The Enrichment Trilogy: The Forbidden Forest

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Act 2 scene 2

Chapter Two

What emerged were two...Englishmen? All decked out in medieval clothing, including chain-link mesh armory and dirty, white tunics and clutching...coconut shells?

"Whoa there," said the first man, wearing a slightly more elaborate tunic with a sun print on the front. He and his companion, who happened to be carrying a very large load of stuff on his back, abruptly stopped, seeming to reign themselves into a halt...with invisible reigns. All the while, appearing to sit on invisible, probably nonexistent horses.

"Halt! Who goes there?" Fred asked, still pointing his worthless wand at the two strange gentlemen.

"It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeater of the...the...well, bloody hell. I've forgotten the rest!" The taller man with the nicer tunic on said. He turned to his exhausted-looking companion. "How does it go again?"

"Er, I do believe it is 'King of Britain..."

"King of the Britons, you mean..."

"Yes, yes, that. 'King of the Britons, defeater of the Sextons...no, no, Saxons, and Sovereign of..."

"Ah, yes, that's how it goes! I'm King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, and Sovereign of all England!" King Arthur finally finished. He smiled proudly and stuck his chest out.

"Right..." Fred said, looking very unimpressed.

"Anyway, this is Patsy, my servant," King Arthur continued, gesturing toward his companion.

"You're faithful servant, sir..." Patsy corrected him timidly.

"Right...whatever...any-hoo, we have ridden the length and breadth of the land...blah, blah, blah...you know how it goes. We are in dire need of knights. Any of you men worthy to come join us in the quest for the Holy Grail?" King Arthur inquired, giving the boys appraising looks. "You there, the tall red head in the ugly yellow tunic, can you ride a horse?"

"Erm, ride a horse?" Ron repeated uncertainly, looking around for any sign of a horse. King Arthur stepped forward and thrust his two coconut halves into Ron's hands. Ron stared down at the shells, flabbergasted.

"Well, have a go at it, then," Patsy encouraged him. "Just knock them together, young man. You look like you could get the hang of it!"

"That's not riding a horse!" Hermione suddenly exclaimed indignantly. "You travel by knocking coconuts together?"

"We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this land, through the kingdom of Mercia, through--" Arthur explained, but was interrupted as Ron began knocking the coconuts together loudly. "That's it, man, you're doing it!"

"Hey, this is pretty cool," Ron said, and Hermione rolled her eyes. Ron looked up at King Arthur. "Where'd you get these things?"

"We found them, in Mercia." Patsy replied. Hermione gave a snort of disgust.

"Coconuts are tropical, Mercia is not!" Hermione pointed out.

"So?" King Arthur asked, crossing his arms over his chest and lifting his chin a bit, challenging Hermione.

"Mercia is a temperate zone, everyone knows that!" Hermione said, throwing her hands up in the air. "Coconuts are not found in temperate zones."

"The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?" King Arthur looked as if he hadn't understood a word of what he had just spoken.

"Swallows cannot carry coconuts, they're much too heavy," Hermione shot back. "It's not physically possible.

"Yes, but two large tropical birds certainly could," George suddenly spoke up, looking thoughtful. "I've seen two owls holding heavier packages, as well. Perhaps they were transported by owls, with a strand of a creeper?"

Patsy nodded enthusiastically. "Yes," the servants said excitedly, "that could be it!"

"That's not the point, anyway," Hermione snapped. "Why don't you have proper horses?"

King Arthur sniffed and looked down his nose at the short witch. "Tell me, my lady, do you happen to speak, or," he shuddered, "be French? Only a Frenchmen could speak with such unwarranted disgust in their voice."

Hermione put her hands on her hips and looked indignantly up at the King. "Les parents de ma mère étaient français," she said loudly. "My mother's parents were French. So? Vous êtes un stupide, roi faux avec un nez énorme et un domestique dégoûtant qui ne cesserontpas de regarder fixement mon coffre."

"Whatever you said, it wasn't polite, and I know it!" King Arthur cried, childishly stomping his foot on the ground. "You apologize this instance!"

"No!"

"Yes! I command you!"

"As whom?"

"Your King, King of the Britons, defeater of..."

"Queen Elizabeth is England's crowned royal, you prat!"

They would have continued arguing, much to the amusement of their companions, had they not been interrupted by a nearby scream.

"Oh, no, he's caught up with us!" Patsy said, suddenly terrified. "Why isn't he dead yet? Why doesn't he just die?"

King Arthur gave Hermione one last withering glare (which wouldn't have frightened even Neville Longbottom), and turned in the direction of the sound. "Brace yourselves, my friends...we are in for a bloody battle."

Hermione and the others shared astonished glances with each other. "Erm...could you please take this somewhere else?" Harry finally asked. "We're in the middle of our own ordeal right now, and a 'bloody battle' won't help our situation."

"We need all the help we can get, young comrade," King Arthur said, shaking his head. "This is a worthy opponent. A horrible beast. One that is currently mauling Sir Lancelot, who doesn't seem to want to just die. If he would stop following us, we could escape the beast ourselves and continue our quest." He shook his head sadly. "Nay, we will not escape this easily, my friends."

Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Ron and the twins braced themselves for the worst, nervously gathering in a huddle behind King Arthur and Patsy. If anyone was going to die, these two nuts were definitely going first.

All of a sudden a bloody, badly beaten knight stumbled into the clearing, screaming his head off. Ron peered around Patsy's great bulk, but couldn't see who might have been following Sir Lancelot.

"Get it off of me! Get it off! Help! Get it off!" Sir Lancelot wailed, and it took a moment for the teenagers to spot what was troubling the knight: a vicious, sharp-toothed white rabbit was clinging to the young man's chest, its soft, white fur matted with blood.

"Oh. My. Merlin." Ginny gasped, stifling a scream with her fist.

"It's...it's...it's the killer rabbit!" George gasped. "But...I thought that was just...a myth..."

"No, anything but a myth, young man," King Arthur said, turning to face George. "You see, on our quest for the Holy Grail, we stumbled upon a cave, and...OHMYGODGETITOFFGETITOFFMYCOCONUTS...MYCOCONUTSAREDELICATEHELPMEHELP!" the rabbit had apparently grown tired with mauling Sir Lancelot and had jumped to its next target.

Thoroughly frightened out of their minds, the teenagers screamed and in unison scrambled out of the clearing and into the dark, foreboding forest that suddenly seemed much safer than their little clearing.

When they finally stopped running, deciding they had put enough distance between themselves and the coconuts and killer rabbits, they came upon a new problem.

Hermione had really jinxed them, after all.