The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom Read online

  The more people laughed at him, the more distraught Gustav became. He stuffed balls of yarn into his sleeves to make his muscles look larger (and sadly, lumpier). He tied bricks to the bottom of his boots to make himself taller (and clomped around like a sumo wrestler in a full-body cast). He even grew his hair long, just so he would have more of something. Unsurprisingly, his brothers continued to tease him.

  In his later teen years, Gustav became a frustrated, angry loner. For as much of the day as possible, he avoided contact with other people (which was not necessarily a bad thing for the other people). He would roam on horseback through the pine forests of Sturmhagen, hoping to find some creature he could fight—and thereby prove his strength and heroism. One day he stumbled upon something incredible.

  There was a tall tower standing all by itself in a forest clearing. Oddly, it had no doors and no stairs. But it did have a girl stuck up in a room at the very top—a girl with eighty feet of hair. She lowered her shimmery blond locks down to Gustav, and he used them as a rope and climbed up to her. Once inside the small tower room, Gustav learned that the girl’s name was Rapunzel and that she was the captive of an evil witch.

  Fig. 5 TOWER

  Now, Gustav was not exactly a ladies’ man; in fact, this may have been the first time he’d ever made eye contact with a girl. But he was struck by Rapunzel. She was so different from the girls he’d seen around the castle, especially his brutish cousins, who liked to hold him down and smack him with their thick, whiplike pigtails. Rapunzel was all soft, pillowy curves and delicate, graceful movements. She smiled at him warmly, held his hand, and spoke to him kindly. So this is why people like girls, Gustav thought.

  Overtaken by feelings that were entirely new to him, Gustav opened up. He complained about his brothers, and, to his surprise, Rapunzel listened. Gustav was in heaven. He yammered on for hours, until Rapunzel realized the sun was going down. The witch would be returning soon, she said, and she begged Gustav to go for help.

  Fig. 6 Lady RAPUNZEL

  Gustav climbed back down Rapunzel’s hair, hopped on his horse, and took off in the direction of the royal castle. But he stopped just a mile or so away from the witch’s tower. There was no way he was going to round up his brothers to come and help him. They would take all the credit and probably even steal Rapunzel’s attention away from him. No, this was going to be his rescue, his heroic deed.

  Under the darkening sky, he turned around and rode back to the tower. Rapunzel let down her hair for him but was confused to see Gustav reenter her prison room alone.

  “Where are the others?” she asked.

  “I need no others,” Gustav said with total confidence. “I will rescue you myself.”

  “Did you get a ladder?” she asked hopefully.

  “No,” he said, suddenly sounding less sure of himself.

  “How are we going to get out then?”

  Gustav had no plan, so he said nothing. He just peeked around in the corners of the room, pretending he was looking for something.

  Moments later, a scratchy voice called from outside, “Rapunzel, let down your hair.”

  “It’s Zaubera,” Rapunzel whispered. “Quick, you must hide.”

  “I hide from no one,” Gustav said. “Let her up. When she steps into the room, I will kill the witch.”

  “But—”

  “Just do it,” Gustav insisted.

  Rapunzel let down her hair.

  When Lyrical Leif later chronicled the event in his song about Rapunzel, Prince Charming’s “battle” with the witch went on for three lengthy verses. In reality, it was over in less than three seconds. As soon as the witch stepped over the windowsill, Gustav leapt at her. The evil old woman caught him and, with superhuman strength, hurled him from the tower. Done and done.

  Gustav’s landing was particularly nasty. He came down face-first into a painfully prickly briar patch. So painful, in fact, that the thorns scratched his eyes and blinded him. He spent the next several days stumbling through the forest, feeling his way from tree to tree. It was pitiful. After nearly a week, he collapsed from hunger.

  Rapunzel, in the meantime, managed to get free (though how she pulled off that feat was a mystery to everyone but her and the witch). She searched the woods for Gustav, and eventually found him sightless and starving. Rapunzel cradled him in her arms and wept. And here’s the really amazing part: As soon as her tears hit Gustav’s eyes, his vision was restored.

  Once the story got out—and boy, did the minstrels get a lot of requests for this one—Gustav’s brothers treated him worse than ever. He couldn’t show his face in the castle without hearing mocking calls like, “Look out, Prince Charming, I think I see a scary shrub! Don’t worry, we’ll call Cousin Helga to come save you!”

  Gustav considered this the lowest point of his life. He’d become famous for being a failure. He’d never been much of a people person to begin with, and this only made things worse.

  One day, after being jeered by a group of shepherds (according to Gustav, the sheep were laughing, too), the big prince retreated into the forest, climbed a tall tree, and sat among its highest branches, hoping to avoid human contact. Rapunzel found him anyway.

  “Come down,” she called. “Come back home with me.”

  “Go away,” Gustav said. “Can’t you see I’m in a tree?”

  “I see how the words of others hurt you,” Rapunzel said. “But you’ll hear no harsh words from me.”

  “Oh, that’s right—you’re Little Miss Perfect,” Gustav grumbled from up above. “It’s all your fault, you know. It’s because of you that everyone thinks I’m a joke.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” Rapunzel said, craning her neck to see him. “You know I only meant to help. When I saw you in that condition—”

  “I would’ve been fine.”

  “You were half-dead.”

  “More like half-alive. See, that’s your problem, Mega-Braid. You’re always trying to fix something that doesn’t need fixing.”

  “Fixing people is my gift.”

  Gustav snorted. “Well, I’m returning it. Go re-gift it to someone else.”

  Rapunzel was silent for a moment, then said, “I should. It’s selfish of me to keep this gift to myself. The world is full of people in need; I’m wasting my talents here, trying to give you reasons to like yourself.”

  “What?” Gustav jumped down, breaking several branches on his way to the ground. “Why don’t you use your power on yourself, Miracle Girl? You’ve obviously got something wrong with your brain. ’Cause I like myself just fine. I love myself. What’s not to love? I’m a better fighter than anyone, a better hunter, a better horseman—”

  “If you truly like yourself as you are, why do you feel the need to prove yourself better than everyone else?”

  “Leave,” Gustav barked. “You said it: Go help someone else. I don’t need anybody.”

  Rapunzel gathered her hair and began to walk away.

  “You’re right,” she said as she left. “Helping others is what I was meant to do. I don’t understand you, Gustav. But maybe you do understand me, after all.”

  He never told anyone that Rapunzel had left. But her departure only made Gustav more determined than ever to show the world he was a hero worthy of respect. He spent his days riding around the countryside, looking for someone to rescue.

  Months later, on the outskirts of Sturmhagen, Rosilda Stiffenkrauss and her family were busily plucking beets from the ground, when the nearby trees parted with a rumble and a hulking troll stepped out of the forest, sniffing the air with its tremendous nose. If you’ve never seen one before, trolls are about nine feet tall, covered with shaggy, swamp-colored hair, and may or may not have horns (this troll had one crooked horn jutting out from the left side of its head). Many people, upon seeing a troll for the first time, think they are being attacked by a big, ferocious pile of spinach. Rosilda Stiffenkrauss, however, had lived in Sturmhagen her entire life and knew a troll when she saw o
ne.

  Fig. 7 TROLL

  “Oh, for pete’s sake,” she sighed. “Here comes another one. Come on, kids; everybody inside until it goes away.”

  The big, greenish man-thing grunted and lumbered toward the farming family with a hungry smile on its hideous face. Rosilda quickly ushered her eleven children inside their small wood-frame house, where they all watched from the windows as the monster sat down amid their crops and started tossing handfuls of freshly picked beets into its mouth. Rosilda was furious.

  “Stinking up the yard is one thing,” she spat, “but there’s no way I’m letting that beast devour our produce.”

  The thickset, red-faced farmer woman wiped her hands on her apron, threw open the door, and marched back outside. “Get your grimy hands off our beets!” she yelled. Her wild and frizzy carrot-orange hair bounced with every angry word. “We spent the whole morning pulling those things up, and I’ll be darned if I’m going to let you gobble them all!”

  Rosilda picked a shovel up off the ground and raised it over her head, threatening to clobber the vegetable thief, who was nearly twice her size. Her children crowded in the doorway and cheered her on. “Mom-my, Mom-my!”

  The troll looked up at her in shock, as bright red beet juice ran down its chin. “Uh,” the thing grunted. “Shovel Lady hit?”

  “You’re darn right I hit,” Rosilda growled back. “Unless you drop those veggies and head back into the woods you came from.”

  The troll looked from the woman’s scowling face to the long, rusty shovel she waved menacingly overhead. It dropped the handful of beets it had been about to eat.

  “Shovel Lady no hit Troll,” it mumbled as it stood up. “Troll make no trouble. Troll go.”

  Enter Prince Gustav. Clad in clanking, fur-trimmed armor and wielding a large, shining battle-ax, he charged at the troll on horseback.

  “Not so fast, beast!” Gustav shouted as he approached, his long blond hair flowing behind him. Without stopping his horse, he leapt from the saddle, turning himself into a human missile, and knocked the troll flat onto its back. The prince and the troll rolled through the garden in one clanking, grunting mass, smashing down freshly sprouted beet plants, until the creature finally got back to its feet and tossed Gustav off. The prince crashed through the wooden planks of the farmer’s fence but nimbly picked himself back up, ready to charge the monster again. That was when Gustav spotted the bright red beet juice around the troll’s mouth.

  “Child eater!” he screamed. All the children were, of course, perfectly fine—and had actually filed back out into the yard to watch the fight—but Gustav was too focused on the monster to notice. The prince swung his ax. The troll caught the weapon in its large, clawed hands, yanked it away from Gustav, and tossed it off into a corner of the farmyard, where it shattered several barrels of pickled beets with a crunch and a splat.

  “Starf it all,” Gustav cursed (which prompted some of the older children to cover the ears of the younger ones).

  Now unarmed, the prince stood face-to-face with the troll. The monster was nearly three feet taller than him, but Gustav showed no hint of fear. Gustav didn’t really do “fear.” Annoyance, consternation, occasionally embarrassment: Those were emotions Gustav was familiar with. But not fear.

  “Why Angry Man do that?” the troll asked. Gustav charged at the creature, but it grabbed him in mid-run and lifted him into the air. The troll spun the prince upside down and rammed him headfirst into the ground with a pile-driver-like maneuver. Dazed, Gustav tried to crawl away, but the troll, still holding him by the feet, swung him to the left, smashing him through a stack of wooden crates. The monster then swung him back to the right, wrapping him around a fence post. Gustav swung his fist at the troll, but his punch didn’t even land. The creature hoisted him overhead and was ready to chuck him up onto the farmhouse roof, when Rosilda stepped up behind the troll and smacked it in the back of the head with her shovel.

  “Ow!” The troll dropped Gustav in the dirt and rubbed the sore spot on its skull. “Shovel Lady said Shovel Lady would not hit Troll.”

  “That was before you started beating up on that poor man,” Rosilda snapped. “Now get out of here.”

  “But Angry Man hit Troll first.”

  “I don’t care. You get out.” She raised the shovel again.

  “No more, no more. Troll go.” And the huge creature shuffled off toward the forest. The children burst into cheers and danced around the garden.

  Rosilda held her hand out to Gustav, who still lay on the ground. He angrily waved the woman’s hand away and stood up by himself. “I had it under control,” he scolded. “You shouldn’t have put yourself in harm’s way.”

  “You know, the troll was about to leave when you jumped on him,” Rosilda said. “Everything was fine. And now look—you’ve wrecked our garden.”

  Gustav surveyed the yard. There were broken fences, smashed barrels, squashed beets, and row after row of flattened plants. “You care about a few vegetables? The monster ate your children!” he shouted.

  “It did no such thing,” the woman scoffed.

  “It had blood on its mouth.”

  “Beet juice.”

  “Are you sure?” Gustav asked, looking around at the giddy, dancing children. “It must have eaten at least one kid. Have you counted them?”

  “Now look here, my knight in shining armor,” Rosilda said as she handed Gustav the beet-stained ax he’d lost. “I know how many wee ones I’ve got, and none of them are in the belly of a troll. Perhaps if you’d taken a second to stop and think before you—”

  Rosilda paused and stepped closer to Gustav. “Wait a minute,” she said with a grin. “I know who you are. You’re the prince from that Rapunzel story.”

  At that point, the children swarmed around Gustav, oohing and ahhing. He said nothing.

  “Yeah, I’m sure it’s you,” Rosilda said. “Prince Charming himself.”

  “My name is Gustav.”

  “I’ve been to the royal castle, you know,” she said. “I’ve seen you there.”

  Gustav looked stern. “No, you’re thinking of my brother. He’s Charming. I’m Prince Gustav. Gustav the Mighty.”

  At that, a small boy and a small girl each started climbing up one of Gustav’s arms.

  “Okay, Your Highness,” Rosilda said. “Why don’t you open up your royal wallet and pay us for the damage you’ve done to our farm?”

  “I carry no gold with me,” Gustav said, with a child sitting on each shoulder pulling at his hair. “But I’ll tell the royal treasurer to send you some money.”

  He tried to walk away before the woman pried any further into his least favorite topic, but was slowed down by two more children, one sitting on each of his feet, hugging his heavy, fur-lined boots.

  “Tell me one thing, Your Highness,” Rosilda called to him. “Why didn’t you get a ladder?”

  That question again? It was more than Gustav could bear. He shook off the children, who all dropped, giggling, into the dirt. “Pah!” was all he offered in response.

  “When you get back to your castle, why don’t you tell that Lyrical Leif that he needs to write some new material?” Rosilda said with a smirk. “It’s been months now, and I’m gettin’ tired of hearing about how that sweet girl saved your life.”

  “For your information, that weaselly song-spitter hasn’t shown his face around Castle Sturmhagen in weeks,” Gustav snarled. “And I say, good riddance!”

  He abruptly turned his back on Rosilda and hopped onto his dark brown warhorse. He planned to speed off and kick up a cloud of dust at this annoying woman, but before he could spur the horse on, a newcomer approached the farm. This fellow was also on horseback, riding a light tan mare. He was hunched awkwardly in the saddle and moving very slowly. The rider stopped and looked up when he reached the farmyard gate. Gustav, Rosilda, and the children all stared at the stranger’s very odd attire: a dusty white suit, decked with gold trim and tassels.

  “Hello,”
the man said with a weary smile. “This might sound a bit strange, but are any of you familiar with the tale of Rapunzel? She’s a girl with really long hair, and—”

  The delighted children bounced around and pointed at Gustav. “Oh,” said the stranger. “You know the story?”

  Rosilda chuckled. “He is the story. That’s Prince Charming, right there.”

  The stranger’s eyes widened, and he sat upright. “Really? You’re joking. No? Oh, that’s wonderful. You don’t know how terrible this last week has been. I came all the way from Harmonia. I’ve been riding all over, not getting nearly enough sleep, stopping at every village and farm I could find. I’m practically starving—you wouldn’t believe the things that pass for scones in some of these places. I have had to sleep at inns where they obviously don’t change sheets between guests; I have washed my face in the same water that fish do things in. I’m sorry; I’m rambling. The point is: I’ve gone through all of this in hopes of finding someone who could point me in Rapunzel’s direction. And now I’ve run into you. You, of all people. And it’s even more amazing than you think, because I’m Prince Charming, too!”

  Gustav narrowed his eyes. “You’re a crazy man.”

  “No, I’m sorry, I’m just a little excited. You see, my name is Frederic. But I’m also a Prince Charming. I’m from the Cinderella story.” He flashed a broad smile and offered his hand to Gustav. Gustav didn’t take it; he had no idea what this lunatic was talking about, and he certainly didn’t trust him. The children, on the other hand, applauded wildly at the mention of Cinderella’s name. Frederic gave them a quick salute.

  “Okay, let me start over,” Frederic said to Gustav. “I’m looking for my fiancée, Ella—that’s her real name. She left Harmonia about a week ago. All I know is that she was going to Sturmhagen to find Rapunzel. So, if you could be so kind as to lead me to Rapunzel…”

  “Follow me,” Gustav said, and started his horse off into the field.

  “Oh, fantastic. So how far away is she?”

  “I’m not taking you to Rapunzel,” Gustav said. “I want to speak to you out of earshot of this rabble.” And with that, he was off.