Merril the Magician

Every night her mother kisses her good nite and tells her she loves her. She knows her father loves her too because, although she's already asleep, he always comes in and kisses her goodnight too. She dreams that she uses her magic wand to turn him into a handsome prince and she's already sleeping beauty. But, he never becomes the right prince. The one who can wake her up. So, she stays in that sound sleep through his visit and through the night. She dreams of the right prince appearing some day and taking her away from there. She loves her daddy and would miss him but she knows there's an even better place than here and in that place she'll have a handsome prince to protect her. They would live in a castle and the chef would make her scrumptious pies. The magician would make her lots of toys and weapons that would melt people(only really bad people) if they were hurting her or even better the weapon would just change them; make them stop hurting her. That's what it would do; turn bad people into good people. The magician can do that. When I hurt myself or get sick my prince brings me to the magician and he heels me. Whatever is wrong. One day I was playing in the garden. It was a glorious sunny warm day with the pleasing smell of lilacs (her favorite flower) in the air. All of a sudden at the edge of the wood she came upon a little skunk. She had never seen one before and didn't know what it was. It was cute, she thought. He was afraid of her and froze a while. Then she was afraid too. She knew he could do something frightful to her but she wasn't sure what it was. She took out her weapon to turn bad people into good people and aimed it at him. He started to turn around. She pressed the trigger but nothing happened. All of a sudden a fowl smelling spray came out of him and then he ran away his backside and tail swinging back and forth. The weapon doesn't work with skunks, she thought. She was in misery. She thought she might die and wondered if skunk spray killed people. Oh it was so awful she could hardly breathe and she couldn't get away from it. She sat down and cried. She cried so loud the prince in his study on the third floor of the castle heard her. He came to the window and looked sadly down on her. "I'm coming." He yelled. When he got near her he stopped and said 'ah, I see, or should I say smell, you've been attacked by that awful animal. I can't come close to you now. But if you go see Merril the magician he will help you. So she dried her eyes and rubbed her nose with the bottom of her skirt and started walking towards the castle. The prince ran away from her which almost made her start crying again. When she got to the cave of Merril's magic shop, he said "phew, you smell like you've been sprayed by a skunk." He pressed his fingers over her nose and pointed at her accusingly. She felt so ashamed, first her prince and now the magician can't stand to near me. I must be an awful person to have this happen to me, she thought. "oh, its ok, I was just teasing you" said the magician. Do you think you're the first person whose ever come to me smelling so fowl? Oh no, there have been many. And lucky for you I have the remedy. I just have to boil some water over the fire to fill the bath and then I add a special mix of herbs and other things (it's my secret) for you to soak in. I'm the only one in the world who knows this formula so you're lucky you came to me!" "oh thank you, thank you Merril" she said. "I don't know what I'd do if I had to hide away from everyone forever because of my bad odor." "well, you won't have to do that my dear. You'll be smelling sweet as honeysuckles by this evening. You stay here while I go fetch some water." He came back with a big pail of water and poured it into the pot hanging over the fire. When it started to bubble he took the iron pole with the hook on it and picked up the pot of water and set it down on the stones. "We'll just let that cool a little while I concoct my secret recipe" he went to his big work bencfh covered with all kinds of branches and leaves and buds and salts and powders. She couldn't see what he was doing, his back was to her but she could see his arms moving back and forth and every once in a while he'd raise them towards the sky and mutter some strange words in another language. Finally, he brought a bowl full of powders, leaves and buds and poured them into the pot. Ok now we'll pour this into the tub behind the screen over there and you can get in. leave your clothes on because we want to freshen them too. But after you're done you can put on this fine dry that's fit for a princess. You need to stay in the tub until sundown. I have some business to attend to at the castle and I will be back before sundown. Perhaps you can take a nap while you're soaking, to make the time go by. That's exactly what she did. She fell right off to sleep. She woke up when she heard her mother outside her door saying "Leah, it's time to get up to go to school." Oh no, she thought, I hope I soaked long enough and that potion worked. She knew when she came out to the kitchen and no one said peeuuu that it had worked. Now she was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and thinking how dreadful it was to have to be awake and go to school. She imagined her rickety old teacher would turn her into a tree before she went home and she'd have to go see Merril the magician again tonight. That was all she thought of all day and didn't learn a thing.