The White Princess laughs and claps her hands with delight.
‘What a delightful game this is Mr Wolf! Do let’s play again! I spy with my little eye something beginning with D!’
They are sitting on the stone slab in the bare stone cell looking at the door.
‘Hmm, well,’ says Mr Wolf in a tired tone, ‘Let me think what could that be? Could it be … wall spelt with a silent D?’
‘No!’ titters the White Princess delightedly. ‘Oh, what fun this game is. Try again!’
‘Hmm, let’s think…’
The game continues until Mr Wolf begins to be reminded of the same feeling as his brainwashing session and changes it.
An hour later the White Princess blurts out, ‘Hangman! Gosh, brilliant! I win again.’
She scratches in the final leg of the hanged man as Mr Wolf again seems strangely unable to guess what the last letter in the word Prin-ess might be.
She takes the Magic Oyster Card out of her smock front and looks at it with a beaming smile, ‘Why, look it is full enough to order a taxi, what a splendid plan, it’s worked Mr Wolf, what a clever wolf you are!’
‘Hmmm,’ says Mr Wolf, relieved the ordeal is over.
There is a rattling of an old diesel engine and a battered black cab pulls up next to them with a squeaking of brakes, a warthog leans out of the driver’s window. He has a long wrinkled snout with stubby yellow tusks curling out of either side, grey bristly hair and small piggy eyes. He wears a green checked Ben Sherman short-sleeved shirt and has a chunky gold bracelet on his forearm with the name Terry in thick letters.
Behind him his radio is playing Natter One Nine Eight loudly with a discussion between cab drivers of a new traffic flow system installed by the Mayor, ‘Terrible! You know what, I was late home last night and the wife was like this…’
He grunts gruffly, ‘Where d’ya wanna go?’
The White Princess is shocked but answers in her politest tones, ‘Oh, Mr Warthog, please may we leave these oppressive environs?’
‘Where? Can’t hear yer!’ he grunts back at her loudly, cupping his ear against the noise from the radio.
‘Oh, could you turn that down please?’
‘You wanna walk love?’
Mr Wolf leans forwards with the Magic Oyster Card, ‘How far will this get us?’
‘I dunno, swipe it and see, mate.’
He touches in on a card reader on the side of the cab and the warthog sucks his teeth as he looks at the display screen next to him, ‘Well, that’s not gonna get you very bleedin’ far is it?’
‘Oh dear,’ says the White Princess in dismay.
The warthog rubs the side of his snout ruefully with one hand, ‘Well, that’ll just about get you outside the White Tower and then it’ll be normal motoring, but you still got two sets of walls to get out of after that.’
Mr Wolf is getting tired of waiting, ‘Look, just drive the cab will you and we’ll sort it out!’
The warthog grumbles and mashes his chops.
Mr Wolf opens the cab door and is about to get in but the White Princess suddenly says, ‘Oh, but what about my dear little G-Gnome?’
The wolf is about to say, ‘What about him?’ but stops himself.
YOU ARE READING
Mr Wolf and the White Princess
FantasyA wolf and a princess fall in love as they fight the Raven and the forces of boredom and ugliness in a magical London. They must race against time as they try to stop the Raven’s evil plan for destroying the city. But can they also resolve the myste...
