A Zillion Likenesses!

At The Very Boggy Edge of The Forest.

Not half as long ago as you might imagine
there lived a girl of such angelic looks
that everyone called her Little Angel Face:
Her lips were like coy curtains of fire
endlessly teasing the eye with peeks at her frosty white teeth,
and with those smiling eyes of hers looking straight at you
every moment, so agreeably did her bright looks play
in her face that to gaze upon her was like
catching a glimpse of an eternal match with Heaven itself.

Her hair was also pretty... wild, in fact,
for it was as rough-looking as a long-neglected garden
of muddy cattails. It would hardly have done her any good
to have spent hours washing and combing it out, however:
her family was the poorest in the land, and Little Angel Face
was forced to spend practically every minute of her time
in the sticky, muddy tangle of twitching and scratching branches
that covered every inch of the marshy woods
at the very boggy edge of the forest.

Deep in the swamps at the very boggy edge of the forest
all Little Angel Face had ever learned of science
(and about Heaven and Earth, in fact) was
of the bubbling Angel of God blowing stars forever
over the eternal Darkness (although this certainly did not keep her
from having a pretty good idea of what the meaning of life is):

"God puts us in this world to comfort others,"
she would tell all who would listen: "Or,
God places about us those whom He would have us comfort.
And if we cannot comfort them, then God places about us
others whom we will find easier to comfort--"
(Which was also all that she knew of Paradise
as well as of Hell too.)

To keep her family from going hungry
Little Angel Face collected wild fruits, nuts, mushrooms,
berries and practically anything else she could find eatable
deep in those swamps. And yet
no matter how hard she and her family worked,
there was usually so little for them to eat
that even a thin hare
would have passed for a feast among them!

Little Angel Face was always forced to wear
the same tattered and overly patched set of
seventeenth-hand-me-downs (because her parents
could not afford un-handed-down clothes, naturally).

But wearing those rags, and with all her messy hair
on top of it, on first impression the poor girl often
looked like a little bush which walking around
over a couple of sticky legs
had been scared-stiff at some point
... and then was never again soothed
even by a wailing rain with enough feelings in it
to ease down one hair on her head with a discarded tear,
nor ever combed by so much as a single cold-hearted breeze
among all those that whistled their disapproval at her
as they passed her by (always
for the first time and for the last as well)...

But no matter, because, ironically,
even as she was forced to dress so evilly
angels from Heaven played in her looks.
And the startling contrast between her angelic face
and the way she dressed
made her beautiful features seem even lovelier still.

So even if never immediately, eventually
everybody who caught even the slightest glimpse
of the hard working girl's Heaven-kissed face
always came to think of her as, "The rarest
heavenly flower that ever bloomed!"
Certainly in those swamps.

It was the most natural thing on earth then
for everybody to call her by the nickname of Little Angel Face
(even if her real name was Muderella).

Then there was that 'other' little matter:
The fact that on the day she was born
a swamp witch put one heck of a hex on her:

You see, the power of a witch is mostly all in her name
only; and being somewhat hard-of-hearing,
Murderella the Swamp Witch somehow got the mistaken impression
that her name was being stolen from her and given to the baby!
(A ghastly first impression to get of anybody so recently born.)

But there you have it: Murderella the Swamp Witch
put one of the most terrible curses anybody can put
on a baby girl (outside of making her feet three times bigger
than normal): That to the end of her days
she should always make the most terrible first impression
it was humanly possible for a human being to make.
(And even if she was free of the hex once the sun went down,
being asleep by then, naturally, this tiny exception to the hex
never really helped her that much.)

Worse, Murderella the Swamp Witch
had already been dead a long time
when Little Angel Face was born and caught her hex
(for her hexes were about the only thing that still survived
of the old witch): But the drawback here was that,
being dead, one could hardly expect the old witch
to publish a list of the people she cursed.

And so no one, least of all Muderella herself,
no one ever knew just how cursed the poor girl was
(however strongly those who caught a glimpse of
how long and hard she had to work out in the swamps
at the very boggy edge of the forest
might have suspected it).

* * *

Unnerving as they may be, however
(at times even actually annoying),
curses never really do any real harm
unless one lets them.
And Little Angel Face never let much get to her:

She didn't even mind one bit being called
whatever people got it into their heads to call her.
(And she even preferred Little Angel Face,
as there were certainly a lot worse things
people could have gotten it into their heads to call her
--Her real name for one.)

Besides, for some reason never quite understood
by any of the denizens of the swamps
at the very boggy edge of the forest (including her),
and which no dead witch could ever possibly explain
to living people... every time Muderella's real name
was even so much as whispered
everybody for miles around swore they could hear
a thin horrid little screech like an old swamp witch
hollering in pain far, far away. (And this
quickly got everybody out of the habit of having
anything to do with Little Angel Face's real name, that's for sure.)

* * *

Curses aside, though, from the tip of the longest hair
standing on end atop her head
down to the very mud-webbed toes
on her almost always shoeless feet,
such charm and kindness, good manners
and every other decent and good quality
came alive in Little Angel Face
that she was nothing if not a kind of living
and breathing loveliness herself.

And once people got over that dreadful first impression
she always made, the last impression she left
with anybody was of being cursed:
For to everyone who really knew her
not only did she seem blessed, but also a blessing as well.

Her beauty always remained hidden from the world, though;
as under her poverty, rarely was she seen by anyone
from the outside, or even all that much by the handful
of bogged-down mole-like neighbors
who also had the very tough luck to be stuck deep
in those swampy woods at the very boggy edge of the forest
(where no one ever had much time to do anything outside of
everything they could just to keep from starving).

And yet even in such neglect and poverty,
overlooked by the whole world without
... once in a while, especially when some truly exquisite sunset
closed over a distant hill with a brilliance and nobility
that made even the hardest working denizen of the bog
put aside the struggle for survival
long enough to escape the drudgery of life in those bogs
by staring at its eternal beauty
the way you and I might look at a miracle...

... for a few precious moments
Little Angel Face also was able to escape those terrible swamps
... by daydreaming about Princes and Palaces, and
Kings and Queens, and about festive royal parties
forever brimming with wonderful ladies and lords dancing
through them like noble flowers come to life
while flowing sweetly over many a boundless stream of music
... nobles as highborn as that very same exalted sunset
that she was staring at in those distant skies:

"How glorious," she would marvel then,
gazing upon such quickly fading splendors
while busily imagining what it would be like
to be presented before a brilliant audience that high-born
(really 'the best lords and ladies on earth,'
as she thought of them--never having actually met
any 'noble' lady or lord),
"All wrapped in their resplendent majesty!"

A majesty she was absolutely convinced matched
and maybe even surpassed the one
which such distant sunsets far above her
yet seemed to be letting the most drab corner of the world
know existed... somewhere! (No matter how far
from where she and her swamped neighbors were stuck.)

 Then... back to work!

But her dreams and hopes didn't die away
with the passing of those sunsets: Long after
such magical moments had faded from the earth
Little Angel Face still found herself daydreaming
of one day bringing within her grasp
dreams as out of reach to her as those.
And Little Angel Face was the sort never to give up
on anything she went after... not fruits, nuts, berries,
and not anything else (no matter how impossibly out of reach
it might have seemed, or been):

With all of the faith of one who is convinced,
"You never catch what you never go after--"
she made up her mind to chase down her secret wish
(to be presented at the Royal Court like a princess),
and from that moment on she never let pass
a single opportunity to bring it to the attention of everyone
(or even everything) that crossed her path:

Even every mud-rooted tree and shaky-set but still upstanding bush
was 'told' all about her secret wish, every muck-stuck pebble
and least stick of wood (branch or twig), and especially
every wild forest creature, ant to antelope
--including practically all else she came across from then on.

That was about the only thing (certainly within her power)
that Little Angel Face could have done
to try to make her secret wish a reality. And so,
as long as there was the least flicker of light left in the day
and a single breath in her with which to speak out,
she'd spent her every waking moment reciting her secret wish
to all who would sit still for it (even if they wouldn't).

* * *

Now, this continued for quite a while, too.
Even if it didn't take even half as long as all that
for every mud-rooted tree and shaky-set but still upstanding bush,
every muck-stuck pebble and least stick of wood,
and most especially of all every ant and antelope
and wild forest creature (and swamp-lost soul)
left with ears burning wherever she passed
... to admit that the girl was very probably quite sincere
about wanting to make that darn secret wish of hers come true
--Which was in itself something of a victory.

Only Little Angel Face wasn't about to be satisfied
with half victories: It would be all
... or she'd continue her marathon of confessions without a stop
until it was indeed ALL. (Which right there
said practically all there was to be said about her character.)

 So it continued, and continued...

Until one morning when, while she was tripping about
the swampy woods at high tide as was her habit,
come what may, gathering fruits, nuts, berries, and the like
for the family table (and burning the ears of all those trees,
bushes, boulders, wild forest ants, antelopes, sticks, pebbles,
and all else that couldn't get out of her way
before she got to it with that 'secret' wish of hers)
... her long string of 'secret' confessions was at last
brought to an unexpected end
by her coming face to face with
(of all things to bump into in a swamp such as that one)
her fairy godfather!

He had been listening to that 'secret' wishing of hers
for such a long time now
that he would have granted her any wish
--already. He certainly considered himself the world's expert
on what Little Angel Face really and truly wanted out of life.
And, being her personal fairy godfather,
he simply granted it to her! Every bit of it,
right on the spot. (And not just because it was his job
to do exactly that, either.) And without even bothering to ask her,
or introducing himself first (so
transparent did she seem to him on first impression):

He simply granted her the entire package
she had been wishing for all this time
--Including, by the way, including the other two
additional wishes everyone gets
(so those among them who are after everything worth having
might ask for the Health, Means and Wisdom
with which to go for it).

In his experience, though, few wishers ever
proved themselves that ambitious. And,
from what he'd seen so far of Little Angel Face,
this 'simple' girl didn't appear to him to be any better
than most: "Heavens!" All she seemed interested in
was to be presented at the Royal Court
like some sort of princess--and by a Prince yet:

"How superficial!" (Was his most considered opinion
of her.) Although he granted her her 'secret wish' with his eyes closed
--and with just her first wish alone.

 So let this be a lesson to all of you: If ever
you have a secret wish--NEVER give up on it!
On the contrary, whisper it, tell it, scream it out, spill it,
pass it along to everybody you know (and hand it out
to all you so much as brush against)
... Sometimes it takes quite a lot to flush out
some of those fairy godfathers out there.

"Stop!" Little Angel Face's fairy godfather called to her
at once: "Stop and be quiet for a minute:
I need you to sit here and listen to me for a while!"

"Great!" (You might think.) Even: "Magnifinickel!"
(Which is five times more magnificent still.)
"What a great ending to all her swamped efforts!"
And it would have been, too,
if at that particular moment in time
her fairy godfather had not been a rather exceedingly
chameleon-like ugly little spotted tree somewhat-of-a salamander
hanging for dear life on the tiniest of twigs
of a muck-stuck bramble bush with, as if by magic,
not one single thorn growing anywhere on it!

Frankly... this was because, of late,
he had been changing into every imaginable sort of
different little forest beastie (for a week or more, at least),
to see if Little Angel Face could pass by at least one
of them without confessing to it that darn 'secret' wish of hers.
And getting so many bad first impressions of her
in the process (with every new creature he turned into)
that it had completely skipped his mind to change to
a more typical form of talking animal (like a human being):

"I am fairy godfather to a flake,"
was the complaint he most often made (to himself)
about her. Or, "This girl is nothing but
a simple-minded gold-digger!" (And such.)
And it had driven him practically into distraction.

However, no matter how poorly a hundred or so
first impressions she might have made on him,
now that she had passed the Fairy Godfather Test
(she had never once given up believing
she would eventually make her hopes and dreams a reality
--and not even in the face of reality), now
her ugly little spotted tree fairy godfather chameleon
salamander (on a bush)
was duty-bound to call out to her:

"Stop, Little Angel Face, and stay with me
for a minute or two!" He spoke
the instant she opened her mouth to tell (apparently
one more forest critter) her, in his opinion,
so terribly self-centered secret wish
--exactly as she had been doing
with every living and non-living thing she had run across
coming from or returning to her chores...

But, "Heavens!" What a shock it was for her
to discover that she was telling her 'secret wish'
to what to-every-appearance-in-the-world
certainly looked like an honest-to-goodness, genuine enough,
creepy, crawly, slimy, ugly little tree salamander-like chameleon,
frankly--And one that could also tell her
something as well! (Or better.)

And so tremendous a shock was it, in fact,
that she was never able to recover from it:

"Oh!" She screeched right in the icky beastie's face
(he was almost on top of her nose, you know).

"Ooooh!"

What an ugly little spotted tree chameleon-like salamander
he was, too, holding on with all fours
to the sappy tangle of toy branches and spider webs
all around him... all those half-bitten and browned
(and yellowed) leaves, mossy sticks
and starkly charred twigs he was standing on:

And a critter which could not only appreciate
what she was saying
but who could itself also say something right back at her,
even if with such a thin, small voice
that she had to stop fidgeting her feet on the soggy sod
or the mere sloshing of her shoeless footsteps
would have been enough to drown out
what he was trying to tell her... while clinging there
practically in the middle of her face, staring her in the eye
from that trembling bramble bush (that looked
unnervingly so much as if it might have sprouted in front of her
just for the sole purpose of blocking her way):

"It will only be for a little while, you know!"
The little beastie promised the stunned girl.

But, frankly, the longer she stared at him
the more repulsive he seemed to her
--And she was sure it wasn't some wakeful dream
she might have been having, either: "Cambuchia!"
That's for sure: She was as close to him
as a book to its reader!
And there wasn't a thought in her brain that wasn't
about running away as fast as she could
... before he had a chance to jump on her!

"Better safe than sorry!" (Was her life's philosophy
at the moment.) And no matter how curious
she might have been about why the tiny talking beastie
(whom she never in a million years would have guessed
was really her very own personal fairy godfather),
why he was so desperate to visit with her:
Who knows what such an ugly little spotted tree salamander-
chameleon might want with her!

"I'm really pressed for time," she tried to put him off
(making every effort possible to make out if he had teeth).
And taking a step back to put a safer distance between them,
she insisted: "I really should be going, you know!"
Impatient as all get out--to do just that.
"As interesting as it is to be talking with a little... lizard
like you!" (Although he was really an amphibian just then.)

It was the only excuse she could think of
on such short notice
to get herself out of range (and sight) of
the colorful little slimy-seeming dragon!
Which she was awfully desperate to do just then.

But, "Ah, c'mon!" He insisted. After all,
making personal appearances like this one
was no small matter even for
such a nonstandard fairy godfather.

She did make a half-hearted attempt to find out
what was troubling him (that she might comfort him,
as was in her nature to do): "Has something frightened you,
that you need somebody to keep you company?"

"No, girl," her beastly little fairy godfather replied,
ho-hum: He had been a fairy godfather to an awful lot
of humans by now (quite an awful lot),
so it was hard for him to get
all that worked up about these matters.

But it wasn't hard at all for her to get worked up
about creepy little talking crawly like him:
"Cambuchia!"
His icky skin seemed to be growing ickier
the longer she stared at it (shifting from
one iridescent hue to another): "I have to go!"

But, "Really!" Her fairy godfather insisted again,
quite out of sort by now: "I mean,
is it really going to hurt you that much
to stay a little while longer? Please! Please! Please!!!"
He hardly knew what to say to somebody
so obviously put off by a fairy godfather.

Other than: "If not for yourself, then
as a great big personal favor to me--How's that!"
He was certainly becoming more and more impatient with her
now: And, frankly, for some reason, not only
did she never once make anything but the worst possible
first impression
on him (in all the many different forms he'd taken),
this time, as an ugly little spotted tree salamander-chameleon
fairy godfather, she was even topping all
the previous terrible impressions.

"My word!" He couldn't remember ever coming across
a girl so eager to put off her own fairy godfather!
And it was really starting to bug him.

While she herself hardly knew what to do:
She was already extremely late that morning
(like every morning). And yet the strange ugly little creature
was so insistent she stay
that the kind-hearted girl simply couldn't bring herself
to just turn her back on... even so low
a lower form of life that seemed so in need of comforting:

"Are you waiting for anything in particular?"
She tried to engage 'it' in some pleasant conversation.
(Even as upset as she was, she still had enough consideration
to mull over his odd request.) Besides,
giving the matter a little thought,
it really wasn't such an unreasonable invitation
--even from a tiny talking creature as ugly as that one:

"You could say that," he was mumbling, impatiently,
but satisfied for the time being: She was staying put.

And stay she did (at least a little while longer),
hoping every moment she was there
that it wouldn't take the icky little critter too long
to calm down from whatever had upset him
--so she could then take off!

Meanwhile he was doing everything he could
to try to accept her for what she was:
And he was determined to discharge his duties
as her fairy godfather
no matter how distasteful the job now was to him, personally
(frankly he just didn't think very highly of her at all).

"However," she was even now still cautioning him:
"I can only stay for a little while longer!"
Just to be on the safe side. (Which naturally
didn't improve his opinion of her one bit.)

"That'll be enough, deary." ("Gads!"
in his fiery little chameleon-like eyes.) And,
"Thank you VERY MUCH!" He assured her
with cold-blooded sarcasm, smacking his lips
in almost complete circles of oozing irritation
... as eerily as a couple of rubber can covers
rounding each other's rims in slow motion:
"I really and truly appreciate it
--believe me! Just you wait."

Saying which he suddenly started humming a little,
and playfully wagging his tongue about (a lot)
to pass the time, apparently, while he coolly waited
for whatever it was he was waiting
--without giving the least thought to the horrific effect
the entire skin-crawling spectacle was having
on the poor wide-eyed girl gawking at him!

Playing with its tongue was one of the few things
a chameleon like him could do to pass the time.
But, oh, that ghastly playful tongue of his
seemed to her a million times ghastlier than a snake's
(and as harrowing for her to look at
... certainly for any longer than the second or two
it took her to see that it was a tongue indeed):

"Cambuchia!" It curled and twisted itself all over the place
keeping time while he hummed his little song
there almost on top of her nose (as sinisterly
as if he might have been getting ready to take a lick at her
with the terribly sticky and all-chewed-up-looking fat wad of gum
he seemed to have stuck to its tip
for exactly that sort of purpose): "Heavens!"

The sight of it filled her whole being
with as desperate a longing to flee him
as if she'd been a fly with... him after her, in fact.
So when the ugly little tongue-wagging beastie
finally remembered that her impatient attitude
had made him forget to tell her who he was
(and what his business was with her),
so distracted and distraught was she,
so anxious and upset, and just plain vexed
... that she couldn't even hear his words
(let alone understand them):

"I hereby grant you--" he proudly recited at these occasions.
Except that on this particular occasion
the only thought at all clear to Little Angel Face was
... of getting away from him: "Cambuchia!"
Suddenly she was even worrying that her parents were
going to think she had gotten into some trouble
if she stayed there much longer
(as still one more good excuse right there
to leave on the spot).

"Because you never know what you have
until you have it," he began: "I hereby grant you--"

And, "How much is 'enough?'" She immediately interrupted
his standard fairy godfather little speech,
completely convinced that she had already been waiting there
(staring at that grotesquely playful tongue of his
wagging its sticky wad of gum at her)
for a tad longer 'little while'
than she had expected it would take:

"I really must go!" She then blurted out
nervously (not even waiting for a reply
before taking still one more step away from him);
and looking every bit
like she would break into a run at any moment--

The reaction of her already quite edgy and short-tempered
little fairy godfather to being interrupted that rudely,
predictably, was... not good: Suddenly he too
was finding it harder and harder to be patient with her:

His mind was white hot with anger
(and actually going blank). His whole body burned
with a dozen different colors as he hung there
in front of her eyes... boiling away a million different shades
of indignation right through his iridescent skin
(every different shade of which was still one more thing about him
not helping to make him any less of a sight in her eyes):

 "Cambuchia!"

"Who ever heard of anyone showing so little respect
to one's fairy godfather!" (He fumed.)
And it would have certainly pleasured him tremendously
to have very bluntly warned her about all the trouble
one can bring on oneself by crossing one's fairy godfather
the way she was doing:

"You shouldn't be so darn impatient with--"
But he pulled back at the last moment
(so it was probably a good thing he had all that cold-blooded
blood in him just then... as long as he was a salamander,
or chameleon): A teeny tiny little detail, by the way,
which in his simmering impatience (with her impatience)
he seemed to have somehow quite cold-bloodedly overlooked
--until it came to him just now.

Thank goodness it did--when it did--though:
Because it made him think twice
before he said something
he was very definitely going to regret having said
almost immediately upon saying it:

As upset as he was, he yet managed
to take into consideration how awful
the already pretty-bad-off girl would have felt
had she found out that her personal fairy godfather
was just some ugly little spotted tree salamander;
even if it was only for the time being. (And even if
it was mostly her fault--what with all the different critters
he'd had to turn himself into to test her.)

That was all water under the shifty sod now, though:
Now the flustered but still fine-hearted little ugly fairy godfather
squatted down tighter and tighter (and tighter still)
on his thin little bramble twig... and counted all
those missing thorns (to try to cool down):
And if he'd've had lips
he would have certainly bitten down on them!

Eventually he managed to come to the cool-headed decision
NOT to reveal to her whom it was she was 'dealing' with
there (after so many crossed words and bruised feelings
between them). And not even
if now he would not be able to tell her whom he really was
--in case finding out how badly she had treated her fairy godfather
was too much for her and it killed her.
(At least, in his opinion, it certainly should have.)

Then again, it's not a fairy godfather's job
to punish bad manners: And what if all this was just some
unfortunate misunderstanding? Even, hopefully:

  Maybe she'd even been cursed by a witch or something!

Not Out Of The Woods Yet!

Meanwhile, "I know, I know," Little Angel Face was still
trying to explain why she was in such a hurry,
"believe me," quite unaware of the awful impression
she was making (never having been told
of any hexes hanging over her
or heard of any swamp witches whose names were
too close to hers for comfort): "I truly wish
I could be taught a little patience, BUT--!"

"HEAVENS!" You can NOT imagine how much it pained
her ugly little fairy godfather to hear her say that!
No end I assure you:

He twitched so terribly he almost flipped straight up,
and then he began yelling out so
... that he would have even been heard over
a horde of pigeons sloshing afoot over the marshy sod:

"I wish you would PLEASE stop wishing
before you know... you're wishing!"

(Which, naturally, made no sense to her.)

"Don't you mean," she asked (innocently enough),
"before I know what I'm wishing for?"

It only made her sound like every impatient person sounds
when he or she is trying to hurry others.
Never mind that she wasn't an impatient person at all,
really. That didn't help any now:

"There she goes again!" He was now talking to himself.
And looking like he would have pulled out his hair
(had he had any).

There was no way to explain to her now
that she had just used up her second wish
before he could even tell her she only had three of them
in all coming to her:
It was like starting the story from its ending...

And, "Agh, agh, agh--Phooey," was all the story
he could give her in his present state of mind
(and in a quite beastly manner too):

"That's that!" Was all he said
when he managed to put a couple of words together
that made any sense, even as he tried to control his temper
(with about as much success
as a mile long train trying to stop within an inch of
where it first applied the brakes).

He writhed back and forth in anguish
on his thornless little twig. And, "Cambuchia!"
So upset was he that the whole thornless little bush he was on
trembled as terribly as if it had been caught
by a clawing storm!

He did ask himself: "Now what am I to do?"
Following it up by suddenly addressing the poor girl
directly: "I ask you!"

"Ah! Well--" Since the only thing that made any sense to her
then was that... he couldn't possibly have been asking her:
"I mean--" She could make neither heads nor tails
of any of it: One moment he sounded almost lonely
for company. And now it was as if he couldn't even stand
the sight of her!

And if all that wasn't enough: "Would you mind,"
the little talking critter's tone of voice suddenly
took yet another unexpected turn: He now sounded
almost solicitous as he asked her, "My deary,"
he said, "would you mind standing a little more to the right?"
As coolly as if not a cross word had ever passed between them;
although it was painfully obvious how hard he was trying
--through those likely teeth of his--
to sound 'sweetly' (even if it wasn't coming out at all
the way he would have liked it to).

Oh, what a situation for the poor girl to find herself in
(so early in the morning): First he wanted her to stay,
now he wanted her to... move!

In any case, "Where?" she asked him,
almost like a zombie, really; for by now she was
too stunned to bother about the why of things.

"There!" He pointed to the spot
--with that stunningly chewy and gooey wad of gum
stuck to the tip of his tongue.

Just the sight of it made her mind up for her:
She would do everything the crazy little critter asked of her
(provided it wasn't too crazy): Maybe that
would hurry things along and they could get the matter over
and done with so she would be left free to leave
without bruising the bush-shaking hopping mad little
beastie's feelings any worse than she obviously seemed
to have already bruised them.

"No! No! No! To your right!"
The agitated little salamander was soon shouting at her
again (even more viciously, if such a thing is possible),
even as she was trying her best to do what he had asked her
to: "That's right, deary: Your right!"

"Oh!" She could but sigh: "Cambuchia!"
Letting herself be pushed all about now,
and being made to feel so stupid
by his so very impatient flood of directions
that soon she didn't know whether she was
coming or going any more!

"You could use a little lesson in patience, you know!"
She protested (somewhat), even as she continued
to follow his every instruction, as that
appeared to be the only thing that really brought him any comfort.

"Whatever you say." He replied, coldly (apparently
having had enough of knocking heads with her
all over the place). But he did need to warn her
against even thinking of making another wish
(since fairy godfathers, no less than fairy godmothers,
can only grant any one mortal three of them
--and she had already used up two).

"Just don't--" he began to do exactly this, when,
with all her impatient little heart, Little Angel Face
again cut him off (exactly as before: smack in the middle of
his very warning) with a great big heart-felt wish
... that he too should also pick up a smattering of patience
himself--along with her!

* * *

Now, as a rule, amphibians aren't all that famous for
being able to write their emotions on their faces.
However... no one who looked upon that pitifully talking little
tree chameleon-like salamander's ugly little face now
would have had any trouble reading there
the devastating effect Little Angel Face's
having used up her third wish had on him:

"Oh!" He cried out, trying with his whole being
to catch his heart as it dropped in front of his eyes
like a lead ball down into a bottomlessness
at the bottom of which it seemed as if it had bounced
painfully off his toes a couple of times:
"It's too much!"

So much, in fact, that he was left muttering and moaning
to himself: "Now she's done it! Now she's really done it!"
(And seriously thinking of giving her
a good tongue-lashing, too.)

Which he would have, had not the wish
the poor girl (standing before him without a clue in the world
what--if anything-- she might have done to upset him so)
left him so disheartened that it was all he could do now
just to keep from fainting:

"I knew she'd do it! Didn't I tell you she'd do it,"
he kept babbling, faced with such innocent ignorance
("Oh!") he could but ask the universe around him:

"Patience?!"

Writhing so pitifully that it hurt to watch him doing it:

Now the poor creature just aimed his eyes at the sky
in a melancholy gesture of surrender
(mixed with every imaginable shade of anguish),
and stared at her for a long time--first with one eye,
then with the other one--utterly, completely
disgusted with... her, with himself, with life in general, and
in particular with the entire world
(including everything else too) while he turned
and turned purple and blue! And, need I tell you
that purple and blue were NOT Little Angel Face's
favorite creature colors? (They were not.)

He could see (one eye after the other one
on his ugly little head confirming this)
that she would never sit still for any explanations
he might now try to give her. So all he said was:
"Patience?!" And she shrugged
at whatever he might have meant by it.

She did offer him an innocent little smile, though:
To comfort him in his hour of wrath.

"Gads!" Nice. But his only comfort now was
the absolute conviction that being her fairy godfather
was probably the worst experience anybody had ever
put up with (or was ever likely to again).

"What's the use!" He might as well get on with it.
Even if he did have to admit that no one had ever
used a wish on him before. It's just that, "Oh!"
He sighed (like the end of the world was beginning)
every time he thought about what that third wish of hers
of 'patience' for him might do to him:

"Really! I mean--!" If somebody was going to use a wish
on him, he certainly knew a billion things
he would have rather spent it on than, "Patience!?!"

"Typical, typical, typical!" He chided the air around him.
And with no more explanation than
that to a Little Angel Face who now would have no wishes
in reserve to fix all the troubles that getting things by wishing
(instead of by good-old-fashioned hard work)
always brought with it:

"You mortals always grab the first thing that attracts your eye
without waiting to see what you need, don't you!"
He was just about to tell her--but didn't:
Being the well-intentioned fairy godfather he was,
it was hard for him to overlook her good intentions:

"At least she used her second wish
on something she really needs!" (Patience being
something which in his opinion she very definitely could use.)
But, "My word!" He winced:

"Did she really have to wish that I learn 'patience'
along with her!" Tormented by the knowledge
that no fairy godfather can take back any wishes
he has already granted.

He would have to put all that aside now:
He hadn't even seen to that darn 'secret wish' of hers yet!

As abruptly (as it was baffling to Little Angel Face)
he once again took up the matter of directing her
head-on into what she had coming to her--

"Just a little more to the right!" He was soon yelling at her
again with improved resentment: "To the right, girl!
To the right!" Pushing her as hard as he could into it:
"More! More! More!!" He started after her
(with an enthusiasm usually reserved for hammering nails):
"Oh! That's too much now!"
And no matter how willingly she cooperated with him.

 "Cambuchia!"

Sometimes he even yelled at 'somebody' else entirely:
"She's not listening!" Although
he always got back on her case almost immediately:

"Hello, Little Angel Face! Can you hear me, girl?"
On and on the jumpy little salamander-chameleon godfather
instructed her (mercilessly): "That's too much now, deary!
Too much!" Continuing and continuing like that:

"Do you know what 'too much' means?"
Or, "A little more to the left! (If you don't mind.)
Yes: Now! That is right: To the left! Sometime in this century
would also be nice. Indeed: At this moment in time!"

While all Little Angel Face could think about was
how hard it was to comfort such a hot-tempered little beastie
... even as he howled and whooped horribly: "More!
More! More!" Like a general trying to position his entire army
in a single swoop! (Although she certainly tried her best.)

"Please! More to the left--Your left! Yes! Wait!
Would you like me to write it down for you?
(Let me get a piece of paper.)" Until, finally:

"There!" he unexpectedly screamed,
as excitedly as if he'd laid an egg (and not all that
far from having put as much effort into it either):

  "There! There! There!
... THAT'S THE SPOT EXACTLY!"

At which point Little Angel Face's totally worn out
(from screaming) spotted little ugly talking tree fairy godfather
(chameleon or salamander) sighed like a century
and coolly pointed out (in and with that lively
gum-wad-tipped tongue of his)
a wildly colorful and immensely scrumptious-looking
mushroom
that was growing almost right at the girl's feet (not on them)
at the exact spot he had taken such trouble to 'guide' her to.

And, "Cambuchia!" As soon as Little Angel Face herself spotted it
she knew the wonderful mushroom would be
the highlight of her family's dinner later that evening:

"Oh!" The utterly enchanted girl squealed with delight,
imagining she finally understood why the impatient little beastie
had been trying so horribly, horribly hard
(especially on her) to guide her there.

Quickly bending down to collect the gorgeous mushroom,
now she couldn't have been more grateful
to that maybe hot-tempered
but definitely generous little talking salamander!

Only, before she could offer him her heart-felt thanks,
right in the middle of straightening back up (mushroom in hand)
suddenly a great big beautiful black horse
as big as a thundercloud
appeared out of nowhere and came charging straight towards her
at a full gallop... as if determined to run her over!

 "Wow!"  And, "Good Grief--!"

Luckily, just as it was about to plow head-on into her,
the huge beast apparently caught a glimpse of her under him
and made a desperate last second attempt to leap over her!
Which he just managed to do, too, missing her head
with his gigantic hooves by but a shaved eyelash!

This was more than could be said for a number of the hairs
no longer standing on end atop her head, though,
since a great many of them came out of
the harrowing experience truly flattened!

The luckiest part of all, however, turned out to be
that, mushroom in hand, Little Angel Face was straightening up
when the beautiful black horse began his monumental leap over her
because so fiercely did she frightened him
(especially after she started screaming at the huge blackness
that seemed to be dropping on her out of the blue)
that on first impression
she must have seemed to the beautiful black horse
like some ghastly screeching monster rising under him
out of the ooze and going for his belly
with all her screaming teeth and claws
ready to rip him to shreds--

And in his last minute attempt to save his belly
from the monster of muck he thought was lunging at him
... he became so completely beside himself
that he reared up on his hind legs
as tall and sheer as a shuddering waterfall of blackness...

This turned out to be extremely fortunate
for Little Angel Face
because as soon as he reared up like that
the Prince who happened to be riding the beautiful black horse
was tossed to the soggy ground right at her shoeless feet!

* * *

"Are you all right?" The startled Prince asked
the just as startled young and muddy lady
at whose feet Fate (the name of his beautiful black horse,
as if you couldn't have guessed), at whose feet
Fate had just dumped him so unceremoniously.
Even as he was doing his best to speak with as much dignity
as he could muster down there on the very soiled spot
he'd ended up at flat on his
... behind that beautiful black horse of his.

"You must excuse Fate," he apologized,
trying to get back to his feet (although mostly just
slipping and sliding all over the place):
"If you're human!" He huffed and puffed,
especially anxious once he caught a glimpse of
who --or what-- was standing over him:

Frankly, his first impression of her
revolved almost exclusively around those very icky
mucky mud-webbed toes of hers. And, you know
those ghastly first impressions she always made on everyone?
Well, she made an even more ghastly impression
from that particular angle:

With all those hideously mud-sculptured toes of hers
squishing muck claws almost right in his face
it was even difficult for the young man to tell
she was even human at all:

She could very easily have been one of those
unbelievable monsters people were always claiming they had
caught a glimpse of sloshing about those dark evil swamps
(since apparently whole barrelfuls of the mythological critters
were constantly being dumped everywhere out there).

Meanwhile he was also becoming as worried as water with
a hot foot that the 'foul apparition' standing over him
might be one of those foul spirits that are conjured up
by swamp witches out of the ooze now and again
(especially in swamps as nasty as those)
to hook clean-cut young princes like himself
who might happen by and drag them down with them
--by the frightfully unwashed look of the disgustingly rank
and claws-empowered creature he was now face-to-toes with there.

Amid the huffs and puffs of his slippery position
not only did he completely lose his cool
and had the very bad taste
to insinuate that it was no use for 'the gruesome
swamp monster' (he had no doubts she was)
to attempt to deceive him--since he very well knew,
thank you, exactly what sort of swamp monster she was
... he also began boasting of how eager he was to
indeed bravely fight it out with her! (You know,
swamp monster to man.) "Even unto the death!"
Quick as he recovered his footing--and sword!

"Cambuchia!"

He really needn't have threaten her with his sword at all,
though, for he had already cut her to the heart
just by so vividly telling her the spectacularly monstrous
first impression she had made on him.

And it was so much more ghastly a first impression
than even all the terrible first impressions she had made
earlier on her fairy godfather that now
even that cold-blooded ugly little beastie was bothered by it!

However, even as young as she was,
so many bad things had she already seen (enough
to make anybody angry for a lifetime),
that she could easily have filled with anger
all the days of her life--had she chosen to--with them.

Only, with as many bad things as her life was already
quite perfectly topped-off, thank you,
that would certainly have been a silly thing
for her to have done to herself (now, wouldn't it).

"Oh, well," she sighed (and offered him a comforting hand up),
even though this didn't mean she couldn't act a bit miffed
now and again--especially after being hit over the head
like that with the simply unpardonable comments
this particular Prince (still struggling down there at her feet)
had just made about her:

"You needn't be afraid of me," she assured him,
so firmly that it almost came out angry and hurt:
"I am not the mud monster you take me for!"

"You're not?" He marvelled (not yet willing to
just take some gruesome swamp monster's word for
such a thing). But once he regained his footing
(with her help) and had taken a closer look at that beautiful face
of hers, then it was quite a different story:

Then, as if by magic, the young Prince
'instantly' changed his mind about her
not being 'human' after all
--And after that he couldn't agree with her more:

"My but--" he stammered, 'dusting' the mud off
his trousers, and so dazzled by her beautiful looks now
that he would have been only too happy
to concede that first impressions sometimes are rather misleading,
and always were where Little Angel Face was concerned
(unknown to everyone):

"My, but, but," he could hardly help himself telling her:
"You... are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life!"

First Love's Swamps.

This unexpected confession by the Prince
certainly went a long ways towards making up
for the gruesome gaffe he made before
about her being a 'monster." Enough in fact
to make her glad she hadn't gone ahead and kicked him
when he'd been down after
his having called her such awful things!

And once she noticed that he wasn't all that bad looking,
well, then she didn't even mind that much
that he'd tried to run her over with his horse either.
After all, the beautiful animal only brushed down
a few of the hairs standing on end atop her head
--a favor no one had ever done her before, really:

Working in those dark swamps the way she did,
one was liable to get hit over the head with
all manner of falling odds and ends dropping out of nowhere:
dead leaves, rotted tree branches, clumsy squirrels
and lots worse stuff than just merely a beautiful black horse.

But then, without a word of warning,
Little Angel Face suddenly decided to just take off
(offering no explanations to the Prince, either):
She simply took off as abruptly as if
she had made up her mind on the spot
that he no longer even existed!

Maybe she felt she couldn't really
expect all her hopes and dreams to be realized that easily.
Or maybe she simply wanted to chastise him a little
(for having thought her such an awful monster).
Although it could also have been that she didn't want to
seem as eager as all that (perhaps
even, probably): You know, as if
he had been the one who had knocked her off her feet
instead of the other way around.

In any case, as if having princes dropped at her feet
were nothing all that out of the ordinary with her,
suddenly Little Angel Face rushed off
as if she were being driven away by some unseen power
and resumed her gathering of fruits, nuts, berries, and the like.
(Leaving the poor young man to puzzle whether
he might have said something out of place again.)

It was also possible her parents might have warned her against
gossiping with passing princes and their beautiful black horses;
but they had apparently said nothing to her about
ugly little talking salamanders
like the one she'd been having words with
before Fate dropped that handsome young man at her feet
(and whom by now she had put completely out of her mind
--so at least she was in the clear about that one).

But the befuddled Prince?
He stood there for a second or two,
trying to figure out his next move. Then,
as if forced by magic to wake up out of some far-flung dream,
suddenly he too somehow seem to get it into his head
that he couldn't possibly simply ride off on his Fate now
... at least not without first securing a full and complete
acceptance of his princely apology to
this very pretty (if somewhat depressingly tacky) citizen
of his father's Kingdom for having run her over
with his beautiful black horse the way he thought he had,
or was sure he had--or whatever. The point was
that acceptance of a princely apology was exactly the sort of thing
a Prince had to get from a person personally!

So, even if he too had very little time to waste gossiping
with marsh girls and such, especially in dangerous bogs
like that one (for he had been on his way to
attend The Grand Reception Ball for Everybody Who Is
the Least Anybody At All in the Kingdom,
held at the Royal Palace every year
--and already taking place even then),
now he too took off... after her!

He just seemed to forget all about where he'd been going
in such a hurry (that he was running people over
with his horse), and, much to the delight of a certain
little spotted fairy godfather for whom all of this was
a wish come true,
he now took off after Little Angel Face
and into those same dangerous swamps she was headed for
... at a full but well-considered pace, gathering berries, fruits,
nuts, mushrooms, and all such other things
(with him chasing after her, doing his clumsiest best
to make her understand that Fate hadn't actually, specifically,
tried to personally run her over--on purpose):

"You see," he explained on the run:
"My beautiful black horse probably thought you were
just another rotting bit of tree-trunk down there,
and, and..."

And, not for the first time or the last time (in this run,
certainly), he again found himself stammering
in the middle of apologizing, "Because, because..."

Because... just thinking about the loyalty
she was showing her family by never quitting the chores
she had gone into those dangerous woods to do for them
--and not even after having been run over
by a beautiful black horse (as well as from everything else
like that about her) all the virtuous qualities she brought to life
just by living them
seemed to glow right through to the world around her
from the depths of her soul!

Then, in one magical moment (as she turned
to dismiss his clumsy attempts to follow her
with a really not all that hard a look),
gazing deeply upon her wonderful inner beauty
made him realize just how powerfully he had been struck
--even by that soft look right there, ironically.
And it was as if he had always felt the touch of her glowing soul
reaching all the way to the depths of his own!

It made her almost too wonderful to behold:
the mere sight of her was now to him like a radiance
pouring forth to the world
the pure nature of her true inner beauty
(no matter how messy her 'outside' may have seemed
to people who never see anything of a person
except the wrappings):

He knew then that he had never loved anyone else
the way he loved this one girl. "And so,
so," he stammered, worse than ever:
"Never expecting a rotting tree-trunk like you,"
he heard his mouth tripping all over the place,
"to suddenly come up under him while he was leaping
like that over you--" even as his brain was trying to figure out
how he could have so easily lost his wits...

"I'm sorry," he had to apologize anew:
"I didn't mean that you were a rotting tree-trunk!"
Although all he was really communicating to her
with any clarity at all was the very real possibility
that he might be... sick or something.

Well, listen to him! His stammering
even put an end to her headlong flight,
for it made her worry that his state of mind might not be
all that it should be. After all,
the poor Prince might not have bled royally after his fall,
but he did manage to get quite a nasty
bump on his... crown.

She needn't have worried, though, for he was
not stammering because his brain was falling asleep on him:
He was just trying too hard to figure out Love
--And since Love is a magic
which no mere brain will ever figure out,
especially on the slide like that, no wonder
he had fallen into the confusion he now found himself in!

It was a hard fall, too:
Right away he tripped into the mud again.
And at least four more times in a row.
(Every one of them right on the heels of the previous one.)
Although the way Little Angel Face always rushed to his side
to help him up whenever he slipped
might also have had a little something to do with
how eager he seemed to keep falling--at her feet.

But it was not all a one-way-only slide:
So helpless (and obviously in need of 'somebody' maybe
even exactly like her) did he make himself appear,
tripping all over himself for her sake like that,
and slipping and sliding about like a fool,
that after only having been in each other's company for
the shortest amount of time (two or three additional slips
really, if at that) she too found herself falling
quite muck-webbed toes over muddy-heels in love with him!

It was all inevitable, of course
(as any fairy godfather with a dozen or so toe-holds on
even the most thornless of bramble bushes
could have told you) that the young couple would
eventually find themselves on that boggy ground
next to each other. And
on many additional mutually half-agreed to falls
as well; laughing and discovering that in each others' company
Time seemed to pass more delightfully
than it had ever passed before they met. And,
well, soon even glancing away from each other
seemed like a totally unacceptable waste of Time,
and of life itself!

Therefore it should come as no surprise
that before Little Angel Face could help 'her' Prince
to his feet for the umpteenth time (or
the other way around) he had already asked her to marry him
--many, many times. And she had accepted (once
being enough): Provided it was with their parents' blessing.

And then they were spending all their time after that
making plans together about exactly what sort of
modest little palace of their own they were going to move into
after their (fairy tale) wedding (of course); because
the one thing they settled on at once
was that their wedding would take place almost, practically
straightaway. And, not wanting any secrets between them,
the Prince had somehow managed 'to pry' out of her
just how much she had always wanted to be presented at Court
like a princess--amazingly, by a prince not unlike him.

"Let's go, then!" He commanded her at once:
"For I myself will present you at the Palace this very morning
as my future princess and wife!"

"Ah!" There are times when one feels so happy to be alive
that it would be unimaginable that one could suffer
enough pain, troubles, or woes to be convinced
that it's not all well worth it
--And this was such a moment for Little Angel Face.

Although even as eager as she was to finally fulfill
her secret wish, there's always that 'reality check'
which hits couples just before their wedding.
And, this being as good a time as any for it,
right out of the blue Little Angel Face again 'realized'
that the young Prince hadn't exactly been behaving
like he was altogether 'there'
(you know how young people in love behave):
And, well, now she was having her second thoughts:

Suddenly she couldn't be one hundred and one percent sure
he was acting as woozy as he was
strictly because he had fallen that hard for her
--Maybe he was simply acting funny
because of all his falling about!

So she proposed to him
... that they allow themselves enough time to make sure
their love was of the true variety by, first,
rushing off to get her parents' blessing
(she lived only a couple of old tree stumps away, really).
Then they would have a heart to heart talk
with the King and Queen at the Royal Palace.
All of which he immediately agree to as well,
because he was so much in love with her by now
that he would have probably agreed to
anything she might have proposed, really.

* * *

Well, Little Angel Face's parents being far too generous
and unselfish to stand in the way of their happiness,
they put up practically almost no serious objections at all
(whatsoever) to their daughter marrying the son of the King.
But that was the easy part.

Next it was off to the Palace to seek the Noble Blessing
of the good King Duddol and his (not all that good
but still very much) Queen Phlofie
... who ruled the Kingdom
at the Very Boggy Edge of the Forest.

And eager indeed they were to get their journey underway,
too, for they were convinced the trip itself would take
just long enough to give them all the time they needed
to fully think things through (even if the Royal Palace
was only a couple of meadows and brooks away):

But if their love was still true (and lasted as far
as their little trip to the Palace) then he would be free
to present her to the Court as his Princess,
exactly as it had always been her secret wish
to be presented: With regal majesty, pomp,
and great noble dignity.

"Then," she reminded him (before they had
even taken the first step of their journey):
all of her hopes and dreams of being presented at Court
by 'her' Prince would be realized!

"They will be," he assured her: "The moment we get there!"

And, "They will be," a certain ugly little
spotted tree salamander-like chameleon echoed him
while he watched them going: After all,
that had been the first wish he had granted her
(without even asking her permission). Although,
"First there's that certain little matter of patience,
I believe--"

He had remained unseen all this time.
But now, as the happy couple hopped away for the Palace,
he stuck his tongue out
--as if at his own quirky fate. And, "She really
shouldn't have wasted her third and final wish
like that!" He chided the sour memory of it.

But there was really nothing he could do about it now.
So, twisting and slithering his body back and forth
like a sick sea wave trying to beach itself
... he slowly made his way off the tiny bramble bush.

Once he landed all fours upon the boggy ground
his whole appearance began to change into an almost human one
--Almost, because part of the price one pays for
changing between species by magic instead of evolution
is that the changeling then is forced to design every last little detail
of his whole new being himself. And, really, only God
has the presence of mind to see to every last little detail.

He would follow them to the Palace,
in any case--no matter what it took. (Maybe there
he would even pick up a bit of the patience
the girl had wished on him
--as per that most regrettable third wish of hers.)

 "Cambuchia!" (Or whatever she said there.)

"Oh well!" Terrible or worse, for good or ill,
off to the Palace all three of them would have to go now.

And, "Who couldn't use a little more patience?"
He slowly started after them, like the newly-minted ugly
little human being he now was,
for what would almost certainly be for him
a lot longer and harder journey (looking like he might be
trying to imitate a chameleon's balancing act
while he learned to walk on his brand new and almost-human legs).

It might even take him twice as long to get there
as it would take them. So he let his thin,
small voice run after them instead:

"There is not a fairy godfather can save you
from your own wishes, you know!" (A warning which
should have been the first thing he ought to have given her.)
And which he would have
--had not her awful impatience distracted him
as effectively as if it had been a curse or something!

The Royal Palace.

And what happened when Little Angel Face
and the Prince got to the Palace? Well,
their love managed to survive their little trip there,
then, once they finished racing through all the corridors
(one simply had to race through)
they burst right into the Royal Throne Room
(the big one with everybody in it at the same time)
completely and totally unannounced--

But so wrapped in their love for each other were they
that neither of them realized they were crashing
the year's grandest, fanciest reception party
for Everybody Who Was the Least Anybody At All
in the Kingdom... until it was too late to do anything about it
(had they then gone on to realize
that something should have been done about it).

And, oh, something indeed should have been done about it,
because the first impression Little Angel Face made
that day on Everybody Who Was the Least Anybody
At All there was: "Goodness Gracious!"
It was something else!
For what an awful and pathetic-looking a sight she was
there in the middle of all those sparkling aristocrats
(their jaws rolling all over the floor
as soon as they spotted the bedraggled
head-to-toes spectacle that had just walked in).

Well, let's face it: Little Angel Face looked
(and not a might but quite mightily)
like a mucky bog critter walking around wrapped up in rags
--Even if a mucky bog critter with the most beautiful face
Everybody Who Was the Least Anybody there
had ever seen on any wrapped up mucky bog critter:

"Oh!" (Was immediately in every aristocratic eye
staring at her.) And she looked to them like the Devil himself
had just waltzed in in his underpants:
Inside that brilliantly lit room
it was impossible to miss the least part of her...

Hideous clumps and globs of mud suddenly came to light
clinging to her from every possible side and angle
(along with a huge number of sundry flecks, pits, and kernels
of just plain vanilla-flavored gunk)
all the way from the tip of her petrified hairdo
topsy-turvy down to the smallest of her scum-webbed toes
(because she had even forgotten to put on the 'shoes'
she wove out of old leaves and dry straw on Sundays
so she wouldn't have to show up barefooted at Church).

They had rushed to the Palace directly from the swamps
at very boggy edge of the forest (where they had been
rolling around 'in it' all morning long, after all), and
without having given the least thought to her appearance!

Of course, that's how it is with people as blind-in-love as they.
It's just that, goodness, was she gunky and threadbare:
Splotched brown twigs and all kinds of colorful 'stuff'
(quite 'passed it' by the horrible look of some of them)
competed for space all over her with ages-old dried muck,
yellowed bits of leaves, and every other shamelessly sordid clump
and arrogant blob--Some of it, luckily,
already in the process of dying; but most others
looking like they might still have
quite a lot of life left in them, unfortunately.

And there was no end to the misery, either:
Little Angel Face seemed to be just crawling
with handfuls of trailers and danglers and
nameless other rotting heaven-knows-what-elses
and you-don't-even-wanna-knows
stuck to or sticking out of every inch of that living and dying
and drying and so very soaked apparel she was wearing
(or which was wearing her): "Good Lord!"

And every last bit of it under the quite spectacularly
brilliant lights of that unforgivingly brightly lit room too!
So that the Contrast between her and everybody there was...

 "Beyond imagining!"

(To say the least.) And quite rapidly becoming worse
the deeper into the room the two of them pushed
past the splendidly spotlessly glittering and perfumed
ladies and lords at the Royal Court that day,
where everywhere she went Little Angel Face forever trailed
all possible (and positively wrong) sort of perfumes
that could have reminded a person of the darkest and dampest
and most ghastly part of a swamp
... all of it rising from her like ghosts!

"Startling!" (Followed their every step.)
Along with other like comments. Including:
"Good Grief!" (Of course.)
Endless and endless: "Heavens!"
One rotten, "Egeggs!" A ton of, "The Saints Deliver us!"
And one not-so-divinely inspired:
"The End of The World is at hand--Run for it!"

Yet not a single, "Cambuchia!" was heard in that august room.
And not even from Little Angel Face herself
(who was too overwhelmed by all that was glittering around her
to make the slightest sound herself--luckily for her).

But practically everybody else there was cracking up pretty good,
though. And directing their worst cracks at her
--few of which we'll go into, but every one of which
seemed to grow harsher and harsher
the deeper they both pressed into that room
... until very nearly even, "Cambuchia!" itself
was almost on the brink of buzzing out of
one of the aristocratic mouths there.

Even from the mouth of the very up-to-date Marquis Mee:
And he usually buzzed only about his own fabulously fashionable
and provocative T-shirts, every one of which he decorated
with the 'latest' motto (which that particular morning
happened to be, "It's the stupid, stupid!") spelled out
in sparkling rubies, sapphires, diamonds and every other
precious stone imaginable. So no doubt about it:
the Marquis Mee was the one nobleman among them
likeliest to let it all hang out:

And yet even the Marquis Mee cringed
right into the glittering pendants hanging from his neck
like a hermit crab being chased into his rented shell
by his ghostly landlord
as soon as he spotted Little Angel Face!

You could hardly expect Little Angel Face to understand
what a ghastly first impression she was making,
though: She had probably never set eyes on even a single
little king or queen running around her poverty-stricken
neck of the bogs, let alone all these petty duchesses,
bickering barons, constantly complaining countesses
and counts, and every shade of lady (and lord)
she was now plowing through
as they followed the Royal Throne Room's
Royal Red Carpet down the center aisle.

But, oh, what a glorious Royal Red Carpet this was too!

So rich and brilliant that it moved Little Angel Face to
do all she could to keep from tracking mud
all over its spotlessly unspotted length
(especially the kind of muck she was packing
just between her mucky bare toes)
... as every highbrow eyebrow there arched and arched after them
worse than spine-tickled cats, gawking at her like owls
(eyeing the frightful sight of the mousy girl
hopscotching her way alongside the Prince
while trying every which way she could to avoid setting a muddy toe
upon it--even as he himself strode boldly
down the middle of its lavishly plush redness,
devil-may-care).

But if one couldn't have really expected
Little Angel Face to know what a terribly ticklish situation
she was letting herself get dragged into,
at least the Prince should have known better
and dropped her off somewhere before even thinking
of presenting her to the Court looking like that:

He should have given her a good scrubbing down
and polishing up, and then wrapped her up in
every splendid and rich garment
a Prince like him could have so easily afforded
to pile on her--Topping off the whole mess
with a good stiff dunking in a great big beaker
of perfumes of every persuasion and price.

None of which he did, of course. And yet
he too might be forgiven, for so in love was he with her
that she was the only thing he really had eyes for.

But you can imagine what all those snooty titled Everybodies
down to the Least Anybodies there, including
even the usual Titleless Mob of Nobodies one runs across
at all such parties trying to pass themselves off
as Even Better Bodies Than Everybody Else There
(none of whom was even remotely in love with Little Angel Face)
... you can imagine what they saw
being paraded right under their finely tweaked noses
the minute they got a load of what their Prince had dragged in:

 "Oh!"

A hush as deadly as if the Tree of Life itself were falling
(in the un-peopled Forest de-peopled by its fall)
suddenly gripped the entire Royal Hall
length-by-breadth and ceiling-to-floor.

Then you never heard laughter like the one they all dropped
on every ticky-tacky very sticky step
that Little Angel Face took there
--as she and the Prince continued to make their way
from the main entrance to where the King and Queen were
sitting on their magnificently raised purple thrones laughing
their noble heads off along with even the stiffest stuck-ups there,
every one of them laughing like some very unrefined baboon
at the horridly shoddy bog girl being paraded before them
in the 'full soiled splendor' of her overly patched
set of tacky and mucky seventeenth-hand-me-downs!

Well, at the very least, "Heavens!" (Was
certainly in every eye there.) And, "Oh!"
That mud-caked monstrous dab of
(what could only be described as) 'hair'
on top of everything? It was too much:
On first impression
her head looked like a globule of petrified muck
had been sculptured into the shape of a gooey bush
and then left up there scared-stiff!

And although many people there were of the opinion
that her muddy head hid the most muddled brain on earth
(frozen at the very instant it had started blowing itself to bits),
most of them simply laughed at her (so hard
that their heads rattled as if none of them had yet lost
any of their marbles), and wiped away so many merry tears
that they could have used ladles and buckets
and pans and jars (and not overdone the bit a bit).

"I'll wager it's some kind of a trick tree stump
the Prince has rigged up over a couple of sticks
to walk behind him like that," guessed Drizzel
(who was not only the Prince's dainty Royal Uncle
but the Royal Chamberlain, and the Official Royal
Brother-To-The-Queen to boot--for he often got it).

Now he too plucked tear after tear of laughter
off his dainty cheeks with one of the many dainty handkerchiefs
for which he was quite infamous (while
very generously complimenting his princely nephew
on the absolutely very best practical joke ever played at Court).

Indeed, "Very clever, Your Highness," was soon heard
everywhere as everybody cheered him like seals going at lunch
every step of the way he led Little Angel Face
down the Royal Red Carpet in the direction of the King and Queen:
"Bravo! Bravo!" And applause, applause rained down
on the young couple from every corner
in a truly all-drowning thunderstorm (of catcalls)
... while Little Angel Face's reaction to it all
was to simply smile back at all of the aristocratic hecklers
as sweetly as if their foul hissing and hooting
had been the purest compliments she had ever heard!

One can hardly imagine that the awful spectacle
they were making of her could have been anything
like the presentation she had always imagined being 'nobly'
performed in her honor at Court would be like.
(So maybe ignorance is bliss after all, because
if at any point in her ordeal she was in any way upset
or bothered by the rude and vulgar manner
in which those mean aristocrats were greeting her
... she certainly never showed it!)

To them, however, the girl's feeling were of no importance
whatever. They were simply having the grandest, merriest time
they had ever had--at anybody's expense:

"Oh, look! Look," bubbled Lady Fynn-Ghers
(when the Prince dragged Little Angel Face past her):
"It has moss growing all over it!" (And actually picking
at it.) "Oooooh!!!" Immediately upon which the good lady
was forced to scramble (to cover her overinflated nose
with part of her wonderfully frilly dress)
the instant she caught the swampy scent
of the mud-topped girl: "Oooooh!!!"

"How clever! (I think.)" Said the Duke d'Dude
before he ran out of breath and shut his nostrils
with marvelous determination (not to let in another breath
until the Prince had pulled the swampy-scented girl
out of range of his delicate open holes).

Nevertheless, "Nonsense," insisted the Count d'Krud,
who couldn't have used his nose to pick anything
(out-of-place) had he smelled away at it a week
or better, trying to sound very clever now:
"Har! Har! Har!" Although he was so top-heavy with 'spirit'
that it was a challenge for him just to comment:
"Who ever heard of a stump with such sticky legs?"
(Above all his coughing, hiccupping, and wheezing.)

"Maybe it's a new species from another planet!"
Madame Fourthwindow tried to point out to Sir Err,
who was standing by her, half knocked to the floor
with boredom (knowing Sir Err was interested in
nothing unless it was clearly out of this world).

But, "The little creature does have a remarkably beautiful face!"
They all agreed on that. (And were all subsequently
quite at a loss to explain the odd phenomenon.)

Most puzzling still, "Why, thank you!"
the girl always made sure she answered every remark
she overheard them making about her
(no matter how horrific a remark it was,
or even if it was even worse than that):

"Thank you! Thank you!" She told every horrible noble
the Prince dragged her in front of.
And with such heart-felt sincerity
that it would have been impossible to imagine
that she didn't mean it (even if the exact meaning
of her so 'unnatural' behavior went pretty much
right over the bejewelled heads of everyone there
for whom the 'fun' was going so swimmingly
that the entire room overflowed with the bubbling riot of it
and kept them from hearing her).

Unknown to them, however,
Little Angel Face had been very properly brought up
to always give thanks for even the slightest attention
shown to her, however a slight (one),
as well as to always overlook all slights, howsoever unkind.
And now, even under all the hard and harsh things
they were throwing at her,
she was simply proving herself true to her upbringing.

Meanwhile, the Prince continued to forge straight ahead
through that twisted crowd of seething and howling ladies
and lords without paying the least attention to
the merry rioters (as he was brought up to do):
His one clear goal at all times was to
be able to get close enough to his sitting parents
to tell the good King Duddol
and the slightly less-than good Queen Phlofie:

"Momsie, Popsie!" He immediately announced
once he was close enough to them... where they sat
above (over their purple thrones) still howling with laughter
and carrying on something terrible
over the gunky little bog girl's horrid looks,
like everybody else--right up to the instant
their son told them:

"This is the girl I am going to marry!"

Momsie's and Popsie's Blessing.

Gasp!!!" (Was suddenly in every eye there.)
And then the deadliest hush of all
fell over the Royal Throne Room
(with such blood-curdling effect
that even the falling dust specks stopped in midair
and hung there in front of everyone's eyes)
as if all the blood had drained out of the veins of Time!

For one split second (just a single one)
following this awesome hush
everybody burst out laughing like they would bust a gut
(completely refusing to believe it could be anything other than
one more practical joke the Prince was pulling on them).

But almost as instantly it dawned on them
that in all the years they had known him--all his life,
really--NEVER before had he exhibited even the slightest
sense of humor at all (whatsoever):

And so, "Uh-oh!" (Suddenly dropped
into every eye there like needles and pins.)
Then the lot of them again turned as quiet
as if some evil magician had turned them into
nothing but wide-eyed red eyes (only)
every one of them painfully suspended from ice-cold tenterhooks
(as if to match all those tiny little frozen dust specks
already frozen in front of them). Except that now
they were all trying desperately not
to look at the King, and the Queen--especially.

Without success, naturally: In a wink
a wild wave of stares swept over the huge hall
toward the two awesome purple thrones
mounted at the very depths of it:
An ever towering wave of anxious looks building
its unstoppable momentum higher and higher
as it rolled straight towards them!

And even as high as the two monarchs sat,
so seemingly above it all,
the negative wave of glazed-over stares still splashed
mercilessly over a King Duddol and a Queen Phlofie
who had by now already been left as sucked dry
(by their son's shocking announcement)
as a couple of prunes, pink-and-purple:

"Oh my!" (Was suddenly in all those hose-like eyes.)
Every stare there crushing them with their nail-like looks
and the weight of a whole melting ice age
(on top of the frosty gallons and gallons
their son had already dumped on them).

For a long time the two stunned monarchs just sat there
soaked-to-the-skin with icy embarrassment
(like a couple of frozen purple drips)
staring in disbelief at their son
--and then at the 'thing' he was holding hands with.

Then back and forth, and forth and back again
(because they simply refused to believe
what they were looking at).

They weren't the only ones, either:
Everybody was staring at the Prince
... and at the little bog girl next to him (calmly picking flakes
of dry, or very nearly dry, 'stuff' off herself
and flicking them aside--although, naturally,
she was always careful to see to it that
they didn't land on anyone): "Oh my!"

Then they stared in greater disbelief at the Prince.
And then back and forth, and back and forth again
until it almost seemed as if it might continue like that forever--

Except the Queen unexpectedly screamed
(although not all that unexpectedly really):
"Eeek!" She screamed
as desperately as if she'd been pinched by a bear
and then she began turning as green as if she were
going to become an emerald lightbulb.
Immediately after which she also began working
(as hard as anybody with that much blue blood in her
could find it in herself to work) to faint.

If nothing else, it gave everybody something
even more colorful to stare at than Little Angel Face,
if such a thing is possible:
Gagging up there on her purple throne, Queen Phlofie
pointed in anguish at the tacky little bog girl below her
quietly keeping to herself and smiling innocently at everyone
(especially at those not smiling at her,
exactly as she had been 'properly' brought up to do)
while the desperate Queen did her unsuccessfully darnest
to faint over her.

But the Queen wasn't the only one feeling ill,
for the King's whole head began to glow a dreadful
shade of violet pink (covered as it was with the violent
embarrassment of his son's poor judgment
in... picking princesses,
yes). Then he too turned ear-to-ear green with heartache
(or perhaps he just didn't want the Queen to
feel that she had to go at it alone).

"Oh dear, oh dear," Lady Cuss-Cuss commented
on the colorful situation (trying not
to let the Queen catch sight of the wicked little smile
holding up one of the corners of her mouth)
as she pretended to be trying to ease the tension
by spitefully teasing the mud-covered girl:

"She's certainly going to make a piggy little princess, isn't she!"

"A pig?" The twice hyphenated great General
Rhee-Hearsal-Onlea shouted next: "A pig!
Oh, I wouldn't go that far! I mean, pigs have wings,
don't they?" (As if he'd never even seen one.)

"Hap-ah, hap-ah, hap-ah..." was all that came out of
the King's mouth the first time he tried to say something
to his son. For no matter how hard he tried,
he just couldn't picture a prince of the royal blood marrying
such a muck-and-mud 'princess' as that one
--No matter how gritty she was.

After all, back in fairy-tales times
kings enlarged their kingdoms by marrying their children off
to wives and husbands rich enough to bring something more
than just their empty bellies into the bargain...

But looking at the little bog girl before them,
the one thing they could all be sure of
in this whole messy affair
was that she could be counted on to own nothing
this side of property but the seventeenth-hand-me-downs
on her gunky little skin and bones
(and they looked like they were being held together
by caked sludge --her clothes, I mean--
instead of the usual stitches and buttons).

And that's if she was even wearing 'human' clothes at all!

 Some of the ogling 'ladies and lords' tried to lay down bets
that the next bath she took would be a first ever experience
in her life (only no one would bet against it).

"Oh, no! No! No, I say!" The Queen finally managed
to spit out: "I'm sorry about this, Princie,"
as that was his nickname at Court (although his real name
was Cecil--and maybe even because of it): "I'm sorry, but
we can NOT permit you to marry this grimy goop of a girl
--And not even if there's a girl under all those rags!"
Stretching only her every third syllable to try to sound
even more superior than usual (for even as snooty as she was,
by law only the Emperor's wife was permitted to stretch every
other syllable when trying to sound more superior).

"My word, Princie," the King also chided his son:
"You'd be better off marrying a cleaning lady
--At least she'll be a lady (and make no bones about
cleaning... herself especially)."

"I declare, Your Highness," Drizzel the Royal Brother-in-law,
Royal Uncle (as well as Royal Chamberlain) was just as quick to add
since he didn't want to miss the opportunity
to put in his two gold ingots' worth:
"Have you taken a good look at... her!?"

"Yes, Uncle," the heartbroken Prince told him
(as well as everyone else): "Yes I have!"
Unable to understand why it should be so difficult for them
to see, and at once, the beautiful qualities in her
which were so obvious to him: "Have you?"

"Yes!" Everybody answered him with one voice:
"Yes we have!"

And even though the Prince was utterly crushed
by their attitude, incredibly, the only effect all this had
on Little Angel Face herself was that it didn't disappoint her
to discover that the 'better' people of the world were
as well rehearsed a group as that!

"What could a muck person like 'that'
possibly have in common with anyone here?"
The Queen wanted to know (to many a 'Here! Here!'
from the lords and ladies there).
Although even a great put-down like that one
only seem to say to Little Angel Face that the Queen
thought there was nothing 'common' about her!

"Least of all with a prince of the royal blood!"
Drizzel told the girl, point-blank.
(Which she took to mean that he thought her unique
even among the most unique of persons.)

And, "She's absolutely nothing like anybody!"
The Royal Head Waiter felt duty-bound (to
his servant class) to add (as he served
his whatever little knickknacks, whatnots, entrées
and pâtés all over the place): Just in case anybody there
was so much as thinking of
comparing her to any of the servants.

* * *

"Maybe I can help your parents,"
Little Angel Face suddenly announced right out of the blue
--and loud enough to be overheard by practically everyone--
for it was just plain obvious to her
how badly in need of being comforted everybody there was.

Her words, however, shocked the aristocrats there so much
(to discover that a 'mud critter' like her was able to speak
as if she might actually have a brain of her own
somewhere under all that mud-topped top) that
right away a raging murmur of, "She can talk,
she can talk," fell upon them like a shower of fleas!

The stir didn't stop Little Angel Face from following through
with her intention to comfort them (if only because
nothing really seemed to be able to stop her
or to even slow her down, apparently):

Boldly as you please, the young immigrant from the bog
waltzed right up to the King and Queen
of the entire Kingdom even as they themselves
(just as boldly) pinched their noses shut
--quick as their swampy little guest got close enough
for them to pick up her 'scent.'

And, "Your Majesties," she addressed the pinched monarchs
(while they pinched tighter and tighter
the closer and closer to them she got):
"I know I am not a princess," she announced
(and, oh, how they howled at that), "but,
if you just hold your... judgment until after
we are married, then I shall be a princess!"

 (Bright eyes and pinched noses all around.)

"And then your son will have married a princess,"
she explained admirably, "so everything will be
as you would have it," turning from the King and Queen
to the crowd and back and forth again
like a little mouse dancing without a care in the world
in front of all the owl eyes there staring at her (big as hunger):

"That Princess will still be me," she summed up her solution,
"so everything will also be as we would have it,"
(revealing how little she really understood about
social arithmetic): "And so, so-plus-so (being so),
we'll all live happily ever after--every last one of us!"

 "Well!" (In every discomforted eye there.)

After a brief moment of introspective indignation:
Again their vulgar laughter (at anybody's expense).

As far as the Queen was concerned, however,
there was precious little funny at all about any of it:

"That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever
had to sit still for (while pinching my nose
and breathing through my mouth) in my life!"
She said, breathing right through her seething teeth.

And, "My dear," the Royal Sage then took the opportunity
to ask Little Angel Face (like the dotting old grandfather
he looked like), to ask her a great personal favor
he had been meaning to ask her for some time now
(since he was a person who always knew exactly
what needed to be said and when the best moment was
to say it). So, "My dear," he now said to her
as soon as he saw that the moment had indeed come for him
to say it: "My dear, would you mind
standing back a little so we can all breathe?"

Of Royal Blood.

Thankfully, because of the beastly racket the crowd
was making just then Little Angel Face never heard
the Royal Sage's even beastlier remark.

However, the King wanted the Queen to know
that there WAS an itty bitty bit of truth in
what the mucky girl had just told them. Which,
in his opinion, showed that her brain, at least,
was in as proper a working order
as the rest of her was NOT properly in any order at all.

But no matter what kind of, "Hogwash!"
(The Queen rated the King's opinion,
as fiercely as a charging garbage disposal,
mincing no words about the matter.) The consensus remained
that the girl's solution to the problem of her not being a princess
of the royal blood... would not wash (either):

"Who ever heard of a princess not being a princess
born naturally?" The Royal Chamberlain muttered,
especially angered because, as the Queen's brother,
he just couldn't bear the thought of a bog girl
like Little Angel Face marrying her way into a Royal Family
he himself had worked so long and so hard to
stick his own sister into: "No sir!"

"But, Your Majesty," Little Angel Face explained:
"The fact that I am not of the royal blood
is probably about the only way the two of us aren't
almost identically and exactly alike!"

"'Identically and exactly alike!?!'" They all screamed at her:
"You identically and exactly like our Royal Prince!?!"

And, well, even though to look at the Prince just then,
he did have a lot (of mud, mostly) in common with her,
since like her he too had been slipping and tripping
all over the very boggy edge of the forest:
He still remained, first and foremostly, a prince
of the royal blood (and not some tacky little bog boy):

"How dare you suggest ANYBODY is in any way, shape,
manner, or form ANYTHING--even remotely--like my son!"
The Queen protested in a hurt voice that trembled with
just how much she herself would have liked to hurt 'somebody'
just then.

Suddenly the Queen jumped off her elevated purple throne
like a hard-pressed tidily-wink
and scurried down to her son's side to try to wipe
some of the swamp off him (like every good mother ought to)
... with the dainty handkerchief she all but ripped out of
Drizzel's hands while pushing past him:

"Not in any shape, manner, or, or,
or...!" She told everyone, wiping and trembling. And:
"Least of all a swamp creature like that one!"
Until, satisfied that she had done enough,
she tossed back (to a quite rattled Drizzel) the now utterly
smutty and ruined remains of the poor dainty handkerchief
she had 'burrowed' from him,
and headed back to her throne.

"Thank you!" The Royal Chamberlain graciously
accepted the return of his dainty hanky
(just having finished a thorough accounting of his fingers
--to make sure he wasn't missing any).

With marvelous grace and great professional expertise
(since, before he'd had the good fortune to marry off his sister
to the King he had been in the profession of daintily
folding hankies into their shipping boxes),
he then folded the now quite dead piece of cloth
very, very forlornly indeed and disposed of it
in a nearby Royal Trash bin. (After which
he immediately whisked out a brand new handkerchief.)

Meanwhile, "Oh! Oh!! Oh!!!" The Queen was moaning
all the way back to her throne: "I shall faint!
I shall faint!!" (To no one in particular really.)
"Catch me, somebody! Catch me! Catch me!
Catch me!" Trying every possible way she could
to faint once she had flung herself
into that grand glittering purple couch (-like)
throne of hers. Although again without much success.

* * *

"But it's true, Your Majesty!"
Their little visitor from the swamps
at the Very Boggy Edge of the Forest
still insisted on contradicting the conscientiously fainting Queen
right in the middle of her performance: "In this world,"
she explained, "everything is the same as everything else
except for the very few particulars
that make all the difference!"

(An ancient, practically eternal belief
which was probably the very reasonable explanation
why the girl was so convinced
she and the Prince had so many things 'in common.')

"Oh?!" Said the Royal Sage, who even at his age
was always willing to learn something old.

"Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!" the Queen's highly-pitched screams
quickly brought to an end all reasonable explanations.
It also silenced everybody
as instantly as if the Queen's screaming 'lies'
had shot them down where they stood.

All eyes then fell on Little Angel Face (like rotten tomatoes)
for, after the Queen declared that there was no such a thing
as two persons identically and exactly alike in the world,
everybody was sure that Little Angel Face would say
something outrageous enough to earn herself
a long stretch in prison.

Or so they hoped. At least the optimists among them:
The pessimists were convinced this would mark
the end of their 'fun.' Since surely now
the boggy girl would slink back to her 'proper place'
(whatever swamp she had plopped out of)
in total and complete embarrassment.

However, "That is not so,"
the young girl bravely told the Queen (quite sincerely,
too): "There is no end to the ways everyone in the world
is exactly like everyone else," in fact, "and
whether one comes from the worst swamps, like me,
or even the best palace (and is
a prince of the royal blood)."

Naturally Little Angel Face expected to be laughed at
again (everybody had been laughing at her
from the moment she set a muddy toe in there),
and she was quite prepared for that. Only,
so offended were all the ladies and lords this time
that, instead of laughing, they all
very soundly booed her!

 Some of the lords even reached for their swords!

"Nonsense!" The King quickly intervened
(trying to settle down an ugly situation
which looked as if it might be on the brink of becoming
even more unsettled): "Why,
prove such a thing to me and I'll, I'll, I'll..."

"Give our marriage your blessing?" Little Angel Face jumped
at the chance to finish the King's thought.

It wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind to finish with.
(Eating his hat and such things was more along the line
of what he'd been after.)

But, "Sure! Why not?!" he now told her,
carried away with how convinced he was
that such a thing could never be proven:
"Prove to me that a mucky bog girl like you
has that much 'in common' with my son, and I will
indeed grant you my blessing to marry him."
Saying which he laughed like it had all been a great big joke:
"On that you have my word!"

It was no joke to Little Angel Face, though.
Nor apparently to anybody else there, for they were all
as shocked by the truly crazy-sounding promise
their King had just made to the little bog girl
as if lightning had landed in their midst

--And the Queen worst of all:

Why, just the mere possibility
that one day they might wake up to find
some mud-crowned creature like 'her' their queen
was enough to frighten and even anger every lord and lady there.
And they were not a bit shy about voicing their displeasure
(with as much fury as a threatening beach with
a bad storm stuck in its throat).

Those among them sporting swords
again threatened to draw them, forcing the Prince
to also threaten to draw his--in case he had to save
his gunky beloved from a sudden wave of hotheads.

"It's, it's," the very nervous King insisted:
"It's just that there's no way this girl could prove
such an obvious impossibility!"

And he certainly wanted it perfectly understood
that he had not gone stark raving mad:
"If all of you would only take a second or two to think about it
yourselves, it would become as obvious to you too!"

"Ah!" The crowd sighed the minute they indeed thought about it
for the recommended couple of seconds. Then
everybody broke into a rousing chorus of, "The King is right!
The King is right!" With such fervor that walls shook
all across the Palace as if Mother Nature had been trying to
knock a cat off her roof:

"The King is always right!" Everybody chanted happily.
And, "Why, the very idea," of anyone wearing
ragged seventeenth-hand-me-downs like hers
(stitched together with but strings of gunk and buttons of mud)
being identically and exactly like a prince of the royal blood
was not only preposterous, it was postposterous too!

So, "The King is right!" They all laughed, very relieved indeed:
All the ladies chortling like children on shortening cake
and the lords giggling worse than Rusty Hinges
(the very worst giggler who ever giggled)
while they put their drawn swords back down their pants.

"Not in a thousand years!" The King joined in
(trying to assure the uneasy Queen).
Although soon even she was feeling confident enough
with the impossibility of the little bog girl ever being able
to prove she was all that exactly and identically like the Prince
to even behave a tiny little bit less ill at ease with her:

"You would never be able to prove it in a million years!"
She 'counselled' the girl: "Why don't you go back
to wherever you came from!"
And without even hollering at her that much.

"Yes!" Snapped the Royal Sage: "Let that be the end of it
there!" Although no one ever found out exactly what about him
had snapped, for he was an extremely bent-every-whichway
old man and all sorts of things were always snapping about him
(whether he wanted them to snap or not).

"Yes!" Said the Queen (now not even half as worried
or two thirds as angry): "You have given us all a good laugh
--for which we'll reward you handsomely, I'm sure.
But now be off with you! Off! Off! Off!!!"

But, "The Path of Righteousness is straight,"
Little Angel Face told the Queen, "horizon to horizon,
and any shortcut one takes is always a waste of time."
Which meant that she wasn't going anywhere but
where she'd been headed all along.

Very Unlikely.

"Indeed!" The Royal Chamberlain could hardly contain
himself: "Some people
just don't know when they're not wanted!"

"It's true, girl," even the King 'advised' her,
trying to sound as concerned about her
as if he'd been her father: "Why, you are no more
a person like a prince of the royal blood than,"
(and here he began twisting the gold ring he wore on his pinky
as he usually did whenever he was trying to help his memory
kick in), "than... this gold ring on my little finger
is like the thousands of mules in the Royal Stable!"

Cheers of approval rolled above the mob of ladies and lords
at the King's mulish humor. Then they all roundly quieted down,
as soon as Little Angel Face seemed about to answer the King
(for they were certain that whatever she said
would prove as unfortunate to herself
as it would undoubtedly be amusing to them):

"You are dead wrong, Your Majesty!"
She told the King (quite in earnest).

"Ah!" The mob was not to be disappointed:
Living or dead, few persons outside the emperor
(or a certain Queen) ever told the King to his face
that he was as wrong as all that.

But, "Just as Your Majesty can easily wrap that gold ring
around your little finger," the naive girl continued
(above the people's itching to break out laughing right in her face
and the Queen's trying to rein in her outrage), "so too
can Your Majesty wrap every one of your thousand mules
around your little finger," speaking as casually as if she'd
been talking the weather over with a passerby,
"so-to-speak."

And concluding: "Naturally, had you a mind to do so,"
nervously, facing down all her opposition:
"In that respect your gold ring and your thousand mules
are all identically and exactly alike."

And quite justified in being nervous, because
this last bit prompted Drizzel to instantly spring up at her:
"What insolence! What infamy!" He pleaded
before the very sympathetic jury of his peers:
"How dare she suggest our King has no mind!?!"
Trying to take advantage of the girl's unfortunate choice of words
to try to put her in a worse light: "What calumny!"

"I didn't suggest that!" The poor girl protested,
truly embarrassed (for the first time
since she'd set foot at the Royal Court)
that anybody should think she could be so disrespectful
to anyone--least of all to the King:

"That's not what I meant at all!"

For a while it was touch and go whether the mob of lords
might draw their swords again. But then the King
(who was finally beginning to get over the horrible first impression
Little Angel Face had made on him),
the King decided that she seemed like too nice a person
to go around pointing out to everybody his not having a mind,
and he very discreetly signalled (through his Palace Guards)
for all parties to put away their outrages--and other favors.

A signal which the Palace Guards immediately picked up on
and made very nearly impossible to miss
--there at the point of their sharp lances... in everybody's faces.

"Please, my dear," he then told his embarrassed young guest
(rather patiently too): "Do go on!"

"Well, Sire," she explained: "It's just that
it's so easy for a King to wrap anything (he might wish to)
around his little finger that, in that respect at least,
Your Majesty's gold ring IS quite identically and exactly
like any one of your mules!"

The King did his best to 'see' the thing
(himself wrapping a thousand sweaty mules around his little finger)
all at once. He even stopped pinching his nose shut
every time the strangely attractive (if unfortunately dressed)
young woman came nearer to him than a tacky little bog girl
so far removed from a Royal bath ought to come to a sitting King
(in order to think more clearly).

But, "Bunk!" The Royal Chamberlain spat out
at Little Angel Face like a snake:
"I've never heard such incredible bunk!"

The King, however, was suddenly of a different opinion
about exactly how credible her bunk was. After all
(he was thinking, for the first time in a while):
being King, there were any number of things, thousands
of mules among them, one gold ring, and even people too
(with the possible exception of a certain Queen),
all of whom, and all of which, he could
have wrapped around his little finger:

"Quite easily, too!" He unexpectedly spoke up
(startling everyone quite used to his always
keeping his mouth shut): "And had I a mind to! To be sure!"
Because about the only thing keeping him from wrapping everything
around his little finger indeed was
the fact that he lacked the mind to!

"You must admit, dear, he told the Queen,
beginning to discover that the longer the strangely appealing girl
remained in his presence the less and less
that really unfortunate first impression she'd made on him
seem to hold true--and the more charming she seemed to him,
in fact: "She did turn up one way my gold ring is identically
and exactly like all those sweating mules
she's talking about there."

The Queen, however, was NOT even the least bit
charmed by Little Angel Face. In fact she was just plain
downright growing more and more vulgarly
infuriated to death with her:

"Oh yeah?" She snapped at the King (there
in front of the entire Court): "That was just a fluke!
And a very fishy fluke at that!"
For as impressed as the Prince (and now even the King)
might be with her, no matter how dreadful she looked
to everyone else: that much more dreadful did
Little Angel Face appear to the Queen:

"A million-in-one coincidence!" She assured everyone:
"Just dumb luck! Am I not right about this, Drizzel?"
She asked her Royal Brother. And with such violence
that it flipped the Royal Chamberlain's powdered wig
right off his head.

"Oh, absolutely!" Drizzel assured his Royal Sister:
"Your Majesty is always right about everything!"
Then he scampered away dancing all over the place
after his runaway wig. Caught it. And stuck it back atop
his head very nearly the same way it had been sitting up there before
--except that now it didn't have as much powder on it: "Always!"

Without a breath's worth of apology
the Queen was already calling for the Royal Sage to step forward
and explain the fact to her satisfaction.
Something the Royal Sage did like a rabbit with a lively buckshot
of foxes after him (in spite of his advanced age),
for he was exceedingly wise about everything (and especially
about the fact... the Queen was demanding):

"Sire," the Royal Sage told the King: "I will grant you
that your gold ring does have something in common with
as many mules as it please Your Majesty. However,"
he then quickly spun around and said to the Queen:

"Exactly in accordance with Her Majesty's Opinion:
I'll wager that's probably the one and ONLY singular
weird coincidence like it in the whole universe;
and that everything everywhere else (in said universe)
is set in its right and proper (and unique enough) place
--in a class all by itself--and is not anything other than
what it (and it alone) is. Which certainly excludes
its being everything else (as the little bog person claims):
For that is the natural state of things, especially of things
in this peculiar state... of being, as you all know."

"So there!" All the ladies and lords at Court barked
at Little Angel Face (as if all their voices had been a single one).

"Night and day," the Queen seethed
with as much satisfaction as an open sore
(on somebody else): "The head of a pin is one thing,
and the planet Pluto something else altogether."

"A cored apple is a cored apple, and the Queen..."
Drizzel was very happy to soothe his ruffled powdered wig
by getting in on this: "Well,
everybody knows what the Queen is--"

"That is why," the King himself now merrily joined in,
just as Little Angel Face was about to number for everyone
the simply numberless ways in which, with very few exceptions,
the head of a pin, the planet Pluto, a cored apple
AND practically everyone and everything else
one might care to lump together (including the Queen)
were, all of them, exactly and identically alike.

Luckily for her, though: "That is why,"
the King kept merrily interrupting her
every time she opened her mouth to explain all this:
"That is why IF a little bog girl like her can prove she is
in any way, shape, manner, or form anything like my son
--let alone exactly and identically," (winking):
"They may marry at once!
And you all have my word on it!"

Most amusing. But what a serious stroke of luck
for Little Angel Face, who realized now how lucky it'd been
for her that the King had used his royal prerogative
to keep interrupting her: This was exactly
the opening she had been after all along,
as here they were actually proposing to grant her everything
she had been after--and all she would have to do in return
was... to prove the obvious!

"Chew on that!" Drizzel was mocking her then
(as blind to the obvious as everybody else there),
and even taking off one of his dainty gloves to snap
a couple of dainty fingers in front of her face.

The Queen also seemed willing now to blindly second him;
and, with a wink of her own, she too promised Little Angel Face
her blessing, "IF ever she managed
to prove such an 'impossible' thing."

"Very well, Your Majesty," Little Angel Face
wasted no time taking up their challenge: "I accept!"

It was certainly NOT what they were expecting.
And for quite some time they all stared at each other,
confused, and trying to figure out whether she was
just that dumb (or she knew something they didn't).

Except the Royal Sage: "What?" He asked everyone
around him: "What did she say?" (Although
everyone was too stunned to reply.)

In the end, the only good the girl's quick acceptance
really did her was that it instantly sent all the lords and ladies
who had been drowning in laughter
straight into choking on their watered-down laughs
... as they watched her overflow with joy now
over how easy she imagined it would be
to win their blessing to marry her Prince!

And, carefully reflecting on it for a couple of seconds now
(which most of them actually dutifully took
the couple of seconds to do, although a number of them
just took the opportunity to take out their little
personal compact mirrors to check their makeup):

"Didn't the muck-topped girl already prove
that the King's gold ring was a sweating mule or something?"
Lord Gary O'Larry questioned the nearest questionable
lady (and received no reply, truth or lie).

That questionable lady and the rest of them
just stared ahead with blank expressions on their faces
as Little Angel Face went hopping about everywhere,
merrily telling everyone: "I accept! I accept!"

And, "Not to worry!" She went from shock-frozen lord
to shock-frozen lady, warmly assuring every last one of them
how 'easy' it would be for her to prove that she was indeed
(in every possible way) exactly and identically like their Prince:

"Gosh!" She gushed confidently: "Anybody can prove
everybody in the world is identically and exactly like
everybody else!" (Like, Duh!) "And that's just
those people who are so out of sort with themselves
that they can hardly even stand others!"

So, "Imagine how much more alike those few of us must be
who have so much in common
that we actually fall in love with one another!"

People like... her and the Prince maybe?

Well, actually: No doubts there!
As she herself immediately reminded them:
"We love each other more than we love even ourselves!"

"Oh!" Drizzel feebly tried to stem the tide:
"I hate the way she keeps insinuating the Prince has
all that much in common
--Our Prince couldn't possibly have ANYTHING
in common!"

But it was too late: Just the mere possibility
that Little Angel Face 'might' indeed succeed
had already cast such a deadly shadow over
every lord and lady there
that they were now absolutely in the dark
whether or not (one not so very distant day)
they might or might not wake up to find their
once neat and spotlessly clean Kingdom (at the Very Boggy Edge
of the Forest) being ruled by THE SWAMP PEOPLE!

 "Horror!"

Certainly Little Angel Face herself wasn't doing anything
to wash away that monstrously muddy
vision of their dark future:

"I love him," she was telling everyone.
And even going on to violate every civilized code of etiquette
right under their already very painfully tweaked noses
by actually pointing at the Prince--with her index finger!

"Gads!" (Suddenly stuck an index in every noble eye there.)

"So you can imagine," Little Angel Face continued
(dancing everywhere merrily among them
like a spinning top straight out of Hell--in their eyes),
"how much more alike the two of us must be!"
Unfortunately for her, as it was now hard to imagine
that there could possibly be anyone there
who could NOT imagine the thing:

"Certainly lots and lots more
than just about anybody and anybody else
in this whole wide world (or even
anything and anything else)."

"Good Grief!" And, "Hello there," (to)
"our very own Little Mud Princess!" Perfectly spelled out
in the sparkling sour tears stuck to every chiselled
cheeky cheek there--With the exception of the Prince's cheek,
he simply pointed back at his endearingly overly-confident
beloved (although not with an index finger, thank Heavens),
and told his parents: "You see why I love her!"
As oblivious to how terrible his words were to them
as if he had just landed at the Court from another planet.

Forever Likely!

"You see, Your Majesty," Little Angel Face told
the glairy-eyed Queen: "We love each other so much
that there's no way we could not
be identically and exactly alike!"

The worried King consulted his confused Royal Sage
(in vain, because even as petrified as he was,
the wily old man was still too quick on his feet
to be that easily caught holding any opinions
outside those King Duddol or Queen Phlofie themselves
hadn't expressed to him first):

Like the very successful Sage he was,
the old man shrugged (wisely), kept his mouth shut,
and waited to be handed Their Royal Majesties's
Official Opinions (as they always eventually did).
Only, at the moment they too were dumbstruck
--in the face of such likeable a love.

"Not good enough!" Drizzel had to be the one
to try to snap the rest of them out of the spell
cast by the young couple's love for each other:
"Not good enough... for me!"

"Good enough for me," the Prince countered,
making his way back to reality.

But, "Not good for me either!" The Queen jumped in
(without even moving a muscle),
convinced now that if she didn't do something
the little pipsqueak of a bog girl might yet prove
to have enough common sense in her to come up with
more than just the one or two ways
(in addition to the way she and the Prince loved each other)
they were, "Heaven forbid!"
... Identically and exactly alike:

"So what if they're identically and exactly alike
in whatever number of ways," said the Queen:
"That certainly doesn't mean they're in every way
identically and exactly alike!"

"I suppose not," Little Angel Face acknowledged.
"It's just that if we were to start naming each and every way
we ARE identically and exactly alike we'd very quickly be
forced to agree that it was a waste of time to have even thought
there might be a limit to the number of them!"

"Is that so!" The Queen snapped: "'Very quickly?!'"

"Might it be so?" The King asked his shaky Royal Sage.

"In some ways," the Royal Sage was forced to speculate:
"I suppose everything IS like everything else.
Just don't ask her to explain how or why."
A speculation everybody ignored:

"What idiocy!" The Queen bragged:
"Who cares in how many ways they're identically and exactly
alike (ten, twenty, or a hundred): It still doesn't make them
in every way identically and exactly alike
(as she's claiming): That's the point!"

 "Momsie," the Prince pleaded: "Please!"

In vain: "Absolutely not!" The Queen told him,
for she was dead-set against their marriage
no matter what: "Nobody's going to make me believe
a tacky bog girl like this one is in any way, shape, manner,
or form, identically and exactly
like a prince of the royal blood!"

"And," Drizzel figured: "Not even if they're both
identically and exactly alike in every way
from here to the moon!" And every lady and lord there
would have no doubt added their own figures,
had not Little Angel Face herself suddenly said something
which immediately put an end to their figuring:

"Your Majesty," she told the Queen
as calmly as if she'd been stitching
still one more patch to her seventeenth-hand-me-downs:
"Your Majesty has but to set a number of likenesses
between us, and that exact number of likenesses
will I deliver to you before you need grant us your blessing!"

 "What!?!" (Suddenly in every eye there.)

The Queen herself wasn't sure she had heard correctly.
Nor, for that matter, the Prince, or the King, or Drizzel, or
the Royal Sage, Lord Gary O'Larry, or the Duke d'Dude
and his (second) Duchess Dudessa, the Marquis Mee,
Lady Fynn-Ghers or Lady Cuss-Cuss, the merry Archduke
Desi de Quba, Sir Err, or the great General
Rhee-Hearsal-Onlea, Madame Fourthwindow, or even
the Royal Valet Mukos (who was forever afflicted with
extremely stiff joints, especially whenever anybody mentioned
his name), a couple of high-priced lawyers
who gave themselves away immediately and were escorted,
Dooley and Propeley (their names)... out,
or any of the rest of them:

But, "Good heavens!" They all realized at once:
The Queen finally had Little Angel Face
exactly where she wanted her;
for by her own impatience had the girl
from the very boggy edge of the forest delivered herself
into the meanly manicured hands of her great enemy
... her would-be mother-in-law.

Then they all grew silent.
A great many of them, I dare say, even
holding their breaths as they waited with a wicked
anticipation for the apparently victorious Queen
to now come up with such a high number of likenesses
that it would forever keep the poor girl from marrying
her Prince (while the Queen herself was trying to figure out
if there might be a trick in it somewhere):

Yet here it was, staring her right in the face
--Victory hers for the taking!
It was almost too good to be true.
And for a few brief golden moments she almost held back
(just to savor every last possible moment of her triumph).

After all, one single solitary weird coincidence in the universe
(that a gold ring should have also turned out to be
something of a mule), or ten, or twenty, even a hundred
such coincidences--that was one thing.
Quite a different matter altogether would be, say, oh, say...

"One... thousand!" She mumbled
(although distinctly enough to test the effect the huge figure had
on the hopelessly hopeful girl).
And just to make sure Little Angel Face had understood her,
the Queen then 'mumbled' her extraordinarily huge figure again
(his time mumbling it even more distinctly):

"How might one thousand..."

She needn't have bothered: "Yes, Your Majesty,"
Little Angel Face eagerly and (unfortunately for her)
instantly interrupted the Queen's all too distinct and
deliberately out-loud mumbling to outright accept:

"Yes!" She told the vexed Queen:
"I can easily see even a thousand ways in which--"
An observation which was rather unfortunate
for Little Angel Face
because the Queen (almost as instantly)
interrupted the girl's premature acceptance to shriek out:

"Easily?!" (After all, making it 'easy' for the would-be princess
to jump the hurdles to her marriage with the Prince
was NOT what the Queen was after--)

Only, now, instead of the usual yelling
and jumping all over the place everybody was expecting
(and some even hoping) to see from the Queen,
suddenly they were treated instead to a surprisingly cool,
calm, and collected monarch:

The Queen simply settled into her great purple throne
and smiled 'deliciously' at them
--including even at Little Angel Face
(as if she had been wearing all the self-confidence in the world
for a crown): Because she perfectly well knew
that no one figure in particular had yet been agreed to by anybody
--And this gave her the roguish right to raise the pole
a notch or two on the all-wet lowly bog girl.

And so no matter how 'easy' it might have been
for the would-be mud-topped princess
to have come up with even a thousand ways
she and 'her' Prince were exactly and identically alike,
now (as if to make up for holding back before), now:
"How about..." the Queen crept closer and closer to
Little Angel Face until she was nearly on top of her:
"How about..." she then jumped down the girl's throat shrieking:

 "How about... one hundred thousand likenesses then!"

And so pleased was she to be able to drop such a huge figure
on Little Angel Face (to see what impression it made on her),
that it took the Queen all of but a single bound
to leap the incredible distance from where she had been standing
(almost right on top of her)
all the way back to her purple throne!

No one really knew what to expect next,
but, while waiting for it, they were 'treated' to the spectacle
of the Kingdom's sitting Queen bursting out
into as merry a bout of laughs
as they had ever seen her so busted!

Some of the onlookers yet found it in themselves to cry out:
"That's more like it!" While many others could only
scrounge up: "Let's see her agree to that!"
But certainly no one waited for the girl's answer
before enjoying their perceived victory.

And, "Would she agree?" (Eventually fell
into every eye there.) Although, truth be told,
most of them just wanted to see the Queen
try that jump again.

The Prince tried to keep his hopeful but naive would-be princess
from raising the number of likenesses she would have to hurdle
any higher. But her enthusiasm was even quicker than
his rush to save her from herself:

"Yes, Your Majesty!" She squealed excitedly,
again jumping (the gun) even over the Queen's great figure:
"So much do we love each other," she insisted
with a self-confidence that only served to
make their fear )that she just might be able to
come up with as many likenesses as it took)
appear that much more credible:

"So much do we love each other
that I don't see any way for us not to be exactly and identically
alike in even a hundred thousand ways--at least!"

"Well!" Said the absolutely floored (but
always resilient enough to bounce back) Queen:
"In that case, no sense taking any chances!"
Upon which she stood over the dreadful hush
which had gripped the Royal Throne Room
after Little Angel Face's latest acceptance, and then
she announced the exact number of likenesses
the girl would have to come up with
before she could marry the Prince:

"One zillion likenesses!" The Queen shrieked
like a perfectly wicked flourish of trumpets:

"Exactly one zillion likenesses must she come up with
before she marries my son!" Leaving 'on' and 'on'
and 'on' echoing over everybody's heads
like the aftermath of a bomb!

Then the roof fell in--So great a celebration broke out
among the ladies and lords of the Kin