Leaping Beauty: And Other Animal Fairy Tales by Gregory Maguire, Chris L. Demarest Read Free Book Online Page A

she couldn’t take any chances.

    “Pardon me, kind sir. I’m selling fresh bananas,” she said in her sweetest voice.

    “So what?” said So What.

    “Would you like to buy one?”

    “No,” said So What, “I’m in training. I hope to get a job in the circus someday, so I’m doing my housework as fast as I can and working out for the rest of the day. Besides, I don’t have any money.”

    “This one doesn’t cost anything,” said the gorilla queen. She threw the poison banana at him with the deadly accuracy for which she was so well known. It slid right down So What’s throat. “Yum,” said So What, making a face at the smell, and he fell over on the floor.

    When the seven giraffes came back that evening, they found So What in a dead faint.
    Jackielantern called the trauma center, and over the phone the nurse explained how to do the Heimlich maneuver.

    Orangelight held So What’s arms, and Limber held his legs, and the others counted to three, and Kimberly crossed her delicate legs across So What’s chest and pulled with all her might. The lump of poison banana shot out.

    “Yuck,” said the giraffes.

    “I’m alive again!” cried So What.

    “When you’re feeling a little better, clean up that mess,” said Pumpkin. “That’s what comes of snacking between meals.”

    “But this banana was poisoned!” cried Nimble, who was sniffing at the banana with her nimble nose. “Where did you get it?”

    So What explained about the Merry Maid of the Forest selling bananas.

    “This sounds suspicious to me,” said Goldskin.

    “Better not answer the door again unless one of us is here to protect you,” said Kimberly.
    “You may be getting stronger, So What, but you’re still young and immature and a little stupid.
    Though in a pleasant way,” she added, when she saw how hurt he looked.

    The next day the gorilla queen spoke to her mirror again. She said,

    “Mirror mirror on the wall,

    Who’s the strongest of them all?”

    The mirror answered,

    “Your mighty arms and chest and butt

    Are not the strongest now. So what?”

    “That little creep is a disaster area waiting to be declared!” cried the gorilla queen. She flipped through old volumes of Baboons’ Home Journal and looked for sewing patterns. She found a design for a pair of fancy silk athletic shorts. She wasn’t much for sewing, but she bought some material and a needle the size of a hypodermic and stitched together a dazzling pair of athletic trunks with silver sequins and a peekaboo slit on the left thigh. Then she dressed herself up as a Dizzy Dame of the Forest and went sprinting through the woods.

    When she got to the tall house in the clearing, she hammered on the door and said,
    “Attention inside! You may have won this smart pair of athletic shorts! Would you like to answer one simple question and see if you’ve won?”

    “No,” cried So What through the window.

    “That’s the correct answer! You’ve won first prize!” cried the gorilla queen. “Open up the door and try these on for size, big boy!”

    So What knew he shouldn’t open the door, but the snazzy shorts looked so terrific that he couldn’t help himself. He came outside and admired the fine needlework on the shorts. “If my friends ever take me to the circus, I could wear these when I’m shot from the cannon!” he said.
    “It sort of turns my stomach to talk to someone as hideous as you, but may I try them on?”

    “They’re yours; do what you like,” said the gorilla queen.

    So What took off his apron and his yellow plastic gloves and dropped the toilet bowl brush with which he’d been scrubbing. He put on the shorts. They looked swell. “Here, let me tie them for you,” said the gorilla queen, and she reached for the strings around the waistband.
    “Breathe in.”

    So What breathed in, but not enough. The gorilla queen yanked those strings so hard that his breath left him entirely, and he fell down in a dead faint. Then the