67 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
67 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
THE ADVENTURES OF TOM THUMB
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Once upon a time . . . there lived a giant who had quarrelled with a very
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greedy wizard over sharing a treasure. After the quarrel, the giant said
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menacingly to the wizard:
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"I could crush you under my thumb if I wanted to! Now, get out of my
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sight!" The wizard hurried away, but from a safe distance, he hurled his
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terrible revenge.
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"Abracadabra! Here I cast this spell! May the son, your wife will shortly
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give you, never grow any taller than my own thumb!"
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After Tom Thumb was born, his parents were at their wits' end. They could
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never find him, for they could barely see him. They had to speak in whispers
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for fear of deafening the little boy. Tom Thumb preferred playing with the
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little garden creatures, to the company of parents so different from himself.
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He rode piggyback on the snail and danced with the ladybirds. Tiny as he was,
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he had great fun in the world of little things.
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But one unlucky day, he went to visit a froggy friend. No sooner had he
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scrambled onto a leaf than a large pike swallowed him up. But the pike too was
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fated to come to a very bad end. A little later, he took the bait cast by one
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of the King's fishermen, and before long, found himself under the cook's knife
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in the royal kitchens. And great was everyone's surprise when, out of the
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fish's stomach, stepped Tom Thumb, quite alive and little the worse for his
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adventure.
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"What am I to do with this tiny lad?" said the cook to himself. Then he had
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a brainwave. "He can be a royal pageboy! He's so tiny, I can pop him into the
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cake I'm making. When he marches across the bridge, sounding the trumpet
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everyone will gasp in wonder!" Never had such a marvel been seen at Court. The
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guests clapped excitedly at the cook's skill and the King himself clapped
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loudest of all. The King rewarded the clever cook with a bag of gold. Tom
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Thumb was even luckier. The cook made him a pageboy, and a pageboy he remained,
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enjoying all the honours of his post.
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He had a white mouse for a mount, a gold pin for a sword and he was allowed
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to eat the King's food. In exchange, he marched up and down the table at
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banquets. He picked his way amongst the plates and glasses amusing the guests
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with his trumpet.
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What Tom Thumb didn't know was that he had made an enemy. The cat which,
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until Tom's arrival, had been the King's pet, was now forgotten. And, vowing
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to have its revenge on the newcomer, it ambushed Tom in the garden. When Tom
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saw the cat, he did not run away, as the creature had intended. He whipped out
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his gold pin and cried to his white mouse mount:
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"Charge! Charge!" Jabbed by the tiny sword, the cat turned tail and fled.
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Since brute force was not the way to revenge, the cat decided to use guile.
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Casually pretending to bump into the King as he walked down the staircase, the
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cat softly miaowed:
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"Sire! Be on your guard! A plot is being hatched against your life!" And
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then he told a dreadful lie. "Tom Thumb is planning to lace your food with
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hemlock. I saw him picking the leaves in the garden the other day. heard him
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say these very words!"
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Now, the King had once been kept in bed with very bad tummy pains, after
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eating too many chernes and he feared the thought of being poisoned, so he
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sent for Tom Thumb. The cat provided proof of his words by pulling a hemlock
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leaf from under the white mouse's saddle cloth, where he had hidden it
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himself.
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Tom Thumb was so amazed, he was at a loss for words to deny what the cat
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had said. The King, withiut further ado, had him thrown into prison. And since
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he was so tiny, they locked him up in a pendulum clock. The hours passed and
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the days too. Tom's only pastime was swinging back and forth, clinging to the
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pendulum, util the night when he attracted the attention of a big night moth,
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fluttering round the room.
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"Let me out!" cried Tom Thumb, tapping on the glass. As it so happens, the
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moth had only just been set free after being a prisoner in a large box, in
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which she had taken a nap. So she took pity on Tom Thumb and released him.
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'll take you to the Butterfly Kingdom, where everyone's tiny like burself.
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They'll take care of you there!" And that is what happened. To this day, if
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you visit the Butterfly Kingdom, you can ask to see the Butterfly monument
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that Tom Thumb built after this amazing adventrure.
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