QUEEN RAGGY at Storyberries

The King died, which is sad. But when a king dies, there isn't much time to be too sad because of needing to find a new king to take his place. Normally, that's the king's son, the prince, except this particular king made a slight mistake and died before managing to have any sons. Or daughters, for that matter. Which meant that not only was the king dead, but there was nobody to take his place.

The Chancellor (sort of like the king's assistant) went to the Court Wizard and asked him what was to be done. Unfortunately, the Court Wizard, whose name was Roy, was a fraud. He could no more do magic than an elephant could take up ballet. He'd been faking it for years with simple tricks and illusions and hoping that the day would never come when anyone would need any real magic from him. Now that the day had come, Roy was in trouble.

“I'll need to consult the High Council Of Spirits,” he said. “Go away and come back tomorrow.”

The Chancellor did go away and come back tomorrow, by which time the Court Wizard had come up with something that he thought would pass muster.

“I have consulted the High Council of Spirits,” he said, “and they have delivered to me this prophecy.” So saying, he unfurled a scroll on which he had written nonsense chicken scratch which he pretended was a foreign language only he could understand and recited the following poem:

“Red of hair and blue of eyes,

Never speaks in any tone,

Always stuffed but never eats.

This is the one who must sit on the throne.

And if, a fortnight from this day,

A person like this cannot be found,

Then the person who delivered these words

Is the one who must be given the crown.”

As poems go, it was pretty terrible, but the message was clear. The next ruler of the kingdom would be someone with red hair and blue eyes who never spoke or ate but was, somehow, always “stuffed.” And if someone like that could not be found in a fortnight (that's two weeks) the Wizard himself would have to be made king...which, of course, was the Wizard's plan all along. He figured they'd never find someone like that, so he'd be crowned instead.

Will the Evil not-really-a-wizard succeed in his cunning plan? Find out HERE.