The Magic Hare. Lynne Banks Reid

       The Hare and the Spoilt Queen

      Once there was a spoilt queen. She was bad tempered and terribly unfair. She blamed her people for everything that went wrong.

      For instance, at her coronation, just as the Archbishop set the crown on her head, she bent over to scratch a sudden itch on her instep and her crown fell off and rolled down the steps leading to the throne.

      She ranted and raved that it was every-one’s fault but hers, and spoilt the whole occasion so thoroughly that nobody took pictures of her. Then she got furious again because her picture wasn’t in the papers or on television. She closed all the TV stations and newspapers down, so nobody knew what was happening.

      To cheer her up, her people held a big festival for her. They planned it weeks in advance and worked very hard to make it a success. When the day came – it rained. The queen jumped up and down, shouting that it was all their fault for choosing a rainy day to hold the festival on.

      All the people felt very miserable. The queen wasn’t speaking to any-one. There was no telly. Nobody knew what to do.

      One day the spoilt queen was out walking in the palace garden with two scared ladies-in-waiting. They kept just behind her and held hands because they were so frightened that she would find something to blame them for.

      She pulled an apple crossly off a tree and bit into it. Then she spat out the piece, turned on the two ladies-in-waiting and screamed:

      “This apple is sour! How dare you let me pick it when it’s not ripe!”

      And she threw it straight at them.

      They didn’t bother arguing that it wasn’t their fault. They just turned and ran.

      That left the queen on her own. She stamped and fumed in the long grass, shouting at the top of her voice: “I HATE EVERYONE!” But suddenly, just near her stamping feet, she saw a little furry head with long ears.

      She stopped carrying on, and said: “Oh! A hare in my orchard!” She didn’t know whether to be pleased or annoyed, but as usual she chose to be annoyed. “You’re trespassing, hare! Go away at once.”

      “Oh, all right,” said the hare. “If you prefer to be alone.” And he hopped off.

      “Wait!” cried the queen imperiously. The hare stopped and looked back. “I didn’t know you could talk. That makes a difference. Come back and talk to me.” She was used to ordering everyone about, but the hare didn’t move.

      “Come here, I said!” shouted the spoilt queen, stamping her foot.

      “‘Please’ would be nice,” said the hare.

      “‘PLEASE’!” echoed the queen. “A queen doesn’t have to say ‘please’!” The mere idea shocked her.

      “Well, I don’t know much about queens, but personally I don’t like talking to anyone who doesn’t say please. And thank you,” said the hare very reasonably.

      “You impertinent little animal!” cried the queen. “Do you presume to teach me manners?”

      “Not at all,” said the hare. “I don’t care how you behave. All I said was that ‘please’ would be nice. Because I like things nice.” And he made off in great bounds, ignoring the queen’s shouts at him to come back immediately.

      That night the queen summoned her gamekeeper.

      “There’s a hare in the orchard,” she said. “I want him for the pot. Shoot him.”

      The gamekeeper trembled in his boots.

      “That hare can’t be shot, Your Majesty,” he muttered. “He’s a magic hare. If you try to shoot him, he vanishes.”

      “A magic hare! I should have guessed,” said the queen. “Then trap him for me – I want him alive.”

      “He can’t be trapped either, Ma’am.”

      “Then how am I to get my hands on him? I want him for my very own magic hare!”

      The gamekeeper shook his head. “Nothing to be done,” he said.

      “This is all your fault, you stupid man!” railed the queen. “It’s your job to catch game for me! You’re dismissed!”

      The gamekeeper, who had five children to feed, went away sadly. There was a lot of unemployment among gamekeepers.

      No sooner was he out of the door than the hare appeared in front of the throne. The queen was so surprised that she jumped.

      “How can you be so mean?” he asked indignantly.

      “I do as I like! I’m the queen!” screamed the queen.

      “More’s the pity, if you ask me,” muttered the hare.

      “What’s that you said?”

      “I said, more’s the pity. I should think your subjects would rather have almost any other queen than you.”

      The queen’s