Tale #45 -- Carol's Excellent Adventure -- Part 3

The Tournament

After King Arthur's birthday feast, Carol was taken to a beautiful bedroom in the palace. The next day, the queen's seamstresses started making her new clothes. When the day of the tournament came, Carol's maidservants got her ready for the show.

"You are so lucky to have Lancelot as your champion," one of the maids said. "He always wins all the events. You will surely be crowned queen of the tournament."

"Lancelot?" Carol asked. "That knight was Lancelot? I thought Lancelot would be bigger than the others."

"He's small," the maid said, "but he's very strong and quick."

Soon, one of the squires arrived to escort Carol to the tournament. Arthur had reserved a place of honour for her. She felt very excited when she saw Lancelot riding into the arena with her hair ribbon on his helmet, fluttering in the wind.

It was a very long day. First the knights tried to knock each other off their horses with long sticks called lances. Then they fought with swords and other weapons. Finally, they had a big fight for everybody called a grande mêlée. If a knight was knocked off his horse, the one who defeated him could keep his horse and armour.

Just as the maids predicted, Lancelot won every contest and got thirteen new horses and with their saddles and bridles and their owners' armour. King Arthur presented him with the grand prize -- a feather made of gold. Then Lancelot returned Carol's hair ribbon to her and kissed her hand.

Everyone cheered when she was crowned queen of the tournament.

"Long live Queen Carol!"


"That was very nice," Carol said after she read the story. "But I still want to know how she got home."

"Maybe she didn't want to go," Ben said.

"Of course she did! She missed her friends, her TV programs, her parents . . ."

"And her little brother?" Ben asked.

Carol hit him with a pillow. "Of course she missed her brother! And he missed her too."

"No, he didn't," Ben said. "No time passed at home while she was away -- remember?"

"I forgot that," Carol said. "But there's another problem. If she doesn't get home soon, she'll be older. If she waits too long, she might even be grown up, and her family won't recognize her."

"I don't know how she gets home," Ben said. "Do you have any ideas?"

Carol thought and thought. "Maybe Merlin can help her," she said.

"Merlin the magician?" Ben said. "That's a great idea." He went to the computer and started writing.

The Lonely Countess

"What's the matter, milady?" Carol's maid asked as she was fixing her hair. "You look sad."

King Arthur had given Carol a beautiful house and estate and lots of servants. She had clothes and banquets and a group of musicians to play for her whenever she wanted. She was taking dancing lessons and learning all about being a lady. She received lots of invitations to Camelot and the homes of the nobles. She was very popular at court and many handsome young men asked her to dance. It was an exciting life, but she was becoming more miserable every day.

"I am lonely," Carol said. "I miss my friends and family."

"Where do they live?" the maid said. "You could travel there for a visit."

"It's more complicated than that," Carol said. "I come from another time."

The maid's eyes grew round. "Another time? That is too much for me to understand. You should consult a magician."

The next time Carol was at court, she asked King Arthur to help her get home. He said, "I will miss you, my dear, but I don't want you to be unhappy." He called Merlin, the greatest magician in the world, and asked him to help Carol.

Merlin talked to Carol and made a lot of calculations. Then he spent several days preparing powerful spells. Finally, everything was ready.

"We can send Countess Carol home tomorrow," he told King Arthur.

"Thank you for your efforts," King Arthur said. Then he sent a message to Carol. "Come to Merlin's tower tomorrow morning. But before you go, please bake some more cookies." Carol had taught the palace cooks how to make them, but King Arthur said that they were never quite as delicious as Carol's.

Carol was so excited that she could not sleep. She spent the whole night baking cookies for the king. He was very surprised when she arrived in the morning.

"So many cookies!" he said. "Thank you very much. I hope you come back some day to visit."

Merlin took Carol into his inner sanctum -- the private room in the highest castle tower where nobody else was allowed. He threw magic powder on Carol and chanted and chanted. Just when Carol was ready to give up, she started to feel dizzy. Soon she was back in Dr. Zur's laboratory.

"How was it?" Professor Zur asked as he opened the chamber door. "Was the experiment a success?"

"You bet!" Carol said. She told him all about her adventures. While she was talking, the chamber started to shake and rattle.

"We'd better get out of here," Professor Zur said. He took Carol's hand and pulled her out of the laboratory. When they got outside, there was a big bang in the laboratory.

After a while, they went back inside. The laboratory was a smoky mess. The time-travel chamber had exploded.

"Oh my!" Carol said. "I guess we won't be time travelling anytime soon."

Professor Zur spent several days trying to figure out what went wrong. Carol made lots of chocolate chip cookies to cheer him up. One day, as he was munching on a cookie, he shouted, "EUREKA!"

"Eureka?" Carol asked. "What in the world does that mean?"

"Eureka is a Greek word that means I've got it! or I've figured it out. The ancient Greek scientist Archimedes yelled it when he discovered his famous principle in the bathtub and ran down the street naked," Professor Zur explained. He talked on and on about temporal strings and fuzzy logic and quantum mechanics. Carol didn't know what he was talking about, but she decided it was safer not to interrupt.

When Professor Zur finally finished talking, Carol said, "That was much too complicated for me. Could you explain it to me in simple language?"

"There were no chocolate chip cookies in King Arthur's time," Professor Zur said. "When you baked them for the king, you introduced them into the timeline and created a temporal paradox. As a result, my machine exploded because it didn't really exist."

"It's my fault?" Carol said. "Oh, I'm sorry! I was just trying to help."

"I know that," Professor Zur said. "Don't worry about it. That's how scientific research is. Two steps forward, one step back. I'll keep working on it."