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H arriet Hamsterbone was dripping wet and shivering with cold, and she had never been happier.
She had spent the last two hours climbing up a hundred-foot cliff and throwing herself off the top into the river. It had been a good day.
“Cliff-diving,” she said to her faithful battle quail, Mumfrey. “Do you know how much I’ve missed cliff-diving?”
“Qwerk,” said Mumfrey, which is Quail for “I may have some idea, yes.”
Harriet was a princess, heir to the throne of the hamster king, and she had not been cliff-diving in ages. She had been very fond of it when she was young and (owing to a fairy curse) invincible, but once the curse wore off, she’d had to give it up. Cliff-diving is not a terribly safe sport. Her mother had never approved.
Another fairy had recently given Harriet back her ability to cliff-dive, as thanks for breaking the curse on twelve dancing mouse princesses, and Harriet intended to make the most of it.
“I would have saved them anyway,” she told Mumfrey. “I mean, they needed help, and clearly nobody else was going to do it. But the cliff-diving is a nice bonus.” She shook the water out of her ears.
“Qwerk,” agreed Mumfrey.
“It’s definitely magic too! I could feel it!” (There are approximately six thousand ways that one can cliff-dive wrong, almost all of which are fatal. Harriet had slipped on one of the jumps and the magic had actually swooped in, pointed her toes correctly, and gotten her lined up with the water in the proper fashion. This was why Harriet was not spread across the landscape as hamster jam. Did we mention that cliff-diving was a very dangerous sport?)
“Qwerk ...”
“Still, I suppose we should be getting back home.”
“Qwerk!”
She was fluffing up her damp fur and feeling generally good about life, when a cloaked figure stepped out from behind the bushes.
One of the downsides to being a famous warrior princess is that cloaked figures are always jumping out at you from behind bushes. There were days when Harriet had no fewer than three people in cloaks to deal with. She was good at it, but it did get tiresome.
She snatched up her sword from where it hung on Mumfrey’s saddle and pointed it at the figure. “Halt! Are you an assassin?”
“Um,” said the figure, looking at the sword. “No.”
“Evil wizard?”
Harriet sighed.
She would almost have rather dealt with an assassin. People throwing poisoned daggers at you was annoying, but you didn’t feel rude whacking them with your sword afterward. People trying to sell you things made it terribly awkward to refuse.
“Right,” she said wearily. “Get it over with.”
The figure coughed. “Where was I?”
“Right. Yes. Thank you. Princess!” cried the cloaked figure. “I have an offer for you that only a fool would refuse!”
“How did you know I was a princess?”
The cloaked figure had a striped face and appeared to be a chipmunk. “I don’t,” he admitted. “But you’re wearing a tiara, so you’re either a princess or you think you’re a princess, and I’m trying to sell you something here, so I’m happy to go along with your delusions.”
“Fair enough,” said Harriet. She admired honesty in salespeople. “What’re you selling?”
The chipmunk reached into his cape pocket and presented his goods with a flourish.
“... those are beans,” said Harriet.
“Yes!” said the chipmunk. “The finest beans in all the land! And I will trade three of them to you for the quail you are riding.”
“No deal,” said Harriet. “Mumfrey is my best friend. He isn’t for sale. And also, those’re beans .”
“Perhaps you do not quite understand, Princess,” said the chipmunk. “For these are no ordinary beans. They’re magic! ”
Harriet stifled another sigh. The world was full of magic, and she had encountered quite a lot of it, although she herself was about as magical as a rock. (Except for the cliff-diving thing.)
Unfortunately, the world was also full of people trying to sell you something by claiming it was magical. Harriet’s dad had a real problem with this, and had acquired an entire room full of gadgets that were supposed to slice vegetables at a touch, remove blemishes, and reduce eye wrinkles, all sold to him by smooth-talking salesmen. None of them worked at all, although the one that reduced eye wrinkles would explode if you pulled the wrong lever.
“I don’t care if they wear little tutus and do a dance,” said Harriet. “I wouldn’t trade Mumfrey for three magic beans.”
“Qwerk,” said Mumfrey, satisfied.
“Are you sure?” asked the chipmunk, waving his handful under Harriet’s nose. “Because these are some seriously magical beans.”
“Not interested,” said Harriet.
“You don’t find beans like this every day.”
“Really, truly not interested,” said Harriet.
“In fact, these are quite possibly the most magical beans that have ever—HEY!”
“Mumfrey!”
The chipmunk had waved his hand too close to Mumfrey’s beak. The beans looked a great deal like birdseed, and the quail was feeling irritable.
Harriet and the chipmunk both stared at the quail in dismay.
“Well, now you owe me a quail,” said the chipmunk.
“Not happening,” said Harriet. “And he only ate one bean, so technically I’d only owe you a third of a quail, even if I agreed to it, which I didn’t.”
“I’ll give you the other two beans and take the quail!”
“The third bean is inside the quail, so you’d get both the bean and the quail, and I’d get nothing! If anything, you’d owe me another magic bean!”
The chipmunk clutched his ears. “But how am I supposed to get my bean back!?”
“Quails have a really fast digestion,” said Harriet apologetically. “I mean, I’m sorry about your bean. He shouldn’t have done that. But you still can’t have Mumfrey.”
The chipmunk stared at her.
“Look, would you take money? We can go to my dad’s castle and I’m sure they’ll pay you a fair price for your bean—”
The chipmunk let out a shriek of frustration and then, quite to Harriet’s surprise, vanished in a puff of smoke.
“I guess he was magical after all,” said Harriet. “Hmm. Now I wonder about those beans ...”
“Qwerk!” said Mumfrey, which is Quail for “I didn’t like him at all.” Then he belched.
“Jeez, Mumfrey!”
Harriet sighed. She was used to fairies and magical creatures that did weird things, but they didn’t usually go poof! like that.
“Well,” she said, “maybe he’ll go to the castle. Mom and Dad will take care of it, I guess.”
She gathered up Mumfrey’s reins and they ambled down the road together.
