Thread by @HariniNagendra

A lazy Monday story from my daughter and I - we played our usual game where we make up alternate paras. I hope you like it. It's about a princess, a fish/fox/eagle, a giant tomato, and a burger.

There was a princess who went on a picnic one day. She rode her horse into the forest, and stopped in the shade of a lovely tree, next to which there was a small pool that looked very inviting – just the place to lie down and dip your toes into water.

She dismounted her horse, taking her backpack and placing it neatly under the tree for later, and ran eagerly to the pool. The princess took off her chappals and put her toes in, wriggling them in enjoyment as she felt the cool, clear water flowing against them.

Suddenly, she heard a small voice, clear and indignant.
‘Oy!’ the voice demanded. The princess looked up, surprised, but she couldn’t see anything.
‘Oy!’ the voice said again. ‘Stop putting your dirty feet in my nice clean pool.’

The princess blinked her eyes, surprised. She looked again, and saw a small fish, in the pond, speaking directly to her. She shrugged, and got up, taking out her feet.
“All right. I’ll just go for a walk in the forest then.”

She left her slippers off, as the ground was deliciously cool and grassy under her feet. She started to walk around in the glade under the tree, digging her toes into the damp grass, flexing and curling them into the soil as she closed her eyes, inhaling the scent of the wet mud.

‘Oy! Stop that at once.’
The princess opened her eyes, feeling a bit indignant herself. ‘What now?’ she asked the fox standing in front of her. For surely, though he looked different, the fox was the fish in another form. His voice sounded the same, as did the tone of affront.

‘You’re making my nice forest dirty, that’s what you’re doing now’ the fox accused.
The princess looked down at her feet, then back at the fox. ‘Your forest – if you can call it yours, that is – is already muddy. How can I make it dirty?’

‘You have nasty palace dirt on your feet. My forest has lovely forest mud. Don’t make it filthy.’
The princess sighed. It was silly to waste such a glorious day arguing with a fox, even – no, especially –when he seemed to be in the right.

She went to her backpack and took out her magic wings (for she was a magic princess, of course. Why else would her parents allow her to go out riding on her own for picnics, unlike other princesses who were surrounded by guards and cosseted like babies).

She shook out her wings, placed them on her shoulders, and off she went, up and away into the sky.
The princess had just got a nice updraft to support her and was swirling and swooping in a U formation, when she heard a distinctive voice close to her year.
‘Oy!’

The princess said wearily, without bothering to look up – ‘What is it now? What have I done to you?’
A large eagle with a ferocious looking hooked beak glared at her crossly. ‘You’re…’
‘…polluting your nice sky, I know, I know’ the princess retorted back, equally crossly.

‘What does it take for a girl to have some free space to roam around in the forest without a pesky fish/fox/eagle pestering her constantly, I’d like to know?’
The eagle surveyed her closely, head cocked to one side, as they swooped and swirled in the air.

‘There is one thing you can do. But think carefully before you agree. Once you promise, there’s no stepping back.
‘I agree’ said the princess, a trifle recklessly, because she was well and truly riled up. Then she paused, but of course it was too late.

The eagle grinned, his wings glistening wickedly in the sunlight. ‘Walk down that forest path that you see, at the end of the pool. At the end of the path, where you will see a giant red tomato. You need to enter the tomato, and get out from the other side.

If you do, then I will pronounce you queen of the forest, and you will be able to use it freely for a while. Until you grow into an adult.’

That seemed easy. The princess agreed, flying down to the ground. She folded her wings and stowed them away neatly into the backpack – for her father the King was very neat and organised, and had made it his life’s mission to ensure his daughter was equally neat -

in contrast to her mother the Queen who he loved dearly, but who was so messy and scatterbrained that it was a great source of friction between them both.
As the princess wore her chappals and set off down the path, the eagle, who was now the fox once again, called to her.

‘You didn’t wait to hear the three conditions.’
‘What three conditions’ the princess demanded, swinging around, appalled. ‘You didn’t tell me about any three conditions.’
‘You didn’t ask’ responded the fox, looking unmoved.

Only the tips of the feathers on his tail (yes, they were feathers) moved in the wind, wine red like drops of blood. The princess stopped, feeling suddenly intimidated.
‘The first condition is that once you enter the tomato, you must move straight . Never turn left or right.’

‘And the second?’ the princess asked, thinking that this sounded quite easy to her.
‘Not so fast. There’s part two of the first condition still left to tell.” The fox’s eyes danced with glee. ‘Don’t look back, whatever happens.’
That seemed very unfair, the princess thought.

But the fox/fish/eagle seemed just the type to come up with the third part of condition 1 if she challenged him further, so she just waited. That seemed to disconcert the fox. He paused, looking at her hopefully, head tilted on one side in a manner that reminded her of the eagle.

‘The second condition is this. When you enter the tomato, you will find a golden cage studded with precious gems. Open the cage. Inside, you will find a golden parrot. Take out the parrot, and bring it to me. But you can’t bring the cage out. Only the parrot.’

The princess nodded, biting her tongue to prevent any further questions from hurtling past her lips, and into the silence that separated her from the fox/eagle/fish.
The fox waited a long while, then shrugged, looking disappointed. ‘The third condition is simple.

Make me a burger with the tomato. You can’t eat it, though. You have to bring it to me.’
‘Can I go now?’ she said, before remembering she was supposed to be quiet. But the fox nodded.
She plunged into the lane, stopping when she saw a fork in the path. Which turn to take?

But when she leaned left, a branch blew down in the wind, barring her way, and when she leaned right, the leaves opened wide, as though to make a tunnel lined with light and shade just for her to move. And so she plunged on, as her stomach began to rumble.

She walked and she walked for what seemed like hours (for she was hungry after all the exercise) until she found something barring her way.
It was a giant red tomato.
The front of the tomato had a small door. A flame of golden red traced the words ‘Welcome. Princess. Enter.’

That was pretty unambiguous, thought the princess. She turned the handle of the door, and it swung open noiselessly.
The tunnel inside smelt of tomato. It was surprisingly tasty, the smell, she thought as she moved along, keeping a lookout for a cage studded with precious stones

She saw a number of passages leading to the left and right. They looked roomy and airy, with a red carpet lining the floor, but she remembered the fox’s three conditions, and squished along on the juicy tomato floor, her toes dripping with seeds

The path she was on grew ever narrower and lower, forcing her to squat on her haunches as she stumbled along. The tunnel began to smell of rotten tomato.
The princess stopped to take a short break, trying not to gag. As she gasped for breath, she saw a burger bun tree.

It was a shrub, really, but the sight of it made her feel quite relieved, for the puzzle of how to make a burger without the buns had been weighing on her mind. She leaned out and carefully picked two of the crispest buns she could find, placing them in her pocket.

‘Come back, come back’ a voice sighed, as she fumbled her way down the path, now almost reduced to crawling as the roof had come down low. ‘Foolish child. The fox/eagle/fish is a demon, trying to entice you to your doom. Retrace your steps. Ahead lies death.’

The voice sounded reasonable. The princess stopped, turning the words over in her mind. Should she turn back? But just as she made up her mind to, she heard the faint flapping of wings, and the mocking laugh of an eagle rang in her memory.

‘I can’t trust you’ she called out to the voice, wriggling forward on her belly, taking care not to squash the burger buns as she moved. ‘I’m going ahead.’
‘As you wish.’ The voice sounded disappointed, fading away. As the last echoes died, the tunnel widened again.

It became high enough for the princess to start crawling again, then crouching. Soon, she was walking comfortably upright again.
‘I’m sure the cage will be here somewhere’ she thought, looking around, for the tunnel was large now to accommodate a golden parrot in a gilded cage.

When she spotted the cage, it looked gaudy enough to satisfy even her grand-aunt’s extravagant taste in gems, studded as it was with stones as big as birds’ eggs, in all colours of the rainbow.
The princess, who liked only very small jewels when she liked them at all, shuddered.

‘Why would anyone want to take this cage back with them?’ she thought, reflecting that there really was no accounting for personal tastes.
She took out the golden parrot. It screeched, taking a vicious bite out of her thumb, leaving her bleeding as it flew down a side tunnel.

She couldn’t follow it down one of the side paths, not without violating the first condition, part one. The princess paused, as her stomach grumbled again, this time very loudly. She had an idea. She used her hands to scoop out a burger patty-sized section of tomato pulp.

She placed the tomato patty between the two buns, and waved it enticingly at the mouth of the tunnel.
‘Yoo hoo. Nice birdy. Come and get your tomato burger’ the princess called, keeping a firm grip on her dupatta.
Swoosh! The parrot came swooping down the tunnel.

With one deft swish of her dupatta, the princess caught the bird in the folds of cloth, bundling it up so that its beak and claws were safely confined, and then tucking the bird neatly under her arm.

The princess made her way through the tunnel, out of the exit door, and down the forest path, feeling quite victorious.
Her steps slowed. She had not been as quick to capture the parrot as she had imagined. The stupid bird had taken a large bite out from the burger.

The princess looked down at the food in her left hand, dismayed. Then she shrugged. It would just have to do, she thought, as she squished down the forest path, unsurprised when it wound its serpentine way back to the pool.
She handed the parrot to the supercilious looking fox.

‘Here you are, here’s your silly parrot.’ And then she opened her left hand. ‘Here you are, here’s your silly tomato burger too.’
The fox glared at her. ‘I said I wanted the burger whole.’
She glared back. ‘No you didn’t. You said I can’t take a bite from it. Well, I didn’t.

Your stupid bird did. Just like it took a bite out of me.’
She held up her bloody thumb, but the fox looked unmoved. He only grunted, taking the burger from her and slicing it in two with a sharp knife that he pulled out from thick air.

He ate the undamaged half, licking his lips in satisfaction as the princess let out a huge belch. She was gassy, and the smell of burger and over-ripe tomato wasn’t helping.
The parrot made its way out of her dupatta carefully, and hopped over to the other half of the burger.

of the burger which had a large bite taken out of it. It cocked its head to one side, reminding her of the fox, who had reminded her of the eagle. Then it gobbled down the burger in one swift gulp.
There was a blinding flash of light.

When it disappeared, and the princess cautiously opened her eyes again, the fox and the parrot had disappeared. There was no eagle in the sky. No fish in the pond.
The princess made her weary way to the pond, taking handfuls of water to clean herself as best as she could.

She staunched her bleeding thumb with handfuls of wet mud, and then sat down to eat her picnic lunch, using the knife and fork that her attendants had packed, which she normally never used – she liked eating with her hands best of all – to tuck greedily into kababs and biriyani

, finishing it off with a large plate of delicious double ka meethai.
When she was done, she wiped the plate, the knife, and the fork with a leaf, and stowed them neatly into her backpack again. She dipped her toes into the pond experimentally, but no voice scolded her.

he looked into the sky, but it seemed empty. The princess mounted her horse, and started on the path back home, suddenly feeling very tired.
She returned many times to that small clearing in the forest, with the tree and the pool, taking her best friend with her.

But try as they might, they could not spot any signs of the fish/fox/eagle/parrot. They walked down the path, but could not see a single small yellow cherry tomato, let alone a large red one.
Many years later, the princess became an adult, and a queen of her own.

She stopped going into the forest, because she had so much work to do in the palace. She had a daughter of her own, and taught her to be neat and organized, in contrast to her husband the King, who was so scatty and messy that it drove her crazy.

Gradually, the queen forgot about the adventure she had in the forest, though she sometimes wondered why it was that she so disliked tomatoes in her burger, often considering whether she should make a proclamation banning them altogether.

One day, her daughter took her horse and wandered deep into the forest. She saw what seemed like the perfect spot for a picnic, and dismounted from her house. She took off her backpack, and her chappals, and placed them neatly under a large tree next to a small pool.

She lay down on the grass, and stretched her feet, sighing with satisfaction. When she dipped her toes into the water, she heard a loud and indignant voice.
‘Oy!’

That's it, folks. If you liked it, let me know. We'll try and do another. We're open to suggestions of characters and settings to start us off on our next adventure! /end

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