THE PRINCESS

Petra curtsied to the king and queen of Pen Pieyu, who sat upon their thrones. “Father tomorrow is the ninth day of the ninth year.”

“Yes, my dear princess, it is your royal birthday. And according to royal custom, you may have anything your heart desires, as promised,” declared King Longstride.

“I have thought hard and for many passing moons. Jewels, frocks of lace, and princess games have become boring. The thing I want the most . . .” Petra hesitated and bit on her lip. “I want to be a royal knight.”

“A knight!” The king stood up and seemed to turn pale. The queen swiped her hand over her forehead and moaned. The king’s councilman got so excited he ran around in circles until he bumped into a royal pillar.

“Why, never have I heard such a request,” the king said, pacing and scratching his grey beard.“You are a princess . . . a girl. You must be big and brave and mean and nasty to be a royal knight.”

“Where is it written that a girl cannot be a knight and protect her kingdom?” Petra demanded.

The councilman urgently flipped through the royal rulebook. “It does not say so, Your Majesty. There is no rule.”

The king grinned and gave a quick wink to the woozy-looking queen. “To become a knight of my kingdom, you must choose an act of bravery from the royal list of deeds,” the king proclaimed, turning the page of the royal rulebook. “The choices are: to capture a crocodile and make his skin into a royal leather chair; to hush that howling, nasty dragon, Snarls, in the Forest of Doom; or to eat a roomful of raw onions.”

Petra peeked into the royal onion room. All nine of the palace soldiers were crying and munching away. The princess wrinkled up her nose. “Yuck, I will never eat onions! And the only crocodile I know lives in the moat and is my friend. I have no choice. I will hush the howling dragon, Snarls, in the Forest of Doom,” she announced. Promptly the queen fainted, and the king plopped down on his ragged,leather royal chair. “But I will take a sack of onions with me,” Petra added.

The royal chef grumbled while he outfitted the princess with a suit of his best royal pots and pans, because the regular armour turned out to be much too large. And her sword seemed to resemble one of the royal cake knives.

Petra clunked out of the palace. “Goodbye, and don’t worry. I will throw onions at the beast until he cries. Then I will stab him with my sword. See, I can be a nasty, big meany.”

For more information on the award winning children’s books, The Pen Pieyu Adventures: dragon books for children, fantasy kids books, visit the Author’s Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Diane-Mae-Robinson/e/B007DKO8SK/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1447609615&sr=8-1