Kabumpo in Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson (elon musk reading list .txt) 📖
- Author: Ruth Plumly Thompson
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“Oyez! Oyez Everybody shall be dipped!” mumbled the Prime Pumper, feebly raising his head.
“Oh, no! Oh, no! Nothing of the sort!” snapped the King, fanning poor Queen Pozy Pink with a plate. She had fainted dead away.
“What is the meaning of this outrage?” shouted Pompus, his anger rising again.
“How should I know?” wheezed Kabumpo, dragging Prince Pompadore from beneath the table and pouring a jug of cream over his head.
“Something hit me,” moaned the Prince, opening his eyes.
“Of course it did!” said Kabumpo. “The cake hit you. Made a great hit with us all—that cake!” The Elegant Elephant looked ruefully at his silk robe of state, which was hopelessly smeared with icing; then put his trunk to his head, for something hard had struck him between the eyes. He felt about the floor and found a round shiny object which he was about to show the King when Pompus pounced upon a tall scroll sitting upright in his tumbler. In the confusion of the moment it had escaped his attention.
“Perhaps this will explain,” spluttered the King breaking the seal. Queen Pozy Pink opened her eyes with a sigh and the Courtiers, crawling out from beneath the table, looked up anxiously, for everyone was still dazed from the tremendous explosion. Pompus read the scroll to himself with popping eyes and then began to dance up and down in a frenzy.
“What is it? What is it?” cried the Queen, trying to read over his shoulder. Then she gave a well-bred scream and fainted away in the arms of General Quakes, who had come up behind her?
By this time the Prime Pumper had recovered sufficiently to remember that reading scrolls and court papers was his business. Somewhat unsteadily he walked over and took the scroll from the King.
“Oyez! Oyez!” he faltered, pounding on the table.
“Oh, never mind that!” rumbled Kabumpo, flapping his ears. “Let’s hear what it says!”
“Know ye, ” began the old man in a high shaky voice, “know ye that unless ye Prince of ye ancient and honorableKingdomofPumperdinkwed ye Proper Fairy Princess in ye proper span of time yeKingdomofPumperdinkshall disappear forever and even longer from ye Gilliken country of Oz. J.G.”
“What?” screamed Pompadore, bounding to his feet.
“Me? But I don’t want to marry!”
“You’ll have to,” groaned the King, with a wave at the scroll. The Courtiers sat staring at one another in dazed disbelief. From the courtyard came the splash and splutter of the luckless footmen and the dismal creaking of the stone bucket.
“Oh!” wailed Pompa, throwing up his hands. “This is the worst eighteenth birthday I’ve ever had. I’ll never have another as long as I live!”
“What shall we do first?” groaned the King, holding his head with both hands. “Let me think!”
“Right,” said Kabumpo. “Think by all means.”
So the great hall was cleared and the King, with the mysterious scroll spread out before him, thought and thought and thought. But he did not make much headway, for, as he explained over and over to Queen Pozy, who-with Pompadore, the Elegant Elephant and the Prime-Pumper— had remained to help him, “How is one to know where to find the Proper Princess, and how is one to know the proper time for Pompa to wed her?”
Who was J.G.? How did the scroll get in the cake?
The more the King thought about these questions, the more wrinkled his forehead became.
“Why! We’re liable to wake up any morning and find ourselves gone,” he announced gloomily. “How does it feel to disappear, I wonder?”
“I suppose it would give one rather a gone feeling, but I don’t believe it would hurt—much!” volunteered Kabumpo, glancing uneasily over his shoulder.
“Perhaps not, but it would not get us anywhere. My idea is to marry the prince at once to a Proper Princess, “
“You’re in a great hurry to marry me off, aren’t you,” said Pompadore sulkily. “For my part, I don’t want to marry at all!”
“Well, that’s very selfish of you Pompa,” said the King in a grieved voice. “Do you want your poor old father to disappear?”
“Not only your poor old father,” choked the Prime Pumper, rolling up his eyes. “How about me?”
Oh, you—you can disappear any time you want,” said the Prince unfeelingly.
“It all started with that wretched cake,” sighed the Queen. “I am positive the scroll flew out of the cake.”
“Of course it did!” cried Pompus. “Let us send for the cook and question him.”
So Hashem, very wet and blue from his dip, was brought before the King.
“A fine cook you are!” roared Pompus, “mixing gun powder and scrolls in a birthday cake.”
“But I didn’t ” wailed Hashem, falling on his knees. “Only eggs, your Highness—very best eggs—sugar, flour, spice and -”
“Bombshells!” cried the King angrily.
“The cake disappeared before the party, your Majesty!” cried Eejabo.
Everyone jumped at the sudden interruption, and Eejabo, who had crept in unnoticed, stepped before the throne.
“Disappeared,” continued Eejabo hoarsely, dripping blue water all over the royal rugs. “One minute there it was on the pantry table. Next minute-gone!” croaked Eejabo flinging up his hands and shrugging his shoulders.
“Then, before a fellow could turn around, it was back. ‘Tweren’t our fault if magic got mixed into it, and here we have been dipped for nothing!”
“Well, why didn’t you say so before!” asked the King in exasperation.
“Fine chance I had to say anything!” sniffed Eejabo, wringing out his lace ruffles.
“eh-rr-you may have the day off, my good man,” said Pompus, with an apologetic cough— “And you also,” with a wave at Hashem. Very stiffly the two walked to the door.
“It’s an off day for us, all right,” said Eejabo ungraciously, and without so much as a bow the two disappeared.
“I fear you were a bit hasty, my love,” murmured Queen Pozy, looking after them with a troubled little frown.
“Well, who wouldn’t be!” cried Pompus, ruffling up his hair. “Here we are liable to disappear any minute and all you do is to stand around and criticize me. Begone!” he puffed angrily, as a page stuck his head in the door.
“No use shouting at people to Begone,” said the Elegant Elephant testily. “We’ll all begone soon enough.”
At this Queen Pozy began to weep into her silk handkerchief, which sight so affected Prince Pompadore that he rushed forward and embraced her tenderly.
“I’ll marry!” cried the Prince impulsively. “I’ll do anything! The trouble is there aren’t any Fairy Princesses around here!”
“There must be,” said the King.
“There is—There are!” screamed the Prime Pumper, bounceing up suddenly. “Oyez, Oyez! Has your Majesty forgotten Faleero, royal Princess. She must be the proper one!”
“Fa—leero!” trumpeted the Elegant Elephant, sitting down with a terrific thud. “That awful old creature? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
“Silence!” thundered the King.
“Nonsense!” trumpeted Kabumpo. “She’s a thousand years old and as ugly as a stone Lukoogoo. Don’t you marry her, Pompa.”
“I command him to marry her!” cried the King opening his eyes very wide and bending forward.
“Faleero?” gasped the Prince, scarcely believing his ears. No wonder Pompadore was shocked. Faleero, although a Princess in her own right and of royal fairy descent, was so unattractive that in all her thousand years of life no one had wished to marry her. She lived in a small hut in the great forest kingdom next to Pumperdink and did nothing all day but gather faggots. Her face was long and lean, her hair thin and black and her nose so large that it made you think of a cauliflower.
“Ugh!” groaned Prince Pompadore, falling back on Kabumpo for support.
“Well, she’s a Princess and a fairy— the only one in any Kingdom. I don’t see why you want to be so fussy!” said the King Fretfully.
“Shall I tell her Royal Highness of the great and good fortune that has befallen her?” asked the Prime Pumper, starting for the door.
“Do so at once,” snapped Pompus. Just then he gave a scream of fright and pain, for a round shiny object had flown through the air and struck him in the head. “What was that?”
The Prime Pumper looked suspiciously at the Elegant Elephant. Kabumpo glared back.
“A-a warning!” stuttered the Prime Pumper, afraid to say that Kabumpo had flung the offending missile. “A warning, your Majesty!”
“It’s nothing of the kind,” said the King angrily.
“You’re getting old, Pumper and stupid. It’s—why it’s a door knob! Who dares to hit me with a door knob?”
“It hit me once,” mumbled Kabumpo, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other three. “How does it strike you?”
“As an outrageous piece of impertinence!” spluttered Pompus, turning red as a turkey cock.
“Perhaps it has something to do with the scroll,” suggested Queen Pozy, taking it from the King. “See! It is gold and all the door knobs in the palace are ivory. And look! Here are some initials!”
Sure enough! It was gold and in the very center were the initials P.A.
Just at this interesting juncture the page, who had been poking his head in the door every few minutes, gathered his courage together and rushed up to the King.
“Pardon, most High Highness, but General Quakes bade me say that this mirror was found under the window,” stuttered the page and before Pompus had an opportunity to cry “Begone!” or “Dip him!” the little fellow made a dash for the door and disappeared.
“It grows more puzzling every minute,” wailed the King, looking from the door knob to the mirror from the mirror to the scroll.
“If you take my advice you’ll have this marriage performed at once,” said the Prime Pumper in a trembling voice.
“I believe I will!” sighed Pompus, rubbing the bump on his head. “Go and fetch the Princess Faleero and you, Pompa, prepare for your wedding.”
“But Father!” began the Prince.
“Not another word or you’ll be dipped!” rumbled the King of Pumperdink. “I’m not going to have my kingdom disappearing if I can help it!”
“You mean if I can help it,” muttered Pompadore gloomily.
“This is ridiculous!” stormed the Elegant Elephant, as the Prime Pumper rushed importantly out of the room. “Don’t you know that this country of ours is only a small part of the greatKingdomofOz? there must be hundreds of Princesses for Pompadore to choose from. Why should he not wed Ozma, the princess of us all? Haven’t you read any Oz history? Have you never heard of the wonderfulEmeraldCity? Let Pompadore start out at once. I, myself, will accompany him, and if Ozma refuses to marry him well” the Elegant Elephant drew himself up “I will carry her off — that’s all!”
“It’s a long way to the Emerald City,” mused Queen Pozy, “but still-”
“Yes, and what is to become of us in the meantime pray? While you are wandering all over Oz we can disappear I suppose! No Sir! Not one step do you go out of Pumperdink. Faleero is the Proper Princess and Pompadore shall marry her!” said Pompus.
“You’re talking through your crown,” wheezed Kabumpo. “How about the door knob and mirror? They came out of the cake as well as the scroll. What are you going to do about them? Let’s have a look at that mirror.”
“Just a common gold mirror,” fumed Pompus, holding it up for the Elegant Elephant to see.
“What’s
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