Leaping Beauty: And Other Animal Fairy Tales (2 page)

“You gave a gift to that pollywog—that she would not die when she bit on an explosive, but that she would weep and weep. Now you must take that gift away from the child,” cried Old Dame Hornet. “She’s making an unholy racket.”

“I’m not an unreasonable beetle,” said the bishop. “But you’re far too quick to the sting, Old Dame Hornet. If you get over your anger and apologize to little Beauty and promise never to hurt her again, I’ll say a blessing over her. Maybe she’ll stop crying.”

“Her parents didn’t invite me to the party,” said Old Dame Hornet. “I never get invited anywhere. It makes me mad all over again just to think about it. I’m not going to promise anything, Your Eminence. I don’t bargain with clergy. Besides, I like to be mean. It’s fun.” Off she flew to interfere with the baron of the butterflies.

“Can you do me a favor, Your Excellency?” she said. “That little Beauty is weeping too hard. I can’t stand it. Can you say a spell of your own and make her stop weeping?”

“I don’t know much about weeping,” said the baron. “Butterflies don’t weep. But we spend a lot of time sleeping in our cocoons before we become so gorgeous. Maybe I could change the spell from weeping to sleeping. It’s simply a spelling change, after all, from
w
to
sl
.

Weeping
to
sleeping
.”

“Do it,” said Old Dame Hornet.

“What’ll you pay me?” he said.

“Your Excellency, I’ll sting you if you don’t,” she said. “Excellently.” The baron of the butterflies knew that her stinger would puncture his beautiful wing and cripple him for life. He was a good fairy, but he was a little vain. So he meandered over to Weeping Beauty in as direct a route as he could manage, being a butterfly.

“Maybe it’ll be better if she sleeps a little,” he said to the king and the queen of the frogs.

“You need some rest too.”

“We’ll never rest till this spell is lifted off our one and only child,” they said.

The baron of the butterflies said a spell and changed
Weeping
to
Sleeping
. Instantly the little frog stopped wailing and sobbing and began to sleep. Boy, did she sleep. She snored so loudly that it sounded like a chain saw buzzing through the oak tree.

When Old Dame Hornet came along and saw what had happened, she was relieved—at first. She took herself to bed with a hot toddy and a copy of
TV Guide
. But she couldn’t concentrate. Little Sleeping Beauty snored like thunder, louder than ever. Old Dame Hornet tried to sleep. But little Sleeping Beauty snored like competing kettledrum quartets having a battle of the bands during a thunderstorm. Thunder and landslides and rock bands and kettledrums. It was just awful. Old Dame Hornet pulled her braided rug up over her head.

Soon the wicked old fairy could stand it no longer. Off she zizzed to see the boss of the bumblebees.

“That Weeping Beauty has become Sleeping Beauty, and it’s worse than ever!” she cried.

“I can get no rest, neither day nor night! You’re a bumblebee. Are you a spelling bee? Can you change the spell, Your Effervescence?”

“No can do, tootsie,” said the boss of the bumblebees, who had a little sting of his own and therefore wasn’t so scared of Old Dame Hornet.

“Please,” said Old Dame Hornet.

“What’s the payoff if I do?” said the boss of the bumblebees.

“What do you want as a payment?” asked Old Dame Hornet, in as fetching a manner as she could manage given she was quivering with exhaustion and rage.

The boss of the bumblebees buzzed in thought. At last he said, “Listen, you Old Dame, this is my fee. You aren’t to put any more evil spells on little babies. You know why you never get invited to birthday parties? Because you’re a nasty piece of work. Try being a little nicer.

Maybe you’ll get asked out more often.”

“I like being a crank,” screamed Old Dame Hornet, but she thought some more about what the boss of the bumblebees was saying. She said in a quieter voice, “Are you asking me on a date?”

“That’s my payment,” said the boss of the bumblebees. “For an old dried-up hornet, you’ve kept your looks pretty well, honeypot.”

Old Dame Hornet wanted to sting him to death on the spot, but she needed his help. She simply gulped and said, “Well, maybe I’ll go out for a stroll with you some evening. But if you try whispering sweet nothings in my ear, you’ll
be
a sweet nothing sooner than you can say
concrete boots
.”

“Fair’s fair,” said the boss of the bumblebees, chomping on the end of his cheroot. And he navigated over to see Sleeping Beauty. He could tell where she was because the entire oak tree above her was trembling with the force of her colossal snores.

Old Dame Hornet followed. At the door of her nest she turned and waited.

“Pick you up at eight P.M. sharp,” the boss of the bumblebees said to the hornet. “Wear your red dancing shoes, darling.”

“Humph!” buzzed Old Dame Hornet.

The boss of the bumblebees said a spell. He changed the frog from Sleeping Beauty to Leaping Beauty. “There,” he said to her doting parents, who were looking pretty bleary eyed by now, “this is as close to her normal self as she’s likely to get.” Sleeping Beauty woke up and became Leaping Beauty. She bounded up in the air like a rubber ball, just about as high as the door to Old Dame Hornet’s home.

Sadly, when the boss of the bumblebees broke the spell of the baron of the butterflies, the old spell of the bishop of the beetles kicked in again. So as Leaping Beauty leapt, she wept. She screamed like any baby who has just woken up from a nap. The sound came right up to Old Dame Hornet’s doorway and went away again, like an ambulance driving by, and driving right back. Like an ambulance going up and down the street, hour after hour.

“I can’t bear this!” cried Old Dame Hornet. “Weeping Beauty, Sleeping Beauty, Leaping Beauty! Get this little pollywog out of my life! Besides, every time she goes leaping by, her tears splash over my threshold and my braided rug is getting drenched!” The boss of the bumblebees flew by holding a bunch of black-eyed Susans. “Flowers for Old Dame Hornet,” he said. “Come on, sugarlips, let’s paint this town black and yellow.”

“Not till I settle this matter,” she said. “I’ve seen the error of my ways. I’ve been a bad old hornet.” She zizzed down to where the king and the queen of the frogs were waiting, with a dizzy look in their glazed eyes. “I give up, you win,” she cried. “I’ll never harm the child! I don’t care if I never get invited to another birthday party! Take her away and let her grow up to be a normal frog! With my blessing.”

“We thought you might agree, sooner or later,” said the king and queen of the frogs.

“Your Eminence, come here.”

The bishop of the beetles, who had been hiding behind a fern, came forward. He said, “So do you agree never to pester this little froglet again?”

“I never want to
see
her again!” cried Old Dame Hornet.

“Cross your stinger and hope to die?”

“Honest promise and keep the change!” screeched the hornet.

So the bishop of the beetles took the weeping spell off Beauty. And the sleeping spell of the baron of the butterflies had already been revoked. But the boss of the bumblebees said, “She might as well stay Leaping Beauty. Leaping well never hurt a frog.” The pretty little tadpole kept her gorgeous looks for her whole life. She was always as green as slime, and the bumps on her bumps developed their own bumps. Furthermore, with her lovely long legs, she became a renowned hoofer and was a great success.

Once the boss of the bumblebees and Old Dame Hornet went on a date to see the fabulous star perform in a ballet. Old Dame Hornet was so moved by Leaping Beauty’s talent that she tossed a bunch of roses on the stage.

Leaping Beauty bowed most graciously. Then she leaped all the way from the stage into the second balcony and gave Old Dame Hornet a kiss.

The ancient thing melted into happy tears and said, “You’d never be so good if I hadn’t blessed you when you were born, my dear. I’m so proud of you I could sting myself to death!” The king and queen of the frogs, applauding from the royal box across the theater, murmured fondly, “Oh, don’t do that!” Then they invited Old Dame Hornet back to the Lily Pad

Palace for a light refreshment. But the old fairy declined, and the boss of the bumblebees flew her home.

There she said good night and went inside to write in her journal. The silence at the bottom of the oak tree was gratifying, and so were her memories of the evening.

T
here were once three chickens who lived in a house in the forest.

Papa Rooster was vain and short-tempered. Mama Hen was soothing and patient. Baby Chick was tired of being the littlest one all the time. “Why don’t you go to the store?” he used to say to Mama Hen. “Can’t you buy me a new little brother or sister?” One morning all three chickens woke up in a bad mood.

Papa Rooster said, “My bed is so high, I almost fell on my beak jumping off the mattress this morning.”

Mama Hen said, “Poor thing. My bed is so low, while I was asleep I rolled right off it and smack into my knitting needles.”

Baby Chick said, “You think you have troubles! My bed is too small! I’m bumping into the headboard and the footboard! I need a new one! I know: Why don’t we look in a catalog and order a new baby? Then we could give my little baby bed to my new brother or sister.”

“I’ll think about it, dear,” said Mama Hen, which Baby Chick knew full well really meant,
Not very likely in this lifetime, honey chile.

Mama Hen made some oatmeal and brought it to the table.

“Yikes, it’s piping hot!” yelled Papa Rooster.

“So is mine,” wailed Baby Chick.

“What a pair of complainers,” said Mama Hen. “So blow on it to cool it down already.”

“I prefer to save my breath for complaining,” said Papa Rooster.

Baby Chick blew on his breakfast a little too hard, and then Papa Rooster had something to complain
about
. He didn’t enjoy oatmeal in his coxcomb.

After they had all cleaned up, Mama Hen said, “Why don’t we go for a walk in the forest and give the oatmeal a chance to cool down? Ourselves, too.”

“I’ll lead the way, as I’m the largest and most important,” crowed Papa Rooster. “Also I have a wonderful sense of direction.”

“I’ll follow along behind, as I’m the last, the smallest, worth nothing at all,” whimpered Baby Chick. “I wish I had a baby brother or sister chick that I could be bigger than. Let’s hunt for one in the ferns.”

“I’ll go to the park and feed the ducks by myself if you two don’t quit your bellyaching,” said Mama Hen. And off they went into the woods, single file.

They were gone a long time because Papa Rooster’s sense of direction wasn’t quite as wonderful as he thought.

Now, who should come slinking through the woods from the other direction but a golden fox. He was beautiful to behold, shiny as the foil around fancy chocolates. But he was miserable, for he had just been fired from his job as a carpenter at the local furniture store. It seemed that a lot of the customers were scared to order rocking chairs for their grannies or cradles for their new babies from a fox who was walking around with a sharp-toothed saw. Besides, he had sharp teeth of his own, which were big and in very good condition. Customers didn’t like to come inside the shop.