Lullabelle's Castle Adventure

Lulabelle knew she was not supposed to be in this old castle, but she just couldn’t help herself.  She loved all the old paintings and wall hangings.  Being a fairy, she could fly all the way to the very top to see all the things that the people who had once lived there couldn’t see.

            As she flew down the cold, dark corridor, goosebumps popped up on her arms.  She didn’t know if they were from the cold or the excitement of what she might find.  As she rounded a corner, she came face to face with a large tapestry hanging on the far wall.  The designs were faded but she could see knights and ladies in waiting dancing in what looked like clouds.  She was awestruck.

            She twirled through the air as she imagined herself a part of the great tapestry.  She greeted the various knights and ladies and pretended to participate in polite conversation.  She danced to the imaginary music and dreamed of being among the clouds with the rest of the dancers.  She was having the time of her life. 

For her finale, she twirled the entire length of the tapestry.  The twirling made her dizzy, and she bumped into the wall.  She held onto the wall for a moment until the room stopped spinning, but when she tried to fly away, she found that she was hung on a nail.  The nail had snagged her dress just under her arm and had ripped a hole in her dress as she turned away from the wall to fly away.  Now she was hanging on the wall like a picture.  She couldn’t reach the nail with her hands.  She didn’t have room to flap her wings, and the more she struggled the more tangled her dress became. 

She tried to use magic to free herself, but that didn’t work either.  She had to be able to flap her wings to work magic, and she couldn’t.  She was truly stuck on the wall in an old castle, and nobody knew she was there.  Now she began to panic.

As she pondered her predicament, an old tabby cat strolled down the corridor.  She had seen that cat before.  He belonged to the town doctor, and he was a mean one.  The cat had already spied Lullabelle, and he licked his chops as he pondered how to get to her. 

Lullabelle frantically looked around her to see if she could find anything to free her from the nail.  She noticed a crack in the wall just above where her feet were hanging.  She tried to get the heel of her foot into the crack to lift herself off the nail, but each time her foot slipped from the crack when she tried to lift herself up.

Meanwhile, the cat had jumped onto the tapestry and was slowly climbing up to where Lullabelle was hanging.  He was already halfway to her, when a small mouse climbed down the wall to Lullabelle’s position.  The mouse began to chew on Lullabelle’s dress at the point where it was caught on the nail.

“Oh, please hurry, dear sweet mouse,” exclaimed Lullabelle.

The cat saw the mouse as well and began to climb faster.  The cat was nearly upon them when the mouse finally freed Lullabelle’s dress from the nail.  Lullabelle sprang from the wall and scooped up the mouse just as the cat launched at them.  Lullabelle cradled the mouse as she flew them both to safety leaving the cat wailing in defeat.

When they reached the outside of the castle, Lullabelle set the mouse down on the ground and said, “You saved my life.  What can I give you in exchange for such a kindness?”

The mouse simply looked at Lullabelle with its small eyes and wiggled its little nose.

“I know,” said Lullabelle as she bent down and touched the mouse on the nose as she flapped her wings.  “I give you the gift of camouflage.  Whenever you are in danger, you will have the ability to blend in with your surroundings.”

The mouse crawled away, and Lullabelle flew toward her home.  From that day on the mouse and Lullabelle were the best of friends.  She still visited the old castle, but always made sure her friend, the mouse, was close to keep an eye out for that old tabby cat.