The Fairy's Return and Other Princess Tales (22 page)

Then it was over. Whew! She wondered if she'd looked funny while it was going on, wondered if Tansy had noticed. She turned to see.

Where was he?

Where was she?

She faced a wall that hadn't been there a second ago. It looked familiar, though. She recognized the wallpaper lily pads, but they were much too big.

Then she knew. She looked down at herself. She was chartreuse! She was a Biddlebum Toad!

She looked way way up and saw Bombina's horrified face.

See what your transformations got you, Parsley thought angrily. She wanted to scream and wail. But she didn't make a sound. She didn't know what she'd do if a croak came out of her.

Oh no! Bombina thought, feeling dizzy. Parsley will never smile at me again.

Bombina saw the three princes gawking at her, so she pulled the window shut. Then she drew the drapes, being careful not to step on poor Parsley.

Her darling was so tiny and ugly. Bombina couldn't stand to look at her. Sadly, even tragically, the fairy hiccuped twice.

Parsley vanished.

In Rosella Lane Tansy shook his head to clear it. Where had the smiling maiden gone? What had the fairy done with her?

Bombina flew to the fairy queen's palace and begged an audience with her. As soon as she saw Anura, she began to weep, although she'd never wept in all her three thousand seven hundred and fourteen years. Between sobs she blurted out the whole tale.

“Please do something. You can punish me. You can lock me up. Only let me see Parsley's human smile once more.” She wiped her tears. “Toads don't have lips or teeth. Did I ever tell you what beautiful green teeth my Parsley had?”

“My poor Bombina,” Anura said. “You have reaped the bitter rewards of your folly.”

Bombina nodded, tears streaming.

“It would give me the greatest pleasure to help you. But you know that the only way dear Bayleaf can—”

“Her name is Parsley,” Bombina wailed.

“Yes, of course. But there is only one way your Paprika—”

“Parsley!”

“Sorry! But there is just one way your little, er, maiden can resume her human shape. And that is if some other human proposes marriage to her.”

Bombina smiled through her tears. How could she have forgotten? All she had to do—

“No, my poor wretched Bombina. You cannot force a young man to propose, and the little toad cannot reveal what happened to her and what the remedy is. The proposal must be of the man's free will, or it will not transform anything.”

Parsley discovered that toads could cry. Or once-human toads could, anyway.

Oh, why had Bombina broken her promise?

She wept for a full hour. Then she looked around. She was on the bank of a wide stream. A few yards away a rotting bridge crossed the water. Ferns and a weeping willow grew along the stream bank. Beyond them was a field of tall grasses. If Parsley had been at her human height, she would have seen goats grazing in the distance.

Parsley wondered what she'd eat here. There was no parsley.

Her tongue whipped out and caught a fly. She blinked and swallowed.

Ugh! she thought. I ate an insect! It tasted sweet. She started crying again. I won't do that twice. I'll starve first.

Her tongue snaked out and snagged a mosquito. She blinked and swallowed.

The mosquito was salty. Parsley stopped crying. Maybe she had been wrong to limit herself to parsley for all those years. She wondered how an ant would taste.

Seven

W
hen the twins and Tansy returned to Biddle Castle from Snettering-on-Snoakes, King Humphrey IV sent for them. He rose from his throne and hugged Randolph. Or maybe it was Rudolph. He could never tell them apart. He knew about the difference in the size of their nostrils, but he could never remember which big nostril belonged to which twin.

He didn't hug Tansy.

“Lads!” He beamed at the twins and frowned at Tansy, hoping the boy wouldn't break anything just by standing still. “We were thinking about which of you should be our heir.”

Randolph and Rudolph glared at each other. Tansy's heart started to pound.

“We have two stalwart sons to choose between.”

Tansy's heart stopped pounding.

“So we have contrived a contest. The son who fetches us one hundred yards of linen fine enough to go through our Royal Ring”—King Humphrey IV took a ring off his pinky—“will wear this medallion.” He reached into the pocket of his new Royal Ceremonial Robe and pulled out a golden medallion on which was inscribed
His Highness's Heir
. This was the cleverest part of the plan. Soon he'd know which twin was which. “The winner will rule when we are gone, and all Biddle will do his bidding.”

Tansy's heart started to pound again. The contest meant trouble! Rudolph wouldn't stand for it if Randolph won, and Randolph wouldn't stand for it if Rudolph won. Whoever won, there would be trouble in Biddle.

“Father?”

King Humphrey IV scowled at Tansy. “Yes?”

“Can I seek the linen too?”

King Humphrey IV considered how peaceful home would be if Tansy were away. “You may.” But he'd never let the lad rule Biddle, not even if Tansy's linen could pass through a ream of pinky rings.

Parsley spent an enjoyable afternoon sampling insects. Fleas were spicy. Ticks were sour. Midges tickled pleasantly as they went down, and caterpillars happened to taste a lot like parsley.

Late in the day a goatherd drove her goats across the stream. Parsley hid under the bridge, terrified of being trampled.

When the goats had all crossed, the goatherd sat on the far bank and dangled her feet in the stream.

Was I ever that big? Parsley wondered. She hopped backward, feeling nervous. She could be squashed so easily.

The goatherd saw the movement. She waded across the stream and groped through the ferns under the bridge. “A toad!” She picked Parsley up and placed her on her enormous palm. “Perhaps more than a toad. Kind sir, speak to me!” She waited. “Perhaps you can't talk. But you can hear my sad tale. I am not truly a goatherd.” She sighed, and the wind from the sigh almost knocked Parsley off her perch. “I have been transformed.”

You too? Parsley thought. Were you once a toad?

“In my true form I am a princess, Princess Alyssatissaprincissa.”

To Parsley's horror Princess Alyssatissaprincissa brought her huge face right up to Parsley. Parsley's right eye looked at a pimple as big as a bumblebee. Then Princess Alyssatissaprincissa kissed Parsley's side. The suction of the kiss pulled her skin away from her ribs.

After the kiss Princess Alyssatissaprincissa waited a moment and then dropped Parsley. She slogged back across the stream, muttering about the scarcity of frog princes.

The ferns cushioned Parsley's fall. She lay still, catching her breath.

Bombina spent the day knocking her knees together to enhance her vision and her hearing. She finally saw Parsley crouching under a fern and looking like any other chartreuse Biddlebum Toad, except for a faint sparkle that only a fairy could detect.

“I
AM NOT TRULY A GOATHERD
.”

It was too sad to bear. Bombina had to look away. I'll never be jealous again and I'll never turn anything into a toad again, she thought, not even so much as a needle or a beetle. That will be my punishment.

Early the next morning King Humphrey IV saw his sons off. “Return in a week,” he said.

Randolph and Rudolph each climbed into his own Royal Carriage. Tansy mounted his mare, Bhogs, whose name stood for Brown Horse of Good Speed.

When they reached Snettering-on-Snoakes, the villagers lined the road to see them off, and Bombina watched from her palace. She recognized the princes and itched to turn them into toads. If it hadn't been for them, Parsley would still be human. But she kept her promise and let them go by.

A mile beyond the village the road forked. The Royal Road continued to the left and wound through the principal towns of Biddle on its way to Kulornia. The right fork was Biddle Byway, which meandered through tiny villages and hamlets and never arrived anywhere.

Randolph and Rudolph took the left fork. Tansy started to follow them. But then he pulled Bhogs up short and turned her onto Biddle Byway.

If I stick with them, he thought, and we find the perfect length of linen, who'll get it? No—who won't get it? Me.

Eight

B
y the end of her first day as a toad, Parsley had eaten seven fleas, twelve ticks, two spiders, a worm, a caterpillar, four gnats, and eleven midges. Then she'd gone to sleep. When she woke up late the next morning, she was surprised all over again that she was a toad. She stayed still and thought about the advantages and disadvantages of her new state.

On the plus side was diet. Bugs were scrumptious! But that was about it for the plus side.

On the minus side was the goatherd Princess Alyssatissa whatever the rest of her name was. Also on the minus side were the loss of her spyglass and the loss of Tansy in her spyglass.

And she missed Bombina. She remembered Bombina's magic tricks and how exciting it had been, especially when she was little, to live with a fairy. She remembered being disappointed when Bombina had said that only magical creatures could make magic.

Parsley's pulse quickened. She was a magical creature now.

What could she try?

Bombina began all her spells by standing on her left foot, so Parsley tried to do the same. But balancing on one foot was hard. Her shape was all wrong for it. She struggled for twenty minutes before she finally managed it and stood, wobbling a little for ten whole seconds. Then she started to go over, and she had to hop three times, while her head nodded and wagged, before she got steady again.

A silver lady's comb appeared in the air before her and fell into the moss at her feet.

She'd done it! Accidentally, but she'd done it. Too bad she had no hair.

She started to topple again. She frowned and hopped back two steps, stumbled, and got back onto her left foot.

A crock of brown boot polish landed next to the comb.

Parsley meant to laugh, but it came out as a croak, her first croak. It was a warm and melodious sound. She liked it and croaked again. She extended her four legs and stood tall and croaked again. The pitch was a trifle lower that way. She sat back to try to raise the pitch, but before she could open her mouth again, she found herself rising into the air, eighteen inches at least. She flew across the stream and crash-landed on the opposite bank.

She lay still. Gadzooks! Making magic was fun!

On the first morning of the contest, Tansy passed through the hamlets of Harglepool, Flambow-under-Gree, Lower Vudwich, and Craugh-over Pughtughlouch. In the afternoon he passed through Snug Podcoomb, Woolly Podcoomb, Podcoomb-upon-Hare, Upper Squeak, Lower Squeak, Popping Squeak, and Swinnout-of-Crubble.

“. . .A
ND
C
RASH
-L
ANDED ON THE OPPOSITE BANK
.”

Wherever he went, Tansy asked Biddlers how they thought Biddle should be ruled, and he looked at linen. Each hamlet had its own master weaver, but not one of them could weave linen fine enough to squeeze through a bracelet, let alone a ring. Tansy worried that he would have found better cloth if he'd taken the Royal Road with his brothers.

Meanwhile, Randolph and Rudolph passed through towns with important-sounding short names like Ooth, Looth, Quibly, Eels, Hork, and Moowich. In Ooth the twins stopped at the first master weaver's shop they saw. The weaver pulled down his finest bolts of linen to show them.

“Hmm,” Randolph said, “that one might do.” He picked up a corner of cloth.

“Yes, it might.” Rudolph picked up the other corner and glared at his brother.

“I saw it first.” Randolph pulled the linen away from Rudolph.

“No, you didn't.” Rudolph grabbed his corner again and yanked.

The linen tore down the middle.

“What have you done?” the weaver yelled. He wouldn't let the twins leave his store until one of them bought the ruined fabric, even though it didn't come close to fitting through a pinky ring. Randolph wound up paying, since he had touched the cloth first. His footman loaded it into his carriage.