One day, about a month after the horrible day of the four cookies
Mommy was walking in the woods. It was about the only thing she
liked to do with her milk-bottle hands. And in the woods she found
a woodchuck caught in a trap.
Poor thing! It was almost dead from fright and pain. There was
blood alI over the trap.
'Poor old thing,' Mommy said. 'I'll get you out of that nasty trap.'
But could she open the trap with milk bottles for hands? No.
So she ran for Daddy and Naomi and Joe. Fifteen minutes later all
four Kings were standing around the poor bloody woodchuck in
the trap. The Kings were not bloody, but what a strange, sad sight
they were! Daddy had a banana In the middle of his face. Mommy
had milk-bottle hands. And the two children could not stop crying.
'I think we can get him out.' Daddy said. 'Yes. ' Mummy said. 'I
think we can get him out if we all work together. And I will start. I
will give the poor thing a drink of milk from my hands ' And she
gave him a drink. She felt a little better. Naomi and Joe were trying
to open the jaws of the cruel trap while the woodchuck looked at
them hopefully. But the trap would not open. It was an old trap,
and its hinges and mean sharp teeth were cloggled with rust.
'It will not open.' Naomi said and cried harder than ever. 'No. it
will not open at all!'
'I can't open it.' Joe said and cried his eyes. The tears streamed out
of his eyes and down his cheeks. 'I can't open it either.'
And Daddy said. 'I know what to do. I think.' Daddy bent over the
hinge of the trap with his funny banana nose. He squeezed the end
of it with both hands. Ouch! It hurt! But out came six drops of
banana oil. They felt onto the rusty hinge of the trap, one drop at a
time.
'Now try,' said Daddy.
This time the trap opened easily.
'Hooray!' shouted Naomi.
'He's out! He's out!' Shouted Joe.
'We have all worked together.' said Mommy. 'I gave the
woodchuck milk. Daddy oiled the trap with his banana nose. And
Naomi and Joe opened the trap to let him out.'
And then they all felt a little better, for the first time since Witch
Hazel cast he wicked spell.
And have you guessed yet? Oh, I bet you have. The woodchuck
was really not a woodchuck at all. He was the Prince of the
Kingdom of New Hampshire who had also fallen under the spell of
Wicked Witch Hazel.
When the trap was opened the spell was broken, and instead of a
woodchuck, a radiant Prince In a Brooks Brothers suit stood before
the King family.
'You have been kind to me even, in your own sadness.' said the
Prince, 'and that is the most difficult thing of all. And so through
the power vested in me, the spell of the wicked witch is broken and
you are free!'
Oh, happy day.
