Chapter Text
Nine-year-old Toby was miserable. It was the first week of summer vacation, and he was stuck in bed with a cough and fever. While all his friends would be playing outside, going camping or down to the beach with family, or having a pool party or BBQ with friends, he was sick in bed. It just wasn’t fair, he thought.
Just then, the door opened a crack, and in came Toby’s mother. She’d been able to get the past few days off work so she could stay home and look after her son, but she’d have to go back to work soon.
“Hey, Toby,” she said softly. “Feeling any better?”
“Hi, Mom. A little,” he answered – but then, he noticed her suit. “Do you have to go back to work?” The disappointment in his voice was clear.
“I’m afraid so,” she replied, “but your Grampa’s coming over to look after you while I’m at work, so he’ll be here in a while. Mummy will be back before Daddy gets home, alright?”
“I told you, I don’t call you guys Mummy and Daddy anymore.” Being sick had made Toby grumpier than he normally was.
“I’m sorry – I just can’t help it when you’re sick.” With that, Toby’s mom bent down beside the bed and kissed his cheek. “Stay in bed at least until Grampa comes, and be a good boy, okay?”
“Yeah, Mom.” Although Toby sometimes got a little annoyed with how his mother would baby him when he wasn’t feeling well, deep down inside, he didn’t really mind it. He knew it was only because she cared about him.
“Great. See you tonight, baby.” With that, she ruffled Toby’s hair, kissed the top of his head as she got up, and left the room, quietly closing the door behind her.
Toby sat quietly staring up at the sky out the open window for a few minutes, still feeling a little sulky at not being able to go out and play. However, it was because he was sitting so quietly that he even heard the voice at his window say, “’Allo.”
Startled, Toby looked in the direction of his window – and saw a little worm sitting right outside the window screen.
The worm had a blue back, a pale underside, and wild tufts of grey hair sprouting from his head. He also had grey whiskers on his face that gave him a moustache, and wore both a scrap of red felt around his neck for a scarf and a dried-up leaf on his head for a hat. Toby stared at the worm for a good minute before he recovered enough to ask, “…Did you just say ‘Hello’?”
“No, I said ‘’Allo’ – but that’s close enough,” the worm answered.
Still shocked at seeing a worm talk, Toby asked, “You’re a worm, aren’t you?”
“Yeh, that’s right,” chuckled the worm; he also had a Cockney accent, making everything he said sound a little odd.
“But…but animals can’t talk,” Toby started. “They can only talk in fairy tales.”
“Things in this world are not always what they seem, boy,” replied the worm, “so you can’t take anythin’ for granted.”
“So…what are you doing here?” asked Toby, still trying to comprehend the fact that maybe all animals could actually talk.
“Well,” the worm began, “I just happened to be crawlin’ by your window when I saw you in your bed there and noticed how sick and unhappy you looked. So, I thought I’d pop in and cheer you up with a story – and if you’d be so kind as to let me in, I’ll tell it to you.”
“A story?” Toby asked. “Is it any good?” he added skeptically.
“’Course it’s good,” the worm replied. “Me dad used to tell it to me when I were a little ’un, and his dad before him, and his dad before him, and I used to tell it to me own little ’uns. Today, I’ll tell it to you.”
Toby thought about it for a moment. Mom had told him not to get out of bed, but…he decided he wanted to hear this story. And so he pulled off the sheet he was sitting under, went over to the window, slid up the screen (the house had an unusual feature in that you could slide window screens up and down), and letting the worm crawl into the palm of his hand, Toby picked him up and brought him into the room.
“So does this story have any sports in it?” Toby asked as he set the worm on his night-table and got back into bed. He liked stories with a lot of action or adventure in them – nothing with too much love or romance.
“Are you kiddin’?” the worm chuckled. “Fencin’, fightin’, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…”
“Sounds okay,” said Toby, still feeling dubious. “I’ll try to stay awake.”
“Thank you, that’s very nice of you,” said the worm, a bit sarcastically. “Your vote o’ confidence is overwhelmin’. And now,” he continued, “for the story of ‘The Goblin Princess Bride’…”
And this was the story that the little worm told to Toby…
A long time ago, in the far-off kingdom of Druwyth (in which peacefully lived humans, goblins, and all other creatures, side-by-side), there lived a girl of nineteen whose name was Sarah.
“Hey, just like my sister!” said Toby.
“Beg your pardon?” asked the worm, a little annoyed at being interrupted so early on in the story.
“I have an older sister named Sarah,” Toby explained. “She’s twenty-three and lives with her boyfriend in their apartment. I think they’re gonna get married in a couple years.”
“That’s just the name of the girl in this story,” the worm replied, sounding exasperated. “Me dad always used that name when he told me this story, and his dad did, too, and so on, and so on. Now, will you kindly let me go on?”
“Sorry,” Toby apologized. “Keep going.”
Sarah lived on the farm her family had owned for generations, and her favourite pastimes were riding her horse and tormenting the farm-boy who worked for her on the farm. He was a year older than herself, and his name was Jareth – but Sarah never called him that; she only ever referred to him as the “farm-boy”.
“Isn’t that a wonderful beginnin’?” said the worm, interrupting himself.
“Yeah, it’s really good,” replied Toby – although he still wasn’t fully convinced.
Sarah’s life was pretty simple: she would usually ride her horse around the countryside, and when she wasn’t doing that, she would order Jareth around (and nothing gave her quite as much pleasure as doing so). “Farm-boy,” she might say, “polish my horse’s saddle; I want to see my face shining in it by morning”, or “Farm-boy, fetch me that pitcher”, or “Farm-boy, fill these buckets with water for me”. But whatever command Sarah gave Jareth, his response was always the same: “As you wish.”
“As you wish.” That was all he ever said in response to Sarah’s orders. However, it was an incredible day when Sarah realized that whenever Jareth would answer her with “As you wish”, it was his way of saying “I love you”. Perhaps even greater than that was the day that Sarah realized she truly loved him back – or even more amazing, the day that they shared their first kiss…
“Hold it, hold it,” Toby interrupted. “What is this? Are you trying to trick me? Where’s the sports? Is this a kissing story?”
“Just wait, boy,” the worm answered – but Toby asked, “But when does it get good?”
“Keep your shirt on and let me tell the story, now,” the worm responded.
Since Jareth was so poor, he had no money for he and Sarah to marry, and so, finally, he made the decision to go out into the world and try to make his fortune across the sea. Although this was a hard decision for him, since it meant he would be far away from his dear Sarah, it was an even more emotional time for her.
“I don’t believe this,” muttered Toby.
The day finally came when Jareth packed up the few belongings he had and prepared to leave. At the gate, however, Sarah was waiting for him – and as soon as she saw Jareth, she ran to him and embraced him as tight as she possibly could.
“It’s not fair that you have to seek your fortune so far away; I’m worried I’ll never see you again,” she whispered, tears brimming in her eyes.
“Of course, we’ll see each-other again, buttercup,” Jareth reassured her.
“But what if…if something happens to you?”
Jareth pulled away slightly and looked Sarah right in the eye. “Hear me now…I’ll always come for you. Always.”
“…But how can you be so sure?” Sarah’s voice broke as she choked back a sob.
Jareth smiled at her. “Because this is true love, precious,” he answered. “This doesn’t happen every day, you know.”
Sarah smiled bravely; with that, she and Jareth shared one last tender kiss, and then, he picked up his belongings and headed on his way.
Jareth never actually reached his destination, nor did he return. News eventually came that the ship Jareth had been on had been attacked by the infamous rogue goblin pirates – and from that, the rumour spread that he had been killed in the attack.
“Murdered by pirates? That’s pretty good,” said Toby. This time, the worm didn’t even bother to chide Toby for interrupting.
When Sarah heard the news that Jareth was dead, she was so upset that she couldn’t even weep; however, she stayed put on the farm for a long, long time, never speaking to anyone else, stuck in a deep, dark pit of endless depression.
“I’m never going to fall in love again,” she vowed one day, not long after getting the news.