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‘There’s a very good chance she’s already been eaten,’ added Margery. ‘The prince is right. You must come to the palace with us where you’ll be safe.’
‘Absolutely not,’ her father said, using all his strength to stand upright. ‘I will not leave my little girl alone in that forest. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll find her and bring her home safely. Then we’ll explain everything to the king.’
Margery lifted an eyebrow. ‘Explain what exactly?’ she asked.
‘It’s my own fault,’ her father whispered to Joderick. ‘I never should have kept it a secret.’
Joderick looked at the frail man. He seemed to have aged fifty years since the first time they’d met – there was no way he could ride off into the Dark Forest.
‘I think we should all go back to the palace,’ Joderick suggested.
Margery, Elly and Aggy cheered.
‘And then I will go into the Dark Forest to find Cinders,’ he added bravely. ‘I’m the prince. I’ll be safer.’
Margery, Elly and Aggy gasped.
‘Are you … sure?’ said Cinders’s father.
‘Yes,’ said Joderick.
‘Very well. I would like to go myself, but … my strength is not what it was. You will make a great king one day,’ said Cinders’s dad.
‘Not if he gets eaten by a munklepoop, he won’t,’ Margery pointed out.
Joderick took another bite of his hard, dry biscuit. If a munklepoop comes after me, I can just throw this at its head and knock it out cold, he thought. But he didn’t repeat this out loud – he’d been raised to be polite, even when people didn’t deserve it.
‘We’ll find Cinders,’ he said to her father. ‘I promise.’
The next morning, Cinders woke up to sunlight streaming in through the window, the sound of Sparks snoring gently beside her and three not-at-all-happy-looking bears standing in the doorway of the bedroom.
‘Who’s been sleeping in my bed?’ the largest bear roared.
‘Not this again,’ said a medium-sized bear, who was wearing a very fetching floral sundress. ‘You can see very well who’s been sleeping in your bed. It’s a human boy. He’s still there.’
‘Good golly gosh!’ Cinders cried, suddenly wide awake. ‘We’re so sorry. We were riding through the woods, and it was late and—’
But the largest bear didn’t want to hear it. He tore the duvet from Hansel’s bed with a huge paw. ‘This is my house, this is my bed and I shall EAT YOU UP!’
‘Five more minutes, Cinders,’ Hansel muttered, rolling over and planting his face in the pillow.
‘No, I think it’s time to get up now,’ she said as she grabbed his hat from the bedside table.
‘I cannot believe this is happening again,’ the mummy bear muttered. ‘Didn’t I tell you to check the lock before we left? Do I have to do everything around here?’
‘I did check the lock,’ the other bear said, planting his hands on his hips indignantly. ‘They clearly broke in.’
The littlest bear, who was still just a baby, ambled over to his bed where Sparks was hiding under the covers and began to give the dog a good, firm pat. A little bit too firm for Sparks’s liking.
‘Um … excuse me.’ Cinders held up her hand to politely get the bears’ attention. ‘Not to cause an argument, but the door was definitely unlocked.’
‘I knew it,’ sighed the mummy bear. ‘Look, Frank, just admit you didn’t lock the door.’
‘Karen, do not look at me like that. I definitely did,’ the larger bear argued, even though he didn’t sound as if he was quite so sure. ‘Whatever – they still need to learn a lesson so I’m STILL GOING TO EAT THEM!’
‘Daddy, no!’ The baby bear grabbed hold of Sparks and squeezed him tightly against his chest. ‘Please don’t eat the doggy.’
Sparks let out a strangled woof in support of the baby bear’s request.
‘Please don’t eat us,’ Cinders said. ‘We’re good people … Well, I’m good and Hansel is all right most of the time and—’
‘I’m going to interrupt you there, young lady,’ the mummy bear said, wagging a finger at Cinders. ‘This is not a hotel. What kind of person lets themselves into someone else’s home in the middle of the night and sleeps in their bed?’
‘And eats their porridge and breaks their chairs?’ added the daddy bear.
‘Um. We didn’t eat any porridge,’ Cinders replied, a little puzzled.
‘I did use quite a lot of toilet paper, but I definitely didn’t break any chairs,’ Hansel said.
The mummy bear shook her head. She was clearly very annoyed. ‘My sister told me not to build a holiday home in the Dark Forest, but I wouldn’t listen, would I? It’ll be peaceful, I said. No one bothering you, I said. But here you are, full of excuses, just as bad as that Goldilocks. I know she said she only came in to charge her phone, but she certainly found time to do a lot of damage. And who paid for the new chair? Muggins here, that’s who.’
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