The Storyteller, Page 2

scales, the baby dragon’s claws clinging tightly to her dress.

  The dragon flew out over the valley, and perched finally on the edge of a high cliff. “Climb down, now,” she said, as softly as something her size could speak. “Wait here. I’ll be back.” When the princess climbed down, the tiny dragon still clinging to her dress, the dragon looked down at them sternly.

  “Do not follow me.”

  The baby dragon huffed, as if it wanted to argue, but the princess wrapped her arms around her friend and they both sat back to wait--and watch.

  Now the princess learned why the dragon was their Kingdom’s greatest friend.

  The dragon flew out over the valley, and each time she dropped down fire streamed out of her mouth. Soon the enemy camp was burning, and the soldiers running into the darkness. By the time she finished, the sun was coming up. The children had fallen asleep on their ledge.

  They never woke when they were gathered up in gentle arms and lifted onto the dragon’s back for the journey back to the palace. The princess dreamed about flying.

  The Storyteller

  A tale of truth and lies and what we really want.

  Once upon a time, in a Kingdom that really isn’t very far away, there lived a little boy. He was a happy little boy, and enjoyed doing so many things that sometimes he would stand in one place and spin in circles just because he couldn’t decide what he wanted to do next.

  One day he tugged at his Mommy’s sleeve and told her that the baby was playing by the river. The river was close to the house and very fast, so his mommy turned around intending to run to the river and save her baby, but there was the baby sitting on the floor behind her.

  He had frightened her--she thought her baby was going to die--but she just hugged the baby in relief and forgot about it.

  The next day, the little boy tugged on his mommy’s sleeve again and told her there was a bear in the yard. Now, a short time ago a bear had come to the village nearby, so his mother ran out to the yard, grabbing a weapon so that she could protect her family, but when she got to the yard there was no bear.

  Inside, the little boy started laughing. “I told a story!” he shouted.

  His mother was very sad. When people tell stories and pretend they’re not stories, they don’t just hurt themselves. What if a bear really did come, and people didn’t believe his warning? What if the baby really was by the river, and died because she fell in the water?

  The little boy’s stories got bigger and wilder. He told visitors to the village that his father was the King. He told the King that the grass in their yard was made of gold. He told his mother that there was a Princess buried under the mountain.

  One day, when he was playing in their yard, he saw someone coming up the road toward their house and ran inside shouting, “Mom, the Queen is coming!” His mother bolted out the door, looking around in panic, and saw an old woman hobbling up the road, leaning on a stick. She moved very slowly.

  “I’ve told you not to lie to me!” His mother turned and went back in the house.

  The little boy stayed where he was as the old woman approached. She stopped just outside the yard and asked him for a drink of water. The little boy got it from the well willingly, and stood silent watching her as she drank.

  He wondered who she was, and why she was on their road. Maybe she was really the Queen, in disguise, come to take him away to be her little boy. But he really didn’t want to be the King’s son. That was just a story.

  She sat down slowly on the fence and asked him his name. “I’m the king’s son,” he claimed loudly, “and someday he’s going to come and take me away.”

  The old woman watched him. “Are you really?”

  “Yes, and someday he’ll come and I’ll live in a palace and have lots of servants.”

  "Would you like that?”

  It sounded boring, and he was about to say so, but somehow the story popped out instead. “Yes, I would. And I’d like to eat desert all the time, as much as I want. A king’s son can do that.”

  “What else?”

  He started again to tell her that he liked where he was, and liked his own family, but the story came out instead. “We have grass in our back yard that grows gold, so we can buy anything we want.”

  “Do you?”

  “And there was a bear in the yard about to eat the baby!”

  “Was there.” The old woman looked at him. “You tell stories a lot. Some of your stories hurt people, or make them scared or angry. From now on,” she waved her hand, “you’ll never be able to tell a lie.”

  He started to tell her that he was the King’s son and he could do anything he wanted, but she was gone. He looked up and down the road, but no one was there.

  He ran inside. He was going to tell his mom that the old woman was the Queen in disguise, but when he opened his mouth nothing came out. His mouth moved, but no sound came out.

  His mom didn’t turn. “Can you set the table, please?”

  He started to say yes, and then he was going to dart out into the yard before she could catch him, but again he opened his mouth and nothing came out!

  It went that way all evening. When he wanted to tell his father that his sister had hit him, without mentioning that he’d been pinching her under the table, his mouth wouldn’t say the words. When he started to say that it had been the baby that smeared the finger paints all over the wall, he was silent.

  By bedtime he was crying. The old woman said he could never tell a lie, but telling stories wasn’t telling lies, was it? He liked telling stories, and it made him feel good when people paid attention.

  When all of the children were asleep he crept out of his room and climbed up on his mother’s lap. He told her everything that had happened, and she hugged him while she listened. “Telling stories doesn’t hurt anyone,” he cried, and his mother smiled.

  “It hurt me when you told me the baby was playing by the river. It hurt me when you said you would rather be the King’s son. It hurt me when I had to go tell the mayor that the river hadn’t really swept your father away. Telling stories can be a good thing, but only when everyone knows it’s a story. Most times, if you can’t tell the whole truth, it’s better to remain silent.”

  The little boy looked up at her. “Will it ever go away?”

  “I don’t know.”

  It didn’t go away. People got used to his odd silences, and he learned to tell the truth.

  Then one day, a carriage pulled up before the house and a woman got out. She was very beautiful, but he recognized her as the old woman who had cursed him, but without the cane or the dirty clothes.

  “I am the King’s Sorceress,” she told him and his parents. “The King doesn’t have an heir, so he sent me around the Kingdom to find the child they need. We thought we had found him, a child intelligent and curious, but the King didn’t want a child who lies.” She looked at the boy.

  “Do you want to go to the castle, and be the King’s son?” She waved her hand and he felt the compulsion to always tell the truth leave him.

  He knew that lies could hurt, now. Truth felt better, anyway, and in this case a lie could take away everything he really wanted. “No. I like it here, with my family.”

  The Sorceress smiled. “Good. If you had lied, I would know you are not the right one. Some day, when you’re old enough, the King will call for you and you’ll have all the servants you want.” Her eyes twinkled at him.

  For once, it was the truth that popped out. “That sounds really boring.”

  The Special Tree

  Does our true worth rely on others, or what others think of us?

  Once upon a time, in a Kingdom far, far away--Well, actually it was a Queendom, but it was very far away--there lived a tree. The tree was very unusual. It stretched twisted limbs along the ground and reached thick branches toward the sky.

  It stood proudly in the palace garden. It knew it was the most beautiful and spe
cial tree in the world, because everyone said it was. And it really was a wonderful tree. It sat (or stood) in the very center of the garden, and there were always guards nearby.

  Except at night. Sometimes at night it would start to wonder if it was really so important, because at night the admiring people went away--even the guards.

  Only the other trees didn’t agree that it was special. They said that the beautiful tree was gnarled and ugly. They stretched straight up toward the sky and laughed at the very proud tree. Every day gardeners visited the other trees, to trim their branches and make them even more beautiful.

  The gardeners never touched the special tree. It didn’t need to be pruned to be beautiful.

  The young princes and princesses cradled into its gnarled and beautiful branches, whispered their deepest secrets to the scarred wood, and the tree knew that it was beautiful.

  But slowly, so slowly that the tree almost didn’t notice, the people stopped coming. The other trees whispered behind their branches and clutched their rare fruit as if expecting that their treasures would vanish as easily.

  And finally the tree stood alone in the palace garden. It didn’t care about the royal marriages and wars that the other trees seemed to think were so important. It wanted to be special again.

  Slowly, it began to remember. The children, their secrets, their hopes and dreams. Thick books were still hidden in the tree’s branches, and play swords from many years ago.

  The tree heard high young voices from its memory, remembered the treasures it still held.