King Flashypants and the Evil Emperor Read online

  “ANTHEM OF DESTRUCTION.”

  It was quite a long walk to Village, so they played each tune three times, as well as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

  The emperor cast his eye down Village’s main street. Instead of the smiling, happy peasants he might have seen on any other day, he saw sad, worried-looking peasants.

  “Peasant! Approach!” he said to one of them.

  “Oh, hello,” said the peasant. “Aren’t you evil Emperor Nurbison, sworn enemy of happiness, and the eternal foe of King Edwin?”

  “Why, yes, I am! Globulus, give him a signed picture.”

  Globulus handed the peasant a signed drawing of the emperor standing on a big rock, looking into the distance, with an eagle perched on his hand.

  “Why has this become a land of misery?” said the emperor. “I thought the peasants here were of the merry sort?”

  “Yesterday, the king didn’t come to give us chocolate. He always does that on Fridays.”

  More peasants clustered round.

  “None of us can handle a Friday without chocolate. That’s too much for anyone.”

  “We love our king, but it’s like he’s…”

  “It’s like he’s forgotten us!”

  “We’d ask one of the guards what’s going on, but there are none around. They’re all at the palace.”

  The emperor nodded and frowned, as if he felt sorry for the peasants.

  “This, like, situation here and stuff. You could, you know … do a thing,” said Globulus.

  “If by ‘do a thing’ you mean ‘use their unhappiness to seize this land,’ then yes, I could indeed ‘do a thing.’”

  Emperor Nurbison climbed onto a hay cart. They’re very good for making big olden-day speeches on short notice.

  “Workers! Peasants! Scum!” the evil emperor began. Then he remembered he needed to be nice to them, at least for the next hour or so.

  “I mean … dear friends! If your king has not brought you chocolates and sweets, he has indeed forgotten you!”

  There was a moan from the crowd.

  “But fear not! All you need to do is rise up! Rise against the king who no longer loves you. Overthrow him, I say, and I, Emperor Nurbison, Earl of Unjerland, Overlord of Glenth and Boolander, Monarch of the Salty Marshes of Splop, shall be your new ruler!”

  The peasants patiently watched the emperor for a while.

  “That was the end of the speech,” Nurbison said. “Honestly, I thought flapping my arms and shaking my finger at the sky would have given you a bit of a clue. Anyway, will you rise against King Edwin?”

  The peasants sat in a circle and talked it over.

  “Seems reasonable,” said one peasant.

  “Yes, I thought the emperor had a lot of interesting things to say,” said another.

  A very small peasant jumped into the middle of the circle. She was called Natasha, and she was seven years old.

  “But he’s an evil emperor,” said Natasha. “So anything he says might be a lie.”

  Hardly anybody tells a lie in Edwinland, so the peasants had forgotten that not everywhere was like that.

  “Powerful point,” said another peasant.

  “Food for thought,” said another.

  On they talked.

  Emperor Nurbison leaned over to Globulus. “What exactly is going on here?”

  “I reckon they’re, you know, having different points of view and telling each other about them,” Globulus replied.

  “Oh. I’ve heard about this kind of thing. It’s called a ‘discussion.’ I certainly won’t be letting that happen when I take over. But it’s fascinating to see one going on.”

  The discussion went on and on. The emperor grew more and more impatient. He drummed his fingers on Globulus’s head.

  “They’re not yet ready to turn against their king,” Nurbison said to Globulus. “We need more … something big, to win them over.”

  “Sort of like, there’s a curse on the kingdom? Something like that?”

  “Exactly like that. Quickly, back to my castle!”

  They all ran back to Nurbisonia. The band played “The Emperor’s Striding Theme,” but three times faster than normal.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, Emperor Nurbison sat back on his throne and admired his work.

  “The citizens of Edwinland will get rid of their puny king when they see their land has been cursed. And what better curse is there than a scary monster? Here is such a monster!

  Globulus and the sinister soldiers stared at the dragon.

  Except it wasn’t really a dragon. There hadn’t been dragons in the world for hundreds of years. So the emperor had found a cow and spent the last two hours using his incredible crafting skills to make it look like a dragon.

  Its wings were made from wire coat hangers and crepe paper. Its hooves were now claws—or rather, two pairs of furry-monster novelty slippers that the emperor had been given for his birthday but had never worn. The tail was a long sock stuffed with tissue paper. Two candles stuck on the cow’s nose were the “fiery breath.” The animal was painted green. Or at least the front half was—the paint had run out. The emperor had tried to color in the back half of the cow with felt-tip pens, but he had never been very good at putting the tops back on his felt tips, and they had all dried up. But the emperor thought it would be okay, because if the cow was scary enough in the front, the peasants would run away before they saw the back.

  “We will let this fearsome dragon loose on the streets of Edwinland,” said Emperor Nurbison. “We will tell them their kingdom is cursed until Edwin is gone. Soon! Soon I shall crush Edwinland as I crush this fruit!”

  Globulus looked around the room. The fruit bowl had been taken away to make room for the emperor’s craft box.

  “As I crush this fruit … As I crush this … Oh, somebody get some! An apple! A fig! A cherry, I don’t care!”

  And Globulus ran from the room, a piece of crepe paper stuck to the back of his trousers.

  5.

  Attack!

  King Edwin sat on his throne. He was very sad. He loved his subjects more than anything, and if he couldn’ t give them presents of chocolate and sweets, he just didn’t know what to do with himself.

  Minister Jill had told him there were lots of other ways to show the peasants he loved them that wouldn’t cost so much money. “How about giving them homemade presents?” she’d said. Edwin had noticed how grown-ups always love to suggest that. When you give a grown-up a homemade present, they always say it’s really good and better than anything you could get from the store, even when that’s not true, which is most of the time.

  Edwin needed something to cheer him up—and fast. So he did that double clap that kings do when they want attention.

  In a far corner of the throne room, a jester-shaped door opened, and Megan the Jester ran out, bells tinkling. Megan was Edwin’s favorite person in the world because she was just so big and tall and funny.

  “What amusements would you like, Your Majesty?” said Megan.

  “Well, that falling-over thing you do is always brilliant. Can you do that?”

  Megan skipped across the floor, tripped over a wonky stone slab, and fell flat on her face. Edwin roared with laughter—so she did it again. And again. Edwin kept on laughing. But after she had done it seventy or eighty times, the joke was starting to wear off.

  King Edwin sighed. He was thinking about those poor, hungry peasants once more.

  Megan got out a lute, which is a sort of olden-days guitar.

  “I’ll sing you a song, Your Majesty! This one’s called ‘My Very Nice Cat.’”

  Megan played and sang.

  It was one of her better songs. By the time Megan got to the big lute solo, Edwin had forgotten all his troubles.

  Just then, Minister Jill burst into the room.

  “Your Majesty! The citizens are attacking the castle!”

  King Edwin, Minister Jill, and Megan the Jester ran to the battlements. It was true. The peasants had risen. But they were apologizing for it.

  “We’re really sorry!” said the peasants as they pushed long ladders against the castle walls.

  “We hope you’re not too upset about this!” they said as they smashed against the great wooden door with a battering ram.

  “We hope we can all still be friends!” they said as they hurled huge rocks at the building with a giant catapult.

  “Why do you turn against your king?” shouted Minister Jill. “You can survive one day without chocolate, can’t you?”

  “But there’s the curse!” said a peasant. “An evil dragon came to burn our crops! He won’t go until we have a new ruler!”

  Little Natasha was following the rest of the peasants, bouncing up and down with rage.

  “It’s not a dragon!” she yelled. “It’s a cow with candles on its nose! Anyone can see that! And it never set fire to the crops. It just tried to eat some grass and singed a dandelion.” But her words were drowned out by the battering ram and the catapults.

  Watching the whole thing from a nearby hillock was the dastardly Emperor Nurbison, patting the cow that kind-of-sort-of looked like a dragon.

  The emperor was too far from the castle for the king to hear a “FOO HOO HOO HOO,” so Globulus held up a big sign for Edwin to read.

  “So that bad, beardy man’s behind this! I should have known,” said King Edwin.

  The castle door broke, and the peasants surged inside.

  “We’ll deal with him later,” said Minister Jill. “First, let’s defend the castle. Centurion Alisha? Stop the peasants from getting in!” said Minister Jill.

  Alisha pulled out her big sword with a

  sound. All the other guards did the same.

  “Sto
p!” said King Edwin. “I don’t want my people harmed, even if they are storming my castle. Use weapons if you like, but make sure they’re weapons that won’t hurt anyone.”

  “As you wish, Your Majesty!” said Centurion Alisha, and she and the guards thundered down the stone stairs to the weapons storeroom. They found the cupboard marked WEAPONS THAT WON’T HURT ANYONE and pulled out lots of inflatable hammers.

  The guards ran through the castle, doing their best—but the inflatable hammers didn’t scare anyone. They just bounced harmlessly off every peasant head.

  King Edwin, Minister Jill, and Megan the Jester watched it all from the battlements.

  “The castle is lost! Your Majesty, we must flee!” said Minister Jill.

  There aren’t many ways into a castle, which is a problem when you want to get out of one because there aren’t many ways to do that, either. Edwin ran to the weapons storeroom to see if anything was there that might help.

  He found a bow and arrow.

  The king scurried back up to the battlements, tied some string to the arrow, and fired it over the moat. The arrow stuck in a tree on the other side, trailing the string behind it, which Edwin caught and tied to a stone pillar.

  “Okay. All we need to do now is tightrope-walk over the castle moat that’s totally full of crocodiles, and we’ll be safe on the other side.”

  “Ever walked on a tightrope before?” said Minister Jill.

  “Uuuummmmmmmmmmm … no,” said King Edwin.

  6.

  Snappy Crocodiles

  “I’ll go first to check it’s safe,” said Minister Jill, trying to sound as brave as she could.

  The string wobbled as she took the first few steps over the moat.

  Far below, crocodiles snapped and wriggled in the water, expecting a meal to plop into their mouths any second. A couple of years before, King Edwin had crocodiles put in the moat because he thought crocodiles were awesome. Didn’t seem like such a good idea now.

  But Jill took a deep breath, kept walking, and jumped to safety on the other side.

  Megan the Jester went next. The crocodiles snapped and drooled. This would be a really, really big meal for them. They might have to eat a few tinkly bells as they gobbled her up, but they could pick those out of their teeth later.

  Megan fell over a lot to make the king laugh. But when she did that, she was trying to walk in a straight line. That’s what made it funny.

  “Megan!” shouted Edwin. “Just try really hard to fall off the string, and then you’re bound to stay on!”

  She did what he said, and she instantly became an expert tightrope walker. She stood on one leg, she balanced on one toe, she walked in a perfect straight line, all with her eyes closed. It was impossible for her to fall off.

  The crocodiles were furious.

  Megan reached the end of the string and jumped onto the grass.

  King Edwin went last. Don’t think about the crocodiles’ teeth, he thought to himself. Forget all about those shiny, sharp, terrifying teeth. Also don’t get distracted by thinking about all the nice animals you could have put in the moat instead of crocodiles, like ducks or swans or—

  He shook, he wobbled, and his beloved crown fell off his head.

  No no no! he thought. What’s a king without his crown?

  So he stepped off the string …

  grabbed the crown in midair …

  then fell …

  and grabbed the string with his little finger.

  “I’m perfectly fine!” he shouted to the other two, who could barely watch.

  If you had grabbed that rope with just a little finger, you’d have fallen and gotten yourself munched by crocodiles. Luckily King Edwin did little-finger exercises every day, so his finger was really muscly.

  He clambered back onto the string.

  “See, I knew exactly what I was doing,” he fibbed as he jumped to the ground next to his friends.

  As the three of them ran away over the hills, King Edwin looked back and saw the flag of Emperor Nurbison raised over the castle. You might think that an evil emperor’s flag would have snakes or wolves on it, but Nurbison’s didn’t.

  That night, hiding on the misty mountain of Hetherang-Dundister-Underploshy-Smeltus, which hardly anyone visits because it’s so hard to ask the way there, Minister Jill lit a match. She, King Edwin, and Megan the Jester sat around it, trying to keep warm.

  They were all pretty miserable, as you would be if you’d just been kicked out of your own kingdom.

  “Shall I do another song?” said Megan.

  “Yeah, that might cheer us up,” said Edwin.

  Megan the Jester pulled her backup lute out of a special pocket in her hat and sang.

  The song went on like this for quite a while. They all did the actions. But even something as fun as sticking toes up noses couldn’t lift the gloom they felt.

  Minister Jill wasn’t just sad—she was frightened. She didn’t like danger. That’s why she had a desk job in the castle.

  “We’ll never be safe from Emperor Nurbison, even up here,” she said. “There’s nothing else to do. We’ll have to flee. Somewhere he’ll never find us.”

  “I can’t do that! I love my kingdom,” said King Edwin. “I could never love another land nearly as much.”

  “There are loads of other lands in the world,” said Minister Jill. “There must be at least one you’d enjoy.”

  “Like where?” asked the king.

  “There’s Gray Cardigan Land. They say it’s incredible. Some of the cardigans are so amazingly, dazzlingly gray that it hurts your eyes to look at them.”

  Minister Jill had always wanted to go to Gray Cardigan Land, but the king didn’t think it sounded very interesting. He shook his head.

  “Vegetable Eating Land? You’re sure to love that.”

  King Edwin wasn’t sure at all.

  “Homework Land? The Land of Never-Ending Drizzle?”

  King Edwin shook his head.

  “Ah! Theme Park Land!” said Minister Jill. “Everyone eats cotton candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; travels everywhere by roller coasters; and rides a log flume instead of having a bath.”

  King Edwin decided that, yes, Theme Park Land did sound kind of okay.

  The three friends crept down the mountain to the shore. Minister Jill kept a secret rowing boat in a little bay, just in case of emergencies. A few moments later, the boat was cutting through the waves, the strong arms of Megan the Jester heaving the paddle.

  “Theme Park Land, here we come!” said Megan.

  King Edwin stood up in the boat.

  “No! I just can’t do it! I can’t leave my kingdom!” he said. “I’ll find a way to win it back.Who’s with me?”

  7.

  The Rules

  Centurion Alisha and the palace guards battled on bravely until dawn. But one by one, their inflatable hammers were burst by the peasants’ pitchforks and the pointy axes of Emperor Nurbison’s sinister soldiers.

  “SEIZE THEM!” bellowed Emperor Nurbison, who had been dying to say that for hours. The palace guards were tied up with string from the emperor’s crafting box.

  The people of Edwinland gathered in front of the castle, waiting to find out about all the great things that would happen now that Emperor Nurbison was in charge.

  This time, there was no hay cart handy for the emperor to speak from, so Globulus ordered lots of peasants to lie on the ground. Then he told more peasants to lie on top of them, then more peasants on top of those. Soon there was a mound of peasants as tall as an elephant, with arms and legs sticking out all over the place.

  Before the emperor climbed to the top, he took off his spiky-heeled boots.