The Tale of Everend

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…