Free 3 Dead Princes: An Anarchist Fairy Tale by Danbert Nobacon Page A

if he were a bastard gropeller.”
     
    The girls looked into each other’s eyes, uncertain of where the words had led them, when a gentle cramp in Stormy’s stomach burst softly, combusting into a laugh, and the girls fell on the bed together, howling helplessly.
     
    Which is how those moments go, sometimes. And a good thing, too.
     
    A little later when the seriousness that had been scattered to the four winds was beginning to recombine, Stormy asked cautiously, “Was that a prophecy? I mean, what your mother said.”
     
    “It might be nothing. She didn’t say you killed the princes.”
     
    “That’s what she meant though. Wasn’t it?”
     
    “She said you had a long life-line, so maybe all it means is that some of the princes you meet in the summers and summers to come will die before you do. I mean, you know what princes are like. Even the good ones. Always tempting fate, trying to beat their fathers and impress the girls. Must be something in their blood.”
     
    Stormy thought of her father, who was Wangodknowswhere. He was no longer a prince, but she feared for him all the same.
     

Chapter 13
     
    SORTOFINGTON
     
    S tormy never got up from the bed to go pee or anything. She drifted off to sleep after Glamour had gently undressed her, changed her bloodsheet, and tucked her into bed. She kissed Stormy on the forehead, but even a kiss from a true friend can offer only so much protection.
     
    It was not until the dead of night, when Stormy really did need to pee, that she woke.
     
    It felt strange, to be in another new house. It was even stranger to feel the weight of forces that had ripped her world apart. It was only three nights ago that her father had tucked her up in her own bed. Now her home seemed like it was a gadzillion miles away, and her old life lost on a distant planet.
     
    She shivered as she got back into bed, pulled the sheet close around her, and slowly sort-of-drifted off.
     
    The dreamland of Sortofington was not where she wanted to be. But Sortofington was where her troubled mind looked for answers. We have all been there.
     
    The Giggle Monkeys were there, laughing. Always laughing. Singing and laughing all at the same time.
     
    Princess, Princess,
I bet you won’t remember this.
Take a good long look
For goodness sake.
     
     
     
    Princess, Princess,
I bet you won’t remember this.
Wish upon the sun,
When you wake.
     
     
    Princess, Princess,
I bet you won’t …
     
    “Okay, okay. I get the picture,” stormed Stormy in her dream.
     
    The Giggle Monkeys looked at her dumbfounded, then slowly resumed chattering among themselves. The monkey with a gray streak of hair running back from his forehead in a mohawk stepped forward.
     
    “I am Gimminy Giggle. You are the honorary Princess Giggle. And we are giving you the tools to do the job.”
     
    “Tools? What tools? What Job? I don’t see any tools!”
     
    “Well,” said Gimminy Giggle, “that depends on what happens next.”
     
    “So what does happen next?”
     
    “We won’t know until it happens, you see …”
     
    “So how can you give me the right tools?” pleaded Stormy, exasperated.
     
    “We can’t be sure,” said Gimminy. “But what we have given you should stand you in good stead when the time comes.”
     
    “But you haven’t given me anything!”
     

    “We have too! We gave her the tools, didn’t we lads?” Gimminy appealed to his comrades.
     
    Now the Giggle Monkeys muttered among themselves again.
     
    “Well, if she can’t remember it in a dream, then my bet is as good as won,” said Garama Giggle.
     
    “Don’t count your gracklechicks!” said Gimminy Giggle.
     
    “I think she has hidden depths,” said Goandermi Giggle.
     
    “Time she met the Bird,” said Garama.
     
    You may think all this talk and pictures of strange creatures was only legend. Or maybe it is mere pretendsuppose to scare children at night? It’s easy to forget that the night stories we tell our