Princess Selena
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess named Selena. She didn’t dress like a princess, or talk like a princess, or act like a princess because she was pretending to be a regular girl. Why would she do that you ask? Because she was hiding. From whom would she be hiding? Selena was hiding from a big, green and gray dragon. It had rough scales and snaggly teeth and it smelled like a garbage can that had been sitting on the curb for a month. Selena had never actually seen the dragon herself, but Aunt Tina and Uncle Theo told her stories about the dragon every night before she went to sleep.
Selena lived with her aunt and uncle in a very small town, far from her father’s castle. Did I tell you he’s a King? The small village was surrounded by farms that grew wheat, potatoes and sugar beets. It was so dry and dusty in the village that there was always a film of dust on all the furniture and the floors had to be swept twice a day. The sky always had a brown tinge to it. One of the King’s sorcerers had enchanted it to look plain and dreary because the dragon wouldn’t expect Selena to be living in a small, dirty town, wearing torn blue jeans and a faded tan tee shirt (though her true beauty shone from within and there really was no mistaking her for anything less than a princess).
Selena was hiding from the big green and gray, snaggly-toothed, smelly dragon so he wouldn’t eat her. And what dragon wouldn’t want to eat such a sweet tasty child as she? The dragon had eaten other princesses in the area and the King didn’t want to take any chance that his precious daughter would be the dragon’s next meal. The princesses who were eaten had gone walking in the woods or swimming in the river or shopping at the mall and they’d never come back. Usually the searchers found a single princess-sized Manolo Blahnik high-heeled shoe or a Kate Spade bag, but nothing was ever found of the princesses themselves.
One night as Uncle Theo tucked Selena into bed, he began again with the warnings, “Now Selena, remember to always keep your eyes open for that stinky green and gray dragon with snaggly teeth.” All night long Selena dreamt that she was running from the smelly dragon. It never caught her, but she knew it was right behind her. When she finally woke up, she was so tired that at breakfast she could barely keep her head from falling into her bowl of Berry Burst Cheerios.
Selena tiredly dusted the furniture, swept the floors and vacuumed the rug. She cleaned every day since she never knew when her father might show up (He hadn’t arrived yet in two years, but she kept hoping.) and she wanted to be ready. When she was finished, Selena asked Aunt Tina, “May I go out to watch the sheep in the pasture?” Aunt Tina replied, “But of course my dear, just make sure to wear the clothes we got you at Sears. The dragon will never recognize you as a princess in them.”
Selena raced out to the pasture where she climbed through the barb wire fence then up onto a low branch of the apple tree so she could count the sheep below. She was right in the middle of a good dream about eating apple pie ala’ mode when the tree started shaking. She quickly opened her eyes to find an ugly green and gray dragon biting apples off the tree and her eyes got very big with fear. The dragon smelled so putrid that Selena pinched her nose closed with her fingers. Then she yelled, “Hey! doze are our abbles!” (It sounded funny with her nostrils pinched.)
The dragon backed up so he could see Selena better. He was kind of far-sighted which meant he couldn’t focus on things close to him. “Pardon me,” the dragon belched “I didn’t see you there.”
Selena swatted at him “Bagov (which meant back off) you big buwee (bully)!” The dragon pulled his wings in and got a very hurt look on his face. Selena unplugged her nose and tried to breathe through her mouth. It still smelled bad. “So do you always go about eating people and their apples?”
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he offered by way of apology, “and no I don’t eat people because they are too vile. Wherever did you get that idea?”
Selena wasn’t sure she should keep talking to the dragon, but she decided to get to the bottom of this mystery. “My father, aunt and uncle all told me that you like to munch on princesses for lunch.”
Bubba (that was the dragon’s name) thought about this while chomping the apples that were still in his mouth. “If I eat people, why haven’t you run away from me?”
Selena thought about it for a moment then smiling replied, “because I’m a princess and I’m not afraid of a stinky, snaggly-toothed, green and gray dragon!”
With that Bubba the smelly, green and gray dragon with snaggly teeth snapped her up in one big mouthful.
What is the moral of this story? Never tempt fate. If you’ve been warned to flee a big stinky, green and gray dragon with snaggly teeth that eats princesses, don’t stand there telling him you’re a princess. Oh and by the way, cleanliness may be next to Godliness, but it’ll never bring back the King who abandoned you for your own good. Always be vigilant, you’re on your own and stronger than you think.
The end.
© Sue Barton 2004
