Once upon a time, in the kingdom of Anaok, which was about 3 acres worth, there was a princess. This princess was very beautiful of course, and everyone loved her, because this is another one of those stupid fairy tales. Of course, because this is a fairy tale, this princess, who could have married any man in the kingdom and have anything she wanted in the kingdom, was extremely unhappy. Many people said she was stupid. She claimed that the right man had not come into her life, and unless some- one who really thrilled her came along, she was going to do something really stupid and dramatic like join a convent. She was a very ungrateful girl, and after her father (the King, who was also just a tad cotton-brained) had brought every man thinkable before her, she said they were all homely and to drop dead. Many of these knights were Norseman who were trained to kill for such remarks, and this was a very thoughtless thing to say to them, but the princess had been thoughtless since birth, a condition she inherited from her father. Also in this kingdom was a dragon. This was because every kingdom back then had their own local dragon. This dragon's name was Biff, but since the King's name was Freddie, no one thought much about it. In fact, the simple peasant folk of Anoak rarely thought of anything and usually spent their days toiling in the fields and talking about the weather. As it was always rainy then, or foggy, there was never much weather to talk about, but no one really seemed to care. Still any kingdom with a king named Freddie and a dragon named Biff (and, incidentally, a princess named Jill, who did happen to run up a lot of hills with guys named Jack to get water) couldn't have been really on the ball to begin with. This dragon, whom you've probably forgotten already, was a real dishwater I.Q. who always wanted to have a princess of his very own to eat. He had heard about princesses at a local dragon bull session, and was of the opinion that princesses were a kind of tasty after-dinner snack, somewhat like twinkies. This was an odd opinion to have as this dragon, being grossly uninformed, didn't even know what twinkies were. At any rate, the peasants, who thought the princess was a real killjoy since she never talked about such exciting things as weather, decided the kingdom would never miss her, and plotted to give her to the dragon. With her out of the way, that was one less mouth to feed in the castle and taxes would drop. This wasn't a very bright observation, but it was quite phenominal for these particular peasants. The peasants waited until dark, and crept up on the palace. Peering into the princess' window, they saw she was rather involved in a game of rock spinning on her bed. The peasants decided to wait until the princess had put on the traditional fairy tale type filmy white gown, which was always the in thing to wear when being devoured by a dragon, and then give her to Biff. The peasants knew that the princess always wore her white gown once a day at breakfast for no real reason, and crept off into the moat to wait till morn- ing. It was unanimously agreed later that they should have waited somewhere else. The following morning, the princess came down the stairs to get her break- fast, wearing her gown as usual. She always got compliments on how well she looked in her gown, and it was always mentioned by someone what a twit she was to wear it at breakfast, where she was constantly spilling cheerios on her- self. This was quite a feat as, at the time, there was no such thing as cold cereal. Cleverly disguised as raisins, the peasants made their way into the breakfasting room by hiding in the Queen's Raisin Bran. The reason this room was called the breakfasting room was because people ate breakfast there. This was odd as the name made sense, and very few things in Anaok ever made sense. Silently creeping out of the Queen's cereal, the peasants showed what an idiot the Queen was as she didn't notice. They then crossed the table, grabbed the princess, made a break for the nearest fire escape, and were gone! "I say," spoke up the King, "but am I seeing things or did our daughter Jill just get carried off by a mob of raisins?" "Finish your breakfast, dear." said the Queen. "But what of Jill?" "What of her? I warned her about hanging about the raisins who just ran off with her." "I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about the raisins who just ran off with her." "Well, it was her friends' idea, no doubt. Now, hurry up with your food. I want to get down to the bazaar before it closes up." "All right, my dear." And upon finishing breakfast, the King and Queen went to the bazaar, where they promptly forgot everything about the raisins, their daughter, and any other possible thing they should have remembered, like matters of state. This didn't matter much, however, because even if they had remembered, they wouldn't have done anything worthwhile about any of these things anyway. Meanwhile, the princess had found herself chained to a post outside of the kingdom. She wasn't too sure what was going on, but she was somewhat certain that she was being initiated into the Campfire Girls. Had she remembered that there were no Campfire Girls then either, she might have suspected something more sinister. Actually, she did begin to get quite suspicious several minutes later, when a group of peasants came out and began ringing a dinner bell crying "Here dragon, dragon, dragon! Here boy!". For some obscure reason, she had the faintest inkling that the peasants just might have been plotting to do away with her. The thing that really clinched this suspicion was the enormous fire breathing dragon (no, gentle readers...it's not Floyd - ed) that swooped from the sky, folded its leathery wings, and began stomping towards her drooling everywhere. Its exact thoughts were somewhat difficult to fathom, but it is thought they were something along the line of "Boy, what a funny looking twinkie!" The princess, not having any knowledge of the women's liberation groups spawning in the towns of England, didn't realize she was supposed to be tough and independant and started the stereotypical screaming and sobbing routine most princesses used before dragons swallowed them. This didn't accomplish much, but it did give the dragon a headache and slowed it down a little. It was at the exact moment that the dragon's chubby little paw clenched about the princess that the great and famous Knight, Sir Hal the fearless, brainless, and otherwise ignored entered the extremely small kingdom of Anaok, by request of the King. Fighting his way through the hoards of peasants who wanted his autograph, he set off for the castle. He had been called to Anaok to see if the princess would marry him, and although the word Marriage was not part of his vocabulary, he quickly added it when he discovered what sort of lives princes lead. Striding up the drawbridge to the castle, Sir Hal began to wonder how this princess must have looked, considering the expense the King had spent to get him here. Anaok was an incredibly small kingdom though, so he figured they probably only had about six or seven men around anyway. He hoped this was the case, because people often question one's manners when he takes a look at someone's fat, dumpy daughter and shrieks "Eeeyuchhh! I wouldn't marry her for all the treasures of twenty dragons!", and this was quite a statement, considering how miserly dragons were back then. They used to go from town to town, begging with a little tin cup for gold coins and jewelry, and it isn't often you find someone to refuse a dragon. He quickly strode through the castle doors and into the throne room. He looked around and noticed that the room had in it, besides just the thrones, a closet, a king-sized (no pun intended) bed, a couple nightstands, and an entire kitchen, making everything rather cramped. Due to the size of Anaok, the castle was only able to house the throne room, the breakfasting room, and the princesses' room upstairs. The royal bathroom was a lavish outhouse in back, and was used by the whole town as there was no room for any others. It could be considered an inconvenience having to run clear across town whenever one needed to relieve themself, but it wasn't a distance much longer than most castles had going from one room to another, which only added to the effect that Anaok was so small. There was no reason to add to this effect as everyone knew it was so small already, but since there was so much effect affecting everyone, the peasants became affected. Exactly to what effect it affected people doesn't really affect anyone, so no one really cared much about it, but no one really cared anything about Anaok to begin with. Anaok was, in effect, the Death Valley of the tourist trade. "Ah, Sir Hal! You have come at my request!" cried the King delightedly, in a vain attempt to draw everyone's attention back to the action at hand. "Of course, your majesty." Sir Hal dropped to one knee. "Why do you sound so surprised?" "It's just that no one listens to me anymore." sighed the King. "What with Sir George slaying dragons, and King Arthur's exploits being what they were, and now this Robin Hood thing, everyone is ignoring Anaok." "Begging your majesty's pardon, but Anaok was always ignored." "Yes, you are so right, but enough of that!" The King yanked down on a long tassled rope that hung by his side, sounding a loud gong. "Jill! Come down here for a second, would you?" She didn't. The King waited a moment. Suddenly, he slapped his forehead. "Of course!" he cried. "Jill was kidnapped this morning by a bunch of raisins, never mind." The King rubbed his hands together. "So how would you like to take a look at Alicia? Now there's a woman for you!" "What is this, an auction?" "I suppose it could be. Well, how many women do you think you can handle?" "Sire?" "Look, if you had as many daughters as I do, you'd be pretty keen on getting rid of them too! Now, how would you feel about a harem?" "But don't you care about your other daughter, Jill? What if she has been captured by a dragon?" "Then goodbye to her, what else? Besides, she was captured by a raisin, not a dragon." "The principle is the same!" "Is it, now?" "I am sorry, but I cannot wait about while a damsel in in dire jeopardy! I ask your leave, Sire!" "Sure. Go ahead. Have fun." "Your majesty!" and Sir Hal bowed and headed for the door. "Why do people always say that?" grumbled the King. "I know who I am. Must think I'm getting senile or something." But Sir Hal did not hear this, but was instead headed for dragon's den. He had gotten a map from a local feed store who assured him raisins as well as dragons lived there, and he was on his way. His direction wasn't quite right, but one cannot expect much from a map scrawled in crayon by a near-sighted peasant. Sir Hal arrived at the den of Biff the dragon just as the thing was going to stuff the princess into a freshly buttered frying pan. He was going to fry her up, gown and all, but there isn't much accounting for a dragon's taste. "Dragon!" cried Sir Hal. "I demand that you release that girl!" The dragon shrugged and let Jill loose. He wasn't really hungry anyway. "And now," Hal declared, pulling something from underneath his tunic, "I challenge you to a game of Parchesi!" And so, the dragon accepted Sir Hal's challenge, and unless they have learned to play the game correctly by now, they are probably still playing it yet...