Grilled Cheese and Dragons Read online

  PENGUIN WORKSHOP

  Penguin Young Readers Group

  An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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  Text copyright © 2018 by Nancy Krulik. Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Ben Balistreri. All rights reserved. Published by Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. PENGUIN and PENGUIN WORKSHOP are trademarks of Penguin Books Ltd, and the W colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 9780515158311 (pbk)

  ISBN 9780515158328 (hc)

  ISBN 9780515158335 (ebook)

  Version_1

  For my grandparents Gertrude and Abraham N. Olshan, whose personal quests for freedom took more bravery than any knight has ever shown—NK

  To the memory of my first golden retriever, Fozzie. Keep chasing leaves, my good friend—BB

  Contents

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Extract from the next Princess Pulverizer

  About the Author & Illustrator

  Chapter 1

  “Princess Serena!” Lady Frump shouted angrily. “Come down from there right now! Princesses do not hang from the ceiling.”

  But the Royal Princess of Empiria was not ready to come down. She didn’t want to sit at the table with her classmates, learning about the proper manners to use at a tea party. Who cared how you held your pinkie when you picked up your teacup? Tea parties were no fun at all.

  But swinging from the rafters—now, that was fun!

  The princess began swaying back and forth over the heads of the other girls in her class.

  Back and forth.

  Back and forth.

  Back and forth.

  She swung her legs higher and higher in the air.

  “Wheeee!” the princess shouted down to her classmates. “You guys should really try this. It’s amazing. I feel like I’m flying.”

  The girls stared up at her in surprise. No one disobeyed Lady Frump. Ever. She was the toughest, scariest teacher at the Royal School of Ladylike Manners.

  But Lady Frump didn’t frighten the princess at all. Nobody frightened her.

  She was the bravest girl in all of Empiria.

  Maybe even in the whole world.

  So she just kept swinging.

  Back and forth.

  Back and . . .

  “WHOA!” The princess let out a loud yelp as she lost her grip on the rafters.

  SPLASH! The princess’s royal bottom landed right in a big bowl of ooey-gooey purplish pomegranate pudding.

  SMASH. Spoons, forks, knives, teacups, and saucers crashed to the floor. There was broken china everywhere.

  The princess looked up at Lady Frump. The teacher’s face was beet red. Her eyes were tightened into tiny angry slits. And she was clutching her handkerchief in a sweaty fist.

  “Oops,” the princess said sheepishly.

  “Now look what you’ve done!” Lady Frump scolded. “Why didn’t you come down carefully when I asked you to, Princess Serena?”

  “Well, for one thing, that’s not my name,” the princess replied. “I’ve told you that a million times.”

  A few of the girls gasped.

  “Serena is the name your father, King Alexander, gave you,” Lady Frump reminded her.

  “But it’s not the right name for me,” the princess explained. “Serena comes from the word serene. And serene means calm and peaceful. I’m neither of those.”

  Lady Frump couldn’t argue with that.

  Nobody could argue with that.

  “That’s why I gave myself a new name,” the princess continued. “From now on, I want everyone to call me Princess Pulverizer.”

  “Princess Pulverizer is not a proper name for a royal girl,” Lady Frump told her.

  “Says who?” Princess Pulverizer argued.

  “I . . . I . . . well . . . ,” Lady Frump stammered.

  The girls all stared at Princess Pulverizer in awe. She’d stumped Lady Frump. Amazing.

  “Never mind,” Lady Frump said, wiping her forehead with her handkerchief. “I will have two of the scullions from the kitchen come and clean up this mess later. And you, Princess Serena, will help them.”

  Princess Pulverizer gasped with surprise. She wasn’t sure which was more shocking—the idea that her teacher would expect her to clean up the mess with the kitchen maids, or that she refused to call her by her new name.

  “In the meantime, we will head into the ballroom to practice dancing the saltarello,” Lady Frump continued. “I want all of you to be able to dance beautifully at the ball next month.”

  Princess Pulverizer frowned as she followed her classmates into the ballroom. The only thing worse than tea-party lessons was dance lessons.

  Princess Pulverizer was not a great dancer.

  She wasn’t even a good dancer.

  Actually, she was a lousy dancer.

  To make matters worse, the ballroom was right above the courtyard where the boys in Knight School did their training. The boys looked like they were having so much fun, riding on their horses and having sword fights. And here she was, stuck moving her feet to the same beat, over and over again.

  “Tap, tap, hop. Tap, tap, hop . . . ,” Lady Frump repeated as she clapped her hands. “Ladies, please dance to the rhythm.”

  Princess Pulverizer looked out the window and watched as two of the knights-in-training drew swords. They began fencing, poking each other’s armor with their weapons.

  Clang. Clang. Every time one of the swords hit their metal suits, it made a loud noise that echoed all the way up to the ballroom.

  Clip-clop. Clip-clop. Three other boys rode by on horseback. All of them—even the horses—were dressed in armor.

  Princess Pulverizer scowled. It just wasn’t fair.

  Why did the boys get to wear full suits of armor and ride on horses, while she was stuck trying to hop around a dance floor in a silly lace gown?

  And why did the boys get to wear those valiant visors when they fenced, while she was stuck having to balance a tiara on her head as she danced the saltarello? A visor had a purpose—it kept a knight safe. But what was the point of a tiara?

  “Tap, tap, hop . . . Tap, tap, hop . . . ,” Lady Frump continued. “Girls! Please pay attention. Tap, tap . . .”

  Pr
incess Pulverizer tap-tap-hopped her way over to the window for a better look at the two boys who were fencing. One of them was actually pretty good. He moved his feet quickly and was able to block most of the jabs that came from his opponent.

  From Princess Pulverizer’s point of view, fencing didn’t look that hard. All you had to do was dance around a little and poke at someone with a sword.

  A few lunges here.

  A few steps backward there.

  A poke.

  A jab.

  And maybe a little twirl—just to make it look fancy.

  What was the big deal about fencing, anyway?

  Lunge.

  Step.

  Poke.

  Jab.

  Twirl.

  OOMF!

  “Whoa!” Princess Pulverizer exclaimed as she bashed into one of the girls in her class.

  Who crashed into the girl on her left.

  Who knocked down the two girls on either side of her.

  Who both collapsed right on top of Lady Frump.

  “PRINCESS SERENA!” Lady Frump shouted angrily as she climbed out from under the pile of crowns, shoes, petticoats, arms, and legs. “What am I going to do with you?”

  Princess Pulverizer looked down at the purplish pudding stain on her dress.

  She stared at the wiggling mountain of classmates on the ground.

  And for once, the princess had no answer for Lady Frump.

  Chapter 2

  “I can’t believe you’ve been sent home again,” King Alexander of Empiria scolded his daughter later that afternoon. “Why can’t you behave in school?”

  “Because school is boring,” Princess Pulverizer told him. “Everything we study is useless! Why do I need to know how to curtsy? Or learn which fork is the right one to use? Or practice staying on the beat when dancing the saltarello?”

  “Because those are the things every princess needs to learn,” King Alexander explained. “How else will you know how to behave correctly at a banquet, or dance at a ball with grace and elegance?”

  “But I don’t want to be a princess,” Princess Pulverizer insisted. “And I don’t want to go to banquets or balls. I want to rescue damsels in distress and slay dragons. I want to have sword fights. I want to be a knight.”

  “Excuse me?” the king asked, surprised.

  “A knight,” Princess Pulverizer repeated. “I want to go out into the world, have adventures, and earn my place among the Knights of the Skround Table.”

  Princess Pulverizer looked longingly across the room. The Skround Table was so beautiful—perfectly square, but with carefully rounded corners. Skround.

  The Skround Table was where the knights gathered to talk about their exciting quests. Princess Pulverizer wanted nothing more than to sit there among them.

  To be one of them.

  “I don’t need to go to the Royal School of Ladylike Manners to be a knight,” Princess Pulverizer continued. “I need to go to Knight School.”

  “Actually, knights need to know a lot of the same things you are learning in school,” the king told her.

  “Like what?” Princess Pulverizer asked.

  “Well, you are learning to dance gracefully,” the king replied. “Every sword fight is like a dance. A knight who is light on his feet will always win. But a clumsy knight will land on his behind every time.”

  Princess Pulverizer frowned. It was hard to argue with logic like that. Although . . .

  “Does a knight really need to know which fork to use to eat salad?” she asked her father. “Or how to pour a perfect cup of tea?”

  The king stared at his daughter. “You’ve got me there,” he admitted.

  Princess Pulverizer smiled triumphantly.

  “But there are still a lot of other things you can learn from Lady Frump,” the king continued. “You need to go back to the Royal School of Ladylike Manners.”

  Princess Pulverizer’s eyes flew open wide in surprise. She couldn’t believe her father was making her go back to that horrible place.

  “B-b-but you have to let me go to Knight School,” Princess Pulverizer insisted.

  “Why?” her father asked her.

  “Because I want to go,” Princess Pulverizer told him. “And I’m a princess. Princesses always get what they want.”

  “Not this time.” The king shook his head.

  “I am going to Knight School,” the princess declared. She folded her arms tightly across her chest.

  “No, you’re not,” the king replied. He folded his arms tightly across his chest. “You are going back to Lady Frump.”

  “Am not! Am not! Am not!” Princess Pulverizer started jumping up and down and shouting. “I shouldn’t have to listen to Lady Frump. She should have to listen to me. I’m the princess.”

  “But she is your teacher,” the king said. “In school, she is in charge.”

  Princess Pulverizer shook her head. “This isn’t fair!” she shouted. “You won’t let me go to Knight School because I’m a girl. That’s not right!”

  “This has nothing to do with you being a girl,” King Alexander told her.

  Princess Pulverizer stopped shouting. She stopped jumping up and down. “It doesn’t?” she asked.

  The king shook his head. “No. It has to do with the fact that you don’t have what it takes to be a knight.”

  “Yes, I do,” Princess Pulverizer insisted. “I already know how to ride a horse. And fencing doesn’t seem hard. With a little training, I’ll be able to slay dragons and rescue damsels as well as any boy in Knight School.”

  “Ahhh, but there’s a lot more to being a knight than riding off on exciting adventures,” King Alexander told her. “It takes great honor, kindness, and sacrifice.”

  Princess Pulverizer didn’t know how to respond to that one. Even she knew that honor, kindness, and sacrifice weren’t exactly her strong points.

  Things were not going Princess Pulverizer’s way. Not at all.

  That didn’t happen often. But when it did, the princess knew exactly how to change her father’s mind. All she had to do was give him her special face. It always made him smile. And laugh. And do exactly what she wanted him to do.

  So Princess Pulverizer cocked her head to the side. She shot her father a broad, lopsided smile. Then she crossed her eyes.

  A grin shot across King Alexander’s face.

  It was working!

  The princess smiled a little wider. She crossed her eyes a little harder.

  The king looked at his daughter’s goofy smile and stared into her crossed eyes. Finally, he said, “I suppose there’s no real reason you can’t go to Knight School . . .”

  Yes! Princess Pulverizer pumped her fist in the air. The special face had done it again. Princess Pulverizer had gotten what she wanted.

  “. . . eventually,” King Alexander continued. “But not today. Or even tomorrow.”

  Wait. What?

  Princess Pulverizer dropped her fist and stared at her father. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “You have a lot to learn about what being a knight really means,” King Alexander explained. “You have to earn your way into Knight School.”

  Princess Pulverizer scowled. This was not the answer she’d been hoping for. “How am I supposed to do that?” she asked King Alexander.

  “You must go on a Quest of Kindness,” the king replied.

  “A what?” Princess Pulverizer asked.

  “A Quest of Kindness,” King Alexander repeated. “I’m sending you out into the world. You must show bravery and do nice, unselfish acts for others. Only after you have completed eight good deeds will I allow you to enter Knight School.”

  “Eight?” Princess Pulverizer asked, her voice scaling up nervously. “That’s an awful lot. Where will I find eight people who need
my help in Empiria? I mean, we’re a pretty small kingdom.”

  “You do not have to stay in Empiria,” her father told her. “But I do not want you wandering too far, either. The world is a very big place. So for your own safety, you may only go as far as the mountains to the east and the river to the west. You may travel as far as the ocean to the south, and to the canyon to the north. That way you are always near enough to Empiria so my knights can search for you and save you if I find you are gone for a very long time.”

  “I won’t need any saving,” Princess Pulverizer assured him.

  “Let’s hope not,” her father replied. “So we have a deal, then? You will go on a Quest of Kindness?”

  The quest doesn’t sound too awful, Princess Pulverizer thought. After all, she already did lots of good deeds for others. Didn’t she always share her brussels sprouts with the royal dogs when the chef wasn’t looking?

  Although that probably wouldn’t count as an actual good deed, because the dogs hated brussels sprouts as much as she did.

  Still, there was also that one time when the princess had helped . . .

  Or the day when she . . .

  And how about . . .

  Maybe this wasn’t going to be so easy after all.

  Unless . . .

  Suddenly Princess Pulverizer got a great idea. What if she just went out into the world and wandered around for a few days? Then when she came back, she could just tell her father she had done eight good deeds.

  She didn’t actually have to do them.

  “Okay, Papa,” Princess Pulverizer said with a sly smile. “I will go on the quest.”

  “Wonderful,” King Alexander said. “Oh, and one more thing. I will need you to bring back proof of each of your eight good deeds.”

  Princess Pulverizer frowned. How did her father always know what she was planning?

  “How am I supposed to get proof?” Princess Pulverizer asked.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” King Alexander replied. “After all, knights have to be smart, as well as brave and kind.”