Princess Grace was a real princess. She was not a pretend princess, or someone dressed as a princess for a play or halloween. Her dad, king Edward, was a harsh king. He wanted to be the most powerful king and was always scared that someone would overthrow him and take over the throne.
He hated many things but he hated magic more than anything else. This was because a magician had prophesied that he would be defeated by her daughter's son. So King Edward made up his mind not to let anyone marry her.
Princess Grace was a kind soul. She was loved and admired throughout the kingdom. Then one day she met a handsome knight at one of the court balls. The princess and the knight fell in love. They kept their love secret knowing that the princess's dad, King Edward, didn't want Princess Grace to get married.
But late at night, with the help of one of the friendly friars of the court the couple was married. Soon afterwards they had a son, in secret. They named the boy Freddy and sent him off to live with the sister of one of the queen's maids.
Now this sister's name was Olivia White. Her husband was Ben White. Mr and Mrs White didn't have children and they were more than happy to have Freddy as their child. They were forbidden to tell Freddy that he was the son of a princess. So Freddy grew up from a baby to an eleven year old boy, without knowing who his parents were and thinking that he was the son of Mr Ben White.
Freddy was tall, thin and had black hair and emerald green eyes. He had a way with animals and helped Mr White in the farm. He helped him milk the cows, collect the eggs the hens laid, and to shear the sheep.
Freddy had a best friend called Oliver. Oliver was the son of the village pastor. Together Freddy and Oliver would do all sorts of fun things together. They went berry picking when it was the right season. They went to spend their summer holidays by the seaside in the pastor's ancestral home and they even joined the boy scouts club in their school and went out camping in the meadows and the forests. They were inseparable.
Freddy got really good marks for his school tests and was the fastest boy in his grade. He could even outrun the best runners in the grade above him and he was good at playing football.
Freddy loved to walk about in the farm and see what the animals were up to when he had free time. He would sometimes talk to the animals too. Of course he felt like it was sort of a silly thing to do but he enjoyed it very much.
Freddy had a dog called Bingo he had found in the forest. It was a mongrel. The dog had white and black fur and had round walnut brown eyes.
Wherever Freddy went, Bingo went too. At first Freddy thought that he should name Bingo Shadow but then thought that since he wasn't entirely black, it would be better to name him another name.
Then one day, while they were in the forest and Freddy was looking for bird feathers for a school project, Bingo came to him carrying something in his mouth. When he stretched out his hand Bingo dropped something shining onto his hand.
"Why does it look like an egg but the strange thing is that it seems to be made of gold!" he said to himself as he carefully put it into his pocket. Now Freddy loved to find out about anything new he discovered. So he decided to go to the library and borrow a book about birds or bird eggs if possible.
He thought that it wouldn't be safe to take the egg with him and decided to leave it inside his clothes cupboard. Then he took his bicycle and set off to the library.
Mr Brown the librarian knew Freddy very well. "Good day to Freddy, how can I help you today?" asked Mr Brown as soon as Freddy had walked towards his desk.
"I would like to have a book on birds or a book on bird eggs if possible," said Arthur, as he looked around the shelves upon shelves filled with books of all kinds.
