The Fairy's Return and Other Princess Tales (26 page)

“I don't only—”

“But it's a bad wish.” Jake was proud to be a commoner and wouldn't have wanted to play catch with a king.

          
“Royalty and commoners must never mix.

          
Remember this, or you will be in a predicament.”

“She's going to come to the bakery.” So there.

Jake was shocked. Robin truly believed he'd met the princess. He was too stupid to know what was real and what wasn't. He was an imbecile.

Robin repeated, “She's coming. And she likes my jokes. You'll see.”

Four

I
n the Royal Dining Hall that evening, Lark said, “Father . . .”

“Harrumph?”

“Today I played with the lad I want to marry someday.” She laughed, remembering the ruler joke.

The king smiled. His daughter had a lovely laugh, and he didn't hear it often enough. “Well, harrumph?” Meaning,
Well, who?
King Humphrey V was known far and wide as King Harrumphrey.

“He's Robin, the baker's son. He told—”

King Harrumphrey's face turned red. “You're not harrumphying any harrumpher's son!”

“I will so harrumphy him, I mean, marry him!”

“Harrumph!”

The next morning Lark told Dame Cloris that she wanted to go to Snettering-on-Snoakes.

Dame Cloris yawned. “I'm feeling too sleepy, Your Highness. I can't go with you . . . and you can't go without me.”

The following day Dame Cloris said she was still too sleepy. The day after that she was too tired, and the next day she was too sleepy again.

Lark appealed to her father. “It would be educational for me,” she said. “I'd meet our subjects.”

King Harrumphrey frowned. Was the baker's son behind this? “You don't have to meet any harrumphs. When the Royal Chief Councillor puts our golden harrumph on your head someday, you'll harrumph all you need in an instant.”

“But Father, what if I don't harru—know all I need?”

“Sweetharrumph, trust us, commoners are harrumph. Even worse, they're harrumph.”

“Please, can't I go? I won't stay long.”

“No, you can't. Not for all the harrumph in Kulornia.”

Robin was miserable when Lark didn't come to the bakery the next day or the next. He couldn't even cheer himself up with jokes, because he was too upset to think of any. And it didn't help that Nat kept calling him His Hikingness, and that Matt kept saying, “Where's your prinroycess?”

It crossed Robin's mind that Lark had only pretended to like his jokes. After all, nobody else liked them.

But she
had
liked them. He was sure of it. And she had liked him. He couldn't have imagined it.

Maybe she'd hurt herself and couldn't come. Or maybe that snooty Dame wouldn't let her come. That must have been it. He felt better and made up three jokes.

The next time they delivered bread, he'd find out what had happened. He'd tell the new jokes, and he'd get proof that they'd met. Maybe she'd write on Royal Stationery that she thought he was clever and his jokes were funny.

Most important of all, when he saw her, he'd tell her he loved her.

But Jake wouldn't take him to the castle anymore. He said,

          
“To the castle you could come

          
If you weren't so darn moronic.”

That made Robin mad. He wasn't moronic! And if his father wouldn't take him, he'd go on his own.

Every afternoon one of the brothers went to Snoakes Forest to chop wood for the bakery oven. Whoever it was packed a picnic lunch, took the family's ax, and set off.

When it was his turn, Robin chopped the wood as fast as he could. Then he hiked past the Sleep In Inn, through fields and low hills, and on to Biddle Castle.

On the way he thought of a dozen more jokes. The seventh was his favorite: Why do noblemen like to stare? Because they're peers.

He pictured Lark's reaction. First surprise, and then her musical laugh, which would make him feel prouder than a prince and smarter than anyone in his whole family tree.

But when Robin reached the castle, he couldn't get past the Royal Drawbridge Guard.

He tried again on his next seven turns chopping wood. Sometimes the Royal Drawbridge Guard stopped him. He got past that guard a few times, only to be stopped by the Royal Castle Door Guard or the Royal Garden Gate Guard. Once, he managed to enter the castle, but the moment he put his foot on the Royal Grand Staircase, the Royal Grand Staircase Guard rushed at him and tossed him out as if he were a sack of flour.

Oh, Lark! Oh, love! He might never see her again, the one person in Biddle who appreciated a good joke.

Five

T
wo years passed, but Lark didn't forget Robin. How could she, when he was the only one who'd ever treated her as a normal person? How could she, when the last time she'd laughed had been with him?

King Harrumphrey tried to make her laugh. He'd sneak up on her and tickle her. But she'd stopped being ticklish long ago. He'd make funny faces. They might have made her laugh, if it hadn't been his fault she couldn't visit Robin. So she'd scowl instead.

The king often sent the Royal Jester to amuse her. But the jester was as afraid of offending her as everybody else. So he'd just turn cartwheels and never tell jokes. And his cartwheels weren't that funny.

Two more years passed. Nat became betrothed to Holly, the oldest of the Sleep In innkeeper's three daughters. Matt became betrothed to the middle sister, Molly.

Robin had stopped thinking of Lark a hundred times a day. Whenever he did remember her, he concentrated on something else to keep from feeling bad.

He still hadn't succeeded in telling his family a complete joke. He would have given up, but jokes are meant to be told, and they'd pop out in spite of himself.

And he still hadn't convinced his family that he wasn't simpleminded. One day, in desperation, he gave in and tried word inventing. He said, “I may not be brillbrainiant, but I'm smarquick enough.”

But Nat said, “Stupidated people always think they're keenwittish.”

And Matt said, “Your words are the flimflawsiest I've ever heard.”

Jake, however, thought Robin's invented words were a good sign. He began to hope that his youngest boy was finally catching up to the rest of the family.

That is, until the day Robin gave an entire muffin to the tailor. Robin was at the front of the bakery, taking coins and making change from the cash box. The tailor, who was the poorest person in Snettering-on-Snoakes, stepped forward with a halfpenny for the leg of a gingerbread man. Robin saw him look hungrily at a blueberry muffin.

Robin glanced around. Nat was taking scones out of the oven. Matt was in the storeroom. And Jake was looking down as he rolled out dough.

Robin grabbed a blueberry muffin just as Jake raised his head. The baker watched, appalled, as Robin passed the muffin to the tailor.

“Stop!” Jake shouted.

“‘S
TOP
!' J
AKE SHOUTED
.”

The tailor ran out of the shop.

Jake's hopes for Robin collapsed. The lad didn't understand proper behavior. Jake repeated his rule slowly.

          
“Never ever give anything away for free,

          
As my father said. Listen to him and to I.”

From then on Jake wouldn't let Robin do anything except knead dough, the most boring job in the bakery. Robin hated it, and he despaired of ever proving he wasn't thickheaded.

A week later Golly, the youngest of the innkeeper's daughters, sat herself down on the bench next to Robin's kneading table. She said, “Dearie, I fear you're worrying about me.”

Why? he wondered. Was something wrong with her? She looked healthy.

“You're fretting that I won't marry you.”

He stopped kneading.

She went on. “Some wenches may not want a stupid husband, dearie, but I do. I'm bossy, so when we're wed, I'll run the Sleep In and I'll run you.”

Robin gulped. “I'm not marrying anybody.” Lark flashed into his mind. Once he would have liked to marry her.

Golly poked his arm and laughed. “At the inn, your job will be fluffing up the pillows. That's like kneading, dearie.”

Jake left his cake batter and came to them.

          
“Son, Golly will make a fine wife,

          
Since your mind's not sharp as a dagger.”

“I'm not marrying anybody.”

Jake laughed along with Golly.

Six

G
olly sat with Robin all morning, and she didn't stop talking for a second. She told him who would be invited to their wedding and which songs would be sung and which dances danced. She told him what jerkin to wear on the wedding day and which side to part his hair on.

He didn't knead the dough that morning. He punched it and squashed it and strangled it.

Eventually Golly left to have her lunch at the inn. Robin packed his own lunch in a basket and left too. It was his turn to chop wood, but first he needed to walk off the hours with Golly. He circled around the Sleep In so she wouldn't see him and headed for the hills and fields south of Biddle Castle.

He wasn't far from the castle when he heard someone singing in the distance. He stood still. He'd heard that voice before. He heard a deeper sound. It was familiar too. He ran toward the sounds.

When he got closer, he could hear the words to the song.

          
“O alas. O alack.

          
O woe is me.

          
I've lost my true love,

          
And I'll never fly free.”

As he ran, he thought, That's odd.
Me
rhymes with free.

Almost a mile from Robin, Lark was sitting on the bank of Snoakes Stream. She'd pulled her skirts up to her knees and had taken off her slippers and her hose. Her feet dangled in the stream. She was feeding the ducks and singing her heart out.

          
“My love's not a widgeon,

          
Nor a pigeon.”

Those are birds! Robin thought. He ran faster.

          
“My love's not a macaw,

          
Nor a jackdaw.”

The voice was farther away than he'd thought. He was getting near the castle.

          
“My love's not a waterfowl,

          
Nor a tawny owl.

          
O alas. O alack.

          
O woe is me.

          
I've lost my Robin . . .”

A robin! Me? He was out of breath, but he managed one last burst of speed.

There they were. An elderly lady with a lace cap over her face was snoring on a blanket. And Lark was on the stream bank.

          
“And we'll never fly free.”

He rushed to her. “Lark!”

She turned. “Robin?” She stood, almost losing her footing on the slippery stones in the stream. Her skirts trailed in the water. She smiled radiantly. “Robin!”

He thought of a joke. “What does the postal coach driver wear in cold weather?”

A joke! Lark hadn't felt so happy in years. “I don't know. What?”

He'd missed her so. He hadn't realized how much till now. He forgot about the joke and just smiled at her.

Dame Cloris stirred on the blanket. In her dream King Harrumphrey was making her a countess.

Lark prompted Robin. “What?”

What what? Oh, the joke. “When it's cold out, the postal coach driver wears a coat of mail.”

She thought for a second, then laughed. A coat of mail! A coat of letters!

He'd never stopped loving her, not for a minute, whether he'd known it or not.

She began to climb out of the stream, but she lost her balance. “Oh, no!” She reached out to Robin. Before he could grab her, she fell backward into the water with a big splash.

In the governess's dream, the king's sword clanged. He touched it to her forehead. “I harrumph you a Royal Harrumphess.”

Robin thought Lark might be hurt. He waded in. She laughed and splashed him.

He splashed her back. She was delighted. No one else would have splashed her. She held out her hands as if she wanted him to help her up, but when he took them, she pulled him down.

Water got in his nose. He snorted and shook the hair out of his eyes. He splashed Lark again.