Christopher Healy - The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle

The messenger hurried over to Gustav and handed him the letter. “Here you are, sir, Your Highness, sir,” he said. “I sense you were probably being sarcastic when you referred to me as a captain, but just to be clear, I am not one. I’m merely a messenger. My name is Smimf.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Gustav said. He unrolled the note and read, his eyes growing wide as he took in everything that Frederic had written. “Criminy Pete! Capey went and got himself kidnapped. Hey, Message Kid, go back and tell Tassels not to do anything stupid without me. Tell him I’ll be there.”

Fig. 5 SMIMF

“Right,” Smimf said. “Only, the name is Smimf.”

“Whatever,” Gustav said.

“And by Tassels, I assume you mean Prince Fre—”

“Yes!” Gustav said. “You assume right. Go.” But by the time he was finished, the messenger had already vanished.

“Angry Man got to go, huh?” Mr. Troll asked.

“Duty calls, Swamp Fuzz,” Gustav said. He’d never admit it to anyone, but he’d been waiting for months to hear from his old friends. He was somewhat annoyed that it was Liam they’d have to rescue, but the thought of a real quest got his blood pumping in a way it hadn’t in ages. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll be back. You’re in charge of lessons while I’m gone.”

“Ha-ha, excellent,” Mr. Troll said. “Troll going to do class on smacking with tree stumps.”

“Good call,” Gustav said. He gathered his things as quickly as he could, mounted Seventeen, and tore off down the long road to Avondell.

As hard as this may be to believe, some people may not like you. These people are called villains. Everyone else will like you.

—THE HERO’S GUIDE TO BEING A HERO

“ kay, people, let’s try it again from the top,” Prince Duncan called out.

He and Snow White had returned to their woodland estate in the forests of Sylvaria shortly after the League of Princes disbanded. And ever since, he’d been working day and night on his guidebook for would-be adventurers. After his exploits with the League, he figured he was the perfect person to write such a manual. Unfortunately, Duncan had a very difficult time remembering why he’d done any of the things he did. To help himself figure out the motives behind his own actions, he started having the local dwarfs act out his past so he could relive it all from a spectator’s point of view. The dwarfs were not happy about this.

“From the top,” Duncan repeated. Clad in his puffy red-and-yellow pantaloons, green felt jacket, and fluffy white neck ruff, he sat on a small chair in his backyard, ready to witness a reenactment of his and Liam’s attempted escape from a heavily guarded bandit camp. He had a quill pen in hand, prepared to take notes. “That means you should start again,” he added.

With heavy sighs, two tired-looking dwarfs plodded out from behind some shrubbery.

“You’re supposed to be running,” Duncan said.

“Imagine it faster,” grumbled Frank, the first dwarf. Sylvarian dwarfs are notoriously cranky by nature, but these particular dwarfs had been dealing with Duncan all day and were in worse moods than usual.

“Can you at least pretend to run? It would help me visualize the scene better,” the prince said. “After all, what you do here today, you do in the name of all hero-dom.”

Flik, the second dwarf, simply pulled down the earflaps of his cap and pretended not to hear.

“All right, then. Carry on,” Duncan said. “Um, enter the Big Bandit!”

A third dwarf, Frak, appeared, dragging slowly behind the first two. He shook his fist halfheartedly at Flik and Frank.

“Don’t forget your line,” Duncan whispered.

“I’ll get you, princes,” Frak said in a flat monotone. Then he paused to pull a beetle out of his beard.

“Oh, no,” Flik recited without emotion. “We’re surrounded.”

Two more dwarfs, Frid and Ferd—playing the entire bandit army—entered on the opposite side, stepping out from behind a birchwood gazebo. Duncan bit his lip in excitement.

“Don’t worry . . . Liam,” Frank said to Flik. “I . . . Prince Duncan . . . have an idea. Throw me at him.”

Flik gave Frank a one-handed shove. Frank shuffled over to Frak, waving his arms limply and mumbling, “Oh, I’m flying through the air.” He stopped and faced Duncan. “Okay, you get all that?” he asked. “We done?”

Duncan leaned back in his seat and scratched his chin. “I still don’t know why I did that,” he said. “Hmmm. ‘Throw me at him.’ Why in the world did that seem like a good idea at the time? We’ll have to try it again. Maybe in reverse this time.”

“Nope. I’m outta here,” Frank said. He and the other dwarfs began to walk away.

“Okay, good idea, Frank,” Duncan said. “We could all use a break. Nice energy, by the way, Frak. And Flik, good line reading, but next time maybe you could sound a little more heroey. Let’s all meet back here in, say, ten minutes? Johnny Peppercorn!” That last bit was Duncan getting distracted by a chipmunk he suddenly decided should be named Johnny Peppercorn. Spontaneously naming random animals was only one of the many odd traits and hobbies that had made Duncan an outcast for most of his life. In fact, until the previous year, there had really been no one other than Snow White whom Duncan could call a friend. But joining the League of Princes changed that. Frederic, Liam, and even Gustav (to an extent) seemed to genuinely care for Duncan. He’d gone from one friend to several in a very short period of time. It was an undeniably positive step for his social life, but it also gave him a false sense of popularity. He believed he was a superstar. And since he never traveled very far outside his own yard, he never ran into any of the Sylvarian citizens who told jokes about him and referred to him as “Prince Dumb-can.”

“I don’t care if it’s going to get Snow White upset—we’ve got to put an end to this,” Flik grumbled to Frank as they walked around a hedge for some privacy. “I’m beginning to lose whatever trace of self-respect I have left.”

“It’s not just these pointless reenactments either,” Frank said. “Everything he does gets on my nerves. I still don’t know why we answer to these stupid names he invented for us.”

“So annoying,” Flik agreed. “Though I suppose it’s an improvement over the old days when Snow White didn’t use names for us at all. She just referred to us by personality traits.”

“Hey, at least Duncan gave you a different name. They both called me Frank!”

“You’ve all got it better than me,” yelled Fork, another dwarf who’d been hiding from Duncan in a nearby wheelbarrow.

“We need to choose our battles wisely,” Flik said. “We can tolerate the name stuff. But this reenactment business needs to stop. Let’s go talk to Snow.”

The dwarfs found Snow White at a picnic table on the other side of the garden, weaving a vest out of sunflower petals. A petite woman, she was practically swimming in a voluminous pink dress adorned with dozens of violet ribbons.

“Good day, boys,” she said cheerily. She was one of the only people alive who seemed to be able to make her eyes twinkle at will. “Having fun?”