Princess Gusty Ox stood by the edge of the moat at Crunchbone Castle and dangled a huge piece of rotten meat over the green scummy water.
‘Come on, sissies!’ she yelled.
Nothing happened. Her pet crocodiles were hiding under the lily pads and nothing was going to tempt them out.
They hadn’t always been so shy. In the beginning, Princess Gusty Ox had trained them to jump out of the water and catch the meat. Then she decided to grab one and see who could wrestle the other to the ground first.
It was a good game, and the odds were pretty even. Sometimes the crocodiles won and sometimes Princess Gusty Ox did. Prince Marvin, her twin brother, and her father, King Cudgel, often gambled on the outcome.
But no one gambled any more. There was no point. Now, the crocodiles always lost.
Princess Gusty Ox swung the meat lower over the water. She knew that the crocodiles must be hungry because she hadn’t fed them for a week. Yet still the lily pads didn’t wobble. So the princess pulled off her size-eleven boots and threw her pocket axe on the ground.
‘Comin’ to get ya!’ she yelled and jumped into the moat.
Prince Marvin was practising riding a horse when he heard a dreadful thrashing sound coming from the moat. He felt sorry for the crocodiles. He knew what it was like to have Princess Gusty Ox wrestle you to the ground.
It really hurt!
Prince Marvin jumped down from the wooden log that had been his horse and peered through a hole in the hedge.
Princess Gusty Ox was in the water with her arms and legs wrapped around two terrified crocodiles. She was howling with delight as the crocodiles rolled round and round in the water, trying to shake her off.
Just then the Crunchbone Castle cook hit the tea gong.
BOING! BOING! BOING!
Prince Marvin watched in amazement as his sister bent her arms and legs and shoved both crocodiles back in the water. She jumped on their heads and landed with a terrific thud on the grass by the edge of the moat.
‘See you later, suckers!’ whooped Princess Gusty Ox. Then she grabbed her boots and her pocket axe and set off at full gallop into the castle.
As Princess Gusty Ox raced along the stone floor of the corridor, she noticed something extraordinary. It was so extraordinary she skidded to a stop and fell flat on her back.
The door to Crackle’s study was open!
Princess Gusty Ox rubbed her eyes and looked again. Crackle was the court wizard and he always kept his door locked with a huge padlock and lots of chains, so no one could see how he made his magic spells.
In fact, Crackle’s study was the most secret place in the whole of Crunchbone Castle and Princess Gusty Ox knew that this was the chance of a lifetime.
‘I’ll only look,’ she said to herself. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’
But it was like looking into an Aladdin’s cave! Princess Gusty Ox just had to go inside. And a moment later, she was standing in the middle of the room with her eyes out on stalks.
There were rows and rows of different-coloured pointy hats. There were shelves of potions that glowed in the shadows.
There were piles of dusty books and a rack of sparkly wands. But one thing in particular caught Princess Gusty Ox’s eye.
In the corner of the room was a big oval mirror and she found herself walking towards it as if being pulled by a magnet. Princess Gusty Ox stared at the sign written underneath the mirror:
DANGER. MAGIC MIRROR. DO NOT LOOK. DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS.
‘Huh,’ muttered Princess Gusty Ox. ‘No one tells me what to do!’
She took a deep breath and looked hard into the mirror. But all she saw was a wide face, lots of freckles, a broken front tooth when she smiled, two rather waggly ears, two popping-out eyes and a nose like a small, fat pickle with bumps on it.
‘Huh!’ muttered Princess Gusty Ox again. ‘What’s all the fuss about?’
Then a question came to her lips. It felt like something she had wanted to know all her life:
‘Mirror, mirror on the wall! Who’s the fairest princess of them all?’
‘Not you, for a start,’ said a nasty-sounding voice.
A rabbit appeared in the silvery glass. It had a mean look in its eye and its furry nose twitched as if there was a bad smell in the room.
‘Call yourself a princess,’ sneered the rabbit. ‘You must be out of your tiny mind.’ The rabbit scratched its ear. ‘Haven’t you read any fairy tales? Princesses are supposed to be sweet and pretty with dainty feet. They’re supposed to sing high, twittery songs and bluebirds are meant to fly around their heads.’
The rabbit stared at her with its horrible pink eyes. ‘They are not supposed to be big and fat and wear size-eleven boots.’
Poor Princess Gusty Ox! No one had ever talked to her like this. ‘So who is the fairest princess of them all?’ she asked in a miserable voice.
‘Princess Lulu the Luscious,’ said the rabbit immediately. ‘And I’ll show you why.’ It began drumming its feet as picture after picture flashed onto the mirror.
The first one showed a beautiful, dark-haired princess wearing a glittering tiara and a frothy, white dress. There were pink satin slippers on her dainty feet and her teeth sparkled like diamonds behind her happy, curly smile. Her eyes were shiny green and her nose was tiny and perfectly formed. Princess Gusty Ox noticed immediately that it didn’t look anything like a small, fat pickle.
There were more pictures to come. There was Princess Lulu doing all the things Princess Gusty Ox couldn’t do. She was embroidering cushions. She was playing the lute. She was writing poetry. She was arranging flowers.
Last of all there was Princess Lulu standing in a garden in a yellow dress with puffy sleeves and a pink ribbon, and bluebirds flying around her head.
Suddenly the mirror filled up with the rabbit’s mean, furry face. ‘Get the picture, Princess Gusty Ox?’ it sneered. ‘You’re not the fairest princess of them all! You’re a fat, good-for-nothing princess!’ And with that, it disappeared.