Her eyes grew large as he said
the words she was waiting to hear; once
upon a time…
She knew what was to come. She
had heard this one a million times. Each time, the story was the same, and yet
so different. She had so many memories, and she didn’t know how Papa did it; her
favourite parts never changed; and still, there was so much new detail in every
retelling. Papa had a way with words, and his stories had so much more life
that her little crayon men had ever had. Each time the story started, she held
her breath, letting it out in little gasps that punctuated the many wondrous
events in Everend.
It was a beautiful place, was
Everend! She liked it better than all the other places he made up or borrowed,
including Peter Pan’s Neverland. She got Peter; he didn’t grow up, neither had
she. But then, she couldn’t imagine running away from home to play Injuns and
Pirates for eternity. And it wasn’t that she wasn’t bloodthirsty enough! With a
wooden sword in her hands, she had made the boys scream like little girls! But
running away from Papa had never crossed her mind!
And yes, Everend was the best!
Oh, but Sir Dunnohoo was in trouble! His horse had the runs, and a
runny horse doth not gallop!
She burst out into peals of
laughter! That line always got her, especially the way Papa said it. A runny horse doth not gallop! Sir
Dunnohoo was a scream, and she loved the way he blustered through the
advantage. The real hero was of course the heroine! Everend was her kind of
place, where the heroine was always the hero, and the knights were in distress
because of their runny horses!
For a while, she rested into that
soft glow that came so often with these precious moments. She could see the
animated expressions on Papa’s face, his eyes widening in horror as he
described the troubled knight’s climb up 542 stairs. Papa didn’t like stairs,
and while she gladly skipped over them, she made a moue of dismay at Sir
Dunnohoo’s plight. Papa then flailed his arms around, describing the knight’s
exhausted triumph at the top of the stairs, and his confusion on seeing the
princess he had come to rescue skip past him! Ah, the princess! She sat up,
riveted, waiting for the delightful narrative of her favourite character!
Princess Li’lness, the only
heroine to ever have an apostrophe in her name (she remembered the day she
found out what an apostrophe was in grammar class; how much she had laughed,
much to her teacher’s disapproval); Li’lness was the perfect princess. She wore
pink, and kicked bad men on their shins with her dainty, pointy shoes. Her best
friend was an ogre… oh, Papa was coming to the place were Sir Dunnohoo would
hang his helmet on the ogre’s nose!
Sir Dunnohoo saw the pretty princess looking at him, and decided to
turn on all his charm.
Papa stopped here, as he usually
did, to smooth his hair down and lick his thumbs before shaping up his
eyebrows. She went eww, which of course sent him into another round of spit and
polish! She playfully punched his arm, which finally got him to continue with
his narrative.
He yanked off his helmet, taking care not to let the chin strap mess up
the moment, and in a carefree manner, tossed it onto the nearest hooked object…
Ohgoaaargh’s nose! (Ohgoaaargh’s dad saw him and started with ‘oh god’, which
halfway turned to aaargh; yes, that’s him in that photo with the bitten-off
nose!)
Her eyes widened, her hand
stifling her giggles as Papa hammed his way through the utter chaos that
followed, his hands becoming ogre claws and his voice becoming that of a
strangled squeaky knight. Oh, this was the best part ever!
But soon, things got more
serious. It was not all laughter and games in Everend, and this is where Papa
got inventive. Depending on what he had been reading and what was on his mind,
Everend faced a slew of inventive hazards. Today, the evil witch was going to
choke on a poisoned orangeberry (a little orange with freckles and lots of
personality!) To make matters worse, the worker gnomes were going on strike
because someone gifted them a mirror—now, why would someone do that—and they
didn’t like their own faces! Everend’s economy was collapsing, and soon would
come a time when Everend would be sold to Walt Disney who would just turn it
into another theme park! There were so many to save (the evil witch had to be
saved too; after all, she was essential for fairy tales and shouldn’t be bumped
off!) and it was up to the brave princess to do it all!
She gasped, sighed, and laughed
her way through the princess’s brave antics (her favourite part was the
orangeberry ending up in Walt Disney’s potpourri and causing a sneeze-a-thon,
especially amongst all the grown men in cartoon character suits who worked for
Walt Disney!) At last, the story came to a satisfying ending, with Princess
Li’lness putting Sir Dunnohoo to sleep and going into the hall to join her Papa
for a post-dinner drink.
She clapped heartily, and got up
to hug her Papa. She hadn’t heard the story in years, and today, she had begged
Papa to do it, with bell and whistles, for her son. Barely a year old, her son
listened with rapt attention for all of two minutes, before nodding off. But
Papa had gone on, for his little daughter. As she hugged his frail frame, she
wondered if she would ever get to hear about Everend again. After Papa was
gone, what would happen to Princess Li’lness and Sir Dunnohoo. She held on,
squeezing him tighter as she teared up. She could see Everend’s biggest enemy
coming closer with every year, and there was nothing she could do. As her Papa
held her, she could sense him smile, comforting her as only her Papa could. He
patted her head gently as his mellow voice sang out the little rhyme he had
always hummed to her as she fell asleep…
Everend, oh Everend
Sleep tight, you’re safe tonight
All’s well, and everything’s right
I can’t help but wonder
Everend, will you ever end…
