ONCE UPON A TIME there was a princess named Celeste and a prince named Oliver, who were friends. Celeste’s mother and father were the King & Queen of Moravia, and Oliver’s were the King & Queen of the adjacent kingdom of Simposia.

Between the two kingdoms there were an apple orchard and a brick wall, stretching north to south; Moravia was to the east of the wall and Simposia to the west. It had been built when the two kingdoms were hostile, but they been friendly for so long that it had fallen into a state of dilapidation and had holes in it.

Celeste and Oliver would often play in the orchard on one side of wall or the other, climbing the apple trees, picking apples, and sometimes eating so many of them that they got stomach aches and had to be given castor oil.

Now Celeste was a polite princess because her parents had taught her good manners and certain virtues, such as honesty, kindness to plants and animals, and sharing her possessions with others. She had a loving heart, and she loved Oliver, despite the fact that his parents had not taught him these things, so he had a tendency to be rude, cruel to plants and animals, and he did not like sharing his possessions with others at all!

Though Celeste was quite pretty, Oliver liked to tease her and call her ugly. Or, he might knock over the basket of apples she was planning to take home so that the royal cook of Moravia might bake for the royal family an apple pie with cinnamon, which they would eat with large dollops of vanilla ice cream. Sometimes, Oliver even threw apples at Celeste.

Because she loved him and thought him oh, so handsome, Celeste bore these things in silence, but when he said she was ugly, a single tear would drop from her eye and roll down onto her cheek. Then, of course, Oliver would call her a “cry baby.”

One day, while climbing an apple tree on the Simposia side of the wall, Celeste fell from a branch to the ground with a THUD. She tore her dress, skinned her elbows, and was covered with dirt and leaves.

What did Oliver do? Instead of rushing over to ask if she was all right, he laughed. He laughed so hard that his sides ached.

“You look like an apple bush, and a dirty one at that,” he proclaimed.

Celeste sat on the ground, this time her eyes smarting with tears, from both her eyes, more so because Oliver was making fun of her than because she was in fact hurt. After a while she stood up, brushed herself off, picked up her empty basket, climbed back over the wall to the Moravian side, and slowly walked back to her castle.

Ì

The next day Oliver waited for Celeste to return, but when she did come, she was carrying some things in her basket that were quite heavy. When she got to the wall, instead of climbing over it as she usually did, she put her basket down and from it removed a brick, a can of mortar, a trowel, and a small hammer. Carefully, she applied coats of mortar to the sides of one of the holes with the trowel, then inserted a brick into it, with the hammer tapped it gently in place, and smoothed the ooze so that it was nice and clean.

Then she moved to another hole and repeated this process. By noon she had closed up a good number of the holes.

Oliver didn’t know quite what to think about this, especially since there were still plenty of holes through which he could call insulting remarks.

“Do you think I care?” he said. “I’ve seen plenty of your ugly face,” Or, “When you’re done with that, you can help our mason build a new pig sty. Ha, ha, ha!”

Celeste said not a word, though of course she couldn’t help but wonder if she was truly ugly and just didn’t know it. When the bricks in her basket were gone, she put the can of mortar, the trowel, and the hammer inside, picked it up and walked back to her castle.

The next day she returned again her basket filled with bricks, the can of mortar, the trowel and hammer. All morning she worked filling holes, while again Oliver made fun of her.

After several days she had filled every hole in the wall.

On the following week she returned, this time with a wheelbarrow that she had borrowed from the royal gardener. Besides her bricks, mortar, trowel and hammer, she was carrying a ladder. During that week she added several new rows of bricks at the top of the wall so that no one could climb over it.

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Oliver looked at the wall. For a while he pitched apples over it, but this was no fun because Celeste wasn’t there to pitch them back. ACTUALLY, Celeste was there, as each day, before Oliver arrived (he was a late riser) she would tiptoe down to the Movarian side of the wall and sit quietly with her back against it, her arms wrapped around her knees, reading books and munching on the lunch she had brought with her. She munched very quietly because she did not want Oliver to know she was there.

When Oliver came down to the wall he put his ear to it, listening for the sound of Celeste’s footsteps on the leaves, any sound that would tell him she was there, but all he could hear were the sounds of the breeze rustling the tree branches and the twittering sparrows that nested in them.

“Oh, Celeste,” he would call, “are you there, Celeste?” but Celeste said not a word.

He thought maybe he could lure her into answering him by calling, “Oh, Celeste, I have something beautiful to show you, something I might even give you, if you like.” What he had was an apple with a fat worm in it, but, of course, since she did not answer him, she did not know that.

One day Oliver thought he smelled apple pie. That was because Celeste had brought a piece of it in her lunch, but Oliver didn’t know that. He thought maybe he was imagining the smell of apple pie because he was quite hungry.

Oliver grew lonely, for he no other friends beside Celeste, and we can understand the reason for that! And, he certainly he did not like being ignored—not one bit!

First he was dismayed. Then he grew angry, in fact, hopping mad. How dare Celeste do this to HIM, the PRINCE of Simposia? Now, instead of lobbing apples over the wall, he gather stones and threw them at the wall, but they simply hit it and fell to ground—thud, thud, thud.

Celeste heard the sounds but didn’t say a word.

Oliver climbed the tree closest to the wall thinking he might crawl out on a branch that extended over it, but, alas, it would not hold him, snapped, and he tumbled to the ground. Clearly none of these things were working.

Celeste heard him fall but said not a word. “Celeste,” Oliver cried, “If you don’t talk to me, I’m not talking to YOU!” Celeste hid her smile in her apron to keep from laughing out loud and said not a word.

Ì

THE NEXT DAY the young prince of Simposia had an idea. Early in the morning he presented himself to his father, the King. Using his best manners, he said, “Please, father, may I borrow our four royal elephants for the day?’

“For goodness sake, why, my son?” asked the King.

“Because there’s something I want to knock down,” replied Oliver.

“And what might that be?” asked the King.

“Oh, it’s that silly wall that divides us from the people of Moravia. You know it serves no real purpose since we have long been friends. The wall simply must come down! If the wall weren’t there, it would be easier for the people of Simposia and Moravia to come and go. They would be able to trade among themselves with greater ease. And, because of added revenues from this increase in trade your royal coffers would swell.”

Though the King of Simposia didn’t say so, he was impressed with the prince’s logic and secretly thought, hmmm, my son, the prince might become a good king one day, after all. And so he granted Oliver permission to borrow the four royal elephants.

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BEFORE OLIVER went to the stable to get the elephants, he went to the arsenal and asked the guards there to bring the royal battering ram, so that he might attach it to the elephants. The guards brought the battering ram to the stable, where they and the royal stable hands helped bring out the elephants—one, two, three, and four—and, securely attached it to them, two on each side.

When all preparations were made, Oliver climbed upon the lead elephant at the front right and marched them down to the orchard.

Now Celeste, as usual, was sitting against the Moravian side of the wall, nibbling at her sandwich and wondering why she had heard Oliver today. “Oh,” she sighed, “maybe he’s given up on me and has found some new playmates,” the thought of which made her sad. THEN she heard the sound of the elephants’ feet stepping slowly, then fast and faster, coming down the path in the middle of orchard.

“What in the world is that?” she wondered, because, of course, she could neither see through or over the wall herself.

Oliver sat atop the lead elephant, waved his hat, and yelled, “CHARGE!”

The CRASH when the ram hit the wall could be heard from miles around. Bricks flew every which way

Oliver was thrown from the lead elephant, but he landed safely in some apple branches, from where he let himself to the ground.

Luckily, Celeste was not sitting in front of the wall where the hole was made, a hole large enough for a person to step through.

Oliver brushed himself off and stepped through the hole. Looking to left and to the right he saw Celeste.

Celeste, seeing Oliver, stood up. With a happy smile on her on her pretty face, she said, “Why, Oliver, it’s so nice to see you again.”

THE END