The Ugly Prince

The Wizard and the Witch and a Bottle of Madness

She looked around, but she could see no- one. Until the voice appeared again, “down here”.

She looked down and could see the door knocker with a face of a gremlin’s smile up at her as well as giving her a creepy stare. Scared of the gremlin’s face alone terrified her, so scared in fact that her knees could replace the door knocker. As they knocked themselves together hard. The gremlin’s head looking down at her and seeing her knees knocking so, “don’t be afraid. I wont hurt you”. He said innocently.

“I can see your not our usual customers, what do you want?” it asked.

The young witch who was still scared and uncertain of it, but didn’t want to seem rude replied. “I was wondering if the wizard would let me in his house to stay for the night, for I am a fellow traveling witch”.

“Oh? A witch ah?” the gremlin said “well, a fellow witch hasn’t been here for years, the last one we had couldn’t handle the masters drinking problems and his snoring”, he laughed.

The gremlin’s laugh sounded like he had a dry throat as dust from his mouth puffed out, “well, knocking on the door wont help you at all, their too drunk to hear you”.

“Then how do I get in?” she asked, worried that she would be sleeping in the streets.

“I will let you in, and when you do tell them Jockey let you in, okay?” he replied.

The door slowly opened for her and before she could go inside as the warmth was gliding her off her aching toes, the door swung itself closed infront of her, almost touching her nose. She turned to the door knocker and asked it “what gives? I thought you were going to let me in?”

“Well, I was wondering whether you’ll do me a small favor ”, it replied sulking.

“What kind of favor?” asked the young witch lifting an eyebrow of suspicion.

The gremlin’s face was down waving about before, looking back up at her. “Well, it’s a bit embarrassing to ask. You see I have an itch you see. A very big itch that I can’t reach before I have no hands, but every time a customer comes I forget to ask them and now, I’ve just remembered. So could you do me the honor of getting rid of my itch behind my left ear. In return I’ll let you in I promise”, it said.

  

She stared at it and thought well, he was nice to me. So she scratched behind its left steel ear until the itch was gone, “oh! Thank you, thank you very much” he cried.

And as promised he opened the door and there she went inside, the hallway was covered in emerald green wallpaper and the wooden floor was as black as ebony. The furniture was of fine quality, it sort of reminded her of the witches house a little. But as she came to the first room witch was filled with shelves, of different jars of spells, envelopes and books. However, as she stepped in the room she felt something go past her foot, as she looked down she saw that the floor was full of empty bottles of Rum and red wine and the odd empty case of Champaign. The floor was an absolute mess, it was such a mess that she had to tip toe her was to the wizard who was at his desk shouting. “I hope that will teach you a lesson young Martin, to be telling fibs to me again”.

Listening to the wizard while approaching him she politely asked “Excuse me? Am I addressing Wizard Jackson, sir?”

The old wizard turned around surprised looking rather angry at first and asked “I am but who are you? How’d you get in here?”