Plaiddragon's Plots
Jack and the Rude Princess:
A Fractured Fairy Tale in the style of a Narrative Poem
This story got second
place in the Steelsings'
Fractured Fairy Tale Competition!!
One day our hero Jack
went to market to sell his cow.
He was supposed to bargain,
but he didn't quite know how!
Now everybody knows
exactly what happened next:
Jack came home with some "magic beans",
which made his mother quite vexed.
She threw them out a window!
(Can you say defenestrate?)
So Jack went straight to bed,
For it was getting late.
When Jack got out of bed
he was greeted with a marvelous sight.
The beans had grown into a huge stalk!
(They must have been growing all through the night!)
This stalk reached all the way to the clouds.
Jack, not knowing what else to do,
climbed all the way up that beanstalk
until his head poked right through.
He pulled himself up, and
to his amazement he found
that he could walk on this cloud
just as if it were ground!
Jack saw a path up ahead
that led to a rather large castle.
He followed it and found the way overgrown,
thick with briars. What a hassle!
But our hero Jack was not daunted.
Through the vines he quickly hacked.
He made up with perserverance
what in strength he lacked.
Jack was amazed at what he saw inside.
There were cobwebs everywhere
and all the people were asleep,
as still as if they had died!
Eventually Jack found Beauty's room,
where she slept in seeming bliss,
and he did what all men would,
he woke her with a kiss.
When Beauty awoke
she stifled a scream.
Jack didn't look like a prince,
but things aren't always what they seem.
"Who are you?"
Sweet Beauty asked.
Jack, ever innocent, replied,
"Why, I'm just Jack."
Then Beauty knew for sure,
Jack was no Prince!
(Princesses know these things,
it's like a sixth sense.)
So she let out her scream.
She could stifle it no logner.
But Jack could not understand
why she felt that he'd wronged her!
Then Jack grew nervous,
for he heard a terrible sound.
There was a thumping and a wheezing
and a giant pound!
"Fee, fi, fo, fum,"
a terrible voice cried,
"I smell the blood of a common man,
and he'd better hide!"
So Jack ran and hid,
while a giant burst onto the scene.
He was huge and hairy,
and he looked truly mean.
The Princess pointed at Jack,
and then she whined:
"Why is it that princes
are so hard to find?"
The Giant added his own complaint:
"I'm getting so very lean.
Wages for guarding castles have dropped,
they're so low it's obscene!"
Beauty said "I suppose we should reward the knave."
So she handed him money in a sack.
But she could not remember his name.
(She had thought of the wrong kind of Jack!)
Then, to add insult to injury,
a true Prince rushed in!
He pushed Jack out of the way,
and he kicked his shin!
Jack thought the Prince rude,
but Beauty didn't mind.
She didn't care what he was,
as long as he was her kind.
Jack was so disgusted he left,
as the fight began.
He heard the Giant scream,
and then he ran.
He returned home,
disappointed but filthy rich.
His mother thanked him
for trading with the witch.
* * *
Now five years had gone by,
as the years often do,
when a knocking was heard at Jack's door.
Can you guess who?
On the doorstop was Beauty,
in faded bellbottom jeans.
Jack almost didn't know her,
She'd looked so different in other scenes!
It was raining hard,
so Jack brought her inside.
To his great surprise,
she just sat there and cried.
Jack was a sensitive soul,
so he asked, "What's the matter?
I've never seen a Princess
with her clothes in such a tatter!"
So Beauty told him all about her life
with the Not-So-Charming Prince.
"He acted so well until we were wed,
but he wasn't nice since!"
Eventually she divorced him,
and threw away the ring.
But the court fees had left her penniless,
without a single thing!
"I had nothing else to do,
so I drove here in a lorry.
I won't ask for your help,
I just wanted to say 'I'm sorry.' "
Jack was moved by this sad tale,
and when she said "I'm sorry,"
he found her even more beautiful
than when she was clothed in glory!
And not knowing quite why or how,
he found himself kissing Beauty.
She even kissed him back,
it seemed she had finished being snooty.
The two of them together
their hearts did mend.
(I think Jack did pretty well for a fool,
he got the girl in the end.)
So Jack married Beauty,
amid joyous laughter.
As the people say, they lived
"Happily Ever After."
(Prince Charming that wasn't
died of loneliness at age twenty-three.
He got just what he deserved,
which is fine by me.)
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