Short Story

Well now you know about the Balibold family, I have done a short story about the King when he was younger :D

Im not a writer and I havent done this before but someone suggested it on my deviant page so I had a go!

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below :D

Arnold sat there his mind blank. He had been signing royal documents for hours and to be honest he 
thought this was one of the most boring tasks in existence. Arnold had only just turned 12 and his 
father had decided he was old enough to help him. Initially, he thought it was a great step forward in 
showing that was going to become a great king and he had decided to rise to the challenge, but now 
he wanted the challenge to end sooner rather than later.   

His father sat next to him, sweat dripping from his brow as he slaved away over the papers. His 
father was paying attention to every tiny detail in the contracts and every now and again mutter 
something like “thought you could get away with that did you” before chucking that document into 
the flames. Arnold was sweating heavily too, the sweat stuck to his skin and created a musty aroma 
around his body. Unlike most boys his age Arnold didn’t like dirt, his exception was of course mud. In 
his eyes mud was clean, but sweat was not mud and he hated it. Now Arnold knew quite well that 
signing documents normally was nothing to sweat the whole of the Izlian Ocean over. It actually only 
really required a flick of the wrist, but his father had stoked the fire up with wood and the 
temperature was now getting ridiculously high. Arnold had protested about the heat for the first 
hour, his father had first just lectured him about the importance of this signing and the implication it 
had on the kingdom. But then he went on about the fact that once they started he didn’t want to get 
up just to add wood to the fire; he felt it was an ‘unnecessary interruption top the task at hand’. 
Arnold however thought he was crazy and when he tried to tell his father this he received a clip 
around the ear. Arnold father may have made him sit in a human oven but he wasn’t as stupid so he 
didn’t question it any further.

Arnolds mind wondered through a long list of things that he would prefer to be doing right now, 
fighting, playing, running…etc. He however was surprised to find that his maths homework was one 
of them. This, he decided, was just not on and anything that was worse than maths homework in his 
eyes was torture. He had to get out. He looked at the window and wondered if he could climb down 
the wall quicker than his father could catch him. He could then run into the forest and would deal 
with the consequences later.  

He was very much contemplating this prospect when he heard a girl shouting. Without even thinking 
he got up and walked over to the window. He saw below in the castle courtyard a young girl around 
the age of around 6 with jet black hair that flowed down to her feet. She was small and delicate and 
would have seemed like an angelic child to any onlookers if it hadn’t had been for the fact that she 
was shouting at the top of her lungs. She was shouting at a man Arnold assumed, by his expensive 
clothes, was an Earl or Baron from somewhere in Athalia. The little girl was rambling on about 
chances and how it was so unfair when…

*THWOMP*

Arnold never got a chance to hear what the little girl had to say because his father had just hit him to 
the ground with his maths homework (how ironic).  With his ears buzzing, Arnold turned round to 
see his father red in the face, sweat dripping down his brow and his fist a bit too close to Arnolds
face for his liking shouting,

“I GAVE YOU THE HONOUR OF HELPING ME WITH THE ROYAL DOCUMENTS…” 


Arnold couldn’t help but notice that his fathers face was so close to his that what appeared to be 
spinach flung out of the gaps in his father’s teeth straight onto Arnolds face.  
“…AND YOU FIND IT MORE FUN TO DAYDREAM OUT OF THE WINDOW DO YOU!”
Oh crap, he knew what was coming as soon as he said the word window – he had seen it happen to 
his older brother weeks before he disappeared 3 years ago. His father picked Arnold up and hung 
him out of the window. The king voice boomed around the courtyard,

“MY SON HAS DECIDED TO BECOME A DAY DREAMER, LETS HELP HIS FEET FIND THE GROUND 
AGAIN!”

At that moment Arnold plunged into darkness.
Had Arnold been conscious he would have seen himself fall into the flower bush of Mrs Mcgrain the 
palace gardener. He would have then saw her running up and would have heard her shouting in 
what was incomprehensible English at the window he had just been thrown out of. He would have 
seen almost every person in that courtyard laugh; even the guards had a giggle which made a 
change from their usual stern faces. But more importantly if he had been awake he would have seen 
the little girl with the jet black hair run to his side place a handkerchief on his cut his head and run of 
into the distance away from the palace.

Arnold didn’t know it then but little girls name was Belladonna and she was going to change 
Arnold’s world.

HOPE YOU LIKED IT :D!