Elf
I visit Madeleine's class to tell a story - this time, about "fantasy" which is being taught as part of the curricula. Madeleine is my trusted assistant elf. My on-the-fly tale about Bobby Bogart (which gets a chuckle) who enters Middlearth, via a hidden basement door, finding himself at the "Strange and Wonderful Creatures" ball where he is the only human-child, surrounded by witches, ogres, trolls, elfs, dwarfs and wizards. To return home, Bobby must retrieve Princes Leia who slumbers under a spell at the end of a long, dark cave inside a mountain guarded by a dragon. Nobody will go with Bobby except a troll and I tell the adventure from the troll's perspective, dressed for the part including a wicked nose, walking shaft and orange red hair purchased at "Party Palace" (agree, this is an interpretation). On the way to Leia, Bobby and the troll discover three ogre-brothers debating whether to kill a girl and grind her bones or roast her on the fire spit; a botched rescue finds Bobby and the troll in the same predicament with the sun-up in two hours - trolls, we know, turn to stone in daylight. Bobby negotiates everyone's release in return for gold, to be found in the dragon's mountain. The ogres keep the girl for recourse and promise to eat her in 21 days if no treasure. Eventually Princess Liea freed, the dragon thwarted, the girl saved. All made possible by the help of kind elves (Madeleine) and therein lies my message to the kids: whenever faced by life's challenges, ask for help and it can usually be solved.
