ELTHAM HIGH SCHOOL ANTHOLOGY   

Once upon a time there was a happy Damsel called Rosaline, she loved dancing and the colour pink, but most of all she loved flowers.

So one day she thought of dancing in the nearby dandelion field.

‘I wonder if there is anyone out there.’ she said loudly, hoping for a man to come by, ‘oh I am a lonely maiden!’

She stopped spinning when she saw a rose on the flowerbed. She gasped ‘Oh a pink flower! My favourite colour! I will pick it up.’ she did so and spotted another one, then another and another, a trail of pink roses going down the hill and into the oak trees.

‘I will follow these flowers and see where they’ll take me!’ and she did.

She arrived in a dark gloomy place and the flowers disappeared into the dark creepy cave. On the right, there was a sign that read: ‘SLYVESTER’S SECRET LAIR’. However, Rosaline ignored it.

Without thinking how creepy and sinister the cave looked, she walked in. ‘AHA!’ said a voice and then she saw black. The voice had covered her in a bag. It was Igor! Sylvester’s evil henchman!

‘Oh! I have been caught!’ she said dramatically, holding the back of her hand to her forehead, ‘Oh whatever should I do? Help me! I’ve been kidnapped!’

 

Not so far away a man and his little friend heard her screams, ‘Oho!’ said the man heroically, ‘I hear a voice! It must be a Damsel in Distress! I must go save her!’

‘What is it time for?’ said his companion, James, enthusiastically.

‘JOHN MANN THE INCREDIBLE MAN!’ said the man heroically, revealing his super suit bellow his normal top.

‘And Jimmy! Your noble sidekick!’

‘Let’s go!’

So off they went and followed the dramatic screams. They came across a dandelion field, on the ground was a pink rose, ‘Oho!’ said John Mann heroically, ‘I have spotted a pink rose! Obviously the damsel’s favourite colour!’ He picked it up and saw between his heroic fingers, more roses, ‘Ohoho! There seems to be a trail of roses! They must have led the fair maiden to a Secret lair! Let us follow!’

So they set off down the same trail Rosaline took and arrived in a gloomy place, ‘Golly!’ Jimmy said quietly, ‘It’s creepy down here!’

‘Quite so,’ Incredible Man said, he held his heroic hand out to stop his sidekick, ‘Wait, I found a cave, and there is a sign outside it and it says: “SYLVESTER’S SECRET LAIR”. This MUST be it!’

He charged heroically, eager to save the damsel, and discovered a secret room. They peered through the window.

They saw the damsel talking to herself, crying and wiping her tears from her ruined makeup face, John wondered what she was saying because she was trapped in a glass dome, blocking out any sound.

Then they saw him, the most sinister and evil villain of all time, Sylvester and his henchman, Igor. Both very fiendish and scary people. John felt his rage build in his throat, ‘I will save you fair maiden!’

He then leapt heroically from where he was into the room, Jimmy not far behind and he pointed an accusing, heroic finger at the villain, ‘It is I, Incredible Man and I am here to stop you from doing your evil, Sylvester!’

The villain laced his evil fingers evilly, ‘Ah, Incredible Man, I was expecting you.’ He twiddled his tiny evil moustache, ‘You will never stop me!’

Then suddenly Jimmy and John felt something heavy on their backs and before they knew it, they were tied up to a pole together. John saw Rosaline burst out crying silently, ‘You will NEVER get away with this!’ John said.

‘Oh I will,’ said the villain evilly, ‘you see, I’m going to extract human energy from anyone I capture and use it to power my EVIL LAIR! Igor, turn on the energy extractor!’

‘Yeth, my evil villain friend,’ said the henchman and pressed some buttons, ‘right on it, thir’

‘That’s hideous!’ John exclaimed, ‘Untie me at once!’

‘Never! My plan will work! I am a genius!’ Sylvester threw his hands evilly in the air, his evil nose twitched and his evil eyes gleamed evilly.

‘Oho,’ John said heroically, ‘You may be a genius but you aren’t a good at tying knots!’

The rope fell from their chests and wrists and they threw themselves onto the villains, John Mann heroically tackled the evil villain to the ground and Jimmy knocked Igor out after five blows.

Soon after, with the heroes’ foot on both, the villains were captured.

‘Drat!’ cursed Sylvester, wriggling in the ropes evilly, ‘I hate you Incredible Man!’

‘My heroes!’ Rosaline fluttered walking down the stairs like an angel; Jimmy closed the door to the dome, ‘Thank you for saving me!’

John put his heroic hands to his heroic waist, ‘There’s nothing John Mann the Incredible Man can’t do, it was a pleasure, my fair lady.’

He held her hand, and she stared dreamily into his eyes. John looked at Sylvester and Igor on the ground. He suddenly felt weird…

What is this? This sort of buzzing feeling in his chest, as if he cared not for the damsel, but for the villain.

‘Oh, great hero…’ Rosaline gasped, about to faint. In a trance, John moved away, just as Rosaline fell. ‘Oh!’ she outraged, standing up hastily, ‘Oh, oh, OH, how rude! How dare you!’

However, John didn’t listen, quietly, he untied the villain and held out his heroic hand.

Sylvester looked at the hero. He too felt something, like a spark in his heart. Wordlessly, he took John’s outstretched hand and stood up.

They stared at each other for a moment. The damsel tutted to herself, wondering if she’ll ever find someone to love.

‘I say,’ said Incredible Man heroically, ‘everything about you is evil, the way you clasp your hands, your moustache, even your nose has an evil look to it.’

Sylvester smoothed out his evil moustache, ‘Why thank you, Incredible Man, but golly, you are very heroic when you do your job.’

Incredible Man gasped, ‘My, I never had anyone say that to me before, thank you for such kind words.’

‘It is a pleasure.’

‘And it is mine.’ John smiled, he slapped the villains back heroically, ‘Say! There is a dandelion field not far from here, care to join me to dance on it?’

‘I’d be honoured,’ he said taking his hand, ‘let’s be off!’

And they skipped off, giggling like hysterical damsels.

And they lived happily ever after.

 

 

A few very happy months later…

Rosaline was upset. She deserved to have the love of Incredible Man, not the villain!

What could Incredible Man see in the villain that she doesn’t have? What did she do wrong?

She felt… she felt, anger, as if something was to burst from her heart. Something as bad as ripping a pink flower to shreds.

She was going to get herself in trouble so she can get Incredible Man to notice her. VERY, big trouble.

 

Incredible Man on the other hand was enjoying his time; in fact, he had loved dancing in the dandelion field with Sylvester so much that they began dancing on anything they could find: grasslands, buttercups, that old lady’s rose garden. Everything.

The hero and villain! Who would have thought? After running off, they had forgotten about the sidekick, henchman and damsel. However, they were having too much fun to remember them.

 

After being abandoned at the secret lair, Jimmy and Igor were clueless of what to do. So they had begun talking to each other. It turned out that they had similar interests; they both had interests for the princess but despised the King. They both like jousting but Jimmy barracked for the Flaming Dragons and Igor liked the Nimble Unicorns. However, both loved romance literature.

Igor invited Jimmy to his hideout for some tea.

A little while later, there was a hard knock on the door. Igor opened it, ‘Yeth? Oh Damthel! Rothaline! What er… a pleathent thurprithe to er…’

‘Hush, you ugly hunchback.’ Rosaline tutted stepping inside.

‘No one insults my friend like that!’ Jimmy called and rushed to Igor and hugged him, ‘What do you want?’

She smiled, ‘I want you to come up with an idea to get me into trouble so I can get noticed by Incredible Man!’

Jimmy grimaced at her, ‘That is SICK!’ he cringed.

‘It’s perfect!’ she cried and cackled evilly.

The sidekick and the henchman looked at each other in disgust.

 

Not so long after, John and Sylvester were prancing on the dandelion field they danced on the first time.

‘I remember cracking a plan to lure the damsel to my secret lair a few months ago!’ Sylvester laughed, ‘I put roses in a line all the way! It was such a mind-boggling idea!’

‘I remember finding the dandelion field with my fellow sidekick and discovering the trail of roses going down to your lair!’ John beamed, ‘It was stupendous!’

‘And I remember,’ they said in unison, holding hands, ‘dancing on here for the FIRST TIME!’

They broke out in giggles, slapping each other playfully.

Suddenly they heard a terrified shriek coming not so far away. It was coming from the cliff on the dragon’s lair.

John’s hero instincts came into play; ‘Oho!’ he called heroically, ‘I hear a scream! It seems to be coming from… DRAGON MOUNAIN! I must go!’

‘But who is causing the danger?’ Sylvester quizzed, ‘Only the villain would do such things.’

‘You’re right.’ John said, ‘who is behind this?’

Both of them rushed all the way to the top of the mountain to find the damsel tied to a rope to a tree that was slowly uprooting. Leaning over the pit of which the dragon sat breathing fire and roaring.

‘My hero!’ she called, wriggling, ‘You finally came!’

‘Who is causing this?’ Incredible Man asked, looking around, ‘Villain! Show yourself!’

‘I’m right here though.’ Sylvester pointed out.

‘Not you, there must be someone else! Show yourself!’

‘Hi, John.’ said a small familiar voice.

‘Hi Thylvethtor.’ said another familiar voice.

‘James?’ John outraged.

‘Igor?’ Sylvester fumed.

‘What is the meaning of this absurdity?’ they said in unison. They smiled at each other, ‘Jinx! Double jinx!’

‘Enough!’ cried the damsel, ‘It was I, who came up with this plan, and I am going to get myself in danger so I can get the attention of you!’

John threw up his forearms, ‘That’s, that’s… wrong! You can’t do that!’

‘Yes I can!’ barked the damsel.

‘It’s wrong! You can’t be two things in one!

‘So what? I can be the damsel and the villain!’

‘THAT’S NOT HOW MELODRAMAS WORK.’

‘Welcome to my world!’ Rosaline probably felt tired of arguing and began to be overdramatic, ‘Oh would someone just save me already! I am terrified! The dragon is going to eat me! Oh someone save me!’

‘This is all very confusing.’ said Jimmy, Igor nodded.

‘We didn’t even want to help her.’ He said.

‘Yeah, it’s a bit over the top don’t you think?’ John said rubbing his neck, ‘I never really liked her anyway.’

‘Hel-loo someone needing to be saved over here!’ bored the damsel. Everyone ignored her.

Sylvester scratched the growing beard on his chin, ‘Now thinking about it, I feel stupid for wanting to catch her.’

‘You’re not stupid.’ said the hero over the pathetic cries of the maiden. He put a hand on the villain’s shoulder.

‘HeLP mE!’ came Rosaline again.

‘Would anyone like thome tea?’ Igor asked. Everyone smiled and nodded.

‘I would love some!’ John approved, still ignoring the overdramatic screams.

‘I too would like some.’ Sylvester said.

‘You’re really in for a treat!’ Jimmy grinned.

They all linked arms, turned and walked back to Igor’s home, leaving the damsel to deal with it herself.

And they all lived happily ever after.