Princess Julie

A princess saves her kingdom from evil fairies, with the help of a few clever inventions.

 

Julie

 

            Once upon a time there lived a young, amicable (she liked to use big words like amicable because they made her feel smart) girl by the name of Julie. Julie was a princess who lived at the top of the tallest tower of a majestic castle. Despite her prestigious surroundings, Julie never had much to do, considering that though castles are very pretty to look at, once you’ve spent any amount of time in one, you usually realize that a castle is nothing more than a cold, drab, drafty building devoid of children, flowers, puppies, or anything else that might entertain a young princess.

            Because Julie was such an intelligent and creative young girl, she spent most of her time thinking up new ways to perform boring everyday tasks. For example, the only way to enter or leave Julie’s room was by taking a slide made from banana leaves (which are much stronger than most people think) that spiraled around the tower in which she lived.

However, climbing up a slide is not nearly as easy as sliding down one. Julie probably thought up the solution to this problem on one of her worse days, as though the suction cups she had invented were fully functional, they were also incredibly painful.    

For some reason she had thought that making them from a puffer-fish would be a much better way to hold them to the user’s hands than using such a boring thing as a strap or handle. Or perhaps Julie had designed them that way because, being a lithe and nimble creature, she could easily run up the slide, and only wanted the most determined visitors to reach her chamber.

One day, Julie was reading the newspaper (newspapers were invented long before most people realize) over a cup of tea when she came across a very intriguing article. Apparently, a band of renegade fairies had been terrorizing the forests that bordered her castle. The wretched little things were robbing travelers and playing cruel tricks on all of the woodland creatures.

Upon reading this Julie mustered up all of her courage (something of which she had quite a bit) and went into the forest, captured the fairies, and became a beloved heroine throughout all the land.

Well, at least that’s what she had planned to do. In reality, she was stopped by her father, a man who never let her do anything fun (he was really only trying to protect her, but because Julie, like most teenagers, knew all there was to know about everything, she was convinced that her father was only using this as an excuse to make her miserable).

”And just where do you think you’re going young lady?”

“To put a stop to the fairies’ treachery of course.”

“Oh I don’t think so, you may be a princess, but you are still far too young and dainty to enter the forest alone my dear,” he said, chuckling to himself all the while.

Julie stomped back to her chamber in a rage. She was furious. Dainty!? Young!? She was thirteen thank you very much. She was anything but “dainty”. She had beaten no less than three ravenous chinchillas in physical combat during the last week alone. How dare her father act as if she were some frail, helpless child!?

She fumed and steamed and paced and yelled and came extremely close to having a full blown hissy-fit. “I am old enough to take care of myself and I am going to stop those fairies!” she said to herself.

She made her way to the castle gate, determined to defy her father’s will. She walked through the courtyard with an air of confidence. She swelled with pride as she marched through the corridors. When she got to the gate, she nearly had a conniption.

The draw bridge had been pulled up. But it was never up. Her father must have known that she’d try something like this. Julie, not one to give up easily, stroked her chin in thought. She didn’t realize that because she was a girl, she had no stubble, and chin stroking just wasn’t the same if you had a silky smooth face like Julie’s. She had just seen it in a movie (see note on newspapers) and thought it would be the cool thing to do.

Beard or not, it paid off. A brilliant idea popped into her head in almost no time at all.

At this time it may be prudent to note that that the castle in which Julie lived was surrounded by an impassable moat. It had been put there to keep out traveling salesmen, but was now doing a very good job of keeping Julie in. You may also like to know that the moat was infested with man-eating alligators.

Alligators are not native to forested areas, and their presence in the moat was owed completely to an interesting gizmo that Julie had created at her father’s request. The tiny machine constantly made a strange noise that can only be described as, “Raana, rrwa, marrrgh, umfmmf”.

The very day that Julie created the machine, almost as if by magic, a large family of alligators had moved into the moat. However, there was a secret about the alligators that only Julie (the single person capable of creating a reptilian translator from crabgrass and leftover meatloaf) was aware of. It turns out that, “Raana, rrwa, marrrgh, umfmmf” was alligator for, “War, what is it good for?” and all the alligators that had heeded this call were very peaceful and well-mannered, only eating solicitors, who nobody likes anyway.

Keeping this in mind, Julie went to the ramparts of the castle to put her brilliant plan into action. She leaned over the side and yelled down, “Froaarrr! Ahghfh” (please catch me). She leapt from the side, splashing into the murky water seconds later. She fell into its depths, watching the sunlight fade behind the cloudy surface of the water. For a moment, she wondered what it would be like to drown, but didn’t have a chance to find out.

Strong but gentle jaws gripped the back of her dress and she was pulled above the water and to the opposite shore. “Ruff nuff,” (thank you) she sputtered between coughs as her scaly rescuer blinked and submerged himself once more.

Julie pulled herself up, doing her best to straighten her ruffled dress and dripping hair. When her appearance was more or less acceptable, she bravely made her way into the forest, ready to face her fate (something that young girls rarely take as seriously as they should).

She crawled through the brush, stepping over fallen logs and rustling the leaves as she walked. It wasn’t long until she heard voices in the distance. She came closer, peering through the trees to see a large, burly fairy with scarlet mutton chops and three long, scraggly hairs on the top of her otherwise bald head.

There were two other fairies with her. Both were much prettier to look at, with long, flowing, violet hair and dresses to match. The larger fairy seemed to be in charge, and was lecturing her cronies on the details of their evil scheme.

“Fools! Shh! It’s coming! Do you remember the plan?”

“Uh huh,” said one of the ditzy accomplices in a high, squeaky voice. “We wait for the deer to come, then we tell him to fall down.”

“Imbecile!” shouted the mannish fairy, smacking her incompetent helper across the face. “We are trying to trick the deer into falling down, but we can’t just tell him that!”

“Yeah,” said the second beautiful fairy, who was only slightly more intelligent than the first. “We gotta tell him that his forelegs are really wings, and that he could fly if only he’d try.”

“That’s right,” grunted the leader. “That way, when he tries to flap his forelegs to fly, he’ll fall down, and we can all have a jolly good laugh.” The burly fairy let out a deep, bellowing guffaw that was accompanied by the menacing titter of her helpers.

Julie witnessed all this spiteful conversation and thought it was the most ghastly thing she had ever heard (admittedly, living her life within the confines of her protective castle, the second most ghastly thing was nothing more sinister than, “Finish your peas or you’ll receive no dessert.”)

Thinking quickly, she looked around for something that she could use to stop their despicable plans. She spied a patch of orange and blue wildflowers at her feet. She carefully plucked the beautiful blossoms, tying the stems together into something that somewhat resembled a woven rope. She put one final knot into her creation, ending up with a very suitable lasso.

            Just as Julie was finishing her new device, an innocent and unsuspecting deer emerged from the undergrowth and began to amble towards the fairies. The slightly more intelligent fairy was on the verge of making cat calls and batting her eyelashes when Julie started to swing her make-shift lasso. It spun in wide circles above her, was released, and miraculously (or maybe because Julie was just that good) encircled all three of the fairies.

            Startled and furious, the bandit sprites began to struggle against their bonds, screaming obscenities and taking a very negative attitude of the entire situation. (It’s always best to remain positive. Once I was being chased by a ravenous grizzly bear who meant to make me his dinner. As he began to pour salt upon me and lick his chops I smiled at the fact that at least I wouldn’t die from the plague or drowning (both of which are very painful deaths). The creature was so confused by my positive demeanor

 that he fled in a panic, allowing me to live another day and tell you this wonderful story).

            Julie yanked the rope with all her might, pulling the fairies into the nearby river. Their thin wings were so soaked that flight was impossible. As fairies really aren’t so tough when they can’t fly, that being their only advantage over humans (Gaia does not permit evil fairies to use magic, only the benevolent ones), Julie thought she had done an excellent job of saving the day, and she didn’t even have to hurt the fairies (they were actually promptly eaten by a hippopotamus—which are, believe it or not, much more ferocious than any alligator—and experienced very excruciating deaths. But don’t tell Julie that, as I’m sure it would simply destroy her little heart).

            Her mission completed, she triumphantly swaggered (she was far too proud for a normal stride) back to the castle and the comfort of her warm and toasty bed. On the way, she found herself daydreaming about curling up under the soft, tightly-woven afghan her mother had given her for her birthday. She could almost feel the silky folds of her blanket and taste the hot cocoa that she would make upon her arrival.

            Several minutes later, just outside of the castle, she noticed that the drawbridge was still up. As you can imagine, getting down from the top of a castle is far easier than getting up, and she had no idea how she was going to do the latter…

 

Reviews

[Leah Elisabeth]

This was very cute. I liked the story and its innocence and the parenthetical remarks were a good addition, although they reminded me a lot of Princess Bride by William Goldman. Good job!