The King of the Hummingbirds (2 page)

They went a little farther and they met the village mayor, who had been trying for years to get in good with the sheriff for political reasons. When Olaf saw the mayor in all his finery, he said, “Excuse me, mayor. Could I possibly borrow your coat and hat so I don't look like a common peasant when I rescue the princess, in case I do?”

“Well,” the mayor said, liking young Olaf and thinking an act of kindness might impress the sheriff, “all right, if you really need them.” So Olaf put them on, and the village mayor came walking along behind him with the sheriff and the others until they came to the front of the castle, where the king was playing quoits.

“Sir,” said Olaf apologetically, understanding exactly how the king must feel, interrupted at his game, “my friends and I have come to try to rescue the princess.”

The king put on his glasses and stood dangling his quoits. “And who the devil are
you
?” he said.

Olaf said, “I'm Olaf, king of the hummingbirds.”

“Hah!” said the king. He tapped his chin. Then, tossing his quoits away and signaling to his knights and servants, as well as to the coppersmith and Olaf's mother, who'd decided to come watch, the king said grimly, “
This
I have got to see.” And they all went to the gate that wouldn't open.

The situation was more hopeless than ever, and everyone knew it, even (in a dim way) the coppersmith's son Olaf. The thorn inside the lock was as dry as a bone, so that nothing in this world could budge it. The sand which sealed up the crack between the gate and the gatepost was as solid as cement, and all over the gate there were honeybees and goo, and the garden was now so full of bears that the princess would have been dead for sure had the bears not luckily preferred honey.

“What's your plan?” the king whispered. Everyone was speaking in whispers now, since no one wanted to disturb the ferocious bears.

“You'll see,” whispered the king of the hummingbirds hopefully. The truth was, he hadn't yet thought of a plan. Indeed, he only very vaguely understood what the problem was. To stall for time, he had the thieves step back and took off the village mayor's coat and hat and rolled up his shirtsleeves. Still nothing came to him, and to stall for more time, he slowly removed his shirt.

“Very strange,” the village mayor whispered ingratiatingly to the sheriff.

“Very strange,” said the sheriff in a friendly voice to the thieves.

And strange indeed it was. For hovering over the orchids left by the second-eldest son there was a hummingbird, and beside the wall six feet away there was another. No sooner had Olaf, king of the hummingbirds, removed his shirt than both his subjects, in the same flash of sunlight, perceived the ring on the string around his neck and recognized their lord. They whistled, and in half a second there were hundreds upon thousands of hummingbirds, all whistling and humming their wings for pure delight. The roar of their wings was like a huge droning storm so fierce that the bees all came hurrying from their dark damp hives in alarm, and the bears inside grew so befuddled they couldn't climb the wall. As the bees came swarming out to see what was happening, the thieves and the sheriff and the village mayor and all the king's lords and knights and servants, not to mention the wolves, owls, mice, and ants, began running about crazily this way and that, dancing and swatting at the bees in a perfect frenzy. The wind from the wings of the birds and bees and the running, swatting friends of Olaf shook the sand from the gate and let the honey drip down on the stiff little thorn, and it softened and bent, and the lock suddenly snapped open. At once the bears came charging out, but just then Olaf's second-eldest brother's majestic white horse broke loose from his tree, upset by the commotion, and he tripped on the golden ramrod and fell with all his might on Olaf's eldest brother's dynamite plunger, and the bears and orchids and a few of the bees were blown so high that some of the petals and fur are even now still coming down again.

“Wow!” cried the princess, looking around herself, wide-eyed. Then she said, as if knowing exactly what Olaf had been thinking, “What
will
we do with all these hummingbirds?”

“We will rule them justly,” said Olaf. “Or perhaps get someone else to rule them. Or possibly turn them loose.”

“Why don't
I
be king of the hummingbirds,” Olaf's father said, since a king was obviously better than a knight, and he was insatiably ambitious.

“Sure, fine,” said Olaf.

And now Olaf suddenly discovered he was alone with the princess. His father had run off noisily shouting, chasing his hummingbirds, trying to organize a parliament. The sheriff, with the mayor running close behind, had left to chase the thieves, and the thieves, along with some of the ants, were in the garden stealing honey. The king, who happened to be a widower, had gone for a walk with Olaf's mother, followed by most of the wolves, owls, and mice, and Olaf's two brothers who had failed hadn't come in the first place.

“King of the hummingbirds,” the princess was saying, tapping her pretty, dimpled chin and smiling, possibly making fun of Olaf. “Crazy!”

“I'm not sure I understand you,” said Olaf, somewhat uncomfortably.

“Never mind, birdbrain,” said the princess and gave him a little pat. “Let's start cleaning up this mess.”

The Witch's Wish

I
n a certain kingdom there lived a wicked, disgusting old witch whose greatest pleasure in life was burning down synagogues and churches. In the beginning she set fire to them at the stroke of midnight, when no one was about; but later she grew more brazen and would often be seen lurking nearby, hiding behind a tree or peeking around past one of the parked cars in the parking lot, when the congregation was just leaving at the end of the service. One evening, feeling more brazen than usual, the wicked old witch slunk into a church or, possibly, synagogue while the service was still going. Since she didn't want to burn down the church with people still inside it—such a thing would never have crossed her mind, for witch or no witch, she had about her a certain innate tenderheartedness—she seated herself inconspicuously in a pew at the back and waited for the service to be over. Without giving much thought to what she was doing, she began to listen to the sermon; and lo and behold, before she knew what was happening, she was converted.

The old witch's hands began to shake, and tears ran down her leathery old cheeks. “I have sinned unspeakably,” she moaned. “What can I ever do to make it up?”

The congregation got to its feet to sing a final hymn, but the wicked old witch paid no attention, for she was lost in thought.

“First off,” she mused, “I must stop being a witch.” But one question among many was, if she stopped being a witch, then just what
would
she be? She wrung her hands and bit her lips together—and then she got an idea: “I can sell paper flowers in the city,” she thought, “and give all my money to the poor.”

She almost laughed aloud, she was so delighted. And oddly enough, her delight at the thought of her new life so changed her features that strangers going past her pew (for the congregation was now leaving) thought to themselves, “What a sweet little old lady! Who can she be?”

When the old witch realized that the service was over, she got up and left the church. As fast as her legs would carry her, she went to find the queen of the witches, who lived in a hollow tree in the center of the forest. The queen of the witches was so cruel and ugly that at sight of her face an ordinary person would fall dead on the spot. All but the bravest of the witches closed their eyes whenever the queen came in sight, and as a matter of fact when she looked in the mirror, even the queen herself felt a little bit woozy.

The witch knocked on the queen's door and called out timidly, “Yoo-hoo!”

The door opened about ten inches, and there stood the horrible, horrible queen of the witches.

The old witch reeled at the sight, but, bracing herself, she looked the queen in the eye. “I've come to ask if you would mind if I stopped being a witch,” she asked. “Tonight I went to burn down a church and, I'm sorry to say, I was converted.”

“Zam booey!” exclaimed the queen, throwing the door wide open. “Come on in and tell me all about it!”

“There's nothing to tell, really,” said the witch, entering the queen's modestly furnished apartment. “I just want to stop being a witch.”

The queen took the witch's hand and led her to a chair near the fireplace where a huge cauldron was steaming and bubbling. When the witch's knock came, the queen had been preparing a brew that would turn people's pet parakeets into bats.

“What kind of church was it?” asked the queen, lowering her grizzly eyebrows. “Was it a Presbyterian church? A Baptist church? A Jewish Orthodox synagogue? Was it Lutheran? Episcopalian? Buddhist? Islamic?”

“I didn't notice,” said the witch, glancing about her in confusion.

“You didn't notice!” the queen of the witches exclaimed. She bit her lips and squinted, calming herself. Gently she prodded, “Was it a Christ Brethren church, perhaps?” She leaned closer. “Was it a Russian Greek Friends' church? A Hungarian Emmanuel Baptist church? Was it the African Methodist church?”

“I don't know! I didn't pay attention!” cried the witch. “I had no idea it was important.”

“It makes all the difference in the world,” the queen said soberly, her eyes mere slits. She studied a spider's web she'd been working on all day, for in the daytime the queen of the witches was a spider. “I've been converted sixty-seven times, myself,” said the queen. “I must say, it never made me want to stop being a witch. In fact, rather the opposite. I suppose it hits some people differently from the way it hits others.” Then she drew up a great plush chair which had a canopy over it like a four-poster bed and heavy side curtains of wine-black velvet, and sat down beside her visitor. “Well, well, well,” she said, “so you want to stop being a witch!” She frowned, weighing the matter. Then she shook her head and reached out absently to stir the brew in the cauldron. Small, grotesque creatures of a kind not normally seen in the world were jumping around in it, happy as lizards, for broiling heat was their element. “Really, you know, it's impossible,” said the queen of the witches. “If I
did
know a way out, how could I in good conscience tell you? Think of the confusion if Satanists should turn ecumenical!”

They sat in silence for a time, gazing without interest at the two skeletons seated on the chesterfield reading through the evening news.

Then the witch said tentatively, “I did wish I might sell paper flowers and give my money to the poor.”

“It would be a pleasant life, all right,” said the queen with a sigh. “I've thought of it myself. Still, you must look at it this way: we witches have our pleasures too. Can sweet old ladies put hexes on television aerials so that people's pictures come in sideways? Can sweet old ladies put tree toads in candy machines so that the kid puts in his fifteen cents and—
Yipes!!?
Or put cats in front of blind men's seeing-eye dogs, heh heh? Or put wads of gum on the bottoms of bankers' canes?”

“All that's very pleasant, I'll admit,” said the witch, and couldn't help but smile, “but it's nothing compared to stretching out a helping hand to the sick and needy, or giving money to the poor.”

“Perhaps not,” said the queen of witches irritably, for her visitor had her and she knew it, “but you can't have everything. Anyway, you can't stop being a witch just because you want to. It's against the rules, like trying to stop being a Mormon.”

“I was afraid you'd say that,” said the witch. “I suppose I'll just have to go on burning down synagogues and churches. But my heart won't be in it.” So saying, she got up to leave.

“My dear,” said the queen as the witch was about to go, “if I were you I'd take the shortcut home.” She smiled slyly and gave her friend a wink.