Shrek Goes Fourth - Chapter 1 – Introduction

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the Shrek series or characters or places or whatever else, only the stuff you don’t recognise. Hope you like!!

“Once upon a time in a kingdom far far away,” began a young pixie reading off a miniature piece of paper, “there was a princess who was locked away in the highest room of the tallest tower in a very big castle.”

The little boy who’s hand she stood upon shuffled backwards to the back of the small stage in which a class of younger children, of all different fairytale species, were dressed up and waiting for their cue.

An elf girl dressed in a frilly pink dress with a cheap plastic tiara on her long, white-blond hair, stepped up the rigs of a ladder behind a cardboard tower and sighed dramatically,

“Oh I wish one day my prince charming will come and rescue me.”

A child wizard stepped forward, dressed in blue robes covered in bright yellow stars and squinted at his sheet of paper,

“Lots-of-brave-knights-tried-to-save-the-beautiful-princess-but-the-castle-was-guarded-by-a-dragon-so-each-one-was-killed,” he read in a monotone voice.

A girl and a boy, dressed as the head and the behind of a dragon stomped onto the stage, the girl giggling uncontrollably.

“Shut up Sadie!” the boy, with the dragons head costume hissed at his school mate.

A tiny fairy fluttered forwards, waving madly at her parents in the small audience, then smiled broadly and began to read her line,

“One day a handsome prince was wandering through the forest when he heard the princess singing,” she then moved backwards as the ‘princess’ sang a slightly off tune scale.

A little boy dressed in plastic armour shuffled forwards, dragging his plastic sword behind him,

“Errrmm…” he looked around nervously, a lot of the other children started giggling at him.

“Who’s this beautiful voice I hear,” whispered their teacher from a seat in the front row.

“Oh yeah!” he exclaimed, silencing all the others, “Who’s this beautiful voice I hear?”

The ‘dragon’ stomped forwards again, towards the ‘knight’. The little boy threw his sword above his head and yelled at the top of his voice,

“Die! Die! Die!”

He swung it down, narrowly missing the boy in the dragons head who then fell to the ground closely followed by the ‘tail’.

“You are safe now princess, the dragon is dead!” announced the little prince.

“Finally my prince has come for me and we will get married today,” swooned the girl in the tower.

Suddenly all the children stepped forwards,

“And they all lived happily ever after!” they all recited, badly out of sync.

The other side of the small but busy field, past lots of children’s stalls and games, was a small seating area near the exit to the fair. A few parents sat at tables waiting for their children. At one of the tables to the far right, next to the gate to leave the field, sat Shrek and Fiona.

“Just think, in a couple of years time they’ll have a stall,” Fiona smiled, watching all the other slightly older children talking eagerly to their ‘customers’.

“Oh great. And I suppose we’ll have to be the first customers,” Shrek groaned.

Fiona rolled her eyes at her husbands enthusiasm. Suddenly the ‘exit’ gate burst open and Donkey trotted in, grinning at them.

“Hey Shrek, Fiona!” he called, rushing over to them, “Thanks for watching the kids.”

“Happy to help Donkey,” Fiona smiled as all but one of the dronkeys zoomed over to their father, greeting him in their usual way.

“Yeah, delighted,” Shrek said grimly as he waved his arm at the stray dronkey to get it away from his head.

“Peanut!” Donkey exclaimed sternly, putting a halt to his kids excitement but also stopping Peanut from circling Shrek’s head.

“Sorry daddy,” he mumbled, hanging his head then swooped off, his siblings closely behind.

Donkey chuckled and turned back to Shrek and Fiona who had risen from their seats.

“Kids,” he smiled, “can’t control them. Never will. But they’re little angels really.”

Fiona smiled at him in agreement and started pulling out three towels from her bag, one blue, one green and one pink. Shrek’s eyes glided over to the paddling pool a couple of metres in front of them where most of the younger children, including his own, were playing.

“Little angels,” he sighed.

…………………….

I’ve decided to re-write some of the first chapters, so it’s a little different but I’m not changing any of the story line. Most of the speech will be exactly the same.