U3A Writing: A Fairy Tale
Miriam McAtee provides a new and unexpected ending to a familiar fairy tale.
The Princess and the Frog. A story for children…….
She was a lovely princess, but a bored princess, a lonely princess. She had loads of games but no brothers and sisters or friends to play them with. Her favourite past-time was playing with her golden ball – throwing and catching it around her beautiful garden.
One day her ball fell into a pond. She desperately wanted her ball back, it was her only friend, but the pond was deep, dark and muddy and she did not want to get her gown or her shoes wet. An ugly old frog who was watching saw her predicament and offered to get the ball, but only on one condition – that she kiss him first. She had often seen him around, watching her playing with her ball, but he was so hideous and of such a vivid green that she always kept well away from him.
Kiss him, that ugly creature!....she thought with a shudder. Never! Yet, if she did not get her ball back her stepmother would be cross with her and never let her go into the garden again. She would be trapped in her room all day, everyday. She could not stand that either. So, suppressing her loathing and closing her eyes so that she did not have to look at the frog, she puckered her lips and pecked him on his forehead above his bulbous eyes. Then she hastily stepped back, shuddering and still keeping her eyes closed.
Suddenly there was a flash and a loud whooshing sound, like lightning sweeping along tall grass. The princess’s eyes flew open in alarm..……but nothing scary had happened. If anything the garden was brighter than before, and before her stood a handsome young prince dressed in the green of Spring. She gasped in wonder. Her kiss had broken the spell of a wicked witch and the ugly old frog was now a charming young prince.
They immediately fell in love, but alas they could not marry, for he was a Martian from outer space and had to return to his home at once or he would die and she was only an earthling and could not follow him home.
The princess was doomed to stay forever in her garden with her golden ball, and her Prince was doomed to watch her forever from afar with love and longing.
