Stars, Hide Your Fires

Here’s a fractured fairytale I wrote for a 1st Grade class last year. It was inspired by my cat, Ziggy (who the class loved to talk about). Can you spot the similarities and differences from the real Frog Prince story?

There once was kitty named Ziggy, who lived in a small house by an enchanted forest.

There was nothing too interesting about Ziggy, but his favorite thing in the whole wide world was a ball of golden yarn. You could find him every day with that ball of golden yarn. He would bounce it and throw it, drop it and roll it. He would kick it, flick it, juggle it and even snuggle it. In fact he loved his golden ball of yarn so much, he was never without it.

One day, he was playing with his golden ball of yarn by the forest. He usually didn’t go deep in the forest, but today he was feeling quite adventurous. So he picked up his golden ball of yarn in his mouth and headed into the dense woods. As he was walking along he spotted a pond and decided this was a good place to stop and play; however, as he was playing, the ball slipped away and fell into the pond! Well, as you know, cats do not like to swim, and Ziggy was no exception.

“What do I do?” said Ziggy, “I can’t swim!”

At that moment an unusual frog with a crown on its head popped out of the water. Ziggy had never seen anything quite unusual as a frog wearing a crown on its head.

“Good day!” said the frog. “My name is Prince Toady.”

“That’s silly,” said Ziggy. “How can a frog be a prince?”

“Oh, I wasn’t always a frog,” said Prince Toady. “Long ago, a mean old golden fairy turned me into a frog. I was once a very handsome young prince, now I’ve got warts all over me! And I crave nothing but flies everyday!”

Ziggy felt very bad for the frog.

“I’m sorry that happened to you Mr. Toady,” he said.  “I’m not in a very good mood either. You see, I can’t swim and I dropped my golden ball of yarn in your pond. Now I’m afraid I’ll never get to play with it again.”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Prince Toady, “If I get your golden ball of yarn out of the pond, will you promise to help me turn back into a human?”

“Of course!” cried Ziggy.

So, Prince Toady swam out to the ball and brought it back to Ziggy. The little kitty was so happy; he held his golden ball of yarn as close as he possibly could.

“Now, how can help you turn back into a human?” asked Ziggy.

“The only way to break the spell is to catch the golden fairy,” explained the frog.

“That’s all?” Ziggy asked.

“It’s harder than it sounds,” warned Prince Toady. “Fairies are very tough to catch. I’ve never heard of anyone that could do it. Luckily for us, I know where she lives. It’s not too far from here.”

So Ziggy and Prince Toady made their way to where the fairy lived. Ziggy was really nervous. “What if the fairy turned me into a frog?” he thought. “Then I’ll never get to play with my golden ball of yarn ever again.”  But even though he was scared, he wanted to help his new friend.

They made it to the spot where the fairy lived, which was in the trunk of a very old tree, and they hid behind a bush. They waited for a long time until, all of a sudden, a golden flash of light flew out of the tree trunk and began to zig zag back forth faster than a bolt of lightning. Prince Toady leaped at it first but missed the fairy by a good three feet.

“Look at that nasty little frog!” laughed the fairy. “You’ll never catch me! Nothing ever has and nothing ever will!”

But the fairy had never met anything like Ziggy before, because in one quick swipe, the fairy was caught in Ziggy’s paw.

“How…how…how did you catch me?” cried the fairy.

In his other paw Ziggy was tossing his ball of golden yarn up and down. He smirked and said, “I guess I’ve had some good practice at catching small and golden things.”

And at that moment, a bright light appeared around Prince Toady. When the light was gone, the fairy disappeared, and there wasn’t a frog standing there, but a real human prince!

“Thank you so much, Ziggy!” cried the prince. He bent down and started petting Ziggy from his head down to his tail.

“You are very welcome,” purred the kitty.

“Why don’t you come live with me at my castle, I could use a very smart and talented cat in my court. In fact, I shall crown you a knight!”

Ziggy got very excited. “A real knight?” he asked. “What are we waiting for?!”

And from that day on, Sir Ziggy, Knight of the Toady Kingdom, lived with the prince in his castle far away from the pond, and he had all the balls of golden yarn he wanted.

The End.