Sir Sparklemuffin and the Flying Leaf

Chapter One

The Smallest Knight That Ever Was

Sir Sparklemuffin was not a knight at all — not yet — but he had decided that if no one else was going to do the job, he might as well.

“I’m only four millimetres tall,” he told himself proudly, “but that is quite enough to be taller than nobody.” Which, when you think about it, is an accomplishment in itself.

He wore no armour, unless you counted his fuzzy orange-and-blue coat, which he certainly did. And he bore no sword, unless you counted the twig he had polished so fiercely that it looked positively dangerous. As for his steed — why, he had found a magnificent one in the form of a broad green sycamore leaf, freshly blown from its tree. It was as large as ten Sparklemuffins laid end to end, and whenever the wind caught it just so, it lifted from the ground in a rather knightly fashion.

“Ha!” cried Sparklemuffin, as he scrambled aboard. “At last, I have my flying charger! Henceforth, I shall be known not merely as Sparklemuffin, but as Sir Sparklemuffin, Knight of the Leaf!”

The leaf, being a leaf, made no objection.

He stood proudly upon it, balancing like an acrobat at the fair, and waved his twig-sword in circles. “Hither and thither I shall go, defending the weak, rescuing the lost, and confusing the wicked! For confusion,” he added, “is the very best way to deal with wickedness. They never expect it.”

At that very moment, a gust of wind — a wild, whooshing sort of gust that had been waiting impatiently in the hedgerows — scooped up the leaf, spider and all, and sent it sailing over the meadow.

“Gallop-ho!” shouted Sir Sparklemuffin, though the leaf galloped in quite the wrong way — sideways, upwards, and backwards all at once. He clutched his twig, thrust out his tiny chest, and decided that this was exactly what he had meant to happen all along.

Beneath him, ants gazed upwards, shaking their heads. “He’ll never last till lunchtime,” one ant said, adjusting her crumb of bread.
But another replied, “He has the look of a knight about him. And knights, as everyone knows, last at least until teatime.”

Thus began the adventures of Sir Sparklemuffin, the smallest knight that ever was — or ever wasn’t.

CONTD

Chapter Two

The Bard Who Forgot His Own Song

The flying leaf galloped (in its own leafy way) across the sky until it tumbled, with a most ungraceful wobble, into a patch of thistles. Sir Sparklemuffin leapt off, shook his twig-sword free of burrs, and declared:

“A knight never falls. He merely descends unexpectedly.”

The thistles applauded politely, being very prickly sorts who rarely had the chance to clap without poking holes in themselves.

No sooner had Sparklemuffin puffed himself up again than a peculiar sound filled the air:

twang-thrum-bumble-thud!

It was a grasshopper, strumming a violin made entirely out of a dandelion stem. The bow was a bent blade of grass, and the music was — well, if you can imagine a kettle singing while a wheelbarrow argues with a goose, you will have the general idea.

“Good day, Sir Grasshopper!” cried Sparklemuffin.
The grasshopper paused mid-bow, looking flustered. “I say, am I a Sir? Or a Song? Or possibly a Sandwich? I can never remember these things.”

“You are a Bard,” Sparklemuffin informed him sternly, “which is even better than a Sandwich, though perhaps not quite as filling.”

The grasshopper scratched his head with the violin. “A Bard? Splendid! I should like that enormously. Except — what do Bards do?”

“They sing songs of knights,” replied Sparklemuffin, “and since I happen to be one, this is an extremely convenient meeting. Quite providential, really. I daresay the universe arranged it on purpose.”

“On porpoise, you mean?” said the grasshopper, with a hopeful look.
“On purpose,” corrected Sparklemuffin.
“Disappointing,” sighed the grasshopper. “I should have liked a porpoise.”

The knight ignored this and straightened his posture, which was difficult given that he had only eight bendy knees. “Now then, sing!”

The grasshopper beamed. “Very well! Allow me to perform the glorious Ballad of Sir What’s-His-Name!”
And he launched into a triumphant tune that went:

Sir Something-or-Other went off to the war,
He might have gone farther, or stayed where he wore,
But nobody knew if his horse had a shoe,
Or whether his helmet was trousers or two!

At this point the violin snapped, the bow tied itself into a bow (it had been waiting years for the chance), and the grasshopper sneezed so mightily that three dandelion clocks exploded into the air, scattering wishes in every direction.

“Splendid!” Sparklemuffin clapped his palps together. “Utterly splendid! That was the finest nonsense I have ever heard. The rhymes were both unsuitable and impeccable. From this day forth, you shall be my official Bard.”

The grasshopper blinked. “Bard of what?”
“Of Me,” Sparklemuffin said proudly. “No knight is complete without a Bard to sing of his trousers.”

The grasshopper bowed so low that he nearly toppled into a thistle. “Then I am yours to command, Sir Knight! But I ought to warn you: I can never remember my own songs.”

“That is of no importance,” said Sparklemuffin grandly. “If you forget a verse, just hum the chorus twice, and if you forget the chorus, invent a new knight on the spot. Preferably one more heroic than myself, though not too much so.”

The grasshopper nodded eagerly. “And do knights pay their bards?”
“With glory,” replied Sparklemuffin.
“Ah. And can glory be eaten with butter?”
“Not with butter,” said Sparklemuffin, “but it goes very well with jam.”

They sat in silence a moment, considering this.

Finally, the grasshopper said, “Very well, Sir Knight, I am convinced. But tell me, which way shall we go?”

Sir Sparklemuffin mounted his leaf once more, struck his twig-sword against the sky as though it were a gong, and declared:
“Onwards to Adventure, which is always in the direction one isn’t currently facing!”

“Then perhaps,” said the grasshopper, “we ought to spin round in circles until the right direction feels dizzy enough to admit it.”

“A most knightly plan!” agreed Sparklemuffin, and the two of them twirled on the leaf until they were so giddy they fell over, laughing like fools.

At that very moment, the wind, who had been eavesdropping with great amusement, decided it was time to carry them onward. With a whoosh and a whirr, it scooped up the leaf, the knight, and the bard, and sent them sailing away toward a pond where a certain bad-tempered toad was polishing his crown and muttering darkly about “taxes on tadpoles.”

Chapter Three

The Toad Who Taxed Tadpoles

The wind whisked Sir Sparklemuffin and his new bard over meadows and buttercups, spun them thrice over a cow’s tail, and finally dropped them, leaf-first, with a gentle plop beside a green and glum-looking pond.

On a broad lilypad sat a fat toad in a crooked crown. He was polishing it with the hem of a lily-petal, muttering under his breath:

“Taxes on tadpoles, levies on lily-pads, fees on frogspawn — oh, the glorious income of monarchy!”

Sir Sparklemuffin, bristling with chivalry, marched up (as well as a spider can march, which is mostly sideways with hops). He flourished his twig-sword and declared:
“Halt, O Crowned Creature! I, Sir Sparklemuffin, Knight of the Leaf, have come to defend the innocent!”

The toad glared down with one golden eye. “Innocent? Hah! Nobody is innocent — not even tadpoles. Do you know how much algae they eat without paying rent? A fortune! And do they thank me for the pond? Not a croak of gratitude!”

“They are but children,” said Sparklemuffin sternly. “And children should never be taxed, unless it be in sweetmeats and bedtime stories.”

The grasshopper bard, fiddling nervously with his broken dandelion violin, added: “Besides, have you ever tried taxing a tadpole? They have no pockets. Or purses. Or, for that matter, trousers.”

The toad croaked so loudly that three ducks on the far bank dropped their sandwiches in fright.
“Bah! Pockets are overrated. I keep my coins in my mouth — jingle, jangle, gargle!” And to prove it, he opened his cavernous jaws. A shower of pondweed, a button, and exactly three-and-a-half copper pennies tumbled out.

“Disgusting,” murmured the bard.
“Heroic,” whispered Sparklemuffin, for he could never resist the glint of treasure.

The toad leaned forward, crown slipping down over one warty eye. “And who are you, to question my royal decrees?”

“I am Sir Sparklemuffin!” cried the spider, puffing out his abdomen till the colours shimmered like a rainbow umbrella. “And this is my bard, who forgets his songs most gloriously. Together, we shall thwart your greedy designs!”

The grasshopper, though alarmed, began to hum a tune of resistance — something between a lullaby and a hiccup — while Sparklemuffin brandished his twig-sword.

The toad smirked. “Oh, brave speeches! But I shall squash you flat, like an unpaid bill, unless you can best me in a trial!”

“What kind of trial?” Sparklemuffin demanded.
“A jumping contest,” the toad declared, licking his lips. “For I am the finest leaper in all the pond, and no knight nor grasshopper can best me.”

“Ha!” Sparklemuffin cried, with reckless enthusiasm. “You forget that I am a jumping spider! Jumping is our birthright, our middle name, and in some cases our breakfast!”

The toad blinked. “Breakfast?”
“Never mind,” said Sparklemuffin.

The leaf trembled under his feet as the challenge was set: toad against spider, crown against twig, pomp against pluck.

“Then let the Contest of Leaps begin!” boomed the toad.

And every frog, fish, and dragonfly gathered round the pond’s edge, eager to see whether the smallest knight in history could possibly out-jump the fattest monarch in the marsh.

Chapter Three (continued)

The Contest of Leaps

The rules of the contest were immediately drawn up by a committee of frogs, who were far more interested in rules than in leaping. They wrote them neatly on a lily-pad with snail slime, which smudged horribly but looked very official.

“First,” announced the Chief Frog, clearing his throat with a melodious ribbet, “each contestant shall leap once.”

“Obvious enough,” muttered Sparklemuffin.

“Second,” continued the Frog, “the winner shall be determined not by distance, nor by height, but by whichever leap is most surprising.”

“Excellent!” said the toad, puffing up smugly.
“Better still!” said Sparklemuffin, who had always been surprising, even to himself.

The grasshopper bard leaned over and whispered, “What if you surprise yourself so much you forget to land?”
“Then,” Sparklemuffin whispered back, “I shall be remembered as the knight who leapt forever. Which is very knightly indeed.”

The first leap was the toad’s. He crouched low, eyes bulging, crown wobbling precariously, and sprang with a mighty BOING! He soared across the pond, landed with a splash, and sank three lily-pads, seven minnows, and half a duck.

“Marvellous!” cried the crowd. “What a leap! What power!”
“And what a mess,” added the duck, glaring.

The judges conferred. “Not terribly surprising,” one frog admitted.
“After all,” said another, “toads are expected to leap. It is practically in their job description.”
They gave him three points for distance, one for style, and half a biscuit for splash.

Next came Sir Sparklemuffin. He rubbed his legs together, wiggled his abdomen until it shimmered like stained glass, and struck a pose upon his leaf.

“I shall now perform the legendary Knightly Leap,” he announced, “a feat so daring, so baffling, that it has never been performed before — by me.”

With that, he sprang into the air, executed a triple somersault, whirled round backwards, and somehow produced a shower of dandelion fluff in mid-flight. He landed upside-down upon the toad’s crown, knocking it neatly over the monarch’s eyes.

The pond erupted in cheers. “Astonishing!”
“Ridiculous!”
“Positively nonsensical!” cried the frogs.

The toad yanked his crown straight and spluttered. “That was cheating! No knight may leap onto his king!”

But the judges shook their heads. “On the contrary, it was very surprising indeed. We award him ten points for absurdity, five for ingenuity, and a jam tart for landing upon royalty.”

“A jam tart!” the grasshopper exclaimed. “Oh, Sir Knight, you are truly rich now!”

Sir Sparklemuffin bowed gallantly, though the tart was nearly as large as he was. “I accept this prize on behalf of all tadpoles unjustly taxed, and declare victory in the name of silliness!”

The toad, red with rage, croaked so loudly that a heron two miles away dropped its lunch. But rules were rules, and frogs are very particular about such things.

Thus was Sir Sparklemuffin crowned Champion of Leaps, and the toad was forced — very grudgingly — to abolish the Tadpole Tax.

The pond celebrated with music, croaks, splashes, and the grasshopper’s violin, which broke halfway through the first note but carried on bravely anyway. And as night fell, Sparklemuffin nibbled his jam tart and whispered:

“Onwards! For there are greater adventures ahead — and perhaps even trousers!”

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