Andy Stanton - Natboff! One Million Years of Stupidity

‘I’ve done it again,’ laughed the Gypsy

King. ‘All the legends about me were true, I live in the gardens and I snatch up spaniels and do what I like.’

‘I hate you,’ said Princess Snowflake,

throwing herself to the ground and weeping hot, bitter tears that melted the snow all around her. ‘What do you want with Gooseberry? He is

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only a spaniel and part-time furniture salesman!

But he means more to me than all my riches

put together! Please, please! I will give you all

the land of the town – from the Lamonic River

to Boaster’s Hill! From the Stone Table to the

Forest of Runtus! From the meanest hovel to

the Winter Palace itself – it will all be yours,

if you will only return Gooseberry to me, you

unbearable devil!’

But the Gypsy King merely laughed and

put Gooseberry’s face to his lips. Then he kissed

Gooseberry’s little face, once, twice, three times!

And all at once Gooseberry was gone. But around

the Gypsy King’s neck hung a chain that hadn’t

been there a moment before. From the chain

dangled a single glass bead, and inside the glass

bead, tiny as a fingernail, was poor Gooseberry.

‘That was a bit uncalled-for,’ said Princess

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Snowflake indignantly.

But the Gypsy

King merely threw

back his head

and laughed

once more.

‘HA HAHAAHA AHA AHA HAAH

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laughed the Gypsy King.

Actually the Gypsy King laughed quite a lot

more than that, I only wrote a tiny bit of it. All

told, he stood there laughing for over six hours,

and Princess Snowflake could do nothing but

look on helplessly, because she kept thinking,

Surely it’s got to end soon, no one can laugh for

this long, I’ll say something to him in a minute.

When he’s stopped laughing.

But it just went on

and on.

Eventually, just as Princess Snowflake had

made up her mind that enough was enough

and she was about to tell him off for laughing

so much and wasting paper, the Gypsy King

turned, his cloak sweeping out behind him –

and in a flash he had vanished, just as if he had

never been there at all.

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Poor Princess Snowflake. She was so distraught

that as soon as she got back to the Winter Palace,

she took to her icy bed and lay there with her

face buried in the pillow, and none of the kindly

old witches could rouse her. All that evening

they knocked upon her chamber door, singing:

Let us

in,

let us

in

Princess, dearie,

let us

in

For tho’ this

life is full of sin

And trouble,

Princess, dearie,

let us in

But Princess Snowflake cried, ‘Leave me to my sorrows! Begone from my chamber door!’

That night she dreamed a terrible dream. The

Gypsy King was standing on a black rock amidst

a great lake of fire, untroubled by the flames that

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licked at his boots and laughing with pure scorn.

All about fell thousands and thousands of glass

snowflakes, and in each one Princess Snowflake

saw Gooseberry’s unhappy face. But when she

tried to catch one of the snowflakes it slipped

through her fingers like sand.

‘HA HA AHA HAHAHHAHA!’ laughed

the Gypsy King. ‘You will never get your little

dog back, unless you know the thing that I am

most afraid of in the world!’

The next evening, the kindly old witches

came again to Princess Snowflake’s door, singing:

Let us in,

let us in

Princess,

darling,

let us in

For we are

here to

help in times

Of trouble

Princess,

darling,

let us in

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But again Princess Snowflake cried,

‘Begone from my chamber door! Leave me to my miseries!’

Once more she fell into a troubled sleep, and once more she dreamed of the Gypsy King, standing on his black rock amidst the lake of fire. And once more he laughed and said, ‘You will never know the thing I am most afraid of in the world! Someone like you could never know that!’

On the third evening the witches came again to Princess Snowflake’s door, singing:

Let us

in,

let us in

Princess,

sweetheart,

let us in

For when the

going’s hard

And full of

trouble –

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But this time Princess Snowflake flung the door open wide and she fell to her knees sobbing and begging for forgiveness.

‘I told you she’d open the door on the third night,’ whispered one of the witches at the back. ‘Things always happen in threes in fairy tales. That’s a fiver you owe me, Liz.’

‘So you do have need of our help after all?’ asked the leader of the kindly old witches, who was called Cobwep, because her parents hadn’t known how to spell ‘Cobweb’.

‘Yes, yes!’ sobbed Princess Snowflake. ‘I have been an impossible child! But I can bear it no longer! Please help me, though I hardly deserve it!’

‘It is well spoken,’ said Cobwep. ‘Sleep now, Princess Snowflake, and we shall return tomorrow evening.’

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Gently, Cobwep tucked

the child into bed and kissed

her goodnight. Princess

Snowflake fell asleep with

a smile on her face and

this time, when she saw

the Gypsy King in her

dream, he shrank back and cried, ‘What! You have protected yourself

with the thing I am most

afraid of in the world! I

hate you, you’re stupid!’ And he disappeared beneath the flames.

When the witches came back the next evening, they didn’t even have to bother coming up with another verse, for the chamber door was open to receive them.

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‘We have returned to help you, as we said we would,’ said Cobwep.

‘Thank you, Grandmother,’ said Princess Snowflake. (It didn’t mean that Cobwep was actually her real grandmother, it is just what children always call old women in fairy tales, no one knows why.) ‘Can you ever forgive me for being so awful?’