Category: Fairy Tales and Other Stories Remix

The Day the Dragon Escaped

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Once there was a dragon who woke up to a a terrible crashing sound at the front of his cave. He rushed out of bed to find a princess chopping his furniture to pieces. “What are you doing?” he roared.

“Oh good, there you are. I need this to look convincing, you know?” She chopped his tail-rest in half, and then looked around. “All of this artsy mural stuff on the walls will have to go, too. Maybe I can cover it up with mud.”

“What are you talking about?”

The princess turned and raised her nose in the air. “I am trying to catch the eye of a brave knight, so I need to be rescued from a scary dragon. You aren’t scary enough.”

The dragon rolled his eyes and chased her out of his cave with a broom. Then he looked at his furniture and sighed. There wasn’t enough wood glue in the entire country to fix that mess. Maybe some of it was salvageable?

He ate breakfast in bed, as the bed was still in one piece. The eggs were half raw and half burnt. They tasted terrible. He spilled his orange juice all over the covers when there was another crash in the living room.

The crazy princess was back, and she had knocked down his front door with a battering ram. The dragon was feeling a little alarmed. “Can’t you arrange for the knight to rescue you from something else? There’s a volcano nearby,” the dragon helpfully pointed out.

“Too late,” the princess said. “I already sent the ransom note.”

“I’m being kidnapped?” the dragon squeaked. He cleared his throat. “I’ll have you know that none of my relatives hoard any gold. We’re allergic. Check my cave if you don’t believe me. You won’t get a single gold nugget in ransom.”

The princess scowled unattractively. “You are so stupid. I sent a ransom note from you, so the knight would know where to come to rescue me.”

“But why would I kidnap a princess?”

“Greed, of course. You want half the gold in the kingdom, or some such nonsense. Don’t worry about it. Let the knight chase you away, and it’s all good.”

“But this is my home!”

The princess sighed and shook her head. “My dad owns this kingdom so all the homes in it belong to my family. Now show me your most menacing face. Make it look like I’m really in danger here.”

“Wait a minute. Are you trying to get me hurt?”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine. Hey, did you fix the furniture? Stop it.” The princess stomped her foot.

“That’s it, I’m leaving.” The dragon packed up what he could gather in a hurry and hurried out of the cave before the knight could arrive.

As he flew away, he could hear the princess’s voice yelling, “Get back here! I command you to come back right now!”

He flew all day and all night, stopping only for a moment or two to rest his wings. He passed the volcano and the jungle and the desert and the snowy mountains. Finally, he reached a little island hidden in dense fog and flew to the top of the mountain at the island’s center.

His mother was out digging in the garden. She stood up when he returned, and brushed off her talons on her apron. “Why are you home so soon? I didn’t expect to see you for another century.”

“There was this crazy princesss…”

His mother sighed. “Say no more. We all know how that goes. Did you manage to finish some of your research before you had to leave?”

The dragon patted the briefcase he’d carried away with him. “It’s all here. The last cloaking field was entirely ineffective, but I was really pleased with the two that came before it.”

“Was the last one the one based on chameleon fields?”

The dragon nodded. “I knew it wouldn’t work on such a small scale, but they insisted I add it to the rotation.”

His mother breath-roasted some potatoes and passed them over. “Eat these. You’re all scale and bones. Let’s go over the paperwork inside at the kitchen table.”

Meanwhile, the princess waited for her knight in a muddy, smoky cave. Her trusty horse was wrapped in burlap painted green. The princess frowned and held out a flaming torch. “Just hold this stick in your mouth so I can see how it looks from a distance. Now! I’m commanding you to do it!”

The Clock with a House in Its Walls

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Once there was a very large clock. It was a clock tower, really, the kind that towers over the buildings around it and has gears inside that would make lovely traffic circles. With how tall the clock tower was, I suppose it wasn’t entirely surprising that a house could fit inside.

What may seem surprising was that anyone wanted to live there at all. The clock chimed loudly every hour from sun up to sun down. The neighboring buildings were well insulated, but the poor pedestrians near the tower when it chimed usually complained that their ears rang for at least an hour afterward.

It was ten times worse inside the tower. The sound echoed off the walls and multiplied until even the gears started to vibrate and hum. Living inside the clock tower would be dangerous, unless you were willing to leave for a short time every hour.

So, why did anyone want to live there? Rent was cheap. Very, very cheap. Since the people in the house kept an eye on the clock, they lived there for free.

Free rent in the middle of the city? The Smith family was willing to overlook a few minor problems. Plus, there were no annoying neighbors, or any neighbors at all, and rats and pigeons never stayed long. Neither did any annoying guests.

Living inside the clock tower gave their parties and get-togethers a definite time limit. Everyone learned to be punctual, very punctual. No one overstayed their welcome twice if they stayed behind when their hosts ran out the door, down the stairs, and across the street before the clock started to chime.

And so all was going quite well for the Smith family in the clock tower, until one day, their mostly quiet life was interrupted by a visitor who didn’t mind the noise at all. They had the misfortune to be haunted by a ghost who decided that he could almost feel the vibrations when the clock chimed. As a ghost, he missed being able to feel things, so he decided to stay.

In-between the hourly chiming, the ghost chattered endlessly about all the things he missed about being alive. He was a lonely ghost, and was delighted to find a new audience that only ran away from him once an hour. The poor Smith family wasn’t sure that they could handle this new inconvenience.

But the rent was better than cheap. Free rent in the middle of the city is nearly impossible to find. And the ghost wasn’t unfriendly. He was just noisy and glowed in the dark.

They got used to the ghost. After a while, his endless tales became mostly background noise. He never stopped to listen to replies, so he had no idea that no one was listening to him, either. The way he glowed in the dark was fine too, kind of like a large, person-shaped nightlight.

However, things weren’t quite back to normal. Fewer people came to visit. A noisy ghost was a bit too much on top of the hourly evacuations. The Smiths mostly didn’t mind.

That was until the ghost invited all his friends to move in, too. That was much less fine. One ghost didn’t make that much noise or glow excessively. A houseful? Not so great.

Even though they didn’t really take up any space, the house felt crowded. The noise level was constantly at a dull roar. The house was lit up by the equivalent of a set of stadium lights.

If you have ever tried to sleep while attending a football game and sitting in the stands of the team that was winning, you understand the difficulties they were facing. The Smith family decided to hold a family meeting.

They invited the ghosts, as they would likely be attending anyway. Some of the ghosts stopped talking as the Smiths sat down at the table. Mr. Smith cleared his throat. “We would like to talk about an important problem. This house is much too noisy and too bright.” The few quiet ghosts shrugged and started talking again.

“Do you think we could vacuum them up?” the smallest Smith child asked. “I saw an ad for a vacuum that could vacuum up anything.”

The Smiths had no carpet, so they didn’t have a vacuum. But, Mr. Smith thought it was worth a try. The next time they ran out to avoid the clock chiming, they bought the vacuum from the ad.

It really could vacuum up everything.

Once their house was back to as normal as a house inside a clock can be, they buried the vacuum in a graveyard late at night. They said several prayers over the grave, just in case. And they returned home to a quiet, empty house.

And they lived happily ever after, rent free and ghost free. The End.

The Lazy Author

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Once there was an author with a deadline and no story. Unfortunately, the author was lazy. “I do not want to write this story,” the author said loudly. The deadline didn’t change.

She sat down at her computer. “Shouldn’t you just write yourself? All the other authors say that their characters just take over the story and do all the writing for them.” But the story did not write itself. Perhaps the problem was that it didn’t have any characters yet.

The lazy author called for her oldest child. “Will you help me write my story? I’ll give you a cookie.”

“Sure,” the child said. “What do you need help with?”

“The whole thing.” The lazy author said. “It needs to be twenty thousand words, and the topic is hairless cats.”

The child frowned. “But I don’t know anything about hairless cats.”

“Neither do I.”

“Twenty thousand words sounds like a lot of writing.”

The lazy author shrugged. “I think it’s only like 40 pages. And…”

“I think I have homework.” The oldest child left and didn’t come back. The author frowned. Homework was important. Why had the oldest child put it off this late? She would have to talk to the child about the dangers of procrastination… later.

The lazy author called for her second child. “Will you help me write my story? I’ll give you a cookie.”

The middle child looked skeptical. “Do you really have a cookie? The last time I helped you, you promised to give me a cookie later, and you never did.”

Patting her pockets, the author realized she didn’t have a cookie. “I’ll get you two cookies later, to make up for last time.”

“Hmmmmm.” The middle child didn’t look convinced.

“It’s only twenty thousand words, and the topic is hairless cats.”

Rolling his eyes the middle child held up a hand and started counting off demands on his fingers. “I expect a written contract this time. I want to be paid in cash within three days of completion of the work. I expect to be paid by the hour. I expect to be paid for research time. I expect an entire package of cookies to make up for the back pay.”

“An entire package of cookies?”

The middle child shrugged. “You owe me interest and late fees.”

“I’m not paying by the hour. You type one key at a time!”

“Take it or leave it.” The middle child was perfectly calm.

The author sighed. “I’ll get back to you on all that. Later.”

The middle child wandered out of the room, apparently completely uninterested in his mother’s looming deadline. The lazy author realized that she was running out of options.

But, she really, really didn’t want to write the story. So, she called for her youngest child. “Will you help me write my story? I’ll give you a cookie.”

“A sprinkle cookie?” the youngest child asked.

“Sure. It’s just twenty thousand words about hairless cats. Can you do that?”

“Uh huh.”

And the youngest child sat at the computer and started typing. Thrilled that the story was at last being written, the author hurried out of the room. She didn’t once stop to think that the youngest child didn’t know how to type. Or how to read.

This of course meant that the child finished writing much sooner than she expected. She looked up from sending emails on her phone to see her youngest child looking at the screen, inches away. She jumped. “Where did you come from?”

The youngest child giggled. “All done.”

“You wrote the story?”

“Uh huh.”

Thrilled, the author raced back to the computer. There was a ten-page document waiting for her. The word count said there were 100 words. The word count was generous in its definition of words.

The youngest child beamed. “Sprinkle cookie?”

The lazy author sighed. “I’ll get you one later, okay? It’s mommy’s turn to type.” And in the end, she wrote the story all by herself.

An Abnormally Good Hair Day

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The week before her appointment, Brooklynn told all her friends about the haircut. She told them that the hairstylist was probably partly magical and maybe a little sparkly. She said that the hair salon was only visible to humans on the day after a blue moon. And most importantly, the hairstylist promised her a haircut too beautiful to be seen.

On the day after the haircut, her friends all waited at the park where they usually met to walk to school together. “What do you think it will look like?” Carrie asked.

“Like her hair is shorter.” Jane rolled her eyes. “That’s all a hair cut does. It just makes your hair shorter.”

Susan giggled. “But will it look nice?”

“I would never let anyone cut my hair. Too many things could go wrong.” Bella tossed her long blond hair over her shoulder.

Jane snorted. “Hair grows. Even terrible haircuts aren’t terrible for long.”

Just then, Brooklynn came around the corner wearing a giant hat. The hat covered every strand of her hair and was securely fastened to her head by a wide ribbon tied in a bow under her chin. It was impossible to see her new haircut at all.

“Is it really that terrible?” Susan asked. “You can show us, we won’t laugh.”

“No, it’s actually too beautiful to be seen.” Brooklynn patted the side of her hat. “It’s really the loveliest haircut you’ve ever seen. If I took my hat off, the sun would be so shocked by the beauty of my haircut that it would forget to shine. I really can’t risk it.”

Bella twirled a strand of her long hair around one of her fingers. “That doesn’t even make sense. Haircuts don’t make your hair prettier really. They just change how long it is.”

“Nope. Haircuts can make your hair look a lot better.” Brooklynn pointed at her hat-covered hair. “Yesterday you could look at my hair, but today it’s too beautiful to be seen. In fact, my hair is so lovely now that it glows. If I took my hat off, you’d have to squint because that’s how brightly my hair shines.”

“Real hair doesn’t glow. Are you sure the hairstylist didn’t glue a wig on your head when you weren’t looking?” Carrie leaned forward and pointed at Brooklynn’s hat. “Or maybe you’re just making this all up, and you’re embarrassed to show us that your hair looks exactly the same as it did yesterday. I bet you didn’t get a haircut at all.”

Brooklynn clutched at the edges of her hat and laughed. “Of course I got a haircut. I’m not a liar. I’d show you, but it’s really too beautiful to be seen. If I took my hat off, the ground would shake because the earth would be moved by how beautiful my haircut is. I’m trying to keep you safe, because we’re friends. Even if you don’t believe me.”

“I think this can be easily resolved.” Jane folded her arms and sighed. “Just show us your haircut, Brooklynn. You can’t wear a hat in school, you know.”

“You can if you bring a note. My hairstylist wrote me one. Honestly, my hair is really too beautiful to be seen.”

“Then what’s the point?” Carrie asked. “If no one can see it, it might as well be too ugly to be seen.”

Brooklynn shrugged. “I feel beautiful. That’s good enough for me.”

Suddenly Bella darted forward and tugged at the bow holding Brooklynn’s hat in place. Brooklynn grabbed the edge of her hat, but she was a moment to late. Bella tugged the hat away and stepped back.

The sky went dark. The ground shook. Streetlights flickered on, but their light was pale compared to the glow coming from the top of Brooklynn’s head. It was like trying to look at the sun.

Brooklynn snatched her hat back and put it on her head. The ground stopped shaking and the sun was shining once more. “I told you,” Brooklynn said crossly as she tied the ribbon into a bow again. “My haircut is too beautiful to be seen.”

The other girls blinked.

Bella wiped the tears away. “How long does it take for a haircut to grow out?”

“Weeks.” Jane squinted at her watch. “We need to get going. We’re going to be late to school if we don’t leave now.”

Brooklynn led the way, and her friends followed after her, still blinking.

Gingerbread Peril

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Once there was a little old woman who was baking a tray of lovely gingerbread aliens. After they cooled, she piped icing onto each little alien, making sure that they had three eyes and ten limbs and rainbow freckles. Just as she finished the last freckle on the last alien, the whole tray of cookies sat up, jumped out of the pan, and slid down the legs of the table.

The little old woman stood up so quickly that her chair fell down behind her with a thud. Unfortunately, the aliens were already at the front door. They slipped through the mail slot one by one before she could catch them.

She threw open the front door and ran down the first three steps in her slippers. The gingerbread aliens had all disappeared. “Come back,” she called to her empty front yard. “I need you for the bake sale. The choir needs new robes.”

But the gingerbread aliens did not come back. They hid under the rose bush until she went back inside. Then they crept around the edge of the yard and through the picket fence. The first alien frosted was the oldest of the group, so he was in charge and led the way.

They passed a yard with a wire fence. Behind the fence, a big black dog barked loudly. “Come here, little cookies,” he said. “I am hungry, and I think it’s been a million years since I last ate.”

“What good would that do us?” the oldest alien asked.

“What else are cookies good for?”

The gingerbread aliens all scowled with all three of their eyes. The dog took a step back. The aliens kept walking. “We are not here for bake sales or feeding dogs,” the oldest cookie said as they left.

“Then why are you here?” the dog asked. But the gingerbread aliens were all gone. “Come back,” he called. “I’m so hungry. Come back!”

But the aliens did not come back. They kept walking.

The oldest alien led them to a stream. A fox was sunning himself on the bank. He stood up as they arrived. “Do you need a ride across the stream? I could carry you on my back.”

The gingerbread aliens conferred in a murmur. “What is the cost?” the oldest cookie asked at last.

The fox smiled, showing off his sharp teeth. “I would only eat a few of you. Maybe five or six.”

“No.” The cookies turned and started walking alongside the stream.

“What else are cookies good for?” the fox called after them. But the gingerbread aliens were gone. The fox laid back down with a huff and fell asleep.

The cookies eventually reached a bridge. At this point, their many feet were crumbly and their icing was sticky. “Just a little further,” the oldest said.

But, as they reached a bridge, out jumped a troll. “Anyone who crosses my bridge must pay a toll,” he said.

“We won’t allow you to eat any of us,” the oldest gingerbread alien said. All the cookies glared fiercely.

“Trolls don’t eat sugar. That’s poison to us. I want gold or meat.”

The oldest cookie pointed further down the bank in the opposite direction. “Like that?”

The troll turned. He squinted. “Like what?” But when he turned back around, the gingerbread aliens were gone. “Come back. You didn’t pay the toll,” he bellowed. But the cookies did not come back.

They were already across the bridge and walking through the meadow on the other side. They darted towards a metal lump leaning against the fence on the far side of the meadow. It looked a bit like two large cake pans stuck together.

As the cookies approached the lumpy metal thing, they disappeared one by one, oldest to youngest. And then the lumpy metal thing rose in the air and disappeared.

Two doughnuts were inside already and began passing around paperwork. “How did it go? Did everyone make it back?”

The oldest gingerbread alien sighed. “Yes, but I would recommend scrapping the randomizer. It’s far too risky. I don’t think the camouflage potential is worth the risk. How long until this wears off?”

“Tomorrow somebody is going to have a batch of cookies back. And two doughnuts.”

The gingerbread alien sighed. “Well, maybe she’ll have something for her bake sale after all. I’m just glad it won’t be us. Cookies lead a hard life. Everyone wants to eat them.”

“Sure,” the doughnut said. “What else are cookies good for?”

Flashback Friday: Lost But Not Forgotten

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This story was originally posted on August 19, 2017. I like this spin on the classic Orpheus story. I wish the original had a happier ending, too.

Melvo lived under Jason’s bed. He was pretty lucky. Most monsters under beds were lonely and lived on a diet of dust bunnies and half-finished homework. But Jason was different. When Melvo first moved in under the bed, Jason quickly made him feel welcome.

Jason had grinned. Instead of yelling or turning on the lights and banishing him back to the shadowlands, Jason offered him an odd sock. “Hi, I’m Jason,” he said. “I always wanted a monster under my bed.” The sock was soft, and covered in pictures of cartoon bats and ghosts.

“Are you sure I can eat this?” Melvo asked.   “This is a very nice sock.”

“I have lots of socks,” Jason said. “What’s your name?”

“Melvo,” Melvo said. He bit into the sock, and it tasted better than any dust bunny he’d ever eaten. Melvo smiled, and then remembered that monster smiles are scary. He frowned and looked down.

“What’s wrong?” Jason asked.

“Aren’t you scared of me?” Melvo asked.

“Of course not,” Jason said. “Monsters aren’t scary. I know lots of nice monsters. We have a mummy visiting from Egypt next week, and my uncle is a vampire.   There’s a werewolf next door, but he thinks we don’t know about that.”

“Okay,” Melvo said. “So does that mean we’re friends?”

And they were. They talked in the evenings, while Jason recopied his homework so that Melvo could eat freshly done, high-grade completed homework. On holidays, Jason shared his socks and told him all about their traditions.

Melvo told him about dust bunnies. He tried to describe the taste of a good sock.   He told him about the shadowlands where there was nothing to do but sleep and wait and dream.

“What do you dream about?” Jason asked.

“Finding a home,” Melvo said.

“Is that a good dream?” Jason asked.

“It’s the best dream. I found a home and I’m happier than I’ve ever been,” Melvo said.   And he was very happy.

Then one day, Jason told him his family was moving.   “You have to come too, Melvo,” he said.

“How?” Melvo asked. “I know how to find your room, but if you move you’ll be somewhere else.”

Jason thought for a moment. Then he smiled. “I’ll put a box under the bed. Climb inside. I’ll close it while it’s still dark and not open it until we get to the new house.   Then I’ll open it under the bed.   That way you won’t have to go to the shadowlands until after you know where my new room is so you can find it again.”

“That might work,” Melvo said.

So, when the time came, Melvo climbed into the little box, and Jason sealed it shut. After a long wait, the box moved. There were noises and voices and the box swayed.

“The box is really light,” he heard Jason say.   “What if he isn’t in here?”

And then he heard the scrabble of fingernails on the outside of the box. There was the ripping sound of tape pulled back, just a little. The corner of the box lifted. For just a moment, he saw Jason’s face, framed by a brilliant blue sky, and then he was pulled back into the shadowlands.

The new family in Jason’s old house didn’t like monsters under the bed. So Melvo hid, and ate dust bunnies. Some nights he paced under the bed until the floorboards creaked so that the lights would go on and he could be sent back to the shadowlands early. He missed Jason.

And then, one evening, as he woke in the shadowlands, he saw a little dot of light. He’d never seen anything like it. Instead of following the well-worn path to Jason’s old room, he raced towards the little light.

It led him down a new path, and just before he caught it, he tipped over the edge into a new room. And when he looked up at the bed, he knew where he was. “Jason?” he whispered.

“Melvo!” Jason said. “I’m so happy to see you. I didn’t know if that would work.”

“What did you do?”

Jason smiled. “I wished on a star. Have I told you about stars yet? They’re pretty amazing.” And Jason told him about stars and gave him a sock with pictures of angry pumpkins. And Melvo was happy.