When she was two years old, Patsy tasted a sprig of parsley at a traveling fair. She loved it, and from that moment on, the only food she would eat was parsley. After a while her parents, Nelly and Zeke, began to call that, Parsley.
The trouble was that parsley grew in only one spot in the village of Snettering-on-Snoakes, and that spot was the garden of the fairy Bombina, who was renowned for turning people into toads.
Nelly said she couldn't let her daughter starve, and Zeke, who rarely spoke, nodded.
So every Thursday night, Zeke would Lead for Rosella Lane, where he'd climb the high wall that surrounded the fairy's garden. He'd stuff a sack full of fresh parsley and return home. His stealing went undetected for three years because Bombina was serving time in the dungeon of Anura, the fairy queen. Bombina's crime was failure to get along with humans.
Meanwhile, Parsley grew into a plump, happy child with a lovely smile, in spite of teeth that were stained a pale green.
Then Bombina returned.
That Thursday evening, she strolled in her garden and saw Zeke gathering armloads of parsley. Armloads! She would have turned him into a toad on the spot, but she had already reached Anura's legal limit of five human-to-toad transformations per fairy per year, and she didn't want to go back to jail.
"What are you doing?" she shrieked.
Zeke grabbed the parsley and ran. Bombina stood on her left foot and blinked twice. Zeke froze, unable to move a muscle. Bombina thought of turning him to stone, but stone wasn't her specialty. Her specialty was toads.
"Why are you stealing my parsley?" she thundered. Then she unfroze Zeke's mouth.
Zeke wasn't used to talking. So even though his mouth could move, it didn't.
Bombina dropped her voice to a sugary whisper. I can turn you into a chicken ... " She never ran out of legal chicken transformations. "A clucking-"
Zeke found his voice. "It's for m-my d-daughter."
His daughter? Anura always said that fairies should be kind to children. Fairies Who were kind were her favorites. Bombina was on probation, and she was definitely not one of the fairy queen's favorites.
"Bring your daughter to me."
"B-but-"
"Bring your daughter to me!" Bombina unfroze all of Zeke.
He stumbled once, then started to run.
"And drop the parsley."
Back in their cottage Zeke told Nelly what Bombina had commanded. Nelly began to run around frantically, bumping into Zeke and shouting that she wasn't bringing her precious daughter to anybody. Zeke ran around frantically too, and he bumped into Nelly when she wasn't bumping into him.
Bombina materialized in the cottage, right next to Parsley's bed. "Is this your daughter?"
Parsley awoke and sat up, blinking in the bright light that flashed around Bombina's big pink wings.
"Hello, child," Bombina boomed.
Parsley was frightened. She'd never seen anyone so enormous or so grumpy looking.
"What's your name, honey?"
Parsley said, "Parsley," in a small voice.
"Parsley!" Bombina whirled on Nelly and Zeke. "You dared to name your daughter after my parsley?"
Nelly held her ground. "We named her P-Patsy, Your G-Graciousness, but-"
"Silence!" Bombina leaned over the bed. "Why do you like parsley so much, Parsley?"
Parsley didn't know why. She just did.
She stared at Bombina and didn't say anything.
"Answer the nice fairy," Nelly said. "Tell her why ... "
She's a fairy? Parsley thought. She'd been taught that fairies were gentle and good. Then this one was only pretending to be mean. She smiled up at Bombina.
Nothing was sweeter than Parsley's smile.
A tiny corner of Bombina's heart melted. "Harrumph." She cleared her throat. And had a brilliant idea. Anura would be delighted! "I will take the child home to live with me. Then Parsley can eat parsley whenever she likes."
Live with a fairy! Parsley was thrilled. Maybe she'd learn magic. "Can I, Mama?"
A tear trickled down Nelly's cheek.
A tear trickled down Zeke's cheek.
"Well?" Bombina yelled. "Can she?"
Nelly and Zeke couldn't refuse a fairy. Nelly said, "Yes, Parsley gumdrop, you can go."
Nearby in Biddle Castle, Prince Tansy was in the throne room with his brothers, Prince Randolph and Prince Rudolph, who were arguing as usual. Randolph and Rudolph were twins, and they were nine years old, two years older than Tansy. No one else was in the room.
Tansy could tell the twins apart because Randolph's left nostril was slightly larger than his right nostril, and Rudolph's right nostril was slightly larger than his left.
"The right hand, fool!" Randolph held King Humphrey IV's gilded wooden scepter just beyond Rudolph's reach. "A king holds the scepter in his right hand."
"The left hand, numskull!" Rudolph twisted Randolph's nose and tried to grab the scepter.
With his free hand Randolph twisted Rudolph's nose.
Tansy removed Rudolph's fingers from Randolph's nose and Randolph's fingers from Rudolph's nose. He said, "I think-"
"You don't have to think," Randolph said, trying to grab some part of Rudolph again.
"You'll never be king, Tansy," Rudolph said, lunging for the scepter and getting one hand on it.
Randolph tried to yank the scepter away from Rudolph.
Rudolph hung on and tried to yank it away from Randolph.
Tansy said, "Stop, You'll break it."
Crack! The scepter broke in half.
Randolph and Rudolph dropped their halves and ran out of the throne room. Tansy ran too, although he knew what was going to happen next. The Royal Guards were going to find the three of them. Randoph and Rudolph were going to tell King Humphrey IV that he, Tansy, had broken the scepter, and King Humphrey IV was going to believe them, no matter what Tansy said ...
For Biddle's Sake. Copyright © by Gail Levine. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.