CHAPTER 1
Prince Carlos Charles Charming coughed and wheezed. He sniffed and hacked. He moaned and groaned and gritted his teeth in agony.
“I have a stomachache!” he cried. “A sore throat! A fever! The flu! A broken leg! Mad cow disease!”
King Carmine listened patiently to Carlos’s list of many ailments. He put a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, son,” he said, “but you’re going to the opera.”
“But I can’t!” Carlos gasped. “I’m dyyyyyyyyying!”
“You are not dying,” the king said. “And you have to go. Members of the royal family are required to go to cultural events.”
“Even to the opera?!” Carlos sputtered.
“Especially to the opera,” the king said.
“Why?”
The king rubbed his eyes as if they hurt. “Because it makes your mother very happy,” he replied.
* * *
On stage, a large woman wearing a horned helmet howled a long, shrill, wobbly note. Her mouth was open so wide that Carlos thought he could almost see down to her large intestines.
The note jabbed at Carlos’s eardrums, thumped against his forehead, and tap-danced up and down his spine.
This is the most terrible thing I have ever heard, he thought.
Then a dozen other singers wandered on-stage. All of them howled long, shrill, wobbly notes, too.
Scratch that, Carlos thought. THIS is the most terrible thing I have ever heard.
Carlos did his best to block out the wall of sound. But it wasn’t easy.
Not easy at all.
Carlos peeked at his father. The king wore a frown on his tan, lined face. King Carmine’s face was often frowny, even when he wasn’t in a frowny mood, but Carlos could tell that this frown was the real deal.
Queen Cora, on the other hand, was so excited that she could barely keep still. She bounced and jiggled happily in her seat. A smile stretched across her wide, round face.
“Oh, Carmine, isn’t the soprano superb?” she whispered in the king’s ear. “Such talent, such passion! Such talented passion!”
“Mm,” the king replied.
Carlos whispered in the king’s other ear, “Is it almost over?”
“Not even close,” the king whispered back a little sadly.
Carlos slumped in his seat.
His mind soon began to wander. When Carlos’s mind wandered, it almost always wandered to the same place: jestering.
Carlos was the prince of the happy and peaceful land of Faraway Kingdom—but his passion was jestering. Carlos was widely considered to be one of the best jesters on the continent. His fart jokes made audiences roar with laughter. His acrobatics made them cheer. His musical skills made their toes tap. His juggling mastery earned him first-prize honors at the International Jester Juggle-A-Thon. His photo had even appeared on the cover of Jester Beat magazine.
So as the opera went on (and on and on), Carlos’s mind pondered a jester-y brainteaser that had been rattling around in his brain all day.
“A jester’s mind must always be nimble and creative,” Jack the Jester had told Carlos that morning. Jack was the official jester of the Charming Royal Family. He was also Carlos’s friend and teacher. “So, kiddo, here’s a puzzle for you to solve.”
The question Jack posed seemed simple enough: “What’s at the end of a rainbow?”
“A pot of gold,” Carlos had guessed.
“Nope,” Jack had replied.
Nope?! Carlos had thought. How can that be a “nope”?
Carlos crinkled his eyebrows in deep thought. But his eyebrow crinkles didn’t help. He couldn’t come up with another answer.
“Remember, young’un,” Jack had told him, “brainteasers always make sense, but they only make sense in a tricky way.”
What’s at the end of a rainbow? Carlos thought. He closed his eyes in concentration. He no longer heard the opera. Every bit of his attention was now focused on solving that riddle. He thought about the question very carefully.
What’s at the end of a rainbow?
He examined each word in his mind.
What’s … at … the … end … of … a … rainbow?
He wondered how the words could make sense in a tricky way.
What’s at the end …
His eyes shot open. In a flash, the answer sprang to his lips.
“W!” Carlos shouted as he jumped to his feet. “A W IS AT THE END OF—”
The Faraway Kingdom Opera House suddenly fell very silent.
The singers stopped singing.
Hundreds of heads turned. (His mom and dad were two of those turning heads.)
Everyone stared at Carlos in alarm.
Carlos cleared his throat. He felt his face get hot. “A W is at the end of a rainbow,” he explained. He cleared his throat again. “Because it’s the last letter of the word.”
Wasting no time, King Carmine took command of the situation. (After all, that’s what good kings are supposed to do.) He stood and bowed to the stunned opera singers. He then addressed the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen. I apologize for the outburst. My son is not feeling well today. He has recently contracted…”
“Mad cow disease!” Carlos said, trying to be helpful.
The king did not find that helpful. “Shush,” he whispered.
Before the king could come up with a plausible illness, the opera house’s sound system crackled to life:
Calling His Majesty King Carmine! Calling His Majesty King Carmine! Please report to the lobby for an Emergency King Conference!
The crowd gasped. A King Conference was a very important meeting between two kings. An Emergency King Conference was a superduper, holy-schmoley, impossibly supersized important meeting between two kings.
So it was kind of a big deal.
Emergency King Conferences hardly ever happened. And no king ever wanted them to happen, because they usually meant that a terrible, horrible something had happened.
And terrible, horrible somethings are both terrible and horrible.
“Come with me, son,” the king whispered.
Carlos’s stomach did a quick backflip.
“What? Why?” Carlos whispered. “I don’t want to deal with terrible, horrible somethings.”
“Sometimes a prince has to deal with terrible, horrible somethings,” the king said.
“Even if the prince has mad cow disease?” Carlos asked.
The king raised an impatient eyebrow. “Especially if the prince has mad cow disease,” he replied.
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