WORDSWORTH AND THE DRAGON
by Scotti Cohn
Copyright Scotti Cohn
 |
| copyright Christina Wald |
It's WORDSWORTH WEDNESDAY!
Chapter 2
A Terrible Crime
Princess
Rho stepped down from her throne. If Wordsworth hadn't known she was a
princess, he would never had guessed it. She didn't wear a crown. She
hated dressing up in fancy clothes with ribbons and jewels. Most of the
time she wore a plain blouse and skirt, with her long hair in a simple
braid down her back.
 |
| preliminary sketch of Princess Rho / copyright 2012 Christina Wald |
"Something strange is going on," Wordsworth said. "Nobody is able to say the letter, by itself or as part of any word."
"The Royal Alphabet is mysterious," said Princess Rho. "Remember how it was made?"
Wordsworth
nodded. He had heard the story many times. In the beginning, the people
of Atoz had not talked to each other with words. They had growled and
grunted like animals. Then one night, their king had a dream in which he
saw 26 different shapes floating in the air. When he woke up, he began
to carve the shapes out of huge blocks of wood. He made each carving as
high as his waist and as wide as his shoulders.
After
the king had finished several carvings, he noticed something odd:
People were making sounds they had not made before. Not only that, they
were putting the sounds together to make words. By the time the king was
done with all 26 shapes, the people were speaking and writing in
sentences. Everyone agreed that the Royal Alphabet was magic, and that
it must be locked up and guarded at all times.
"Too
bad you don't know how to fly like those birds you're always drawing,"
said Wordsworth. "From up in the sky you would be able to see more than
we see down here."
Princess Rho smiled. "Yes, it's too bad, isn't it?"
"We've got to find the thief and make him return the letter!" declared Wordsworth. "I'm going to get my sword!"
"And
I'm going to go find Mama and let her know what's going on," said
Princess Rho. "She was taking a bath when the bells started ringing."
The
entire palace was in an uproar. Lords and ladies scurried along the
corridors as the great iron bells in the tower clanged. Wordsworth ran
up the winding stairs to his room and grabbed his wooden practice sword.
Out the window he saw knights on prancing warhorses gallop into the
courtyard. In his hurry to join them, he crashed into the castle
librarian, Lord Reading.
"A
terrible rime has been ommitted!" the librarian wailed, waving a large
book in the air. "Look at this poem!" He opened the book and turned it
so Wordsworth could see.
Wordsworth didn't want to be rude, so he read the verse quickly to himself.
O let us walk beside the reek
My harming lass with rosy heek.
We'll sit beneath a herry tree
And feast on rakers, plums, and tea.
Most of it made sense to Wordsworth, but some of it didn't. He knew the last word in the first line should be creek. Harming was supposed to be charming. Lord Reading turned the book back toward himself and read the next verse out loud:
"While hipmunks samper through the dale
We'll linger till the sun grows pale
To hear the hirping rikets praise
The simple harms of summer days."
The
words sounded so silly to Wordsworth without the letter "C," he had to
press his lips together to keep from laughing. Then he thought of
something that wasn't funny at all: If the letter "C" was missing from
books, how would he read his favorite stories about knights and dragons?
It would take him forever to get through one page!
"Ruined! All ruined!" Lord Reading wailed. He dashed down the hall, waving the book in the air.
Wordsworth
raced in the other direction. He was almost at the bottom of the
winding stairs when he collided with Crump, the kitchen boy.
"Help
me!" Crump cried, shoving a piece of paper under Wordsworth's nose. "I
have to go to the market and get everything on this list. Only I don't
understand what it says!"
Wordsworth sighed. At this rate, he would never get to the courtyard to join the knights. He stared at Crump's list:
- arrots
- hikens
- elery
- orn
- heese
- brooli
"Well, that first one is, you know, those long orange vegetables that you pull from the ground," he told Crump.
Crump nodded. "Oh, aye, that's what it is. I see now."
Wordsworth
described each item on the list as quickly as he could. The last one
was the hardest, until he finally realized it must be broccoli.
"Thank you!" the kitchen boy said.
"You're welcome, Rump," said Wordsworth.
Crump gave him a funny look.
"Sorry," Wordsworth mumbled.
He
dashed down the remaining steps and out into the courtyard. Sir Clooney
was nowhere in sight, and Wordsworth did not see a single knight.
"They've gone to hunt for the thief," said a voice. It was Phrasia, one of the palace maids.
Wordsworth's hopes sank. "I thought maybe one of them would let me ride with him."
"It
is an awful thing, the letter being stolen," Phrasia said, leaning on
her broom. "We keep trying to say words with that letter in them, but we
an't."
Wordsworth laughed in spite of himself. "No," he agreed, "we an't."
"Who do you think took it?" Phrasia asked.
"Well,
it would have to be somebody very strong," said Wordsworth, trying to
sound important and smart. "And I don’t see how they would get all the
way up to..." Suddenly an idea came to him. It was so obvious, he
couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before. "A dragon," he said. "I
think a dragon must have done it."
Phrasia's eyebrows went up. "A dragon?"
"Yes,"
said Wordsworth. "Dragons fly, so it would be easy for them to get up
to the window. And a dragon is strong enough to bend the bars. He would
take the letter out through the window and arry it away."
"Hmmm," said Phrasia. "You may be right."
Wordsworth was surprised. He had never talked to anyone who believed there were still dragons in Atoz. He waited.
"I
live on the edge of the Forest of Spells," Phrasia continued, "and from
time to time I see strange traks -- large traks made by an animal with
four long toes with sharp laws on the end."
Laws? thought Wordsworth. It took him a second to figure out what she meant.
"Those
sound like dragon traks," Wordsworth said. He raised his wooden sword.
"I'm in training to be a knight. I know how to fight dragons."
Phrasia nodded. "I'll show you where I found the traks."
