Inch Worm

Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful princess, Ruby Red. Ruby Red loved the color...red! She has red dresses, red ribbons, red shoes, red tights and even red underwear. One day, a handsome prince came to visit her and asked her for her hand in marriage.

Ruby Red said, "Thanks handsome prince, but I'm not quite ready yet. But I'm flattered that you asked! I must say no!"

With that the Prince grabbed Ruby Red and fled with her. You see, the Prince was really the Nasty Wizard of Badness. The Nasty Wizard was pretty nasty. He had orange hair, like straw, a squiggly mouth, dirty teeth with drool coming down his chin, blechy eyes, and HORRIBLE breath. He took Ruby Red and flew off on the back of his big dragon (flappeta-flappeta-flappeta) until they came to a tall tower. The Nasty Wizard locked Ruby Red in the tower.

After several days, Ruby Red was so sad that she started to cry as she was leaning out her tiny window. Plop! A tear fell down 100 feet and landed on the head of an Inch Worm!

"Hey!" cried out Inch Worm, "Cut that out up there!"

And another tear promptly came crashing down upon his head. Well, that was quite enough for Inch Worm and he started to clim up the tower to give Ruby Red a piece of his mind! Now Inch Worm was only able to move an inch at a time...so it took him ALL day to get to Ruby Red. But when he got there, he yelled out at her, "HEY! You! Princess! Yeah...you! I'm talking to you!!"

But Ruby Red was crying so hard that she couldn't hear his teeny voice. It took him another hour, but he inched his way right next to her and yelled, "HEY! Princess!!!"

That time Ruby Red noticed Inch Worm and she was just about to flick him out the window, when he cried, "STOP! You'll be sorry if you toss me...you hear?"

She looked at the Inch Worm in amazement. She stopped crying. "You speak?" she asked.

"Of course I speak, Lady! And I'm telling you to stop crying for good because you are washing me out of house and home!" yelled Inch Worm. "And what are you crying for anyway?"

Ruby Red told him the story of how she got locked in the tower and how she couldn't get out of the room. Inch Worm asked, "Why don't you just use the key?"

Ruby Red said there was no key.

"Well, there's no key in her, but there has to be one out there," he said, motioning to the door. "If I get you outta here, will you do one thing for me?"

"Of course I would!" exclaimed Ruby Red.

"Okay. Then this is what it is. I get you out, and you give me a big old kiss right on the head. Deal?"

Ruby Red thought for only a minute, cuz even though the thought of kissing a slimy worm was totally gross, she would rather do that than stay locked in the tower.

"DEAL!" she replied.

She carried Inch Worm to the bottom of the door where he crawled under and about an hour later crawled back into Ruby Red's room...with the key on his back!

"Oh, thank you, Inch Worm, THANK YOU!"

She quickly unlocked the door, ran out the room and down the stairs. She was so excited to escape that she promptly forgot her promise to Inch Worm. It took Inch Worm three days and forty five minutes to inch his way down from the tower back to his little home. But he was mighty steamed at Ruby Red, I can tell you.

Well, all of a sudden, four and one half days later, Ruby Red remembered her promise! She jumped up, very ashamed of herself for forgetting. Wearing a disguise so that the Wizard wouldn't recognize her, she made her way back to the tower where she called out Inch Worm's name.

"Inch Worm...Inch Worm...where are you?"

And Inch Worm poked out his head and said, "Oh. It's you. So nice of you to remember your promise." He started to yell at her, but before he could get out another word, Ruby Red picked him up and gave him a big kiss on the head.

All of a sudden, Inch Worm started to change shape and lo and behold...presto chango...Inch Worm turned into...a BOY! Who was just the same age as Ruby Red!

"Wow," said Ruby Red. "That was super cool."

And the Boy, whose real name was Prince Joshua, became Ruby Red's best friend and from that moment on, they played together (very nicely too, I might add) every single day.

The end.

Copyright Wendy Spiegel, Los Angeles, California 2005. All rights reserved.