harry stood there facing a cobweb-covered skeleton of an armored knight.
“Harry thought the old knight must have been stuck for a very long time, since his body was a skeleton, which would have taken years. So, Harry gathered his courage, like children might gather their dish plates after a meal to help their parents clean up.” The children started to frown, and the parents grinned, and the old man continued before the storm broke.
“Harry held his torch high and cast shadows down on the ancient figure of the old knight who had died hiding from the dragon. Then it occurred to Harry How could that be true? The dragon had only been in the country for a few months, not near long enough for the knight’s body to turn to a skeleton and be covered with dust. So how had the knight gotten into the cave? Why was the knight in the cave? Had the dragon been using the cave for a long, long time and only just now started raiding the countryside close to its cave? Harry did not know the answers to his questions, and he did not know what to do.
“So, he thought, what did my father tell me to do when I don’t know what to do? I am standing in a cave tunnel, and I can see by the light of this torch. There is a very old skeleton of a man dressed as a knight in armor and that skeleton is blocking my way through the tunnel. Suddenly his mind cleared, and he remembered what his father had said, ‘When you come to a dead end, you have three choices: sit there, I don’t want to do that; go back, I can’t do that; or look very carefully at what you think is a dead end. You may discover the road doesn’t stop, it just changes.’
“Ok, Harry continued, I am going to look very closely at that old skeleton. It can’t hurt me, and I may be able to squeeze around it or move it and keep going. So, that is exactly what he did.
“He slowly moved toward the old knight’s body. It was covered in cobwebs that melted as the torch touched them. He noticed the knight had a sword. He noticed the knight was covered from head to toe with armor. Harry also noticed that the cave kept going, and the knight had just been stuck in a very narrow part of the tunnel. As Harry looked closer, he grew braver. Sometimes, when we face our fears, they get smaller, and we get braver. The old man interjected as a teaching moment.
Three small, large-eyed children all raised their hands at once, and then the most impatient of them, a little red-headed boy with freckles and a blue tongue from sucking on a lollipop, blurted out, “But, but... that can’t be true. In the movies, this is the point where the music gets scary and you can tell something bad is going to jump out and grab the person, and I run and hide behind my dad’s chair.”
“What do you mean it can’t be true?” the old man asked.
“If you get closer to a scary thing, it can get you. And it gets bigger, not smaller!”
“Well, hang on a minute. That is not always the case,” the old man countered. “Sometimes we are afraid of things we should not be afraid of, and when we look closely at them, we see there is nothing to be afraid of.”
“But you are right…” the old man said, his voice growing quieter, “sometimes we should not be looking, we should be running. And the only way you can know is to get closer…and... closer.” As the old man talked, his voice grew quieter and quieter, and the children leaned in, and then he couldn’t help himself. He yelled, “And then the monster grabs you!” The whole crowd of the terror-sensitized-horror-movie-generation children screamed and jumped and yelled and griped and started crying.
The old man laughed and laughed until his little nemesis got in front of him and said sternly, “That was not funny! You are mean!” She shook her little finger at his nose with a look on her face that was destined to corral wayfaring men for decades to come.
The old man snickered, recognized she was right, and said, “You are right. I am sorry, but isn’t that what you were expecting?” The rest of the children began to settle down as the old man started to cast his enchanting voice again. “Didn’t all of you really sort of wish, or at least expect, something to reach out and grab Harry?”
The blue-tonged, red-haired boy grinned and said, “Yeah!” and then was joined by a chorus of nods and laughs and yeses and yeahs.
Only one stalwart child, the old man’s page turner begged to differ. “No,” he yelled sternly. “I don’t like to be scared. Not at all.”
The old man looked at him, leaned in, and whispered, “But you are the page turner. Didn’t you see that coming? It was right there in front of you. Didn’t you read ahead?”
The little boy, delighted in being a part of a whisper, answered, “Not at first, but I do now!”
“Good,” the old man said. “I knew you weren’t frightened, so next time read ahead and listen carefully, and if a scary part is coming up, I will nudge you with my elbow, and you will be prepared. Is that ok?”
“Absolutely,” the timid page turner of the invisible book said.
“Now let me get back to the story. Are you listening?” the old man asked the merry band of distracted white-sugar eaters.
“Harry got real close to the old skeleton. He inspected every part of it, saw that the ancient sword of the old knight had special letters and pictures etched on it…that means scratched,” he quickly interjected without skipping a beat and was rewarded with a unanimous choir of “Ooooh’s.” And then Harry looked closer at the hands of the old skeleton. He noticed a ring on the right-hand ring finger of the old knight. It was covered in dust and dirt from countless years of laying in that dirty dark tunnel. He gingerly touched the ring, and then carefully, slowly tried to remove it from the old knight’s finger, but as Harry lifted the ring, the whole finger bone came off with it!”
“Ew! Yuck!” The children groaned. Someone made a gagging noise.
The old man agreed, “Yes, that’s exactly what Harry said too. He caught his breath, blew the dirt off, and gingerly took the finger bone out of the ring. Then he gently polished it on his shirt and held the torch close. Then his eyes got big, his mouth dropped open, and he gasped! And that is about all we have time for today, children!”
The old man’s evil grin stopped at his lips, but the little snaggle-toothed girl, who had become his warden, scowled at him. She looked up at the wall clock and frowned. The old man was right. It was time to go. She had to leave, but she didn’t have to like it, and she let him know it.
As the old man scooted the rocking chair he had been sitting in back to where it belonged, his daughter walked up to him and stood there with her hands on her hips, shaking her head. “Dad you are mean!”
“If I am so mean, why are you trying so hard not to laugh?”
“Ha! Because I remember you being that way all my life, and you’ll never change!” She kept shaking her head.
“Well I thought I would just mix things up a little,” he said while thinking, Truth is, I don’t know how to tell this next part to a bunch of kindergarteners, and I was stalling. I don’t know how to tell it to anyone. I don’t even know how it comes out. But I have started, and now I have to finish.
> She woke him from his thoughts, “You ok, Dad? You seemed to have left me there for a moment.”
“Just thinking, Hon. I am not sure how this story ends, and really don’t know where to take it from here.”
“Well, seems to me that if you are the one making the story up, it can go where you take it, right?”
He looked at her, smiled an expected smile, and said, “Yep, I suppose you are right. So now I just have to work it out, don’t I?”
“Always,” she laughed. “Now come on and let me treat you to dinner.”
“I am not in the mood for boiled water and corndogs, Roo.”
“Dad! I’m not cooking. I am buying.”
“So, Sam’s pizza then?”
“How’d you guess?” she laughed.
“Last of the big spenders, Baby!”
The old man’s reputation for entertaining the children and those parents who could break away and come to story time was growing. After each story, the wild-eyed children would run home to their parents chattering about the latest episode in the story. They began to dress up like Harry, or the princess or the dragon, and act out their fantasies, then ask their parents to tell them stories. Ironically, many found themselves leaving the television off and turning their imaginations on.
The next library day, the old man pulled into the parking place for director and staff at the library like his daughter had instructed. He looked around fearfully, shook his head, placed his hand on the key, and almost drove back out of the parking lot. The place was full. The children had been talking. He would have left in a faltering heartbeat had he not seen the library window full of wide-eyed and expectant children searching for him. As soon as one saw him, the whole pack raced out the door, down the sidewalk, and clamored around him yelling and laughing, excited that he was back. The story was going to continue.
He had gotten used to being grabbed by his calloused old hands and hauled into the library. As usual it was the notorious ring leader, the infamous snaggle-toothed champion of story time, Sarah, who held his hand and directed him to his seat. He was tempted to say: Young madam, you are going to make a wonderful mother and horrible wife if you continue this type of behavior, but restrained himself, just shook his head, and did what he was told.
He looked at Thomas, his invisible book page turner, made eye contact, and directed him to his place at his side. The young man had been waiting for the signal and quickly took his prestigious position. The old man looked around the room and waited. Two parents new to story time were busy chatting about the sale at the grocery store. His eyes lit on the ladies, and all the children turned to see what the delay was. A tornado like “Shush!” burst forth from a multitude of directions aimed with laser-like precision at the chatty culprits. They caught on and quieted.
Before the old man could begin, Sarah proceeded to decree, “Hey, quiet on the set!” She looked around, saw all her subjects were ready, and then gave the old man a nod, “You may proceed.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said laughing and frowning at the same time. “Now, where was I, page turner?” He looked at his invisible page turner, Thomas, waiting on a reply.
“Uh, Harry was in the tunnel.”
Another voice interrupted, “And he got stuck!”
“No, he didn’t get stuck! He found a dusty old skeleton that got stuck!” another intolerant ankle- biter corrected with the fervency of a stringent reverend explaining liturgy.
“I was getting there!” Thomas barked back.
“Oh yes,” the old man interrupted the potential torrent, “Oh yes... Harry had found a ring and something about it had greatly surprised him.”
“Hold it! Hold it!” Sarah interrupted.
The old man groaned, looked desperately around the room for her grandfather, the fire marshal who had suddenly and conveniently felt inclined to visit the restroom and was nowhere to be found. So, he rolled his eyes, looked back at his nemesis, and said, “What is it? Do you want me to tell this story, or are you going to tell it?”
“Well, I talked to my grandmother about it, and she said...”
“Wait... You talked to your grandmother?”
“Yes.”
The old man back-peddled. He was about to ask why she didn’t talk to her mother, when it dawned on him. She was with her grandfather and talked to her grandmother, therefore, no mom and no dad around. So, I do not need to ask the question that was about to pop out of my mouth, he thought, stopped in mid-syllable, and simply said, “Ok.”
“What, my dear, did your grandmother say that is worth delaying the beginning of this part of the story a moment longer?!” The scowl in his voice dripped like perspiration off a bricklayer’s brow.
Sarah, impervious to the glower, continued on her imperial way. “She wants to know what is going on with Princess Sarah.”
“What do you mean, going on? She has been captured by the dragon, and Harry is trying to figure out how to rescue her. So, what else is there?”
“She wants to know where she is being kept: How she is feeling? Has the dragon hurt her? Is she sick? Is she losing hope? Has she dreamed anymore about Harry?”
“Wow!” the old man said, impressed. “You sure that was all your grandmother?”
The snaggle-toothed smile beamed, and her head nodded, “Some of it anyway.”
The old man’s eyebrows raised in wry salute, and he sighed, “This story has taken on a life of its own.” And then he thought, and why shouldn’t it, I am living it out even now.
“Ok, ok... we will leave Harry the Brave gasping and staring at the ring and go to the other side of the cavern and check in on Princess Sarah. Is that ok with everyone? He didn’t expect to be taking a vote, but the literalness of his audience and their assumption that he was actually asking them surprised him.
“No-no.”
“Uh-uh.”
“Yes.”
“Nope.”
“Ah...”
And then, “Hey! We are going to check on the princess,” rang from the frowning tyrant of story time, and everyone settled down. “Now proceed, please,” she said as she sat down in the child-sized chair on the front row.
“Princess Sarah,” the old man continued, staring down at his beaming darling on the front row, “was huddled around a sad little fire in the back of the dragon’s lair. She was chained to a large pole that gave her very little room to move around. The dragon would bring her bits of burnt meat occasionally, and she could only hope it was a cow or a sheep and not someone she knew.
“Oh, gross!”
“Yuck!”
“No way!” his crowd echoed, but he kept on speaking.
“She was always cold and shivering, and her clothes were tattered, captive now for months. Every time someone had tried to rescue her, whether it was an individual knight or a whole army of knights, they’d failed.
And the dragon, who was quite the conversationalist, would come and tell her all about how he had destroyed them and burned them into tiny bits of broken ash. She hated the dragon’s visits but had begun to hate her solitude even more.” Seeing the questions pop up in the expressions of the children, the old man added, “Solitude means loneliness, ok?
“So, the princess had started listening to the dragon’s lies because she had no one else to talk to and was all alone in the dark cave huddled around a small fire. What she didn’t realize was, every time she spoke with the dragon, its poison seeped a little deeper into her heart and her thoughts, and bit by bit, she was starting to think more like the dragon. The only time she felt different was when she slept and Harry visited her in her dreams. One of those nights, as she lay her head down on the hard rock that was her pillow, she prayed, ‘Oh Lord, help me. Don’t let my heart grow cold and my mind grow hard. Give me strength to resist the words of the dragon. But Lord help me quick because I am growing weak.’
That night she dreamt. In that dream she was in her cave still chained to the pole, still huddled next to the sad little fire, when she hea
rd her name, ‘Princess Sarah! Princess Sarah!’
She looked up, stood up, and there he was, the young man who had saved the market from the wild pig, ‘You’re here,’ she said softly.
“‘I think we are both in a dream, but I am as much here as I can be,’ Harry answered.
“‘Have you come to get me out?’ she pleaded.
“‘I am trying, Princess. I am in the caverns of the dragon. I don’t know how to find you, but I am not going to give up.’
“She looked down at her feet and said, ‘So many have tried before and they have all died.’
“Harry thought a moment then answered, ‘Princess, have any of them appeared to you in a dream?’
“She frowned and shook her head, ‘No, none of them ever appeared to me in a dream, but you have. Surely that means something!’ Hope blossomed in her heart.
“Harry kept staring at her, occasionally blinking. She looked back at him and asked, ‘Harry, is there something wrong?’
“He shook his head, then said, ‘Something is different about you.’
“‘What do you mean? Am I acting differently, talking differently?’
“‘No, you look different. Your face is leaner and harder. Your complexion is darker.’ He paused a moment, sighed, and said, ‘But this is a dream, and I can’t expect a dream to get all the details right. I am looking at you through the lens of my own heart and I only met you once.’
“About that time Harry heard a terrible growl and roar. He moved toward the princess and held her behind him to protect her.”
“It’s the dragon isn’t it?” the red-haired boy asked fearfully.
“The dragon found them didn’t it?” another little girl in a pretty sundress asked.
The old man looked around the room, noticed that his favorite little nagahina was staring wide-eyed into space, brushed over the sight, and quickly responded, “Yes, the dragon had entered their dream, and he was raging against them.”
“Harry bravely stood between the princess and the dragon. The dragon towered over him and screamed. Foul breath reeking of rotten food and dead things blasted them. Harry did not flinch. He only wished he had a sword or shield.
The Princess Who Forgot She Was Beautiful (The Harry Ferguson Chronicles Book 1) Page 4