Heavy rain pelted the windows in Prince Lucas’s turret bedroom. It had rained for six days, and Lucas had grown bored. He had read every book he owned. He had played at least a hundred games of checkers and backgammon. He had draped blankets over the tables in the playroom and called it Fort Wrenly. He even taught Ruskin, his pet scarlet dragon, a few new tricks.
Is this rain ever going to stop? Lucas wondered. He looked out the window and sighed. Ruskin sighed too. If Lucas was bored, Ruskin was bored.
The storm had been fun at first. Lucas and his best friend, Clara, had made a mud slide on the hill behind the castle. They’d slid down the hill until the grass had worn off. They’d swooshed down the muddy slide again and again, tearing holes in their trousers and bloomers.
“Wash up!” Clara’s mother, Anna Gills, had cried as she tossed two bars of soap out the back door. “No tracking mud into the castle!”
Lucas and Clara had each picked up a bar and squeezed it. The soap shot out of their fists and landed in a puddle. They’d squealed with laughter. Then they’d rubbed the soap on their hair and clothes and rinsed off in the rain.
But day after day the rain kept coming. Water rushed down the main road like a river. Some of the villagers’ homes had flooded. Others had leaky roofs. Clara hadn’t come over to play in days.