PUSS IN BOOTS - SAVING TRUE LOVE'S KISS (EBOOK)

CHAPTER 1

Puss loved to lounge in his favorite spot on the brick wall. 

It was under a rowan tree beside a convenient gutter pipe, just close enough to the Drunken Ewe to smell the cooking being done in the inn, and with a good view of the facade of his dwelling place so he could observe the comings and goings of his three naughty young mistresses, his old master, and his master’s wife.

He was happily sunbathing in his spot early one morning, listening to the chiming bells from the castle that announced the coming of a prince, and thinking of all the good things he might get to eat later in the day during the festival. He could see the village folk hanging strings of triangular, multi-colored bunting all about the streets and hear the cook pounding at the pastry dough in the inn next door. She was making tasty little mince pies to bring to the festival later, and would soon put them out to cool on the windowsill in an hour or two. 

Puss licked his lips at the thought of stealing one. He sniffed the air in anticipation, then glanced up to check on his house. His master was drifting about the house, visible from one window then another. All was well.

Except for the annoying mewling under his wall.

“Will you be quiet,” he purred down at the little urchin who sat with her back against his wall, crying into her little fisted hands. She was the tiniest of tiny girls and looked much too small to warrant such loud wailing, yet there it was. A little earbug spoiling his lovely morning. “Whatever is the matter?”

The little thing ignored him and kept sobbing, big tears spilling copiously out of her eyes to trickle down her cheeks and drip into the dirt.

Puss cringed inside at the thought of the dust and mud below the wall. But a gentleman never lets a little mess deter him from doing his duty, he reminded himself. So he got up and leaped down, landing lightly on his paws and boots.

“Girl,” he purred, again in the nicest of tones. “You are ruining my perfectly good morning. Why are you crying?”

Finally, the little thing looked up, tears swimming in eyes as big and round as saucers. “Puthy cat,” she said with a lisp.

“Puss.” It was a perfectly simple name that even a child should be able to pronounce. “It’s got two ‘s’s at the end, and no ‘y’.”

“Puthy cat,” the girl repeated obligingly, momentarily distracted from her crying.

“Well, if you insist on making it longer, it really should be Pussilimous Cattelornicus the First,” Puss began. But the girl’s face crumpled at his words, and more tears leaked out. 

“Puth cat!” she wailed breathlessly. “Puthy cat!” she held her hands out and he hurriedly stepped into them, letting her pat and stroke his fluffy coat. It was a chore, but he knew how potent a trick it was and didn’t complain, even when she pulled his tail just a little.

“Feeling better?” he asked a minute or two later when she had calmed down a bit. “Now, will you tell me why you’re crying?”

The little girl nodded and wiped her hands across her cheeks, leaving muddy stains on them. She pointed at the inn window underneath the one in the kitchen.

“Ma and Da are fighting,” she said sadly. A hiccup worked its way up her throat, and her lips turned down again, trembling at the corners.

“Hold that sob,” Puss said and leaped to the lower window sill. It was barely above the ground and looked into the innkeeper’s living quarters in the cellar below the inn. He peered through the glass and saw what had gotten the little girl so upset. 

A clurichaun was sitting on a stack of wine barrels in the cellar, scooping cups of wine out of an open barrel and gulping it down. In between gulps, he shouted over his shoulder down the hallway to another room where a female leprechaun was ironing laundry. This room was filled with steam, but Puss watched closely until he caught a glimpse of the clurichaun’s wife. 

She wore a white apron and a heavily be-ribboned cap that was slipping over one eye, and shouted back at the clurichaun while she ironed. In fact, she was so upset that she was red in the face and crying buckets as she worked—that explained all the steam—and she didn’t seem to notice she was leaving big iron-shaped burns on the sheets. 

“That is a tragedy,” Puss remarked to the little girl, who had come over to crouch beside him by the window to watch. “But you know, parents argue sometimes. It just can’t be helped. It’s not just your ma and da, my master and his wife argue all the time.” 

“No!” the little girl replied, outraged. “Ma and Da never fight! They love each other. Their love was thealed by true love’s kith. Ma told me tho many times. Thomething muth have happened to it.” 

She toddled away from the window to the wall and picked up a book that had fallen into the dirt. “Look!”

The cover was so dirty, Puss could barely make out what it was, but he picked it up anyway, gingerly holding it open with his paws. It fell open easily to a page with more mud streaks. The girl had apparently been contemplating its contents for quite some time, Puss noted.

“It’s a… poem,” he said, reading it quickly. “To revive true love’s kiss.” He looked up at the little girl, unable to help his whiskers from twitching skeptically. “You really think this is the solution?”

“Yeth!” the girl stated confidently. “My grandma thaid when she vithited that this book has recipes that can cure anything in the world. She alwayth made the besthest happy-heart cookies and I always feel happy after eating them. I know thith ith what my Ma and Da needth! I just… I don’t know how to get any of the ingredients,” she looked down at her feet despondently. A large tear squeezed out of the corner of her eye and spilled down her cheek. “I’m tho utheless.”

“Now, now,” Puss said hastily. “Let’s not get too upset just yet, all right? Let me have another look.” He read the poem again carefully:

To Revive True Love’s Kiss

True love’s kiss may never grow old, 

Never be stolen, nor ever grow cold

But lovers beware the green-eyed thief, 

Plagued and hounded by lack-love’s grief

For tempted are they whose hearts hold frost

To test your joy, to ransom love’s cost 

They’ll make you feel lack-love’s sting

By concealing and hiding true love’s zing

But fear not, lovers, you may yet find

The love that has nigh left you behind.

One merely needs the flame of a dragon

Willingly given in a pure crystal flagon.

And the stolen breeze of deep winter’s fire

To gently thaw a stolen heart’s desire.

Next, the wisp of a dream, naively undreamt, 

Mixed with the tears of a witch’s lament.

Last, the healing kiss of a true mortal soul,

Then froth it all with laughter, to make it whole.

To dose: Skim the top off with a siren’s scale

And give it a swirl in a good man’s ale 

Then drink it at twilight to return true love old,

And renew true love’s kiss, which can never be sold.

“Well, well, well,” Puss said thoughtfully. “This looks rather…” he looked up at the girl, who was watching him with big, hopeful eyes. “You really believe this will work?”

She nodded eagerly, staring at him all the while. “I know it will.”

Puss took in a deep breath, then let it out in a soft, slow hiss. “Well then, I guess we could try it.” No harm done, right, he thought to himself. 

“But… you know how to get all the ingredients?” the girl asked, impressed. 

“It’s simple enough for me,” Puss said with a wink. “After all, I’m Puss in Boots, the one and only!” He clicked his boots on the dusty cobbles in an impromptu tap dance, waving his hands and tail about with style.

The little girl burst out into giggles. “Very good!” she cried, clapping.

“Very good indeed!” Puss replied, reaching a paw to her laughing lips. He quickly deposited his catch into a little leather satchel he had strapped to the top of his right boot. “That’s one ingredient down, eight more to go!”

The little girl smiled then. It was a smile so sweet and hopeful that Puss felt his heart swell with joy and fear. “You’ll do it then, Puth?”

“Yes… yes, of course I will,” he replied after a pause. 

“Then I’ll wait for you here,” the tiny girl said, planting herself down in the mud under the wall. “Don’t be too long!”

“I won’t,” Puss replied with a smile of his own.

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