The Prince rode Percy Southwards, away from the Castle and the bizarre events concerning the Princess and the Frog. They were, of course, now accompanied by a new companion in the shape of the Frog who lay safely in the Prince’s luggage tied to the back of his saddle.
“Before we go and see the Sorcerer to try lifting the Frog’s curse,” began the Prince. “I think we should look in on the three little pigs and that Wolf who is victimizing them. Any objections?”
“None at all,” replied not Percy but the Frog. “It will be quite exciting to get out and about.”
“I’m glad you approve.”
“I could do with a drink. I’m feeling rather croaky.”
They travelled towards a large forest in Baron Hardup’s Kingdom which was reportedly where the trouble was.
“So what is this about?” asked the Frog.
“Rumour has it,” explained Percy. “That this Wolf has come down from the nearby mountains and is threatening three little pigs who have their homes in the forest. I expect the Baron has probably been sending out his Huntsmen to get the Wolf but the forest is so dense that it must be difficult.”
“How will we find him then?”
“Ah, we have our ways,” chuckled the Prince. “Percy is brilliant at finding orienteering. If he hasn’t already been there, he will quickly master the right directions using the Moon, the Sun and the land.”
However, within ten minutes they had encountered a wood cutter who was carrying a pile of branches on his back.
“My dear fellow,” the Prince greeted him. “Do you know about the trouble with the Wolf and the three little Pigs?”
“Oh yes,” he nodded severely. “Quite frightened they are!”
“Oh dear.”
“In fact, one of them lives quite near here.”
“Yes?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “In his house made of straw!”
“Right, in which direction?” asked Percy.
“Straight ahead, about five hundred yards…did that horse just speak?”
“Thanks!” the Prince rode Percy away.
“A house made of straw?” puzzled Percy. “That’s a questionable material for home construction. He should complain.”
“Maybe it’s one of those environmentally friendly homes?” wondered the Prince. “You know, to use sustainable materials.”
“Well he won’t be burning any fossil fuels to heat it,” replied Percy. “Not unless he wants to burn down himself and his home!”
“Excuse me,” came the Frog’s voice from inside the Prince’s satchel. “Before we go any further, please can we stop so I can find a small puddle or stream or something?”
“Oh, you need a toilet break do you?” asked the Prince.
“Not quite, no. I am getting very dry in here and need the moisture.”
They stopped so that the Prince took the Frog out from his satchel. The Frog hopped from his hand and into some nearby bushes where he found swampland to roll around in for a few moments. Returning to the clearing, the Prince placed him back in the satchel before mounting Percy so they could continue their journey.
Only a few minutes later they encountered the little straw house. It was a bungalow with gaps in the straw that were presumably for light to get in.
“They’re not big enough for a Wolf to fit through,” remarked an observant Percy.
“No, good point,” nodded the Prince as he dismounted Percy to march to the front door of the house where he knocked delicately on it.
“Hello?” came a little voice from within.
“Little pig?”
“Oh, if it’s you again Wolf, do one!”
“No, it’s not, it is Prince Charming. I am here to help you.”
“Really?” he sounded relieved.
“Yes.”
The door opened and the little pig stood before the Prince, looking rather nervous.
“How did you know?” he asked.
“Your plight is known all around the Realm,” explained the Prince.
“Does everybody know what really happened?” the Pig reddened. “All the “squeal little piggie squeal!”
“No but I am sure you can share that delightful anecdote with us on our travels. Tell me, has he been here recently?”
“Everyday,” he sighed. “He turns up drunk, starts shouting and then demands to be let in my house. I know his game. If he gets in, I am buggered!”
“I thought he wanted to eat you?”
“Only after the sodomy,” he shrugged. “So I refuse him entry. But recently he’s been trying to blow the house down.”
“Really?” Percy chortled. “I know this structure looks pretty unsound and flimsy perhaps but blowing it down? He’s clearly not an architect or construction worker this Wolf!”
“Did that horse just talk?” the Pig asked the Prince.
“Well you can?”
“Fair point.”
The Frog appeared from the satchel and hopped on top of Percy’s head.
“So, even if the Wolf is blowing really hard,” said the Frog. “You should be safe as houses.”
The Pig, Percy and the Prince all regarded the Frog with disdain. Well Percy couldn’t because he wasn’t able to see him but he thought that way.
“Last time I could hear the straw buffeting,” warned the Pig.
“I didn’t know straw went to buffets?” said the Frog. “Which counter do they like best? The cheese and cold meats or the dessert counter?”
“Oh no…” sighed Percy. “There was me thinking ‘this Frog fella, unlike virtually everyone else we encounter, isn’t a sexual deviant, doesn’t have a screw loose or some obscene and disgusting habit. I quite like him. He seems like a lovely chap.’ But now you turn out to have a penchant for cracking terrible jokes!”
“It’s better than cracking eggs! Ask Humpty Dumpty!”
“That’s in poor taste,” said the Prince. “It wasn’t me who went to his supposed rescue. It was my stand-in.”
“Yes,” smiled the Frog. “I heard your stand-in was eggs-crement…”
“Tell me Frog,” said Percy. “Does your incessant joke telling rely on just making puns and Dad jokes or do you do anything high-brow? You know, post-Modern stuff?”
“I think we are getting off the point,” began the Prince. “Back to the Pig’s house.”
“Yes, back to me!” cried the Pig. “I am worried he will return another time and successfully blow my house down.”
“He’s never going to manage that,” Percy indicated the house. “Straw, when woven together like this, is quite heavy. Consider bales of hay? No, he won’t be able to manage it. Just ensure you lock the door at night and it will be fine.”
“But what if he did manage it?” the Pig frowned.
“He won’t,” Percy was adamant.
“I tell you what,” the Prince held his hands up. “We will lay in wait for the next time he visits. We’ll watch to see what impact him blowing at the house has and go from there.”
“Okay,” nodded the Pig, seemingly reassured. “That sounds good.”
“Right then, so be it,” the Prince smiled before leading Percy and the Frog away to the bushes where they lay down in wait.
A few hours passed during which Percy and the Prince discussed their strategy.
“Sire,” began Percy. “Would it not have been more sensible to lay in wait inside the house so that we could either defend the Pig if the Wolf did blow down the house or just come out and kill him after the Wolf announced his arrival.”
“I don’t know Percy,” shrugged the Prince. “This way we can assess the long term stability of the house. In case other Wolves come here to attack the Pig. Anyway, what have you heard of his brothers?”
“Nothing much,” replied Percy. “Other than the Wolf has been bringing them strife in a similar way.”
Suddenly they heard something in the clearing. They kept themselves hidden but could see the Wolf, capering up to the house with a bottle of cider in his hand which he took one long gulp from before chucking it over his shoulder.
“Little Pig! Little Pig!” he yelled. “Let me in! Or I’ll blow your house in!”
“When he blows, is that a Wolf-whistle?” whispered the Frog.
“Little Pig! Little Pig!” he said again. “Let me in! Or I’ll blow your house in!”
“No! No!” protested the Pig from within.
The Wolf went to the front door before taking a deep breath and blowing hard on it. Nothing happened.
“See!” hissed Percy. “He can’t do any damage by just blowing.”
As the Prince and Percy lay in the shadows congratulating themselves, the Wolf shrugged prior to producing a box of matches, striking a match and throwing it at the house. Within moments the house was a raging inferno and the Wolf feasted on the Pig.
“That went badly,” remarked Percy a few minutes later during the post-mortem of their failed rescue mission.
“That Wolf can’t half move,” the Prince sighed. “He managed to burn through the door, get the Pig and flee with it before we could intervene.”
“You made a right pig’s ear of that,” said the Frog. “And the Pig probably thought you would save his bacon!”
“Not the time Frog, not the time,” the Prince eyed him wearily.
“Is your sense of, for want of a better word, ‘humour’,” checked Percy. “Part of the Sorcerer’s curse?”
“Oh no,” the Frog said cheerfully. “I was always like this.”
“Then you won’t take offence when, if you have the curse lifted, we will immediately go our separate ways.”
“So what next?” the Prince stamped out the dying embers of the burning straw on the ground.
“We must find one of the other Pigs,” nodded Percy. “At least we now know what the Wolf is like. A drunken but deceptively quick and lethal beast.”
“Who likes to speak in rhymes,” added the Prince.
The three of them set up camp for the night before continuing through the forest the following morning.
“I hope the other two Pigs aren’t living in straw houses,” said the Prince. “The Wolf will know how to get at them if that’s the case.”
“Yes,” said the Frog. “The speed with which he got to the Pig was ex-strawdinary.”
“You know you can just think up the joke without sharing it?” said Percy. “Maybe you could memorize or write it down so that you might put together a stand-up routine for when you are a human Prince once again.”
At that moment they reached a clearing in the forest where they found a small house made of wood.
“The second Pig?” wondered the Prince.
“I reckon so,” nodded Percy. “And this one lives in a better house.”
The Prince dismounted Percy to approach the house. Knocking on the door, he waited before a voice from within could be heard.
“Yes?”
“It’s Prince Charming,” said the man himself, slightly disappointed his job had been reduced to doing house calls. “Is this the home of one of the three little Pigs?”
“Yes, I’m the middle brother.”
“Oh good.”
The door was opened with a clunk to reveal the Pig who folded his trotters to regard the Prince.
“What are you here for?”
“To assist with your Wolf problem.”
“That bloody Wolf! He keeps trying to get into the houses of my two brothers and I! He’s a menace. Luckily, so far, he’s not been successful.”
“Yes, fortunately,” the Prince hesitated before adding. “So what has the Wolf been up to here?”
“He keeps coming here and saying he’ll blow the house down!”
“And I assume his attempts have been complete failures?” asked Percy.
“Yes…did that horse just talk?”
“Yes,” nodded the Prince. “Listen I am afraid I have some bad news for you.”
“This isn’t about the home insurance is it?” the Pig’s face fell. “I feared I wouldn’t get full cover by living in a house made of wood.”
“No,” the Prince spoke in a quiet tone. “I am sorry but your brother, in the house of straw…well…the Wolf got him.”
“No!” the Pig shrieked. “He blew the house in?”
“Well, not quite. He gave that up and instead…set fire to it.”
“Oh no! Did you find this out by reaching the scene later?”
“Yes…if you like.”
“And what befell my brother? Did he die quickly? Without pain?”
“Have you ever seen a spit roast?”
“I’m afraid dealing with sudden deaths wasn’t in his training,” said Percy to the Frog.
“Oh no!” squealed the Pig. “My poor brother!”
“That is why we are here,” said the Prince. “To ensure the exact same fate does not befall you. Although this house looks much sturdier than the one made of straw.”
“Yes,” nodded the Pig. “I always thought that was a stupid idea. He never was shrewd in the property market. But, I guess straw is much cheaper than wood.”
“Right,” the Prince took a back step. “I need to talk with my horse.”
“Okay,” the Pig seemed perfectly happy with this notion.
“Percy,” the Prince lowered his voice. “What do you think?”
“Sire, we know the Wolf is likely to turn up as he did last time. He won’t be able to blow anything down or in. But he will likely resort to setting the house on fire. It being wood, it will take more to do so and not go up in flames so quickly as the straw house.”
“I see yes,” the Prince punched the air before returning to speak with the Pig.
“I wish he wouldn’t do that,” sighed Percy to the Frog.
“Or woodn’t do that?”
“That pun didn’t work.”
“So then Pig,” said the Prince. “I’ve had a chat with my chief advisor and the plan is for us to lay in wait for the Wolf to show up.”
“Sounds sensible.”
“Then we think he might try setting fire to your home.”
“Right.”
“At which point we will leap into action and catch him!”
“I like it,” nodded the Pig. “It’s fool proof.”
“Jolly good,” smiled the Prince.
The Prince, the Frog and Percy went to lie in the woodland about twenty yards from the house as the Pig closed and locked the door.
“Sire?”
“Yes Percy?”
“I cannot help but wonder that the Wolf might do something unexpected once again.”
“What do you mean Percy?”
“Last time he threw us off by pulling out the match and setting fire to the straw house. I am worried he might up his game again. Maybe we should go inside the house to ambush him from there?”
“How could he possibly up his game?” wondered the Prince. “A few lit matches won’t see the wooden house go up in flames like the straw one did. He’d take a lot longer to burn it down. By which time we’ll be on him!”
“I suppose so sire.”
“We’ll be more than a match for the Wolf!” piped up the Frog.
“Right that’s it,” snapped Percy. “From one creature that has the power of speech to another!”
“Yes?” the Frog asked.
“If you don’t cut out the puns, the quips and the terrible gags, we won’t take you to the Sorcerer. We will take you back to the pond and that depraved Princess.”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” cried the Frog. “No more jokes. Anything but going back there!”
“By the way,” began the Prince. “I wanted to know more about your encounter with the aforementioned Sorcerer? Where was it and did he mean to turn you into a Frog?”
“It was in an Inn,” explained the Frog. “As I said before, he took exception to a few local ladies flirting with me. He tried chatting to them but they showed no interest in his romantic overtures…”
“Sounds like the Sorcerer,” nodded the Prince.
“Or his considerable groping.”
“Definitely sounds like the Sorcerer. This must have been before his restraining order that made him become a hermit in the mountains.”
“Then he started showing off,” continued the Frog. “First he produced a pack of cards and did some tricks. Like plucking an ace of spades from behind the ear of the barmaid. Then he brought out a black top hat along with a wand. Some of the ladies were taking notice until he pulled a ferret from the hat as opposed to the white rabbit he had boasted he would. Everyone in the Inn began laughing at him, including me. He flew into a rage and cursed me, telling me he would turn me into a snail.”
“But…” Percy frowned.
“Oh yes, I ended up as a frog instead.”
“What’s his fixation with punishing people by turning them into items on a French restaurant menu?”
“I have a question,” the Frog said. “Whatever became of this dreadful man?”
“Well,” the Prince rolled his eyes. “Eventually he was issued with several restraining orders so, to avoid trouble, he went to live in solitude in the mountains. However, on our adventures we found him. In the end, he assisted the Prince Regent of my Kingdom and was instrumental in splitting the Union Realm up.”
“He did all that? But he was a complete idiot?”
“One of several idiots! That’s the problem these days, the idiots have been getting power and control.”
“Well, this is one idiot who won’t be getting any more of it,” insisted the Frog bitterly. “For once I regain human form, I will take my revenge.”
“Revenge?” gasped the Prince. “No, my dear Frog, you mustn’t do that. Recrimination and hatred is not what we are about.”
“It’s easy for you to say that. I went from being one of the most handsome Princes in the Realm to being forever covered in slime and having to hop about the place. Plus there’s what happened with that Princess!”
“Perhaps he has a point,” reasoned Percy.
Suddenly riotous shouting could be heard in the undergrowth prior to the Wolf emerging holding what appeared to be a bottle of ale which he threw at the house so that it clattered against the wooden door and smashed to pieces on the porch.
“Little Pig! Little Pig!” he yelled. “Let me in! Or I’ll blow your house in!”
“Right then, go for it!” whispered the Prince.
Meanwhile the Wolf had produced his box of matches and struck one which he quickly tossed at the front door.
The Prince, Percy and Frog froze in the bushes as they watched out of curiosity as, to their horror, the house was engulfed in flames. The Wolf made quick work of kicking in the burning door, seizing the screaming Pig and departing the scene before the Prince or Percy could stop him.
“How did he do that?” the Prince pointed at the raging fire in the wooden house. “One match! You saw it!”
“I am afraid sire,” said Percy. “That whatever was in that beer bottle was not beer. It probably contained a grease substance most likely combined with gunpowder seeing the rate the fire took to the house.”
“But he was drinking from the bottle?”
“Perhaps meths then,” opined Percy, dearly wishing everyone else could use their imaginations.
“So we are now two Pigs down!” sighed the Prince as the fire died away. “This is turning into a massive failure!”
“How are you going to prevent the third pig from being frazzled?” asked the Frog.
“Was that a pig pun?” Percy turned to him suspiciously.
“No, no,” the Frog shrugged innocently.
“Good.”
“Are we going to rest for the night and then get bacon the case in the morning?”
“What was that?”
“Back on the case in the morning? You know, after some sleep?”
“I suppose,” sighed the Prince. “We are going to have to come up with something to defeat that Wolf. He’s running rings around us.”
“We’ll just have to get crackling in the morning,” said the Frog.
The Prince and Percy glared at him.
They spent an extensive amount of time the next day journeying through the huge forest.
“Sire,” announced Percy as dusk fell. “I think we are probably going to be out of the forest soon. I suspect an hour at most. We will have to double back if we don’t encounter the house soon.”
“Okay Percy.”
“Hang on,” Percy was staring at the grassy floor in the full moon light.
He scuffed the ground using his front right hoof.
“What is it?”
“I have picked up a trail,” he replied. “At some point in the past, several heavy materials were clearly pulled over the ground here. Judging by the ridges in the soil and the divots, they were probably stones or bricks. I say we pick up this trail and we might well find another construction.”
“Percy, you take my breath away!”
Sure enough, using the moon light, they followed the disrupted earth for about ten minutes before Percy stopped.
“Has the trail stopped?” panicked the Prince.
“No sire, can you smell that? Burning, yes, there’s smoke emanating from somewhere near here.”
“Not another hog roast,” remarked the Frog.
“No,” Percy was defiant. “It smells like a home fire burning, perhaps coming from a chimney judging by the sooty scent.”
Two minutes later they reached a spacious clearing in the forest to find a small but cosy looking house constructed of bricks. A chimney at the apex of the roof had a plume of smoke pouring from it.
“Percy, you have outdone yourself!”
The Prince approached the front door and rapped on it.
“Yes?” came a little voice inside.
“Little Pig? Little Pig? Let me in?”
“Err sire…”
“Oh yes, of course,” the Prince blushed. “I forgot myself there. Hello, it’s Prince Charming and we are here to help you.”
“Prince Charming?”
“Yes!”
The door swung open and the Little Pig, almost identical to his two now deceased brothers stood in the doorway.
“You are here to help me?”
“Yes!”
“Well please excuse me but I am not exactly enthusiastic about the prospect.”
“Oh, why?” the Prince turned to Percy with a sheepish expression.
“I have heard all about Humpty Dumpty!”
“Oh that!” the Prince sighed with relief. “Don’t you worry about that! That was my stand-in. My incredibly stupid stand-in!”
“Oh, I see.”
“I hear you have two brothers who live in this forest?” asked the Prince.
“Oh yes, yes, but I rarely see them. They live several days travel from me. I only have little trotters you see!”
“Good, good! Well anyway, I am here to help you with the Wolf!”
“It’s about time!” the Pig snorted. “That Wolf is a menace. He’s come round here a couple of times and tried breaking in.”
“I bet,” nodded the Prince. “Spouting the usual stuff about blowing your house in?”
“No, that would be ridiculous. This is a mock Tudor maisonette. There’s no way he could blow the door in! No, he just hangs about outside making a nuisance of himself.”
“Such as?”
“Urinating in my flower bed, yelling profanities about my parentage…”
“What a swine!” cried the Frog.
“I thought we had a deal?” Percy glowered.
“Right,” the Prince said to the Pig. “Here’s our plan…”
“Sire!”
“Yes Percy?”
“Can you come here please? I have something I need to speak to you about.”
“Give me a moment Percy, I am just explaining the plan to the Pig…”
“It’s that I wanted to talk about sire.”
“Back in a moment!” the Prince nodded at the Pig prior to leaving the porch to go over to his horse. “What is it Percy?”
“Sorry to seem like a nag sire…”
“Great pun!” cried the Frog.
“Oh dear…” Percy’s face fell before he continued talking. “Anyway, does your plan entail us waiting in the undergrowth for the Wolf to show up at the house?”
“Yes, why?”
“I think we need a change of strategy. Freshen things up a bit.”
“What do you suggest?”
A minute later all was quiet in the clearing while the door of the house was left open and the Pig and the others had vanished.
The Wolf suddenly appeared from the bushes.
“Little Pig! Little Pig…” he stopped on noticing the door of the house was open.
The Wolf looked around the clearing for a moment, almost not believing his good fortune. Bearing his sharp teeth, he promptly entered the deserted house. He got as far as the kitchen when suddenly he toppled over to the floor with a pained yelp. Reaching up to feel his neck, he discovered that he had been lassoed with a rope. Holding the other end of that long rope was the Prince standing behind him in the doorway of the house.
“At last!” the Prince said as he remained where he was while the Wolf arose unsteadily to his feet.
“Let me go!” the Wolf protested.
“Oh no, not after what you did…” the Prince suddenly lowered his voice. “To the other Pigs.”
“What other Pigs?” the Wolf shrugged.
“Don’t give me that!”
“There are lots of other Wolves around this forest you know! I only came in here to check the owner was okay.”
“Don’t bother lying! We were at the scenes of both the straw and wooden houses. We watched you burn them down and abduct the Pigs!”
“You were there? Well why didn’t you stop me then?” the Wolf snarled.
“Err…well we were laying in wait for the opportune moment…”
“That was a bit bloody stupid wasn’t it? You may as well have given me the keys to the house!”
“Alright, don’t get cocky!” the Prince pulled on the rope to tighten it around the Wolf’s neck.
“Oh yes…nice, like it.”
“What?”
“A bit tighter…”
The Prince scrutinized the Wolf who seemed to be pleased by the excess pressure on this throat.
“What do you mean? What’s wrong with you?”
“You probably think I don’t like being tied round the neck like this?” the Wolf winked at the Prince who promptly tied his end of the rope around the post at the porch before closing the kitchen door so that the rope was stuck fast and the Wolf secured by his noose inside the room. “Oh yes baby!”
The Prince winced before going outside where Percy, the Little Pig and the Frog arrived in the clearing.
“Did you get him?” asked Percy.
“Yes, we should be able to take him to a local Sheriff.”
“Excellent!” the Pig cried. “My brothers and I are safe!”
“Yes well,” the Prince stammered. “This Wolf is rather strange I must say.”
“Oh here we go,” Percy sighed. “What weird or depraved character trait or proclivity has he got?”
“He seems to,” the Prince coughed. “Enjoy being tied up or, to be more specific, being choked.”
“Well let’s choke him to death then!” the Pig declared.
“No, we can’t do that,” the Prince was adamant.
Half an hour later they were pulling the Wolf through the forest. The rope was still around his neck and, with some ease, they had managed to tie his hands together.
“Kinky!” he cried as it happened.
On top of this, the Little Pig had wanted to come along.
“I want to see him jailed! And once I have travelled all that way, I might go and visit my brothers.”
“But it’ll be a long walk,” explained the Prince. “And, if for any reason we lost him, you’d be at risk”
“Oh I suppose.”
The Little Pig reluctantly remained in his house as the others headed out at dawn.
“Could you pull a little harder on the rope?” the Wolf asked as they towed him alongside Percy.
“You see sire,” Percy said as they were reaching the edge of the forest. “I would think he is up to something but it appears like he would merrily welcome being nearly throttled.”
“Or maybe make the knot thicker and tighter?” the Wolf asked hopefully.
“Are you going to be like this all the way to the Sheriff?” complained Percy.
“Maybe the Sheriff will tie me down? I am really glad you caught me!”
“Glad?” remarked the Prince.
“Yes, I’ve been naughty and I must be punished!”
“Right that’s it!” the Prince brought Percy to a stop. “You are giving me the creeps.”
The Prince dismounted Percy to go and loosen the rope around the Wolf’s neck.
“What are doing that for?” he protested. “If I am your prisoner then at least treat me like one!”
“No, it’s really odd!”
“Sod this!” the Wolf slipped his head from the noose and scarpered into the undergrowth.
“Were we just the victims of a massive bluff?” wondered Percy.
“You were,” spoke up the Frog. “You must be howling mad.”
Athon 