THE PRACTICAL PRINCESS and Other Liberating Fairy Tales (5 page)

The Wazar turned pale. Before he could speak, Prudence said, “You were quite right when you said

that you wanted to choose what I should take. All these diamonds are too big and too heavy. Pick something that will do for a girl like me.”

The Wazar sighed with relief. Climbing a ladder to the topmost shelf, he took down a plain, simple mirror of ivory.

“This is the magical mirror of Morna,” he said, blowing the dust off it. “It is said to make people beautiful. It’s no use to me, as I’m already as beautiful as possible. But it might do you some good.”

“You are right,” said Prudence. “Do you give it to me freely?”

“Absolutely,” said The Wazar, and he pushed her out the door and locked it behind him with sixteen keys.

Prudence started for home. When she had gone a mile or two, she thought, perhaps I might just take a peep into the mirror and see if it makes me beautiful.

She was beginning to unwrap it, and then she laughed.

“I don’t think I want to be beautiful,” she said. “I might be different outside but I’d be the same inside, and I’m used to me the way I am. Anyway, I don’t own the mirror, for I only got it for the witch.” So she wrapped it up again and went on her way, as cheerfully as ever.

When she came, at last, to the witch’s house, it was the thirty-first of May. The witch came out screeching with impatience, and even the house hopped from foot to foot.

“High time you returned, you lazy thing!” she screamed.

“Bring the mirror and follow me. We must hurry to the king’s palace.”

The city was full of girls. Smiling, they went in through the front door of the palace. Sadly, they filed out through the back door.

When Prudence and the witch arrived, there were only a few girls waiting to enter, for it was nearly evening. At the door of the palace, the witch held out her hand. Prudence gave her the mirror.

The witch gazed into it. Instantly, she straightened and grew taller. Her white hair turned to gold. Her face had changed and she became so beautiful that all of the birds began to sing as if it were the dawn of a spring morning.

Into the palace she went, with Prudence behind her.

There sat the king and the queen, and before them stood Prince Pertinel. He was a tall, handsome young man, but pale with weariness, and his eyes were glazed from the sight of so many maidens.

Prudence looked at the prince and then she looked at the witch. Although the witch’s face was lovely, her eyes had not changed. They were old and hard, and full of witchcraft. She was different outside but the same inside.

“He must not marry her,” Prudence said to herself.

“If someday she becomes queen, she will be full of wickedness.”

There was no help for it. With a sigh, Prudence took out her silver whistle and blew four notes on it.

With the last note, the whistle split in two. But the mirror cracked with a loud noise and shattered to bits.

And as the pieces clattered to the floor, the witch changed again into her own shape. With a screech of rage, she flew straight up into the air and vanished

through the ceiling, leaving a large and untidy hole in the plaster.

Prince Pertinel stepped forward and took Prudence by the hand.

“Marvelous!” he said. “You are the girl for me.”

Prudence stared at him in surprise.

“Me? But I’m not beautiful,” she said.

The prince smiled. “That is true,” he said. “But I never said I would choose the most beautiful girl in the kingdom. I only said I would choose the one who suited me best. As it happens, I prefer freckles. Will you marry me?”

“Oh, well, I don’t mind,” said Prudence, returning his smile. “It will make a nice change.”

The richest man in the land, even richer than the king, was Bumberdumble Pott. He lived in an enormous house with forty-four rooms, and he had nine cooks, twelve housemaids, four butlers, sixteen helpers, and a young man named Fred who did everything that was left over.

Fred was good-looking and bright, but he was very absentminded. This was because his head was full of music. When he should have been thinking about his job, he was thinking of songs instead, and when he should have been working, he was playing on his flute. If Bumberdumble Pott said to him, “Fred, throw out the rubbish and hang up my coat,” Fred was just as apt to throw away the coat and hang up the rubbish.

In spite of this, Bumberdumble liked him and so did everyone else, because he was merry, kind, friendly, and always polite.

One day, Bumberdumble called together all the servants in the great hall of his house. Standing on the staircase where everyone could see and hear him, he said, “As you all know, I am the richest man in the land.”

Everyone nodded. They knew.

“You might think I’d be very happy,”

Bumberdumble continued, “but I’m not. There is one thing I’ve wanted all my life, and that is the Bitter Fruit of Satisfaction. When I was young, I could have gone to find it but I was too busy making money.

Now I am too old to make the journey. But if one of you will go and get it for me, I will give him half my wealth so that he will be as rich as I am.”

Everyone thought that over. At last, the youngest of the butlers said, “Where is the Bitter Fruit of Satisfaction?”

Bumberdumble looked worried. “I’m afraid it is a long way off,” he admitted. “It is beyond six mountains and six sandy deserts, beyond the Boiling River and the Grimly Wood. And it is guarded by a Fire Drake.”

“A Fire Drake? What’s that? Something like a dragon?”

“Worse than a dragon,” said Bumberdumble gloomily. “Much worse.”

“Well,” said the youngest of the butlers, “I can’t go.

I have to finish my job polishing the silver.”

“I can’t go,” said the chief cook. “I have a wife and four children.”

“I certainly can’t go,” said the oldest housemaid. “I have a sore knee.”

And the more the others thought about the distance and the difficulties and the Fire Drake at the end of it, the more they thought of reasons why they couldn’t go.

But finally, Fred said, “I’ll go.”

“You?” everyone cried.

“Why not?” said Fred, cheerfully. “I haven’t any wives or children, I’m healthy, and you can always hire someone else to take over my jobs.”

“But you’ll forget where you’re going before you’ve gone a mile,” said the chief butler, with a chuckle.

“I will give him a map,” said Bumberdumble. He came down the stairs and clapped Fred on the shoulder. “Bring me back the Bitter Fruit, my boy, and you will be richer than a king.”

The next morning Fred set out. He had a knapsack of food on his back, his flute in his pocket, a staff to lean on, and twenty gold pieces in his purse. He also had a map showing where the Bitter Fruit was, and Bumberdumble had hung around his neck so he wouldn’t forget to look at it.

Fred traveled for a whole, long year. He climbed six high and rocky mountains, almost freezing at the tops of them. He tramped across six sandy deserts, almost dying of thirst. He crossed the Boiling River by going to its narrowest place and jumping from one slippery stone to another.

And one evening, he came to an old dark house that stood on the edge of a vast dark wood. He was very weary, hungry and tattered. His money had long ago been spent. He felt as if he could go no farther.

He knocked at the door, and it was opened by a pretty girl with blue eyes, black hair, and a smudge of dirt on her nose.

“Good evening,” said Fred, politely, and then he dropped his staff and would have fallen, but the girl caught his arm and helped him into the house.

There was a bright fire burning and a good smell of cooking in the air.

The girl sat Fred down at the long table and put a bowl of soup in front of him. While he ate, she sat down opposite and watched him.

“You’ve come a long,” she said.

Fred told her who he was and where he was going.

“And I have no idea how to take the Bitter Fruit when I find it,” he said sadly, “or how I shall escape the Fire Drake. But if you will let me stay here until I’m rested, maybe I will think of something.”

“This isn’t my house,” said the girl. “It belongs to the Witch of Grimly Wood. She’s at a witchery meeting now, and while she’s away you may certainly rest here and get your strength back. But when she returns, I don’t know whether she’ll let you stay, for she is the stingiest person in the world.

Perhaps you can pay her in some way?”

“All I have is some music,” said Fred. “What’s your name?”

“Melissa,” said the girl.

“Then I’ll play you some special Melissa music, by way of thanks,” said Fred.

He put the flute to his lips. His music was like the clear calling of summer birds at evening. Melissa listened and sighed. That night, Fred slept on the floor in front of the fire. The next day he rested and played his flute and told stories about his travels and made Melissa laugh. Working for a witch, she didn’t get the chance to laugh very often. She was a good cook and fed him well, and she thought she had never liked anyone half so much.

The following morning, she said, “I am going to help you. I have three gifts my father gave me before he died, and I’ll lend them to you. Maybe they will help you get the Bitter Fruit.

She brought out a pair of red slippers, a hat with a feather in it, and a sword.

“These,” she said, “are the Shoes of Swiftness, the Cap of Darkness, and the Sword of Sharpness. The shoes will make you run swifter than an arrow, the cap will make you invisible, and the sword will cut through anything.”

“Fine!” said Fred. “If I’m invisible, maybe I can steal the Bitter Fruit. If not, maybe I can kill the Fire Drake with the sword. And if that fails, I can run like anything.”

At that moment they heard a noise outside.

“It’s the witch,” said Melissa. “Don’t say a word to her about where you’re going or how much Bumberdumble is going to pay you. She loves gold more than anything.”

The door swung open. In came a puff of cold gray air, and with it the witch.

“Aha!” she croaked. “A stranger! Who are you, and what do you mean by sitting in my kitchen and eating my food!”

“My name is Fred,” said Fred. And then, being absent-minded, he promptly forgot about Melissa’s warning. “I’m on my way to get the Bitter Fruit of Satisfaction,” he said. “When I take it back to Bumberdumble Pott, he will give me half his gold and I’ll be richer than a king.”