short story: benita cruickshank
The Princess, the Frog, and the Mobile Phone
One early morning the Princess was combing her long hair by the window at the top of her tower when she remembered she’d locked herself in. A bit tiddly the night before! Gazing out at the scenery around the castle she wondered what she should do. Being locked in a tower was romantic but not necessarily convenient.
First she finished doing her hair. She couldn’t go out until she’d done that anyway. In the end she decided she really did want to go out and so she’d better do something about it. She hunted around for her phone and eventually found it under The Space Communication Times. She remembered vaguely that she’d been participating in a virtual reality cyber game the previous night.
She dialled up one of the minders. There was a long cyber pause. She stuck her head out of the window. He could be lying around in the grounds. She loved his leather trousers so she enjoyed looking at him when he couldn’t see her. He wasn’t there. That was disappointing. He was off somewhere.
She tried the phone again, leaning out of the window. She could probably shout and get him. She gave a little shriek. She’d dropped her phone.
‘Silly little thing,’ she cried as it fell, straight into the moat below. ‘That’s a really poor design. You can hardly hold it.’
‘Are you talking to me?’ asked a throaty voice from below. She leaned out further. Was that the leather-clad minder? She would hardly call him a silly little thing.
‘NO!’ she shouted. ‘I was talking to the phone.’
‘Don’t you usually talk into a phone?’ asked the voice.
It was far below but she could understand it perfectly clearly and now it was mocking her. She remembered not to frown. It makes frown lines and she didn’t want plastic surgery until she was well into her twenties. Also you never knew who might be taking photographs.
‘I dropped it.’
‘Ah, yes.’ There was a bit of splashing about and some ripples in the black waters below. ‘I have it here.’
‘Well, give it back then.’
‘I’m afraid that would be rather difficult. I’m a frog, you see.’
‘Oh? That hasn’t stopped you talking to me, has it?’
‘That’s because you are tuned in to me. You have empathy.’
‘I do?’ the princess was pleased.
‘Yes, you understand me,’ the frog said with a sigh.
‘Hmmm. I’ve heard that line before,’ she said.
‘I’m hurt,’ said the frog. ‘I wasn’t trying to be original. I was telling the truth. You do understand me.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the Princess, now contrite. She’d misjudged him.
‘What’s your problem?’ the frog asked, after a pause.
‘I’m locked in.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s embarrassing…’
‘Why?’
She decided not to answer that. To get into a dialogue with a philosophical frog struck her as a waste of time.
‘The key’s under the mat on the doorstep,’ she said.
‘Oh, that’s easy.’
‘I’ll come down and you push it under the door.’
Hair flying and forgotten, she ran down the winding stairs to the mat. There it was. A big golden key winking at her. She flung open the door, saw the frog and picked him up and kissed him.
‘Oh, good!’ said the frog. Invisible ripples formed around him as he turned in the twinkle of an eye into a tall, dark haired, good looking man.
The princess blinked. ‘You’re not a frog at all!’ she complained.
‘Haven’t you heard of the handsome prince?’ he queried, leaning on one nonchalant hip.
‘Yes, I have and you aren’t it!’ she retorted. He’d taken advantage of her and she didn’t like it. ‘The handsome prince in fairy tales is devoted to the princess and wants to marry her and be faithful and bring up children, etc.’
‘Well?’ asked the prince with what looked suspiciously like a smirk..
‘No-one asked the princess what she wanted.’
‘What do you want?’ he asked, eyebrows meeting across his handsome nose.
‘I don’t mind the big day. That’s good fun, but I don’t want the rest of it,’ she replied with attitude.
‘No family?’ he asked.
‘No, I want a career.’
‘Being my wife wouldn’t be enough for you?’
‘No,’ she responded. ‘It would be boring.’
‘What career do you have in mind?’ He was beginning to look around him as if hoping a bimbo would pop out of a bush and call ‘’Cooee!’’ at him.
‘Pop star, film star, model, novelist. Business woman,’ she reeled off.
‘But being a princess gives you all the good things with none of the bad.’ He reasoned.
‘Yes?’ she queried, unconvinced.
‘You get all the fame, money, pleasure you want, without the work.’
‘That sounds OK,’ she said, ‘but that would all be because of you – it wouldn’t be mine.’
She was finding this hard work – and he was beginning to look less handsome. Was he actually shrinking?
‘Why are you trying so hard?’ she asked.
‘If you don’t accept me I turn back into a frog!’ he answered reluctantly.
‘Power!’ she cried, and she kissed him again. ‘Good, that’s got rid of him!’ she murmured to herself, slamming the door on the disappearing ripples. She heard the big golden key fall on the stone steps outside.
‘Oh…….!’ She exclaimed, as she realised she’d made the same mistake twice. ‘Now I’ve go to kiss that bloody frog again!’ she said in exasperation, as she flew back up the stairs to her window.
How to sound like a bimbo? she was aware that bimbos were stupid, but cunning in a way she had never had the opportunity to learn - she cursed her over-protective parents for not trusting her. She really must speak to them!
Doing her best to sound, well, like a bimbo, she moistened her lips and called, ‘Cooee!’ out of the window.
about the writer: benita cruickshank
After five years in marketing, a couple more as a restaurant owner, I started travelling. This turned into thirty years as an international teacher trainer, discovering such wonders as Easter Island, Xi’an, Komodo dragons and Galapagos marine life. A published non-fiction co-author, I am now London-based, writing satisfying crime about a lady sleuth. You can read more here: https://www.benitacruickshank.com/
[Also she is one of my personal heroes. sv]
