This is the story of Rice, a pudding monster who was born in a humble shed in the city of Shiny, and how she became Dame Ballista, the Champion of Blomp. As we will learn, Rice had her name changed to Ballista because of what she did, and Shiny was changed to Blomp for reasons that we will get to later.
Nobody much expected an army of stoats with spears, goats with leers, toads with beards and coats with sneers to rush over the plain and lay siege to the city of Shiny and nobody would have expected Rice to become so famous.
But they did, and so she did.
There was one person who expected the attack, though. Alexis Soyer was a brilliant pudding chef but he was always poor, because his apprentice, a lad named Bread, gave so many free puddings to monsters in need of a free feed, though Chef Soyer didn’t mind, because he kept an ear to the ground.
He had no choice about keeping an ear to the ground, because he was too poor to own a bed, even if he did own a future grabber.
This was like a time machine, but it grabbed bits of paper from rubbish bins in the future and brought them back. Mr. Soyer was always hoping to find a thrown-out recipe book, but he never did.
One day, the future grabber gave him a picture of himself, serving pudding at the wedding of Dame Ballista. On the same page, he read how she had saved the day at the siege of Shiny. He noticed that Dame Ballista was the poor young pudding monster who used to come around to get any leftover puddings to practise throwing.
He knew the bridegroom, too, and read the rest of the story. “That’s my apprentice, and together, they’re going to be famous,” he told himself, then he thought about this for a while, and added, “They’ll need some help, though.”
He cooked one of his special sticky date and butterscotch with mango chutney, mushy peas, olives and anchovies puddings and took it around to the palace. The Prince was always asking Soyer for one of his puddings, so he ate it all, that very night, and had a nightmare about a siege.
He dreamed about an army of stoats with spears, goats with leers, toads with beards and coats with sneers, and next morning, he sent his people out to mend the city walls, to gather food and to get ready. But he didn’t say why, so nobody expected an army of stoats with spears, goats with leers, toads with beards and coats with sneers.
When the unexpected enemy came across the plain, people shut the gates and drank a toast to their clever prince. He sat in his kitchen, licking out the last crumbs of Soyer’s pudding and worrying, because the dream hadn’t told him how to deal with a siege run by stoats, goats, toads and coats.
He was most worried about the coats with sneers, because as his second cook said “There’s something worrying about coats with sneers. I mean, how do we all just know that an empty coat is sneering—and what are you going to do about it?”
“That’s the problem”, said the Prince. He stopped when the kitchen door opened. “Hello Alexis! Thanks for the pud!”
Soyer smiled. “Gave you good dreams, did it?”
“Dreadful dreams, actually, all about those stoats, goats, toads and coats. Dreadful but useful, I think.”
“As it was supposed to be, Your Highness. But if you want to save the city of Shiny, you need to ask a poor pudding monster called Rice to help you.”
“A pudding monster? Are you sure? How do you know?”
Alexis smiled. “Yes, I’m sure, but as to my methods, I used one of Neon’s inventions, and I think it may qualify as one of the Grey Arts, so don’t ask too much, just trust me.”
The Prince nodded. “Very well. Summon her, will you?”
“I’ve actually come to summon you to her, after I brought her in. She’s up on the battlements right now, and we need you up there to tell Colonel Blenkinsop to stop arguing and give her what she needs.”
“You’re really, really sure she’s the answer?”
“I’ve seen a future picture of her wedding, and you and I are both there, celebrating.”
The Prince put his hands over his ears. “That’s definitely Grey Arts stuff, so it’s just as well I didn’t hear a word of it—let’s go!”
They found Rice and another pudding monster arguing with Colonel Blenkinsop, who was a mess of mustachios and self-importance. “That lad’s a very poor pudding monster,” Alexis murmured, pointing to the other pudding monster. “We call him Bread.”
“You mean Bread-and-butter?” asked the Prince, who knew the etiquette of naming pudding monsters.
“No, his parents couldn’t afford the butter. He’s a nice young monster, and Rice loves him, but he’s just here to fetch and carry. Rice will do all the work.”
As they got closer, Rice was saying “Colonel, the battering rams will charge soon. Please get me some bales of hay and some garlic oil.”
The Prince nodded, the colonel nodded, and three sergeants who trusted Rice got out the hay and garlic oil they had already stacked, just behind the colonel. Bread began pouring the garlic oil on the hay, and just in time, because the whole flock of battering rams charged toward the walls. Rice began throwing the bales of hay, low and flat, just over the heads of the battering rams.
“You’re missing them!” shouted Blenkinsop. “Cease fire!” he roared.
But the Prince had seen what the colonel had missed. One by one, the battering rams were screeching to a halt, sniffing the garlic hay, then turning and running after the hay, right through the enemy camp, chasing the bales. “Keep firing,” he said. Soon there were no battering rams, and the camp was a mess.
“I’m a pacifist,” Rice said. “I don’t miss, and I send the ammunition where I do because I don’t want to hit them. Now I need five magnetic boomerangs, ten canned puddings, 15 barrels of custard, 20 oat puddings, 25 containers of mushy peas in a cauldron, and a pot of tea.”
Off went the Second Cook, Alexis Soyer and one of the sergeants, who knew where some magnetic boomerangs had been hidden in the evidence room after they were taken from a suspected Grey Arts practitioner. They brought the boomerangs back, just as nice smells started coming from the kitchen, and as the stoats with spears and the coats with sneers began to advance.
Bread and Rice took a boomerang and gave it a small twist, then Rice threw it out over the stoats and the coats. The whirling magnet lifted the iron-tipped spears of the stoats, and then the wind of the boomerang lifted all of the coats, and carried them out across the plain. “You’ll be sorry when that boomerang comes back!” sniffed the colonel.
“That’s why we twisted it,” grinned Bread. “Now it’s a one-way boomerang. Just watch!” Below the walls, stoats without spears were no threat at all, but the sneers without coats were getting chilly. Soon the sneers were sneezes that blew away on the breezes.
Rice threw two more magnetic boomerangs to make sure there were no stoats with spears, or coats or sneers, anywhere on the plain. “Put the other boomerangs back in the store,” she told the sergeants. She looked out over the plain. “You’d better tell them to hurry with the ten canned puds and the custard!”
The oldest sergeant looked down the ladder. “Puddings and custard are coming now, Miss!” Bread picked up the tin opener.
Out on the plain, the goats with leers and toads with beards were advancing, making a terrible thumping noise as they marched behind a flag with an angry eye on it. “Just in time!” she said.
Carefully, Rice lobbed the custard just over the heads of the advancing enemy, who suddenly realised now it had passed over them that they were in range. Then she took a spare brick and threw it so it broke the stick the eye flag was on. Now they knew she was accurate as well, and they all stopped.
As Bread opened the last tin, Rice started throwing nine of the puddings over their heads and the goats stopped leering, and turned. They were all sniffing at the delicious tin can puddings that were whizzing over the plain, away from Shiny.
Then the goats started chasing the puddings. Their feet got caught in the toads’ beards, and the toads were trampled or dragged into the custard. As the goats stampeded over the plain, the toads fled.
A few caravaggisti came charging in, riding chariots pulled by hippocrenes that came drumming over the plain. Without a word, the sergeants passed Rice the oat puddings. She sent them out with an effortless aim, so close to the hippocrenes that they could almost taste the puddings and read the labels.
In spite of the yells of the caravaggisti, who were all armed with socks filled with sea urchins, the hippocrenes all galloped off over the plain.
“You’re throwing away all our food in the middle of a siege!” complained the colonel.
One of the sergeants took a step back to pick up another oat pudding, and bumped into the colonel, who fell down the stairs and went head-first into the cauldron of mushy peas. He landed in the peas with a loud Blomp!!
“Oops!” said the careless sergeant, trying not to chortle.
“Give peas a chance,” Bread quipped.
Blenkinsop struggled out of the peas, crying. He ran out the gate and around the castle, following the invaders and shouting “Wait for me!”. The Prince turned to Rice.
“He must have been a traitor: can you knock him into the moat, please?”
Rice tossed the last pudding to Bread. “He’s our best spin bowler, your highness, and that’s what this shot needs…”
Bread considered the matter, murmured “Tricky, but do-able” and sent the pudding off. It was spinning so fast that it whirred, but passing the fleeing colonel’s head, the pudding stopped in the air, then jinked sideways, knocking the colonel into the moat, where a moat monster swallowed him, whiskers and all, then burped a loud Blomp!! The sergeants all cheered and high-fived each other, Rice, Bread, the Prince and Soyer.
“I thought he might be one of those Blenkinsops,” said the Prince. “Rice, there are no more enemies, so what do you want to do with the mushy peas?”
Rice took Bread’s hand. We want to get married, so could we have them for our wedding breakfast?”
“I think we can do better than mushy peas,” said the Prince. “What was the pot of tea for?”
“For drinking, your Highness. Throwing is thirsty work.”
“Well, Dame Ballista, step down into the courtyard and we’ll have some mushy peas and tea and talk about the wedding.”
“Oh, sire, I could never be a Dame when Bread’s a plain Mister!”
“My dear Dame Ballista, you could never marry young Lord High Upper Crust, here, if you were ordinary Miss Rice. You’re the saviour of Blomp!”
“Blomp, sire? Are you renaming the city?”
“Yes, to remind us of our only casualty. Oh, and Ballista, you’ll be the new colonel of the guard, if you don’t mind.”
The wedding of Colonel Dame Ballista and Lord High Upper Crust was the society event of the year. Everybody said it was completely unexpected, and as they posed for press photographs, Alexis Soyer decided that he wasn’t going to mention the future grabber. If it wasn’t a Grey Art, it was probably a Grey Area.
Notes (for groan-ups):
All words in this story were provided by the Alexis Soyer Home For Old Alphabet Soup.
No mushy peas were hurt in the falling colonel sequence, and we are not responsible for the well-being of the colonel.
The disused name of Shiny has been registered as a trade mark by the author, who will license it to suitably qualified towns.
Reference:
René Descartes, I Think, Therefore I Aim.
——————————————————————————
* Wondering what that asterisk on the cover was for? You drill a hole to put the string through.
** Review copies available on request. You know where to find me
