Knights of the Kitchen Table (3 page)

“All hail, Sir Fred,” I said.

“All hail,
Sir-eek,”
said Sam.

“Sir Eek?”

Sam pointed to the edge of the clearing.

Three more knights on horses, with swords drawn, were galloping down the path toward us.

FOUR

The three knights charged. Ten feet away, they stopped. The lead knight, carrying a white shield with a red cross, raised a huge sword over his head and ... and ... and said, “Hail, Sir Fred.”

“Hail, Sir Fred,” said the two knights behind him.

“Whew,” said Sam.

“Whew?” asked the tall knight with the red-cross shield.

“He means Whew and Greetings, Sir Knights. Are we glad to see you,” I said.

“Praise Jesu, but you sirs speak fair strange as thy dress. You must be of very strong magic to vanquish yon Black Knight with a mere oaken staff.”

The pile of armor wiggled a leg and moaned.

“For he hast slew many of our good knights of the Round Table.”

“For real? The Round Table?” I said.

“Aye. Know you of our Fellowship?”

“What did he say?” asked Fred.

“Have we ever heard of them,” I whispered. And then I answered, “Are you kidding? King Arthur and all that stuff? Of course we’ve heard of you guys.”

“Kidding? Stuff? What sayeth he?” asked the red-cross knight’s friend.

“Methinks they know of us,” whispered the tall one.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ve read all about you guys—the sword in the stone, Lancelot and Guenevere, Merlin the Magician.”

“Read? Thou reads the written word as Merlin does?”

“Well mostly
Daredevil, Superman,
and X-
Men,”
said Sam.

“X-Men?” asked the white knight’s pal.

“Books of spells or fellow wizards, no doubt,” said the white knight. “Faith, it must be a sign. You enchanters three have been sent to deliver us of our troubles. I am Sir Lancelot. These are my companions, Sir Percival and Sir Gawain.”

“Sir Lancelot?” I gasped. This guy was supposed to be the greatest knight who ever lived, except for maybe his son, Sir Galahad. And here he was, asking us to help him.

“Well, I am Joe ... uh, Sir Joe the Magnificent,” I said, borrowing my uncle’s stage name. “These are my companions, Sir Fred the Awesome, and Sir Sam the, ummm ... Sir Sam the Unusual.”

Sam gave me a nasty look.

“Welcome, enchanters. But we have not a moment to lose,” said Lancelot. “Camelot is be sieged by Smaug the Dragon from the West and by Bleob the Giant from the East. Mount behind us. We ride at once.”

“Huh?” said Fred, still striking a heroic pose on the Black Knight’s chest.

“He said if we hitch a ride with them, we can go to King Arthur’s castle and fight a dragon and a giant.”

“That’s great,” said Sam. “You invite us to a birthday party, almost get us run through by a Black Knight, and now you get us into a fight with a dragon and a giant. Remind me not to come to any more of your parties, Sir Joe the Magnificent.”

We hopped on the horses behind Sir Lancelot, Sir Percival, and Sir Gawain.

“But dragons and giants and things like that aren’t for real,” said Fred.

“I didn’t think the Knights of the Round Table were for real, either,” I said. “But if they’re not, who are we riding behind? And where are we going?”

FIVE

Fred, Sam, and I stood in the middle of the Great Hall of Camelot. Torches sputtered on stone walls that disappeared high in the darkness above. Knights and ladies dressed in robes and cloaks of all colors surrounded us. Dogs and little kids ran in and out of the crowd.

“Welcome, enchanters,” said a. tall, serious-looking fellow. It had to be King Arthur. Who else would be wearing a crown and sitting on a throne in the middle of Camelot? “Sir Lancelot tells me thou has rid us of that scourge, the Black Knight. How can we show our thanks?”

“Oh, thankest you, Your Honor, I mean Your Sire, Your Majesty,” I said in my best old-time English. “That was mostly Sir Fred’s work.”

Fred raised his stick and took a bow. The crowd
oohed
and
ahhed.

“Maybe you could help us out, King, sir, uh, Sire,” I said. “See, we were in the middle of a birthday party at my house and we’d like to get back before the ice cream melts. Do you know the way to New York?”

King Arthur slid his crown back and scratched his head. “York, yes. But New York, New York?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” said Sam.

“Hmmm. The name ringeth no chimes. Merlin, knowest thou this place, New York?”

An old guy in a long blue-black robe and tall cone hat shuffled forward. He looked us over with flashing green eyes that gave me the willies.

“I know not New York. But methinks these three be poor enchanters who cannot find their own way home.”

The surrounding crowd murmured.

“Nasty old coot,” whispered Fred. “Who asked him to butt in? Maybe I should just give him a whack with my stick before he gives us any more trouble.”

“Another great idea from the mind of Sir Fred,” whispered Sam. “Hit the King’s magician. I’m sure he won’t mind. He’d probably reward us with a place to stay for the rest of our lives. A place like a dungeon, maybe.”

I could see we were losing the crowd. I had to do something, fast.

“Oh, we’re enchanters all right,” I said. “I am Sir Joe the Magnificent.”

The crowd
ahhed.
We had them back.

“Would you show us some small spell of enchantment for our amusement, Sir Joe the Magnificent?” asked Merlin. And then he stood there, giving us one of those looks teachers give when they ask you a question they know you could never answer in a million years.

“Yes, please show us a spell,” said the lady sitting next to King Arthur. Queen Guenevere. How could I turn down the Queen?

“Spell, you say?” My palms got sweaty while I stalled for time, trying to think. “Yes, a little spell.”

“Spells? Oh, yeah. Oh, sure,” said Sam. “Sir Joe the Magnificent here is a regular magician.”

I thought of Uncle Joe.

“Magic? Of course. Bring me cards.”

The court jester brought a deck of cards with all sorts of crazy pictures on them. There were no suits or numbers that I could tell. Just a lot of strange pictures.

I shuffled the cards and pressed the deck to my forehead like the real Joe the Magnificent did at his shows. “Yes, I am feeling the power of the cards, now. Could I have a volunteer from the audience?”

The Queen stepped forward. She stood right next to me and I thought I would faint, she was so beautiful. No wonder Lancelot was crazy about her.

I reshuffled the cards and tried to concentrate on the trick. “Just a deck of cards. Nothing up my sleeve. Now you see ‘em. Now you don’t.” I fanned out the deck facedown. “Pick a card. Any card.” Sam groaned. Guenevere picked. “Show everyone the card, please.” And while everyone looked at the Queen’s card, I snuck a peek at the card I would put right in front of hers. It was a guy hanging upside down.

“Now place it back in the deck. And I will have the cards speak to me, and tell me which one of them you picked.”

I carefully reshuffled the deck to keep the Hanged Man in front of Queen Guenevere’s card. Then I muttered all of the magic words I could think of. “Hocus-pocus. Presto, change-o. Open sesame. The cards are about to speak.” I flipped the cards slowly and made a big deal of listening to each one just like Uncle Joe did. The crowd wasn’t making a sound. I flipped the Hanged Man. I flipped the next card, listened to it for an extra second, and then held it up. “Your card, my lady.”

“The Magician card. ‘Tis truth,” said Guenevere.

The crowd cheered.

Guenevere kissed me.

I turned to iellv.

“Faith, sir. A fair little trick,” croaked that killjoy, Merlin. “But can thou do a true enchantment? A spell to change man to frog, or to vanish in thin air?”

The challenge hung there like a bad smell in a phone booth. The crowd went silent, waiting for our answer. Suddenly, a messenger burst through the doors at the far end of the Great Hall.

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Bleob the Giant stands at the very castle door. He demands three fair damsels to eat instantly.”

King Arthur looked worried. The fair damsels in the crowd looked worse than that.

Another messenger dashed into the hall, nearly running over the first. “Smaug the Dragon has been seen flying from the West. He will be at the castle walls in minutes.”

“Aha,” said Merlin with that evil-teacher voice and smile again. “Here is a perfect test for our enchanters.”

“Go ahead and hit him with your stick, Fred,” said Sam. “At least we’ll be safe from giants and dragons down in the dungeon.”

Fred lifted his stick.

“No, no. We can’t do that,” I said.

“What do you suggest we do, Mr. Magnificent?” said Sam.

I looked at Merlin, then at Queen Guenevere.

“I think we should go find out if dragons and giants are for real.”

SIX

Now, you’ve probably read about giants in fairy tales. And you’ve probably seen giants in comic books and cartoons. But you haven’t really experienced giants until you’ve met one up close. And once you’ve done that, believe me, you would be perfectly happy to never, ever meet another one.

I knew giants were big.

I had no idea they were so disgusting.

We stood on one side of the castle moat with King Arthur, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table. Bleob stood on the other. He was a terrifying sight. And an even more terrifying smell.

He towered at least twenty feet, wore no clothes except two bloody ox hides tied around his waist, and hid the largest and ugliest face I have ever seen behind a crazy mess of black hair. Rotted bits of meat and bone, tree branches, giant drool, and cow manure drew a cloud of flies around his beard. If the sight of Bleob wasn’t enough to make you cry, the smell of him definitely was.