Drewvia stopped and licked her lips. Then she whispered, “Here, kitty, kitty.”
The tiger now stopped and licked its own lips. “Good kitty,” said Drewvia, a little more loudly. “Come on. Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.”
The tiger frowned. “Dear little kitty,” said the princess. “I like kitties. I won’t hurt you.”
She walked right up to the tiger and started to stroke its whiskers, where were as soft and pettable as steel spikes. “You want me to walk with you, so nobody hurts you?” she asked. “Okay. Come on.”
The tiger shook its head, but turned and walked with her through the woods.
They strolled through the night-shaded forest until they met a second tiger, so big that the first tiger could have stood on its back, at least until the second tiger got hungry.
“Ooooh, another kitty!” squealed the princess. “Is this your friend? Here, kitty, kitty! Such a pretty kitty! Oh, you’re so cute and teeny I could just hug you to smithereens!”
The second tiger scowled at the first tiger. “How come you didn’t eat this person, so I wouldn’t have to listen to it?”
“Don’t you remember?” growled the first tiger. “Crazy people disagree with me. Last time I ate a crazy person I got hiccups.”
“Oh, same with me!” exclaimed the second tiger. “I hiccuped so hard I thought my tripes would fall off!”
“And a tiger without stripes is just an orange pussycat,” said the first tiger.
“Can you walk with me too?”Drewvia inquired. “Oh, goody. Kittens so teeny shouldn’t be out alone at night anyway.”
The two tigers escorted her through the woods, each staying as far from her as possible. Drewvia continued to tell them how cute and fuzzy and, especially, how little they were.
Just as the faintest light of morning was showing, they stepped out at the far end of the forest. Here stood a tiger with teeth that dripped red. It was so big that both the other tigers could have stood on its back, and it could have eaten them whole without even being hungry.
Drewvia shuddered. “Oh, how sweet!” she cried.
“Not hungry?” the third tiger asked the others. “Or are you saving her for brunch?”
“No, no,” said the second tiger. “Hiccups, you see.”
“Oh!” The tiger looked Drewvia over with eyes that seemed to bite down.
“You,” she told him, holding back screams, “”Are the sweetest, dearest little kitty of them all! I wish I had brought a rocking chair along so I could take you in my lap right now!”
“Are you sure this is a crazy person, and not just a silly one?” the third tiger asked them. “I haven’t had a silly person with whipped cream and a cherry in simply ages.”
“We could ask the boss,” suggested the first tiger, as the princess came up and ruffled the fur under the third tiger’s chin.
“He might eat her himself,” said the second tiger. “And when he gets hiccups he can be really mean.”
“We could ask him after he finishes breakfast,” the first tiger replied. “He might not be so hungry.”
The third tiger checked out the sunrise. “Say, it is almost breakfast time, isn’t it?” he said, stepping back from Drewvia, who was standing on tiptoe to pat his nose. “Maybe if we take this person to him, he’ll give us some of his breakfast.”
So the four of them strolled down the hill, Drewvia skipping a bit and singing a little song. They did not have to go far before she saw the brightly colored roofs of a small village. Beyond that rose a tall, square building which Drewvia assumed would be the giant’s castle. As they got closer, though, she spied a tall, pointed castle beyond this. She had paid no attention to it at first because she had assumed it was a mountain.
“Is, er, the giant as cute and little as you are?” she asked the tigers.
The tigers just grumbled “Hiccups” and marched on.
Drewvia looked down into the village. The sun was only just barely over the horizon, but people were hurrying to and fro. Running along shiny white streets among green lawns were villagers in bright clothes. Many of them were skipping on the way, carrying shiny tin noisemakers and chains of buttercups. One small boy stopped skipping and sat down. His mother shook her pompons at him, so he got up and skipped some more.
As they drew nearer, Drewvia could hear the people singing a cheerful little song which seemed to consist primarily of the words “Lily-lily lime lime. Lily-lily lime lime.”
This did not suit Drewvia’s idea of what a village right next to a giant’s castle would be like. “Hmmmm.” She paused to consider the flags and streamers hung on one cottage. “Maybe he’s not such a bad giant after all.”
A man in a brilliant top hat, its sequins glinting in the light of the rising sun, turned to stare at her. “You aren’t singing!” He turned to a woman wearing a dress made of painted ping pong balls. “Why isn’t she singing? Is she from your neighborhood?”
“Crazy person,” growled the first tiger. “Get out of the way.”
The singing people made a wide path for the tigers to walk through. Drewvia turned to the man in the top hat and said, “I’m from out of town. I don’t know about your ways. Do you get to pet the kitties if you sing?”
“Out of town!” The man jumped so far back his hat nearly fell off.
“Out of town?” repeated the woman in the ping pong ball dress. “Why would anybody lucky enough to live somewhere else come here?”
“Well, it looks like a very nice place,” said the princess, waving a hand at a bunch of brightly colored ballons which floated next to a chimney with a smiling face painted on it.
“Well, of course!” said a woman in a fuzzy bunny suit. “The….” She glanced at the tigers, who licked their lips. “We have orders to look nice,” she went on, her voice quitter. “He says he hates unhappy food.”
“Food!”
“Oh yes,” said the man with the hat. “This morning eight of us will be chosen to be baked into pizza for his breakfast. He says nothing is worse than ugly, unhappy pizza.”
“Pizza,” purred the third tiger, licking its lips again.
“We’ll get some crusts,” said the second tiger, looking over the princess, though she felt she looked nothing like a crust.
“We wish we could dress in rags and be grumpy,” sighed the woman in the bunny suit.
“But if we don’t do exactly as he says, why, he’ll come down and kick our whole village to pieces more quickly than a cat could kiss an egg. Or something.” The woman in the ping pong ball dress pointed to a wagon Drewvia had seen before, only now it was filled with coal, and pulled by a dozen straining horses.
“The ovens heating right now,” she said. She forgot to smile for a moment, but when the tigers growled, she grinned. “We don’t have any idea how he can afford to buy so muc fuel. But somebody keeps sending him loads of gold.”
“I heard it come from a country where all the people eat people,” said a little girl wearing dozens of silver rings. “And they’re buying recipes from the giant.”
Smoke rose from the big square building at the end of the village. Drewvia thought she could feel the heat. “Is that his oven?”
“Yes,” said the man, “And we’d better all get in line to see who gets to be in the pizza.” He laughed in a merry way as the first tiger moved a little closer to him. “I know I’m going to be chosen. What can you expect when your name is Paul Pepperoni?”
The princess looked from the oven to the castle. “The giant makes you act happy before he cooks you?”
“Why, we have to set off fireworks when he has dessert!” laughed a man dressed all in feathers.
“And you would rather not be eaten?”
Everyone stared at her. “Crazy person,” said the first tiger.
Drewvia marched up to the oven and told the man at the front door, “Don’t cook the pizza just yet, please. I’m going to the castle to talk to the giant.”
The man looked from the tigers to Drewvia. “Well, that’s good of you, Miss,” he told her. “But I don’t believe you’d fill him up enough to make up for a whole pizza.”
Drewvia raised ger chin. “I am a princess and I do not desire that he should breakfast on me.” With that she started up toward the castle, the tigers stalking along behind her.
The people stared as she proceeded up the wide road. “Do you think she’s from the land where they have all the gold?” whispered a lady dressed like a sunflower. “Is she going to eat up the giant?”
“I know,” said the man with the tall hat. “She’s from the land where he gets the coal. He’s late with his payments, and she’s going to take his tigers and oven as payment.”
They watched the princess go right up to the castle door, and go inside with the tigers at her heels. “No,” said the woman with the ping pong balls, “She’s crazy, the way the tigers said.”
“The only way to find out,” said the man with the hat, “Is go and see.” The people of the village moved up the road, slowly, ready to turn and run back to get into the pizza if the giant came out looking angry.
Drewvia, meanwhile, was standing just inside the front door of the giant’s castle, looking down the hallway at the giant, who was at the other end. She stroked the first tiger some more, trying to feel good about how well her plan had worked this far.
Drewvia had known all along that this was going to be a big giant, because giants were supposed to be big. That was what they did for a living. And she had heard all her life that this particular giant was eight times as big as a tree.
What no one had ever told her was how big a tree.
The giant could probably have set his chin on the sill of her bedroom window, and she lived in one of the tallest towers. He was like a thundercloud on legs, with a curly black beard down to his waist and curly black hair down to his shoulders. Somewhere in the midst of this hair she could see mean little black eyes glittering. She very nearly turned around and ran. But there were tigers.
For his part, the giant was also a little bit surprised, though he showed no signs of running. That was why he didn’t snatch the princess up and gulp her down then and there. “Snatch and eat” was his general rule about unexpected visitors. But she surprised him. She didn’t seem at all frightened, and his tigers were keeping away from her. Sometimes these humans could be dangerous even when they didn’t look it. The giant had once had trouble with a knight, and had a scar on his little finger to show for it.
So he decided to act friendly now, and roar later. This always looked better than roaring first and then trying to act friendly when the visitor turned out to be dangerous.
“Well, well, well, welcome!” he boomed, his friendly bellow nearly knocking over Drewvia and the tigers as well. “Who is this who comes strolling not the home and castle of Abfrain the Admirable?”
“Crazy person, boss,” said the third tiger.
“Ah,” said the giant. “Hiccups, eh?”
“Not at all,” said Drewvia, trying to talk loudly enough to be heard but look dignified at the same time. “I am a princess.”
“Princesses,” aid the second tiger. “Crazy people. Same thing, really.”
“Princesses don’t gibe hiccups,” said the giant. “Is this just a social call, or did you come on business? Or maybe you came for breakfast. I’d gladly invite you to my table.”
The tigers snickered. “I am Princess Drewvia of Costren,” she said. “You have not visited us since I was very small, and I wished to see if you were as big a giant as everyone says.”
“Ho ho!” The giant leaned down to get a better look at her. “Isn’t it nice that the last thing you’ll ever see is something this grand! Am I so big then?”
“Well,” Drewvia replied, trying not to look at his teeth when he smiled, “Not really, no. Why, you’re not even as big as I am.”
The giant scowled, curly black eyebrows bumping into each other above his nose. “You’re down there so far that maybe I don’t hear you so well. Say that again?”
Drewvia wrinkled her nose. “You’re not so very much of a giant You’re not even as big as I am!”
The giant stood up straight again. “That’s what I thought you said. So I don’t need to have my ears dewaxed after all. I wonder if I couldn’t eat a crazy person just once.”
“Last time,” the first tiger said, “You hiccupped all the oranges off the trees to the south.”
“What’s the matter?” Drewvia demanded.
The giant laughed. “Princess, you are the most amusing breakfast I’ve seen since the Wicked Witch of the Midwest rolled pumpkins into my mouth!”
Drewvia sniffed. “Laughing proves nothing. Let’s ask the people in the village to judge the matter. Whoever impresses them more must be bigger.”
“Very well, let’s make a game of it.” The giant bowed to the princess. “What are the stakes? What shall we win?”
The princess set a finger in the center of her chin. “Oh, what could I use? Let’s not make it your castle: there isn’t room for it at home. Let’s say I’ll win your dirty old coal wagon.”
“Ha!” thought the giant. “She wants to keep me from collecting her father’s gold, eh? But if worse came to worst, I can buy a new wagon, and a bigger one, too.”
Out loud, he said, “Good enough. And if I win, I shall take something just as worthless. Your head, perhaps.”
Drewvia nodded agreement. “Fair enough. Now let us see what the people from the village have to say.”
“I’ll start first, shall I? Your legs are so much longer than mine I’ll need a head start.” The giant laughed again, and the tigers laughed with him.
The sound made Drewvia quiver, but she said, “Do so. I have to use my magic first.”
The tigers stopped laughing So did the giant. “What’s this? You said nothing about magic!”
“Neither did you,” Drewvia told him. “So there’s no rule against it. I shall use this magic potion to make myself twice as big. You may, of course, use your magic too, of course.” She curtsied to him. She had forgotten to ask George if the giant had any magic of his own. It was too late to do anything about that ow.
“Twice as big?” said Abfrain the Admirable.
“Yes,” she said, taking the bottle from her pocket. “But if you think that will frighten you, you may have a drink as well.” She held the bottle out to him.
“No, thank you,” said the giant. “I don’t feel like magic today. Ho ho.” A princess would make a much better breakfast at twice her size, which would make her almost as big as his butter knife. “Use your big, big magic.”
Drewvia had hoped the giant would grab the bottle, drink it, and explode. But, she supposed, that would have been too easy. She shrugged, and sprinkled the potion all over herself.
Her skin felt as if ants danced on it. Her clothes stretched and swelled as she did. The castle’s front hall didn’t seem quite so long, and the tigers were a little smaller as well. Only the giant was still towering above her.
“Well, sausage, that makes you look much more appetizing,” he said.
“Can we have a drumstick?” asked the third tiger.
Drewvia said nothing at all, but turned to walk to the castle door. “I’ll be with you in a moment,” the giant called. “I like to have a glass of orange juice with my breakfast.”
Ignoring him, she stepped out through the door. She looked down at the villagers, who looked up at her.
“Is that the princess?”
“But she’s huge!”
“Habe you ever seen such a big princess?”
The giant stepped out through the door, holding a tall glass of orange juice. He took a deep drink before turning his eyes toward the villagers.
“She must be a Grade A princess!”
“Can a princess be king-sized?”
“I hope she’s not mad at us for calling her crazy!”
The giant cleared his throat. No one looked at him. They had seen the giant thousands of times, but they had seen the princess only once before, when she was half this tall.
“She is really huge!”
“I hope she’s had breakfast!”
“Don’t tell me we’ll have to feed two creatures that size!”
“What’s going on here?” roared the giant, his voice blowing numerous hats to the ground.
Drewvia turned her face up to smile at him. “It certainly sounds as if I’m the one who impresses them!”
The giant stared at her. Then he threw his head back and released a booming laugh that shook pennants and banners way down in the village. “Ah, what a fine joke, coming from a breakfast!” He leaned down at her. “And what will you do, oh big, big princess, if I bite off your head all the same?”
“Well, it’s the only head I have. Still, this is your castle and you make the rules.” Drewvia shook a finger at him. “But first, at least admit that I won the contest.”
“I bow to your neat trick.” The giant laughed again. “Very well, if it will make you happy, you won and I lost.”
This did make Drewvia happy. She spun three times and shouted “Scooper Drooper!” Then she added. “You’re a…a little bitty puppy!”
The glass of orange juice dropped with a crash. The villagers stared as the massive giant shrank into a little ball of black curly fur and splashed around in the orange pond.
“We’ll get breakfast, anyhow,” said the first tiger, stepping toward the puddle.
“Will one puppy be enough for all of us?” asked the third tiger.
The puppy certainly thought so. Snarling “This is all YOUR fault!” he leapt from the orange juice and plunged straight at the tigers. The tigers had never seen a dog like this before and, remembering how tough their boss had been, turned tail and ran. The dog ran after them, trailing orange juice all the way.
“Look at the fierce dog!” cried the villagers. “He’s an orange juice hound! He’s a puddle puppy!”
And so Abfrain the Admirable, quite against his will, became the very first puddle dog, or poodle as we call them today.
Drewvia stayed in the village for breakfast. Everyone ate smaller pizzas without any people cooked into them. The princess had time to finish an extra large with double cheese before the potion wore off and she shrank back to her original size. Then she strolled home through a forest that had no more tigers in it.
People were, of course, throwing coins at her sister when she got home. She put her hands to her mouth and shouted, “You don’t have to do that any more! The giant’s gone!”
People close enough to hear her cheered. “What did she say?” demanded Princess Tinabula, leaning forward. “What about the giant?”
But by now so many people were cheering that Tinabula couldn’t hear a thing. She tried to stand up on the silver chair to find out what was going on, but she was wearing her glass slippers, and her foot slipped.
“Is she all right?” demanded Drewvia, running up to the money pit.
“She’s spoiled the game that’s all,” said a bearded man, as Tinabula sat up. “Look at all the coins touching her dress! We can’t ALL marry her!”
“That doesn’t count!” Tinabula shouted.
But the king said it DID count. “Our rules were that anyone whose coin touches the princess’s dress gets to marry her (or nominate someone from their family to do so). They say nothing about where she must be during the game when the coin touches her.”
The ling was correct, and so was the man with the beard. Tinabula couldn’t marry every single person whose coin she’d landed on, and once the coin had been thrown, there was no telling whose coin was whose in any case. So when the grand banquet was held to celebrate the passing of Abfrain the Admirable, everyone who had thrown a coin that day was given a little card to fill in. These cards were tossed in a barrel. Tinabula, the king decreed. Should marry the person whose name was on the first card drawn from the barrel.
“And Princess Drewvua,” he went on, “Because she defeated the giant all by herself, shall have the honor of drawing the card.”
Everyone within sixteen miles of the castles was at the banquet, and each of them danced and ate and had a loud good time. But all stood silent when trumpets sounded and Drewvia stepped up to the barrel. Pulling back one sleeve, she plunged a hand deep into the heap of cards, greatly disappointing those who had tried to make sure their cards would be on top. She brought up a single card, read it, and then passed it to her sister, to read aloud.
“Latari of Golgo!” Princess Tinabula called.
Latari was a muscular young bagpipe player with red hair. Flushed with excitement, he pushed through the crowd to step up and hold Princess Tinabula’s hand. Drewvia slipped the card from her sister’s other hand, and tossed it in the fire before anyone else could see it.
“Now that the giant is gone,” the king announced, “There is no need for a princess to sit on the shimmering bridge. We can fill in the pit….”
The crowd groaned. “Oh no!” shouted a man who had had a great deal of wine. “What about the game!”
“We want our game!” called a woman in the crowd. “Hooray for the princess and down with the giant, but let us keep playing every day!”
“You could still have a game,” Latari murmured to his future father-in-law. “That way there’d still be money to build libraries and bridges.”
“But not with a princess as a prize,” said Drewvia, quickly. “You’ll run out of princesses. Why not put a big bag of money up there instead?”
The new game of throwing money at money was introduced to celebrate the big wedding, and was named after the groom. So everyone had a share in the happy ending: Tinabula because she was the star of a grand ceremony, Drewvia because she would not have to be anyone’s first prize, and the people of Costren because they could play their splendid Latari.
Blogsy Babbles 