Bethjoy.com

Princess Gwendolyn and Mildred looked around them. Though they had had an excellent ariel view of their surroundings they had not paid attention to that particular part of the castle onto which they had been dropped. The turret was round and encircled a tower which stuck up for two stories higher than the level on which the turret they stood was on. After walking all of the way around it they saw that there was only one door that led into the tower and as Mildred pointed out, that was probably the only safe way off the turret as the height they were off the ground below made jumping perilous.

They tried to open the door, pulling as hard they could on the door knob, but it simply wouldn’t open. Finally Princess Gwendolyn, who was tired by the exertion leaned against the door which immediately opened so rapidly that Mildred, whose hand was still on the door knob trying to open it, also fell inwards.

As the two stood up Mildred began blaming herself for not noticing that they couldn’t see any hinges on that side of the door which meant that the hinges must be on the other side since doors always(or at least they should) open inwards into the side that has the hinges on it. Princess Gwendolyn assumed that this must be another of the half forgotten theories mentioned by the scientists at the court of Mildred’s father that Mildred had heard at some point or other but usually didn’t pay attention to unless she needed to.

They were now faced with a staircase and Princess Gwendolyn was very glad it was not a ferocious bulldog. For one thing it is very difficult to climb a ferocious bull dog and for another thing a ferocious bulldog has a higher chance of biting you than a staircase has.

“Shall we go up or down?” Mildred said as it was plain that one could not go far if one tired going forwards or sideways.

“Down.” Princess Gwendolyn said after giving the matter careful consideration. As her decision implied, she wanted to get back home as soon as possible and assumed that the sooner they went down the closer they would be to the beach and the sea and possibly any boats that were nearby.

But it was a poor choice for they had not been climbing the stairs down for more than two hours without seeing a door or passage when they encountered a fence across the way and on the other side of it were eighteen sleeping bulldogs who looked as though when they were not sleeping bulldogs they were ferocious growling bulldogs who wanted to be eating bulldogs and since Mildred gave a shriek of surprise and horror when she saw them all eighteen of the sleeping bulldogs woke up simultaneously and became eighteen growling, howling, and barking bulldogs.

Princess Gwendolyn and Mildred were so frightened that they ran straight back up the stairs and an hour and a half later they reached where the parapet they had been standing on was quite out of breath and very flustered and both sat down on the stairs near the open door and attempted to catch their breath.

Due to the distance they had traversed this was no easy matter and it was more of a case of their breath catching them up as their catching it for they both felt as though they had left behind on the stairs quite some distance back.

After sitting for a while Mildred was able to do some contemplating and at last arrived at a conclusion which she mentioned to her cousin by saying “I suppose we should go up the stairs.”

“Yes, We probably should.” Princess Gwendolyn said rather calmly and a minute later the two got to their feet and began climbing the stairs.

They had not been walking up long when the arrived at a landing that had a door on the other end of it. The approached and Princess Gwendolyn asked Mildred, “Which side of the door do you think the hinges are on?” for once she learned something Princess Gwendolyn usually applied it when needed.

“They’re on our side.” Mildred said after carefully examining the door.

“Then we should pull and not push.” Princess Gwendolyn said and prepared to do so.

“I just remembered!” Mildred said, sounding extremely excited as she spoke.

“Remembered what?” Princess Gwendolyn replied wondering what it could be.

“Water doesn’t like to be compressed!” Mildred said in the same excited tones while Princess Gwendolyn stared at her in amazement. “That’s why falling on from a great height could kill you.” Mildred continued and then she beamed with delight and having remembered this.

Princess Gwendolyn didn’t say anything. She opened the door instead and once they did so they knew that they were not in Kansas, though indeed, they had never been to Kansas and I don’t know where Kansas came from though actually I do, sort of. Or at least I know that Kansas is a state in the midwest of the United States and it isn’t the most exciting place in the world except maybe when cyclones come around.

Inside the room that they know saw were three persons. The first and foremost of them was what both Mildred and Princess Gwendolyn thought that a fairy godmother should look like and the other two persons, well we shan’t get to them quite yet but they were what Princess Gwendolyn and Mildred respectively thought of when they thought of two words that went together well. One word stars with P and the other starts with H if you would like a hint.

“Welcome! I’m gad you’ve got here at last.” The fairy godmother looking woman said, pleasantly “I was expecting you four hours ago!”

“I am sorry to have kept you waiting.’ Princess Gwendolyn said in her softest, most charming princess like tones that she could manage and though she spoke the fairy godmother looking sort of person she looked ever so slightly at the person who stood on the woman’s right.

“Me too.” Mildred attempted to say gracefully and she smiled at the person who stood on the fairy godmother looking woman’s left, though she also had a smile for that lady as well.

“Well, you are here now.” the fairy godmother looking woman said, and nobody debated with her on the subject, “And now I’m here to tell you that I am your fairy godmother!”

“Which one of us?” Mildred said, for she expected Princess Gwendolyn to have a fairy godmother but she did not expect to have one herself.

“Why both of you of course!” their fairy godmother said, “And I have been specially sent here for a very important reason which perhaps I should mention. You see, several days ago Elizabeth Joy Von Fange started writing a story and she decided, at her brother’s advice, to post it up on the website in serial form as she wrote it. However due to doing many other things there came a time when there had not been another installment written for two days or more and she did not wish and desire to further write on the story and yet she did not want it to never have a conclusion so she ultimately decided to send for me.”

Princess Gwendolyn and Mildred had been paying strict attention while the fairy godmother spoke but Mildred couldn’t help interrupting here, “But what has this to do with us?”

“Well,” their fairy godmother continued, “You two happen to be the heroines of the story Elizabeth Joy Von Fange was writing and she has decided to finish your story in this installment of it.”

Mildred was surprised but Princess Gwendolyn looked pleased. From what she had heard of Elizabeth Joy Von Fange she was not the sort of person to have a story end unhappily and was one to have it end happily ever after and the prospect of not having to find her own way out of the castle and off the island and not have to go on any bothersome adventures seemed very pleasant.

“So, she told me to make sure that the two of you lived happily ever after. And now I would like to introduce you too…” And here she promptly introduced Princess Gwendolyn to the very Handsome Prince(I hope I fooled you back there with saying the the words started with P and H:)) who stood on her right and as these two smiled at each other and felt quite sure that the would live happily ever after the fairy godmother introduced Mildred to the handsome princess who stood on her left.

Mildred smiled sweetly and said, “Do you like tournaments?”

“Oh yes,” he replied, “I enjoy competing in them.”

“I enjoy watching them.” Mildred said, and she smiled and he smiled and then he kissed her and then she smiled some more and then since I’m not sure this story should get any more romantic than that the fairy godmother promptly said,

“Now just tap the heels of your ruby slippers together three times while saying “There’s no place like home” and you will be taken back to your home.”

Mildred quickly stuck her foot out from underneath her dress to see if, in addition to a handsome prince she had gotten a pair of ruby slippers as well but apparently she hadn’t for her slippers, though quite pretty, were definitely not made of ruby. Mildred sighed and Princess Gwendolyn, who had far less hurriedly and much less obviously had checked and found that she was the one wearing the ruby slippers promptly and gracefully clicked the heels together three times while saying demurely, “There’s no place like home.”

In an instant the four of them, not the fairy godmother, were back in Princess Gwendolyn’s father’s castle and everyone was very glad to see them and on Princess Gwendolyn’s birthday their was a double wedding where two noble ladies of the court got married since Princess Gwendolyn was so happy with her own marriage, which had taken place within an hour of her arrival home, that the idea of getting married was quite contagious and the amount of weddings doubled in the next week to what the number had been the previous week. Mildred of course also got married to her handsome prince and they, like everybody else in the story, lived happily ever after. Even the eighteen bulldogs lived happily ever after for they were frequently fed and frequently payed attention too and one of the scientist at Mildred’s fathers court invented a device called a laser which created a red dot which could be placed almost anywhere and which dogs and especially cats, loved to chase around and this was used, at a safe distance of course, to give the eighteen bulldogs something to chase around while not endangering the life or limbs of anyone who wished to play with them.

So I think I’ll end this story now. Thanks for reading it and I hope you enjoy it. I may post another serial on here at some point but I probably won’t do it again unless I have the whole story already written out. It’s just a little too stressful for me to do a serial where I have to write the serial part I’m posting everyday and I suppose since I’ve said this is the end of the story I’d better end the story now. THE END

(oh, and if you want to go back and read the other installments here they are)
Episodes One and Two
Episode Three
Episode Four
And this is Episode Five and I’m not going to put a link to it since you are already here.