Chapter 5

Chapter 5 Princess Pulverizer hid quietly on a tree branch and watched as a tailor dropped a doublet into a vat of steaming red dye in the yard behind his shop. The princess's heart pounded quickly as she watched the man stir the short padded jacket around in the giant tub. This was her first task since becoming a knight of Starats. She wanted it to go smoothly. "How's that doublet coming, Alistair?" asked another tailor, who was busy dyeing a tunic a rich royal blue next door in his own yard. "Not bad, Maddox," Alistair replied. "I'm just going to leave it here to soak while I finish

hemming a cloak for Lord Hucklebury. I'll be right back." "Okay." Maddox returned to stirring his bucket of blue dye. Princess Pulverizer was very impressed by the doublet Alistair was dyeing. From her perch in the tree, she could see the jacket had been made with great care. It would be a shame for it to be ruined.

Just then, the sun peeked out from behind a cloud. The bright light hit the opal brooch on Princess Pulverizer's chest. The pink-and-blue stone shimmered, catching the princess's eye. A dull look came over her. Maybe it wouldn't be a shame for the doublet to be ruined, after all. The princess took a flying leap into Alistair's yard. She landed silently, thanks to the ruby ring she wore. The ring had been a gift from the Queen of Shmergermeister. It gave whoever wore it the ability to move without making a sound. Quickly Princess Pulverizer dumped a package of bright yellow saffron powder into the giant tub and then hid behind a tree.

A moment later, Alistair returned to his yard to check on the doublet sitting in the large vat of dye. He took one look and his face turned bright red. "How could you do this?" he shouted at Maddox. "Do what?" Maddox asked. "Turn this dye from red to orange!" Alistair shouted. "I did no such thing," Maddox insisted.

"Well, it didn't do it to itself." Alistair pulled the doublet from the dye and hung it on the line. "Look at this. It's bright orange. It's supposed to be red." "It's not my fault," Maddox replied. Angrily, Alistair dipped a clay cup into the orange dye. He stormed over to his neighbor's yard and spilled the orange liquid into Maddox's vat. Maddox's face turned purple. So did the dye in his vat. "Look what you did to this tunic!" Maddox exclaimed. Maddox pulled a gray-purple tunic from his vat and hung it on the line. "It's ruined!" he cried out. "Even if I tried to add more blue dye, it would never be the right shade." Maddox went to his workbench, grabbed a glass of green dye, and splashed it on the orange doublet Alistair had hung on his line. "Take that!" Maddox shouted.

"Take this!" Alistair splashed pink dye on Maddox's purple tunic. Princess Pulverizer grinned as she watched the tailors splash color after color into each other's yards. Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Violet. What a mess. Yes! This was going exactly the way Elle had intended when she'd given Princess Pulverizer her orders. The men were angry. Their friendship was ruined. And so were the clothes they had hoped to sell. "You knew I needed to sell this doublet to fix the rain damage in my cottage. Thatched roofs don't come free," Alistair shouted angrily at Maddox. "Well, it's not like I'm rolling in silver coins," Maddox argued back. "I needed to sell this tunic to buy food." For a moment, Princess Pulverizer felt terrible about the trouble she'd caused. But then, the sun shone directly on the opal pin. The blue-and-pink stone sparkled. And for