Short Story - Angelica and the Pig - Grant Eagar
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To order my books:Sheila the Vampire: Dancing with the Enemy
Prompt: She leaned down and kissed him.
Angelica a sixteen-year-old witch sat
in the back of the cook’s wagon and watched the carriage with the princess and
her ladies ahead of her. She frowned. I wish I could be up there with them
rather than back here with the chickens and the pig. Well at least up with the
princess, I could do without the rest. I made my porridge and I must now eat it.
She adjusted her position on the hard-wooden boards, the wagon hit a rut in the
road, and a stack of pans fell on her. The chickens began squawking and running
about. Angelica shooed the chickens away and re-stacked the pans.
She glanced at Tom and Delilah, the cooks. “Why
did we have to take all these chickens? We should have eaten them.” The
chickens began making pathetic squawking noises. “Do we need all these pans?”
Tom, the cook
who was driving the horses, glanced back at the mess. “You can never have too
many chickens and we can sell the extra pans when we get into town.”
Delilah, who
was sitting next to Tom said, “If you aren’t happy with the passage you can
walk for a ways.”
Angelica
said, “That is a fine notion, I think I’ll do just that.” The teenage girl put
a rope around the pig and hopped out of the wagon, lifted the beast out, and began
walking with the pig in tow.
There were
people lining the sides of the road cheering the princess. Susan, a teenage
girl with a nasty rash from Angelica’s beauty treatment, yelled at Angelica, “Skinny
little miscreant, leading a pig suits you, it’s good to see you walking, you
could have been up with the princess if you weren’t such a villain.”
Angelica scowled
and pulled the pig away from a pile of refuse then hurried up to keep up with
the wagon. She had not wanted to be a lady-in-waiting for the princess, that
had been her mother’s idea. Of course, her plan for getting out of her duty had
been less than brilliant. After speaking out against the war in front of the
king, she was lucky to be alive. She regarded the people lining the road, who were
cheering the princess, giving her flowers, and bringing their babies for her to
kiss. The corners of Angelica’s mouth turned up and she began waving at the
people as if she was with the princess. The people who waved in return were mostly
little kids who didn’t know better. She blew kisses at them.
A little boy
ran up to her and handed her a single blue-violet. She took the flower and
smelled it, put it in her shinny midnight hair then leaned over and kissed him
on the forehead. He smiled and ran away. She waved at his mother and thanked her
for the flower.
Three ten-year-old
girls ran up to her and a red-head asked, “Why aren’t you in the carriage with the
princess? We thought you were going to be part of the royal entourage?”
Angelica
offered a wan smile. “I am part of the entourage, just the pig walking part of
it. Because I spoke out against the war, I was given the position of a maid
instead of a lady. I guess it’s what I deserve.” Angelica took hold of one of the
girl’s hands. “Enough about me, shall we see if we can get the pig to dance?”
They danced along behind the wagon and waved at the crowd. Soon they were
joined by a half dozen more children, then a minstrel playing a pipe, then men
and woman dancing behind them. The princess peered out of her carriage as the entourage and left the carriage, took Angelica’s
hand, and joined in the dance.
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