fairytale: Blueberry Princess

Blueberry Princess

Granny Agnes opened her window and shouted . “Children, Children, can you please be quiet for a few minutes?”

“No way!” Slicy, Gertie, Blaise, and Thomas burst out laughing and continued to play in the yard.

“ Go to the forest and pick me a basket of blueberries. I will lie down for a while to give my old bones a long needed rest.”. said granny with a pleasant wink.

“How come we did not think of that earlier.” shouted Slicy, and hurried home to fetch a basket.

“Slicy! Make sure you have your boots on so that nothing will sting you on the soles of your feet!”her mother commanded, with concern.

One after another, they turned on to the forest path which wound between the mowed meadows. They stopped to fill their water bottles in the near by stream.

“Last year the Fern Dwarf helped us find the blueberries,” remembered Blaise.

“He showed us the most hidden spots,”remarked Slicy.She looked around cautiously, hoping that he would show up again.

But, the Dwarf was not there..

They waited for a while and then laid down their cannikins and baskets on the nearby stump,and ran into the blueberry bushes. The blueberries were  sweeter than ever before.So they dropped the first one in the small pot, and the second one ended in their mouth.

All this time, they were laughing and telling each other jokes. If they heard birds singing, they became quiet for a moment trying to guess which bird it was.

Suddenly, they heard sad crying from the heather.

“Hush,” whispered Slicy, and then they all moved carefully behind the nearest tree.

Thomas tip toed closer to the sound.

Between the red heather he beheld a tiny girl sobbing inconsolably.

He waved his hand to his friends who moved in closer.

“Why are you staring at me? Can’t you see that I am in a bad mood?” said the voice from the ground.

The friends looked at each other.

“Let us help you!” volunteered Thomas.

“No one can help the Blueberry Princess!”

The children sat down on the ground and waited.

“Can anyone tell me why the moss is green?” a sad voice asked from below the heather.

 “I have no clue!”Blaise confessed honestly.

“Why is heather red and not blue?” The Blueberry Princess continued to be angry. “Why must I be what I am and not the Snow White or Cinderella instead?”

“Maybe it is better that you are not Snow White. You would sting your finger, and that would be very painful,” said Slicy trying to comfort her.         

“It was not easy for Cinderella also. She had to tidy up and clean the house all the time”. Gertie frowned, since she did not like such work at all.

Blueberry  Princess  raised herself on her feet. She was just a bit more than a

hand span tall. She pulled her small magic wand from her pocket and waved it.

However nothing changed. The blueberries kept swinging happily on their bushes.

“Did you know that the sun shines because of me and that the birds sing just for me,” she asked the children arrogantly.

They all simultaneously burst out into laughter.

“That is not true. They  teach us in school that the sun warms all people. Nobody even mentioned you!”

Blueberry Princess made “pf” and “pf” sounds again and proceeded to lock herself into her small green castle.

The children were fidgeting on the spot in embarrassment  for a while, waved their hands and decided to tackle the blueberries again.

The sun was already in the middle of the sky when they heard tiny steps behind them.

“I can conjure up full baskets of blueberries if you want,” offered the mysterious princess. This time she was much friendlier than she was  a while ago.

“I’d rather that you would not,” answered Blaise.

“ Blueberries are much tastier if we pick them ourselves. Our mothers would not believe our story if we said that you conjured then up for us,”explained Slicy.

But the princess did not listen to them. She waved her small wand and magically the cannikins were filled with the forest fruit in a flash.

She waved again and this time their pockets began to hang under the heavy weight of the sweet fruit.

When she waved for the third time, the blueberries entangled themselves into the children’s hair.

The children did not know what to do. They did not dare to move.

Frolicking and waving her magic wand, the princess ran up and down the path. Pretty soon, all the blueberries growing in the forest found themselves in a large pile .As luck would have it, precisely at that moment, the doors to the blueberry castle opened and at the doorstep appeared a regal queen with a big crown on her head.

“Oh, here you are , you naughty child,” called the queen as she noticed the princess waving her magic wand. She immediately took it from her hand.

“As a punishment  for your wicket deeds, you will have to attend a school for witchcraft for two more years!” commanded the queen.

“Don’t hold a grudge against her,”she said, turning to the children.”Sometimes she is so headstrong that I do not know what to do with her,” complained the queen.

“Can you help me return all the blueberries to where they were?”

Slicy, Blaise, Gertie and Thomas nodded. They began carrying the blueberries from one bush to another and fastening each one back onto their branch until it became pitch dark.. They were very tired at the end but nevertheless, glad that the forest looked just as they had found it.

They kept only the blueberries that were left in their cannikins.They waited for the doors of the blueberry castle to close.Through the small windows, they saw how the princess got into her bed , covered herself with a blanket and fell asleep.

The children were very tired when they returned back home. Granny Agnes was already anxiously waiting for them, asking where had they been for so long.

They told her the truth.

Granny burst into laughter and flashed her eyes.

“I know that you were wandering around the forest, what else!”

But when they showed her their full cannikins, she was not quite sure whether they were pulling her leg or the story of the Blueberry Princess was true.