Ogres Have Feelings Too

• Joel Grondman, Grade 2
• Short Story
• 2016

One morning Queen Caroline decided to take her daily stroll into the woods. Every day she enjoyed walking her German short-haired pointer dog called Digger through the woods and looking at the beautiful flowers.

Suddenly, as they were walking, a fox crossed their path because he was chasing a rabbit. Her dog Digger thought it would be fun to chase the fox and off he went after the two running wild animals. Caroline didn’t want to lose her dog, so she chased after Digger, who was chasing after the fox, who was chasing after the rabbit.

After half an hour of running, the queen realized that she was in a darker part of the forest and she could not find her dog. Suddenly she heard bleating, turned to the right and noticed a frightened goat being eaten by a scaly ogre.

Caroline ran back the way she came, as fast as she could. Soon she found her dog puffing on some grass and picked up his lead and took him into a nearby cave to rest and think.
She remembered that she had her mobile phone with her and knew that it had a GPS in it that she could use to get home safely. Once she plugged her address into the phone, she realised she was actually quite close to the town and could be home soon. She grabbed Digger and sprinted home.

Meanwhile, while she was in the forest, the knights were getting worried about where she was. They went to look for their queen. They followed one track around a big group of trees, but unfortunately missed the queen because she went on the other side of the trees.

When the knights couldn’t find the queen, they travelled deeper into the forest and got more worried. Soon, they met the ogre who was still eating the goat. The knights quickly speared the ogre and the ogre cried and ran into his cave. The knights continued to look for the queen until it became dark and then they returned to the castle.

When the knights returned, they found that the queen was safely back at the castle. The king was interested in what had happened to the ogre, especially when the knights told him that they had speared him and he had run away.

Queen Caroline felt sorry for the ogre. She wondered if the ogre was really badly hurt. She asked one of the servants if the doctor was available. The servant told her that the doctor was around and she sent the servant to find her. They eventually found Dr. Patchitup having lunch in her office.
The queen instructed the doctor to come with her into the forest to check up on the ogre. She also took the knights to show her where the ogre’s cave was. The next day, they found the sad ogre lying in his cave. They tried to cheer him up by giving him some food and he grew to trust the two women.

Dr Patchitup examined the ogre and found that he two huge splinters, one in his arm and one in his leg. The doctor gave him an injection to put him to sleep and she operated on him to take out the huge splinters. They waited with the ogre until he woke up and showed him that the splinters were out. Because they showed him kindness, the ogre became their friend.

The queen, the doctor and the knights all returned to the palace. The queen gave a speech to her citizens about the poor ogre in the forest. She explained that the ogre was friendly and that no one in the kingdom was allowed to hurt him. In fact, she gave him a job at the palace. Because he was very big and very strong, his job was to open and close the gates every time the knights needed to go out to battle in the fields.

So from that time on the ogre came into the town every day to be the gate monitor. The children liked visiting him and climbing on his back and the knights liked that they didn’t have to open the gate every day. Everybody lived happily ever after.