Pumpkin Patch Princess

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Frog Dive

I stopped by the mail room after dinner and found a letter from Geoff and a package from my parents. I took them back to my residence hall and curled up on my bed to read.

Geoff had been sent back early from the camping trip with a broken leg. He had fallen down an abandoned mineshaft, but he was resting and feeling good. The accident hadn't dampened his spirits one bit.

"The ladies-in-waiting love a man with an injury," he wrote. "I still don't know what the princess looks like, though. She's always wearing a veil to keep her skin pale, but I'm beginning to think she might have a mustache (I hope the guards don't go through our mail and read this)."

His favorite class was the one on dragons. For someone who had talked of nothing but killing one, he sure did write a lot about how cute the babies were. "We saw one in the mines but couldn't stay long, just in case the mother came back and fancied filet de man-flesh."

I had written to him about the glass shoe dreams I'd been having. His response: "Talk to a dwarf. They're grumpy, but they know everything about the mountains and I hear there's some kind of special glass that they mine. Come visit and we'll try it out."

I folded the letter, feeling a wave of homesickness for him. I made up my mind to ask Maud if we could go to Citria after our next mission, since I wasn't about to pass up seeing my best friend at knight school and maybe learning more about this special glass.

Mom and Dad had sent only a brief note ("Hope you haven't forgotten your old parents. Love you!") with a notepad of Mom's shoe sketches and a small pouch of gossamer powder from Dad. He had probably included it for the four little pumpkins he had given me. Three of them were too heavy to carry around, but I kept the smallest in my bag, for luck. I tucked the gossamer powder beside it. Good old Dad, I thought affectionately. When would I ever need to grow a pumpkin on my travels?

The next morning, I hopped back into the carriage with Maud, Alfonso, and Muffet. It seemed we were to be a permanent traveling team.

"Valentine didn't really want me to go," the cat said, curling up beside me. "But she's been so busy that I thought I'd be of more use to you."

Maud was enthusiastic about my request to go to Citria. "Grandma Lin is friends with some dwarves who run a tavern there. I could deliver her letter to them and you could go see your friend."

"Are you sure that's okay? I don't want to take a day off so soon."

"You're entitled to a break. And anyway, I'm going to make you earn it." She smiled. "A very interesting wish came into C.A.F.E. when you were out yesterday."

"Oh? Does it sound valid?"

"Well, that's for you to find out." Maud pulled an envelope out of her pocket and handed it to me. "I signed you up because I knew you'd want to go. The wish happened to be made by one Princess Cynthia of Indigo."

I sat upright. "The queen's stepdaughter? The one who's been so sick, she hasn't left Indigo Castle in ten years?"

The fairy godmother nodded. "Although, going by her wish, she certainly doesn't seem to be sick now."

Curious, I pulled a slip of paper out the envelope.

I wish to leave Indigo to see the world and find adventure and make something of myself.

I read it again. And again. Both Muffet and Alfonso crowded around to see what had struck me dumb. "Maud," I said slowly. "I could have made this wish myself. In fact, I'm pretty sure I did."

"Seems like serendipity, doesn't it?" Maud said brightly.

"And you want me to be the one to see if Princess Cynthia really needs a fairy godmother," I said, growing more excited by the minute.