By;fernand jiro
Harry The-not-very-brave looked up at the tower before him, which thrust its head high above the dancing rainclouds in complete defiance, and gulped. It seemed that Impossibly-High Tower lived up to its name. It was just his luck too! Nothing ever lived up to its name in the land of Nowhere, with of course two exceptions: Harry The-not-very-brave and Impossibly-High Tower.Not for the first time was Harry The-not-very-brave wishing that he’d never taken Google The-talking-toad up on his dare to rescue the princess of Impossibly-High Tower. He sighed before resigning himself to climbing all the way to the blasted top. It wasn’t easy, but Harry The-not-very-brave had soon realised that nothing remotely heroic was ever easy!
It seemed that the whole outside of the tower was coated in a sticky, slippery anti-hero paint – which was £19.99 a tin from all good evil superstores and was guaranteed to stop all heroes from getting in to any tower, lair or dungeon. And so it was that every time Harry The-not-very-brave tried to climb up, he went slipping and sliding uncontrollably to the bottom, where he would fall with a thud onto his backside. It was on about his tenth try, when he was ready to give up and go home to be forever tormented by Google and the others, when he noticed a sign off to one side of the tower which said, ‘staircase, that way’ with a big arrow pointing to a door that he had somehow missed.
“You’re telling me that this dammed tower has a staircase! And I’ve been trying to climb the ruddy thing!” He shouted at the sky. Sighing, he went through the door and ascended the stairs.
It was a very long climb. The stairs just seemed to keep on going and going, winding round and round and round up into the heavens. If an eternally winding staircase wasn’t bad enough, every so often there would be a missing step here, or spikes there, or a gaping fissure somewhere else, or something equally as bad for a person’s life expectancy that made the feeble heart of Harry The-not-very-brave quail in terror. Many times did he nearly turn back, but then his mind would conjure up Google’s or one of the others back in his village of Back-Water’s jeering voice and he would carry on.
Ever since he was just a wee nipper Harry The-not-very-brave had been teased brutally for his cowardice, as many epic heroes came from Back-Water, such as: the ten foot giant Elvick The-small and the brutal warlord Ussan The-gentle. So as you can imagine, cowardice and un-hero like conduct did not go down too well in Back-Water village.
Anyway, back to the tower...
So yeah, Harry The-not-very-brave had climbed more stairs that he cared to count – he’d given up when he got to 1,527! – when eventually he came to a beautifully decorated mahogany door. Well, this is it...thought Harry The-not-very-brave, as he took a deep breath, then another, then another, then finally plucked up enough courage and pushed open the door.
Inside a very strange scene greeted him. The room was quite large and spacious. The princess was sat by the window gazing out – at what Harry was not quite sure, as he was positive that unless you like clouds (lots and lots of big white fluffy clouds) that there wasn’t that much to see! The princess was also singing, however, instead of a lyrical and seductive melody, the sound that scraped past her lips was a hoarse croaking that grated along every nerve in Harry The-not-very-brave’s body.
In the middle of the room was huge dragon that made Harry The-not-very-brave shake with terror, until he saw the pained look on its face as it clamped its scaled talons over its ears.
“Please make it stop!” wailed the dragon.
Taken aback Harry The-not-very-brave just stood there in stunned amazement. By this time the princess of Impossibly-High Tower had noticed him and ceased her singing.
“Well don’t just stand there, dummy!” she said to Harry. “Rescue me!”
With a jerk Harry snapped out of his confusion and grabbed the princess by the hand and raced back down the stairs.
“Hey! What are you doing?” screeched the princess. “You’re supposed to sweep me off my feet and carry me down a rope out of the window!”
Harry The-not-very-brave turned to look at her. “Are you completely barking mad? Do you know how high this goddamn tower is!?”
“But that’s not the point!”
“If you don’t shut up and watch where you are going it soon will be!” shouted Harry as they nearly slipped off the stairs into a pit full of razor sharp spikes.
However, now that the princess had stopped singing – if a screech that would unnerve even the dead can be called anything remotely like singing – the dragon at the top of the tower had realised they were gone and came bounding down after them, roaring with fury. Now he was no longer being tormented by her screeching he remembered his duty and was not about to abandon it – dragons take their jobs very seriously you know.
Harry and the princess reached the bottom of the incredibly long winding set of stairs.
“Well where’s your horse?” demanded the princess.
“I don’t have one!”
“Well I’m not walking! I’m a princess, and princesses don’t walk!”
“Ugh! Look we don’t have time for this! Come on before the dragon catches us!” exclaimed an exasperated Harry The-not-very-brave. This quest was turning out to be a damn pain.
Just then the dragon burst out of the door and let out a blast of fire with a thunderous roar.
“Don’t just stand there, slay it!” screamed the princess.
“But--”
“SLAY IT!”
“Okay okay!” muttered Harry The-not-very-brave, thinking that there couldn’t possibly be a bossier princess.
With a gulp Harry The-not-very-brave drew his sword with shaking hands and advanced towards the mighty dragon before him. He swung his sword at the dragon. It hit the scales dead on (to be honest it would have been impossible to miss at that distance!) and bounced off completely, numbing the whole of his arm.
“No! You’re doing it all wrong!” the princess screamed.
“Shades! Could she be any bossier!” exclaimed Harry.
The dragon he was facing sighed. “Ugh! Tell me about it! As long as she doesn’t start singing again!” he grimaced.
“I know, it was ruddy awful,” replied Harry. “Hey Dragon, do we really have to do this? I mean fight each other?”
“Well if you want to marry the princess then yes,” replied the dragon.
Marry! The Princess! “What?” stammered Harry.
“Well that’s what you came for isn’t it?”
Harry The-not-very-brave swallowed hard and looked back at the fuming princess. A life time with her! No bet was worth that!
“Dragon, I have an idea!” He leaned forward and whispered in the dragon’s ear so that the princess could not hear what he said.
The dragon grinned. “Deal!” he said, then before anyone could blink both Harry and the dragon had grabbed the princess, tied her up and the dragon threw her back into the room at the top of the tower. When he reappeared he was smiling broadly.
“Well that should take care of that!” he said.
You may be wondering why the dragon didn’t just eat the princess, but I’m afraid that that is purely a misconception by many fairytales. Dragons do not eat princesses – they prefer heroes or knights to be honest, as they come complete with their own toothpicks! Besides, he may have caught something!
With that Harry The-not-very-brave and the dragon of Impossibly-High Tower set off for the village of Back-Water as friends, having rid themselves of the bossy princess.
And that is the story of how Harry The-not-very-brave did not rescue the princess, but saved the dragon instead.
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