The Karate Princess

by Jeremy Strong

  The truth of the matter was that he liked looking at Princess Saramanda. After all, she was a rather stunning creature, with sparkling gold hair that flowed right down to her waist. It glittered with tiny gems.

  The queen wasn’t too pleased to see her husband staring at this new princess.

  ‘I don’t think that Salamander girl is very nice,’ she said, in private, to her husband.

  ‘Not Salamander dear, Saramanda. A salamander is a kind of blotchy lizard, I think.’

  ‘Exactly. I don’t trust lizards and I don’t trust her either.’

  King Krust began to waddle quickly round and round the room.

  ‘And I don’t think much of that Belinda person either. She comes here in her petticoat with mud all over her face. She uses our dresses and sleeps in our beds, not to mention half killing the guards. Do you know that most of them are still in hospital? I mean to say, what kind of princess goes around clonking guards on the head?’

  The queen shrugged. ‘Quite honestly I have often felt like doing that myself,’ and she gave her husband a withering look which he pretended he hadn’t seen.

  In fact, the queen was quite right to mistrust the Princess Saramanda, even if she did so for the wrong reasons. The princess was very pretty to look at, but inside her pretty head was a very mean brain. Saramanda was constantly dreaming up wicked plots. At the age of three she cheated her two older brothers out of their dinners for a whole week. By the time she was eleven she had caused a war between her father’s kingdom and their neighbour’s, by kidnapping the neighbour’s favourite poodle and refusing to return it until a large ransom had been paid.

  Saramanda wished to marry Bruno de Bruno more than anything else in the world. She realized that when King Krust died, his son would inherit the rest of the kingdom anyway, and then she would be queen and she would have the half with the diamond mine too. Saramanda was very fond of diamonds and would do anything to get her slender fingers on them. She even employed her own band of robbers who went about the countryside taking diamonds from anybody who had them. But, being robbers, they took everything else as well. They handed the diamonds over to the princess and kept the rest for themselves. These were the robbers who had stolen Belinda’s things on her way to King Krust’s castle.

  That night Princess Saramanda slept very well, dreaming up different ways of getting rid of Belinda and winning Bruno de Bruno – such a handsome chap too. She adored tall, strong men with big shoulders and blond hair. No doubt he would shower her with diamonds.

  The following morning King Krust came to the palace gateway to see the two princesses off. A grand assembly of important people had gathered around the prancing horses. Belinda and Saramanda eyed each other. Then the royal painter came along, sitting in a small cart loaded high with canvas and easels and pots and pots of paint.

  ‘He’s going too,’ explained the king. ‘I want a nice picture of the battle for the Great Hall. There’s a horrible splodge on the wall

  where the queen threw her rice pudding at me last year, and I’ve been wondering how to cover it up. A big picture of a Bogle Battle will do me nicely.’ The king turned to the royal artist. ‘Make sure there’s lots of blood and everything in it, Hubert.’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  Princess Saramanda smiled sweetly down from her horse. do hope it’s not our blood, Your Majesty!’

  He widened his eyes. ‘Oh, my goodness, no. At least, not your blood, you little fairy cloud!’

  These words did not give Belinda much hope, but at that moment she caught sight of Prince Bruno de Bruno, standing alone on a high balcony and watching them. The wind fluttered through his golden locks and he stared down at them with his hazel eyes, his strong jaw jutting out as proud as a ship cleaving the waves.

  She turned her lively horse, waved goodbye and cantered away towards the Marsh at the End of the World. Hubert the painter gave his old horse a prod with a paint brush, and the cart rumbled after her.

  Princess Saramanda watched them both go, a smile on her lips.

  ‘Keep going, dear Belinda!’ she whispered to herself. ‘I’ve arranged a little party for you – a party of robbers. With a bit of luck that royal painter might meet with an unfortunate accident too.’ So saying, she blew a kiss at the king, who immediately turned bright red and almost fell off his royal stool. She then rode slowly after Belinda and Hubert.

  It was a lovely day. The sun was splendid above, and the clear sky matched the brilliance of Belinda’s eyes – not that she realized that, of course, as she trotted cheerfully through the woods and fields.

  Not far behind came Hubert, humming softly to himself and trying to decide if Belinda’s eyes should be cobalt blue or cyan. ‘Cobalt is too blue,’ he said to himself. ‘And cyan is a shade too light, so I shall mix them both together and that should be about right.

  I’ll call it Belinda blue.’ This thought seemed to make him even happier and he began to sing in a loud, strong voice. The old horse joined in too, and they made so much noise together that at first they didn’t hear the shouts and bangs and yells that were coming from the wood just ahead.

  Saramanda’s robbers had decided it was time to swoop down on poor Belinda. Saramanda had said they could do what they liked with her. Perhaps they might like to ransom her, or if they couldn’t be bothered with all that trouble, they might prefer to kill her – if they got the chance!

  As soon as Belinda saw the twenty or so robbers hurtling down the hillside towards her, she realized they were the very same robbers who had robbed her once before. She pulled in her horse sharply and jumped lightly to the ground. She tied her horse safely to a tree and then stood in a large clearing where the robbers could see her quite plainly.

  ‘I’m getting fed up with this,’ she muttered. ‘Wherever I go there’s trouble. I wish Hiro Ono was with me. Never mind, there are only about twenty of them.’

  By this time the robbers were pounding through the trees, whooping and shouting and waving great curved swords over their heads. One of them managed to chop the feather off his own hat, he was so excited. They circled round Princess Belinda, laughing away like the jolly robbers they were.

  ‘What shall we do with her, mateys?’ cried their leader, a big fat robber with a black beard like sofa-stuffing.

  ‘Chop off her head!’

  ‘Chop off her legs!’

  And they all began to chant.

  ‘Chip, chop, chop off her legs! Chip, chop, chop off her head!’

  They got down from their horses and poked their swords at Belinda and marched round and round, still chanting away. Belinda stood quite still and calmly watched each one.

  Hubert the painter had heard all the singing, and he drove his cart into the woods to see what was going on. He was horrified. There was poor little Belinda, surrounded by nasty robbers. Hubert felt helpless. ‘I’m helpless Hubert,’ he thought. He wanted to cover his eyes, for he hardly dared to look. But if he didn’t look, he wouldn’t know what was going to happen. So he covered his eyes and parted his fingers so he could see between them.

  He saw the big, fat chief robber rush up to Belinda with his flashing sword. A moment later the sword lay in two pieces and the robber chief was stuck in a tree, trying to get his breath back. Hubert rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Then two more robbers rushed furiously upon little Belinda. She spun on one heel, knocked one senseless with a flying kick to the jaw and crammed the other’s helmet so far down on his head that his skull came poking out of the top. He staggered off among the trees.

  The robbers realized that Belinda was no ordinary princess. They banded together in a big bunch and then charged at her, snarling and snapping like mad dogs. For several seconds Hubert could not see what was happening. Everybody was rushing hither and thither. Dust clouds burst all around the skirmishing robbers, and the yells and bangs and clangs were enough to deafen a snake. Since snakes don’t have ears, you can imagine how loud it all was.

  Hubert crouched behind his
tree and watched. First one robber came flying out of the cloud of dust and landed in a still heap, then two more staggered out, clutching their stomachs and holding each other up. Another robber went hurtling up into a tree and landed alongside the robber chief. A fifth robber came spinning out of the fight like some gigantic flying starfish. He hit a tree trunk and sank to the ground.

  Suddenly it was all over. The remaining robbers dashed to their horses and disappeared, yelping, over the horizon. As the dust settled, Hubert at last saw Princess Belinda. She was brushing a smudge of dirt off one shoulder.

  ‘Oh, look,’ she said to Hubert as he came creeping up to her in utter amazement, ‘I’ve got some dirt on this dress and it’s not even mine.’

  Hubert was speechless. He pointed in silence at the groaning robbers all about them. ‘How did you do it?’ he croaked. Belinda laughed and took a step closer.

  ‘I’ll show you, shall I?’

  Hubert almost jumped out of his skin.

  ‘No, no. It’s quite all right. It was wonderful. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  There was a sound of approaching hooves and the Princess Saramanda trotted into sight. Her face turned white at the spectacle of half her robbers lying bruised and broken on the ground – not to mention the two stuck up a tree.

  Hubert rushed eagerly to Saramanda and told her all that he had seen. Princess Saramanda was seething with fury inside, but she smiled sweetly at Belinda and said in her oh-so-soft voice, ‘My, my, you have got a temper, haven’t you? Well, see you at the Marsh at the End of the World!’ And she rode on. Saramanda was not furious for long. A rather nice thought came into her head. She had been wondering all along how to catch the Bogle and now she knew what to do.

  ‘I’ll let that dear little muscle-bag Belinda catch him. She can do all the hard work and I shall do the easy bit – taking the Bogle back to the castle and marrying Bruno!’

  5

  The Bogle

  The Marsh at the End of the World was the most dismal place that Princess Beinda had ever seen. Swirling mists drifted over grey tussocks of dirty grass. Dark pools of stagnant, scummy water were pimpled with bubbles. They would slowly grow until they at last burst with a muffled plop! and a nauseating stink would fill the air.

  Belinda stood on the edge, with the mud seeping over her shoes. She peered anxiously into the mist. Hubert left the heavy cart at a safe distance, then came sloping over.

  ‘It’s not very pretty, is it?’ he said mournfully. ‘I don’t know what King Krust will think if I paint a picture of this. It’s all dirty grey and green – and the smell is terrible.’

  Belinda smiled and looked at the royal painter, who was busily smothering his sensitive nose with a large, grubby handkerchief.

  ‘You can’t paint a smell,’ she said.

  ‘I thought I’d be able to paint some nice landscapes,’ complained Hubert. ‘Views of shining mountains and trees waving in the wind. I hate painting people, especially King Krust. He just gets fatter, and the queen always complains that I’ve made her nose too large. I’m much better at landscapes, you know. But this – it’s just green: grey-green, dark green, grass-green, mid-green, green, green and more green. It’s utterly, greenly boring.’ The painter heaved a sigh and plodded back to the cart to unload his materials.

  Belinda was glad to be left alone. She was nervous. She did not know what might be out in the marsh, lurking, ready to pounce. She knew only that she had to enter the mist and the mire and find the Bogle. Princess Saramanda might already be in there.

  Belinda tried not to think of her fears as she plunged resolutely into the marsh. Soon her feet were sinking down into the oozing mud, and sometimes she sank right up to the waist. She tried to keep near the big mounds of grass and managed to pull herself out by hauling on the thick grass.

  There was the stench too, as she disturbed all the old, stagnant pools. It was very unpleasant, but could not be avoided. She was covered with the foul-smelling mud and looked as if a wet and sloppy cow field had

  suddenly exploded as she was walking through it.

  At length she came to a halt. She climbed on to a big mound of grass and stood there, panting, shivering and lost. Around her the mist slowly ribboned out across the marsh. Not a sound was to be heard, except the slow plopping of the bubbles of gas. Nor was there anything to be seen save the grey-green wasteland stretching in every direction.

  The chill of the marsh-water seeped into Belinda’s bones, and a horrid fear began to creep into her heart. She cupped her hands to her mouth.

  ‘Knackerleevee! Knackerleevee!’ Her voice died away on the marsh wind. A bubble rose and burst and Belinda held her nose.

  ‘Knackerleevee! Bogle! I am the Princess

  Belinda and have come to fight you. You Bogle-buffoon!’

  Again there was silence. Belinda peered through the mists. Sometimes she thought she saw a huddled shape moving, then it would vanish. The silence was sinister. She cupped her hands once more, then heard it – a faint splashing, far away at the back of the marsh. ‘Knackerleevee!’she yelled. ‘I’m over here, you great oaf!’

  The splashes came nearer and a grumbling, raspy old voice drifted through the mist. ‘Great oaf, am I? Bogle-buffoon? What kind of fool would call Knackerleevee a buffoon? It must be a king-sized, cross-eyed fool!’ A grey, hunched shape began to appear through the mist, plunging carelessly through the puddles. ‘And fools always make very good sandwiches,’ the Bogle went on, talking mostly to himself now.

  He came nearer and nearer, grunting softly as he plodded towards Belinda. Her serene sky-blue eyes grew larger and rounder as she began to make out his truly huge shape, moving through the mists like some monstrous human dinosaur. A chill fear numbed her brain and froze her muscles.

  Out of the mist came Knackerleevee, his small eyes glowing a nasty pink-red colour. His wide, flared nostrils quivered with clumps of black hair. His chest was swaddled with muscle and so much wiry hair that he resembled a walking doormat. The Bogle stopped a few paces away from the princess and began to smile. It was a slow smile that ended up showing all his teeth – big, black and sharp.

  ‘I’ m Knackerleevee,’ he growled. ‘And I eat princesses for my tea, when I can find them.’ An expression of disgust twisted his long and crooked mouth into an ugly knot. He rolled his red eyes and smashed one hairy fist into a pool. Brown water sprayed into the air. ‘I don’t see much point in eating you! You’re too skinny, and I dare say you taste of jasmine perfume.’ The Bogle spat loudly into the marsh. ‘The last princess I ate tasted of jasmine perfume. She tasted foul, but at least she had a bit of meat on her!’ He reached out with surprising speed and felt Belinda’s left arm. ‘Ugh – it’s like string. Why don’t they make fat princesses any more?’ And Knackerleevee grunted and snorted, picked his nose and glared steadily at Belinda with his little red eyes.

  Now, Belinda’s heart was thumping away like one of those road-flatteners, but Hiro Ono had taught her well. ‘Always stay calm,’ he had told her. ‘There is nothing that frightens the enemy more than calmness. Muscles and weapons are nothing so long as you show no fear.’ So although her insides were running away into every possible corner to hide, outwardly Belinda appeared calm and untroubled.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘as a matter of fact I haven’t come here so that you can eat me. I’ve come to defeat you in battle.’

  Knackerleevee banged his fists on his knees and then on his head – which made his eyes water quite a lot – and roared with laughter. ‘You couldn’t fight me!’ he yelled. ‘You’re just a skinny girl. Princesses don’t fight!’ He thrust his face up against hers and growled. ‘They get eaten! I could break you into so many pieces it would take a year to find them all. I could throw you so far you’d probably never even land anywhere. You fight me? Ha!’

  Princess Belinda began to redden. She was getting fed up with all this nonsense. She angrily dragged an old log from the marsh and stuck it upright in front of her. It was
as thick as one of Knackerleevee’s legs. The Bogle narrowed his eyes and rasped, ‘Now what are you trying to do?’

  Belinda took a deep breath and concentrated. ‘Haaaaaa – akk!’ Her fist sliced the air. There was a dull crack! and the top half of the log toppled over and fell with a splash into the marsh. Belinda straightened up, glanced quietly at the Bogle and bowed.

  Knackerleevee stuck out his bottom lip and dribbled thoughtfully. Then he grunted down his nose and pulled another thick log from the marsh and set it upright. He glared nastily at Belinda and then at the log and cried out,

  ‘Urrrr – UNK!’ He smashed his fist into the log and leapt away screaming, ‘Owwwwowowowooooooarhowow,’ with his fist jammed under his other arm and hopping from one leg to the other.

  ‘It took me a long time to learn how to do that,’ said Belinda gravely. ‘You should never try such things without proper training.’

  The Bogle sank down on to a mound and nursed his fist. He was broken and dejected. His jaw drooped on to his chest, and he regarded Belinda with such pale and sorrowful eyes that if she wasn’t sure he was a big, brave Bogle, she would have thought he was crying.

  ‘It can’t be,’ he moaned. ‘I eat princesses… ‘He glanced up at Belinda. ‘I used to eat princesses. How did you do it? Such strength from such a little person.’

  ‘It’s called karate, and it took me seven years to learn. ‘Belinda paused and studied the dejected creature in front of her. ‘Look, does this mean that you’re not even going to fight me?’

  Knackerleevee recoiled in horror. ‘Fight you! No, never!’ He suddenly threw himself at Belinda’s feet in a muddy huddle. ‘No, princess! Don’t fight me, but teach me karate! Teach me how to do that thing with the log.’

  Belinda’s insides had stopped running away to hide and were rushing back to their proper places, giggling madly. Outwardly she remained calm – it wouldn’t do for a princess to giggle in front of a Bogle.