Chapter 1-6

CHAPTER SIX The benefits of heing different When the king heard what had happened, he went bananas. There was no chance that he was going to let Florizella out now. He had been so sure that Bennett was going to rescue her, he was even prepared to overlook the way the prince had bothered him so early in the morning. But for the

第六章 与众不同的好处。国王听说了发生的事，气得快要发疯。 他现在是绝对不可能放弗洛里泽拉出去了。 他本来都笃定班尼特会来救她，甚至都打算不计较王子大清早过来打扰他的事了。 可王子居然

prince to leave without taking Princess Florizella with him, breaking all the traditions of fairy stories and happy endings! "Amateur!" he snapped and stumped off to the garden to prune the roses. "Half-hearted," he said with a snip. "Half-witted, more like," he said, taking off another flower. There wasn't a single rose blooming by lunchtime, but the king was feeling a lot better. Until the messenger came, that is. It was one of Prince Bennett's trumpeters. She came Tooroo, Toorooing into the courtyard in a terrible hurry, scaring the hens half to death and setting the guard dogs barking. "Prince Bennett has been captured!" she shouted. "He was on his way home when he was captured by a dragon in the Purple Forest!" Everyone came running at once. Florizella opened her window to listen. The messenger told them that the great two-headed dragon of the Purple Forest had jumped out at the prince and his courtiers, and everyone had ridden away as fast as they could except for Prince Bennett,

没带走弗洛里泽拉公主就走了，这可是打破了童话故事和幸福结局的所有传统啊！ “太不专业了！” 他怒气冲冲地吼着，跺着脚走到花园里去剪玫瑰。 “一点都不上心。”他咔嚓剪了一下，念叨着。 “我看啊，根本就是缺心眼。”他说着，又剪掉了一朵花。 到午饭的时候，一朵开着的玫瑰都没剩下，国王的心情倒是舒畅多了。 哦对了，这份舒畅截止到信使出现之前。 信使是班尼特王子手下的号手之一。 她吹着“嘟嘟、嘟嘟”的号急急忙忙冲进院子，把母鸡吓得半死，还惹得护卫犬汪汪直叫。 “班尼特王子被抓住了！” 她大喊道。 “他在回家的路上，被紫森林里的龙抓走了！” 大家立刻都跑了过来。 弗洛里泽拉推开窗户探出头听着。 信使告诉大家，紫森林里的双头巨龙突然跳出来袭击王子和他的随从，所有人都拼命骑马逃跑，只有班尼特王子留了下来，

whose horse reared and dropped him right at the dragon's feet. Bennett had bent his sword in the fall and couldn't draw it from the scabbard! As he lay there, stunned and helpless ('Amateur!" the king exclaimed. "As I said. Nincompoop!'), the dragon had picked him up and tied him to a tree, using all sorts of particularly difficult knots, and was sitting beside him, waiting for forty-eight hours (according to Dragon Association Rules) for the rescue party to arrive, before eating the prince up– every little bit of him except, possibly, the bent sword. "Ooo!" said Florizella, privately rather pleased at hearing this, and she leaned out of the window and whistled a loud, clear whistle that Jellybean could hear wherever he happened to be. He was in his stable and had to back up against the far wall and take a little run at the door and rear up to jump over it, and then he came galloping round and crashed to a stop under Florizella's window. Florizella grabbed her sword and her dagger, and a spare sword for Prince Bennett (which she kept in the wardrobe in the space for the long dresses)

他的马受惊直立起来，把他正好甩到了龙的脚边。 班尼特摔的时候把剑弄弯了，根本没法从剑鞘里拔出来！ 他晕乎乎地躺在地上，一点反抗能力都没有（“太不专业了！” 国王大叫起来。 “我刚才就说过。 真是个蠢货！”），龙把他抓起来，用了好几种特别难解开的结把他绑在树上，然后就坐在他旁边，按照龙族协会的规则要等四十八小时，等救援队来，之后就把王子吃个精光——可能除了那把弯剑之外，一点都不剩。 “哇！”弗洛里泽拉说道，心里听到这个消息还挺高兴的，她探出窗户，吹了个又响又清亮的口哨，不管软糖（ Jellybean）在哪都能听得见。 软糖正在马厩里，它得先退到最里面的墙边，小跑一段冲起来，再抬着蹄子跳过马厩门，接着哒哒哒狂奔过来，猛地停在弗洛里泽拉的窗下。 弗洛里泽拉抓起自己的剑和匕首，还有给班尼特王子准备的备用剑（她放在衣柜里放长裙的空格里）

and shinned down the drainpipe as quickly as she could. She dropped on to Jellybean's back and galloped as fast as she could to the Purple Forest, steering Jellybean with the halter rope and clinging on tightly to the two swords. She saw the dragon before he saw her. He had dozed off while he was waiting, with an alarm clock in one of his great green ears to wake him when the forty-eight hours were up. His snores bent the tallest trees of the Purple Forest and made a noise like a thousand thunderstorms. His reeking, smoky breath scorched all the grass and flowers and bushes for three miles around, so that Jellybean snorted and shivered at the dreadful smell of burning. Bennett was tied to a tree with fiendishly complicated dragon knots, looking rather white and scared. But as soon as he saw Florizella, he whispered as softly as he could, "Florizella! Untie me, quick!"

然后尽可能快地顺着排水管爬了下去。 她跳到软糖的背上，催着马尽全力往紫森林跑，手里抓着两根剑，用缰绳控制着软糖的方向。 她先看到了龙，龙还没发现她。 龙等着等着就打盹睡着了，一只绿色的大耳朵里还塞着个闹钟，等四十八小时到了就会叫醒他。 他的鼾声把紫森林里最高的树都吹弯了，声音响得像是上千个雷同时炸响。 他呼出来的气又臭又冒烟，把周围三英里的草、花和灌木丛都烤焦了，软糖闻到这股可怕的烧焦味，忍不住喷着鼻息，浑身发抖。 班尼特被超复杂的龙结绑在树上，脸色发白，看起来怕得不行。 可他一看到弗洛里泽拉，就尽量放轻声音小声说：“弗洛里泽拉！ 快给我松绑！”

Florizella had a look at the knots as she jumped out of the saddle and thought it would take her all of the forty-eight hours to get even one of them undone and, drawing her sharp sword, she cut through the rope. She and Bennett were just about to get up on Jellybean and gallop away, when…… the dragon woke up!

弗洛里泽拉跳下马背，看了一眼那些结，觉得就算花整整四十八小时，说不定连一个结都解不开，于是她拔出锋利的剑，直接把绳子砍断了。 她和班尼特刚要爬上软糖的背跑走，就在这时……龙醒了！