Michael Belmont and the Heir of Van Helsing (The Adventures of Michael Belmont) (6 page)

“Well, you’d better go over it one more time because if it’s not up to Aunt Liz’s standards she’ll be after you for a re-write the day after Christmas.”

“I already did.
 
Would you get out of here until my show’s over, you’re worse than Mom.”
 
She waved the remote in front of him and made a spectacle of turning the volume way up.

Michael left the room and went to the kitchen where he found Elizabeth sitting by the window enjoying a book and a hot cup of tea.

“Aunt Liz, I’ve got my poem ready.
 
Abigail says she’s all finished with her story too.”

Elizabeth smiled excitedly.
 
“Oh good.
 
Tell her to get her butt in here right now so we can wrap things up.”

“But she’s watching television,” he said, feigning protest.
 
Elizabeth gave him a stern grin.
 
“Alright, alright, I’ll go and get her.”
 
He walked to the door of the living room.
 
“ABBY, Elizabeth says to get in here right now so we can finish up our assignments.”
 
She opened her mouth to object.
 
“NO, NOW,” Michael yelled with a smile.

Abigail jumped to her feet and clicked the television off.
 
“You did that on purpose,” she spat at him as they entered the kitchen.
 
She swung at him, but he dodged toward the refrigerator and shrugged at her innocently.

“Alright, calm down,” Elizabeth told them.
 
“Do you want to read your own papers or switch and read each others?”

“I kind of like reading them for each other,” Abigail said.
 
“It’s a little less embarrassing that way.”
 
She'd always been shy about reading her own work aloud.

“Fine,” Michael told her.
 
“Just don’t try and make mine sound stupid like you did the last time or we’ll each read our own from now on.
 
Got it?”

She grimaced, but nodded in agreement.

“Okay.
 
Michael, why don’t you read Abby’s first.”
 
Elizabeth handed each of them the other person’s paper.

Michael cleared his throat, and began.

My Kingdom For a Horse

By Abigail Belmont

There once was a king who was very kind but also very stupid.
 
His subjects all loved him and admired his kindness, but they sometimes wished he were a little smarter when it came to making important decisions that effected the kingdom.
 
Oftentimes the members of his court would laugh behind his back at his odd behavior.

One of his courtiers, Duke Ironside, was a shrewd man with a cruel sense of humor.
 
He decided he’d had enough of the king’s foolishness and set out to have some fun with him.

Now, every night at dinner, the king enjoyed telling stories until all of his guests were at the end of their wits with boredom.
 
Everyone got in the habit of enjoying their meal and then coming up with reasons for the king to excuse them before they became the last one stuck at the table.
 
But this time the duke made sure everyone else left before he did.

“Your Highness,” he said after the queen had departed for bed, “isn’t it true that each dinner guest must ask Your Majesty’s permission to depart the table?”

“Oh yes, quite right.
 
But
you
already know that,” laughed the king.

“But Your Majesty,” the duke went on, “I don’t understand, if one can only leave the table by your permission, then who can dismiss you?”

The king looked confused.
 
“Well,” he said with a scratch of his head, “we guess we don’t know.
 
We’ve never thought of
that
before.”

The duke asked to be excused, and left the king at the table.
 
He sat there until morning trying to work out this problem, unable to leave, as there was no one capable of excusing him.

When it was time for breakfast, the queen came back and found her poor, dim-witted husband sitting exactly where she’d left him the night before.
 
She tried to reason with him and explain the foolishness of his predicament, but he would not listen to her.
 
He was convinced the duke was right.
 
How would he ever be able to leave the table if there was no one to excuse him?

Later that day, the duke returned.
 
He chuckled maniacally to himself at the king’s naivety, and sat down beside him pretending to sympathize.
 
Suddenly the duke thought of a brilliant solution.
 
“Your Majesty, if you can not leave the dinner table, then why not take the dinner table with you?”

The king looked confused.
 
“Whatever do you mean?”

The duke sent his young page down to the stables, and then explained his plan to the king.
 
When the page returned, he gave the duke a feedbag, who promptly strung it around the king’s neck and helped him fasten it.
 
The king was well pleased.

When the queen found her husband in the garden eating his lunch from the feedbag she was livid.
 
She knew at once that this had to be the work of Duke Ironside.

“He has made you out to be an ass, first in deed and now in dress,” she told him furiously.
 
The king was convinced of the man’s loyalty however, and tried to calm his wife.

She realized that he wasn’t going to listen, and so, devised a plan to take revenge on the duke and the other members of court who had mocked her husband.

“Perhaps you are right, my dear,” she told him sweetly.
 
“But why not allow the members of your court to enjoy this luxury as well?
 
Hold a banquet tonight and provide feedbags for everyone.
 
You can give Duke Ironside the place of honor and explain to everyone that they have him to thank for their new dining arrangements.”

The king’s eyes lit up as he envisioned the glorious feast; his entire court would soon be enjoying dinner from their feedbags.

“Now don’t let anyone tell you they are unworthy of this honor.
 
Your people are humble and good, and we both know how much they deserve this.”

And so, later that night at the banquet, everyone in court was given their own feedbag, and the king insisted they be worn from that point on.
 
The duke was immediately held in contempt by his fellow courtiers, who blamed him for the ridiculous situation, and rightly so.

Enraged, the duke fled the country to carry all the king’s secrets to the ears of the their greatest enemy, a warmongering emperor who was eagerly awaiting a chance to invade the king’s land.
 
However, the duke was unaware that the queen had sent spies to track his movements and apprehend him if he proved disloyal.
 
They captured the traitor and returned him in chains, but not before he had betrayed the king’s secrets.

Now the queen had a real problem.
 
The emperor’s troops outnumbered her husband’s three to one, and they would be arriving soon.
 
She quickly came up with a plan to drive off the invaders.

“My dear husband,” she told the king.
 
“You have always been so kind and just to your loyal subjects, yet there is one group whom you have failed to honor for all their hard work and loyalty.”

The king was greatly concerned.
 
“Your words wound us, my queen.
 
Please tell me who these subjects are, that I might throw them a banquet here in court to honor them.”

“Oh good husband and oh the delight of my eyes,” she said to him, for he loved to be flattered, “I find your goodness touching my heart once again.
 
I speak of the horses- so hard working and loyal.
 
I find only justice in your desire to reward them.”

For a moment he looked as though he may not buy it, but then his broad, dumb smile told her that all was well.

The queen then promptly sent out two horses, upon which she had appointed two riders.
 
The first rider was Duke Ironside.
 
Now the queen had begged the duke for forgiveness that her men had brought him back in chains, and had him dressed in fine new clothes and gave him a large sack of gold for his trouble.
 
He rode off whistling with many happy thoughts of how he might spend his new-found fortune, and laughing for the belief that the queen was just as stupid as her husband.

The second horse bore a man who had won the queen’s favor as the most talented mummer in the kingdom.
 
He had the wonderful talent of throwing his voice and tickling his horse to make it appear that the beast was speaking.
 
The queen gave him words and sent him out to greet the emperor.

Now as the emperor approached the castle with his army, he first met the duke on the road.
 
“You there,” he said.
 
“You disappeared from my court rather quickly without a word after betraying your own king, and now I find you here riding off from his castle all dressed in fine clothes with a bag full of gold?
 
Explain yourself!”
 
Of course the man had no good explanation and so, the emperor detained him.

Next the army came upon the mummer, riding carefree directly into the face of an invading army.
 
“What’s this, then?” the emperor called to him, “what kind of a man are you who has no fear at the sight of an invading army?”

But to the emperor’s astonishment, it was not the man, but the steed that answered.
 
“This one has learned not to speak without permission, lest I kick his teeth in for him,” the horse said.
 
“But why should my people fear you?
 
They easily conquered the men of this land, and shall do the same to you if you challenge them.”

“Do you mean to say that this land has been conquered by horses?” the emperor gasped.
 
“But where are
you
off to then?”

“I grow weary of my king’s brutality,” the horse told him.
 
“I’ve always been rather fond of men, except for this idiot slave upon my back, who wouldn’t know a good speck of hay from a horehound.
 
At any rate, I’m off to our native land where I need not see these poor beasts tortured and killed for sport.
 
If you must continue on with your army, then good luck to you.
 
Enjoy drawing breath while you can.”
 
With this the horse trotted off down the road.

Now the emperor was very superstitious, and the idea of a war with speaking horse-lords terrified him.
 
He sent four scouts ahead to the castle, who soon came back to report that the people wandered around with feedbags while the horses feasted in court.
 
The emperor promptly took his army and fled the land, and executed Duke Ironside for deceiving him.

As for the king and queen, they lived happily ever after, and nobody in the land ever played a trick on the king again.

Michael laughed as he finished reading the paper.
 
Abigail had an embarrassed smirk on her face, which was turning redder by the second.

“I really liked it, Abby,” Michael told her.
 
“I don’t know where you get some of your ideas.”

“It was great,” Elizabeth told her.
 
“You should write a whole book of stories like that someday.
 
It would be a best seller.”

Abigail beamed at them.

“Okay, now it’s time for Michael’s story,” she told the girl.

“I wrote a poem,” Michael protested.
 
“Make sure you get the rhythm down, Abby, otherwise it won’t sound right.”

She rolled her eyes at him, but was still smiling from their compliments.
 
“Okay, just give me a minute.”
 
She read through the poem silently for a few moments before giving them a nod.
 
“Okay, I’m ready to start.”

Doctor Diablo

By Michael Belmont

Dr. Diablo was rare to be seen,

His ways underhanded, nefarious and mean.

He worked from the shadows, concocting his plans

And then would unleash them by shrewd slight of hand.

One day he concocted a marvelous scheme,

To unravel his victim’s good works and great deeds.

He at once got to work in his secret location,

And built a machine that emits odd vibrations.

A craft that would guide him to places in time,

And allow him to tinker with all of mankind,

For those he selected he sought to destroy
 

With only his words, just his voice to employ.

Young Leo Da Vinci he first went to meet,

A boy of eight years with a smile he did greet,

But viewing the painting in front of the lad

He contorted his face to a frown, hard and sad.

“Why my stupid young fellow”, he said with a laugh,

“What is your intention, creating such drab?

Your dimensions are skewed and your colors ill chosen.

How picked you this craft? Why your brain must be frozen!”

And other such insults he planted within

As tears ran down young cheeks, his dreams dying within.

And never again would he lift up his hand,

Except to dig hole, or break rock upon land.

Delighted at how his plan shaped into form,

The doctor waved and departed to do it once more.

But where off to next, to continue his fun?

Upon scratching his chin he said “George Washington.”

He found this young man with a friend playing chess

And examined the board with a frown sore depressed.

He patted young George on the shoulder and back,