Books by KAFE

For the real Josephine, who showed us what it meant to be fierce.

Long ago, in a kingdom known as Eldaria, in its capital province of Sherram, there was a dense forest, filled with trees and streams and flowers and small, furry creatures, the kind that made you want to pet them and then draw your hand away as soon as you realized how many untold diseases they could be carrying.

Eldaria was a small kingdom, and while Sherram was its largest province, woods still covered most of the land.  Originally the Eldarians had thought of clearing the forest and building a more civilized-looking capitol city, but they soon realized it was easier to have the children run back and forth in different directions until several paths were created, and post directional signs at each one.  Besides, they didn’t need a civilized-looking community – the people of Sherram were best described as rural, and they would be the first to tell you that they preferred the woods to sidewalks anyway.  Only the castle stood outside the edge of the forest, far enough away to denote its importance but close enough that the king could go skeet-shooting and hunting without having to travel too far in between.

It was in this forest on a clear, sunny day, that Josephine “Josie” Littlemore found herself desperately trying to keep her job.

“So, after I found the paint chips, I was able to release the bird back to its nest and then I came here as fast as I could.” Josie finished her story quickly as she willed herself not to dig a hole through the floor and escape the stare of her boss, who was now looking at her as if she had grown an extra head.

“Let me make sure I understand,” her boss, Mr. Grasswell, began. “You’re telling me that the reason you were so late for your deliveries today is because a pretty deer crossed your path, and you were so excited that you got distracted and tripped, dropping…”

“Paint chips,” Josie supplied.

“Right, paint chips, and then after you finished admiring the deer you noticed some chips were missing, so you were afraid a nearby bird had eaten them, so you…”

“…chased the bird until I could grab it and make sure it hadn’t eaten any of the chips. Plastic and birds do not mix. But, really, the paint chips had just blown under some leaves. So I let the bird go, delivered the bread to Mrs. Gumtill, and ran back here as quick as I could,” Josie finished, throwing her hands up in a flourish to emphasize her point.

Unfortunately, she was standing too close to a jar of gumballs on the counter, and smacked the jar with her outstretched hand. The jar threatened to topple for several seconds before finally tumbling to the ground, breaking off the lid and sending it spinning across the floor. The jar itself, thankfully, remained intact.

“Sorry!” Josie said quickly, reaching down and scooping up the jar. “Um, here you go.” She offered the jar to Mr. Grasswell, who made no move to take it from her.

“I’ll just hang onto this for now, then,” she said, opening up her delivery bag and dropping the heavy jar inside. She froze as she heard a ripping sound, and they both watched the jar tear through the bag and crash again on the floor, cracking in half and sending gumballs spilling out onto the floor.

For several moments, the only sounds were the gumballs rolling around the store. Mr. Grasswell didn’t say anything. He looked tired, but not the kind of tired where you just need to go to bed earlier. He looked like something was draining his will to live. Josie had a feeling that something was her. She waited, placing her hands behind her back, and tried not to make any sudden movements that might disturb him.

  “Josephine, I think you’re a lovely girl,” Mr. Grasswell said finally. He was rubbing his temples as if plagued by a sudden headache. Josie decided to keep quiet until he finished.

“But even though I think you’re very nice, you’re also… how to say this… the worst delivery person in my store.  Possibly in the entire kingdom,” he continued. “All of your deliveries for the past month have been unacceptably late; you always look like you just wandered out of a cave; last week, you scared Mrs. Sandfine out of her mind!”

“Well, she shouldn’t keep scary masks on her porch if she doesn’t want people trying them on.”

“I am not paying you to try on masks; I’m paying you to make deliveries!” By the end of his sentence, Mr. Grasswell’s voice had reached another octave entirely. He was quiet again and took several deep breaths, seemingly steeling himself for his next words. “I’m giving you another week. If any of the deliveries are late, broken, or involve sending clients to the palace doctor, then you’re going to have to find work somewhere else.” With that, Mr. Grasswell turned and disappeared inside his office behind the registers.

After waiting for a minute to make sure he wasn’t coming back out, Josie left the store, turning on the path that would take her home the fastest. She felt bad about being so late for her deliveries, but what did Mr. Grasswell expect her to do, not chase a bird that might have eaten some paint chips?

Sure, he acted like Josie was crazy, but if she hadn’t double-checked and someone had found a lone dead bird in the forest, they could have called the authorities – or worse, PETA. And then the whole kingdom would have had to sit through a series of the “Fowl Are Friends” seminars that the queen had put together two years ago. The seminars were mandatory, boring, and, worst of all, served the driest doughnuts anyone had ever tasted. People were inevitably cranky and depressed afterwards, which usually led to bar fights that ended in at least one person being temporarily exiled from the kingdom. Gang violence increased, church attendance decreased, and it always seemed to rain more than usual, too. The way Josie saw things, she was saving the citizens of Eldaria from a terrible fate, not to mention the extra taxes associated with exiling someone.

She was glad she’d recovered the paint chips, too – she needed them to finish a project she’d been working on and had spent hours picking them out at the Paint N’ Prime on Path Eight. Her last home project had resulted in a mild explosion that had left streaks of dark purple and hot pink through her long blonde hair, so this time around she’d made sure to pick colors that would go with the purple and pink, just in case. Since this particular project didn’t require her to be near any kind of flame whatsoever, in theory it would be harmless, but Josie had found it safest to never assume something couldn’t explode.

Josie rounded the last bend in the path, finally able to see her house. Technically it was her parents’ house, not hers, but Josie tried not to make that distinction unless asked directly, and even then she usually made up some lie about her parents being so unwell that she couldn’t bear to leave them. Not that she was ashamed of living with her parents – a lot of twenty-year-olds lived with their parents while going to school. Josie wasn’t technically going to school, either, but if someone were to assume that, what could she do?  She did, however, keep those assumptions alive by occasionally lamenting about how hard her correspondence classes were, carrying around and often dropping papers with math equations written on them, and on one occasion pretending to mourn the death of a fake college professor, dear Dr. Wallaby.

It had been suggested to Josie more than once by her parents that she might enjoy going to a real university and that perhaps she should at least apply and see if anything came of it. Josie had always promised to look into it and then changed the subject to something really controversial, like the King’s vacation schedule, to distract her parents until they forgot they had ever mentioned it to her. Then they remembered the next week and the whole thing started all over again.

In truth, she really didn’t want to go to a university at all – she wanted to explore the world. Or at least explore the other side of the river that separated Sherram from the nearest province. The farthest Josie had ever gone was the bridge that arched over the river at the border of the province immediately neighboring her own to the west, and that was only once.

The kingdom of Eldaria was made up of seven provinces, arranged in a neat circle. Sherram, the capitol province, had been her home forever. It was the province everyone wanted to move to, with good schools and the best concert venues. Plus, the royal family lived there.

Josie loved her home. She just knew there was even more waiting for her in the other provinces, even though she’d never been to any of them.. 

But she wanted to go back to that bridge, and she wanted to cross to the next province, and meet new people and see new things, and she wanted to do it all while not worrying about homework the whole time. Unfortunately, trips like those always required money, not to mention some kind of worldly know-how, and Josie had none of either. She worked part-time for Mr. Grasswell, but she didn’t get paid much, and most of what she made was used to replace or fix things she broke on the job anyway. Like Mrs. Sandfine’s eggs. And her masks. And her cat.

 So, more recently, she’d started to think of other ways to make money in her free time. Her brief stint as a babysitter for her neighbors, the Willtrousers, had ended after Christmas when she’d accidentally locked herself out of the house and left the children inside alone for an hour. The children, two young teenagers whose parents were away for the weekend, weren’t harmed, but instead snuck out of the house, joined a traveling circus, and sent letters back to their parents explaining how Josie had inspired them to follow their dreams when teaching them how to do a cartwheel. Josie tried to explain that she had been teaching them to do round offs, not cartwheels, and that no respectable circus would hire someone just to do round offs. But the parents would have none of it and spread the word that Josephine Littlemore inspired bright children to escape their families and bring untold shame on the community.

Her next idea hadn’t gone any better – she had tried to sell skin-care products door-to-door after reading an ad in the kingdom’s only newspaper, the Eldaria Embellisher, that promised fast cash. But after her first day she had received several angry letters from her new clients, claiming their skin had been turned an unsightly green color. Josie, in turn, had written to the skin-care company, but received a letter in return stating they were no longer available at this address, and did she want to leave a message?

It was safe to say – actually, it was extremely accurate to say – that Josie still hadn’t made any money. But her newest idea, her best idea, was sure to work. It had come to her a few months ago in a flash: What is the one thing that everyone longs to win, that they get unusually excited about, that they outwardly judge others for participating in but secretly long to have the courage to participate themselves, and that almost always come with tons of cash?

Contests. Writing contests, art contests, talent contests, potato chip look-a-like contests – Josie had decided to try them all. Every day for months she had run to the printing press to grab the first newspaper of the day, spread it out on the floor in her room, and circled any contest she was able to compete in. Businesses throughout the province were constantly holding contests of some kind. So far, she had entered one-hundred and eight contests in three months – a Tri-Kingdom record, according to the Klaussenbeier Report of Kingdom Accomplishments, which ran in the Embellisher once a quarter.

Unfortunately, she also held the record for the highest number of lost contests (one-hundred and eight), which was apparently one of the greatest statistical anomalies found in the area, simultaneously putting Josie in the running for a third record: the “Wow, Seriously?” category, added to the Klaussenbeier Report two years earlier when the postman in the Rackenlades Province had been struck with lightning eight times in one day. 

But Josie wasn’t ready to give up yet. After losing nineteen contests in a row the month before, she had decided to skip the more traditional contests altogether and focus on the ones that would really show off her unique skills. Those were the contests with the most prize money anyway. Pottery had been a bust; too much could go wrong and possibly explode, as she had discovered last time. Her entry for the Most Original Pie Flavor contest hadn’t gone too well, either – the contest officials had threatened to sue, and refused to send her pie back to her but instead insisted on having it disposed of by a hazardous materials management team.  

Following that disaster, Josie had determined that oven-related projects weren’t her forte, either, so as of this month she was focusing solely on flame-free arts and crafts contests. It was too hot in the summer to work with the stove, anyway. Josie had scoured the newspaper until she had found the perfect contest: Crocheting a one-hundred-and-twelve-foot scarf.  

Every year, the Queen held a crocheting contest – last year it had been to see who could crochet the most winter hats in twelve hours, and the year before the contestants were told to use as many colors as they could in one medium-sized sweater. This year, the Queen had decided to see who could crochet the longest scarf in two weeks. The winner would win a sizable amount of money, would have their portrait painted and hung in the Royal Contest Winner’s Room at the castle, and would receive a lifetime supply of pancake mix from Pam’s Pancakes, a local business just down the road from Mr. Grasswell’s shop. Josie couldn’t care less about the portrait, and was only mildly excited about the pancake mix (she was more of a cereal eater), but the prize money was more than enough to fund her trip around the world.

So far, her navy scarf measured about ninety feet, and she still had one week left to finish it. She had decided to make hers one-hundred-and-twelve feet because she figured most people would aim for something like one-hundred feet, or maybe the really ambitious ones would try for one-hundred-ten. The extra couple of feet on the end of her scarf would solidify her win.  She had also chosen her colors carefully – navy worked for men and women, and the red stars she was adding every few inches would really pop against the dull coloring of winter. The contest was supposed to be about length and not color, but she figured it couldn’t hurt to make it presentable.

Josie didn’t think of herself as arrogant, but as she admired her scarf in the fading light from her window, she had to admit – it looked pretty good. She was certain to blow her competitors away. Plus, this year there were only three other people competing because the Super Seniors Club for the older members of the community was on a week-long fishing trip – most of the best crocheters in the kingdom were on that trip and wouldn’t be back until after the contest was over. And the other three opponents weren’t exactly formidable: Janie Moonpillar was only seven and thought that hot pink and orange went with everything; Ralph Swagbarter’s arthritis was acting up and he had taken to gluing the fabric together; Maggie Broomfellow had gotten mixed up and spent the first week working on the most colorful sweater the kingdom had ever seen before someone told her she had the wrong contest, and now her scarf was only two feet long.

Technically, every province was invited to participate, but only the people of Sherram ever did. As far as Josie could tell, there wasn’t any real challenge to winning this contest.

But just in case, she grabbed her favorite crochet hook and sat down in the middle of the room – she was going to make it to one-hundred-twelve feet no matter what. Maybe even one-hundred-thirteen. Josie paused for a moment, imagining what it would feel like to have the Queen hand her the prize money while the whole kingdom clapped for her, watching her accept the prize graciously, leap onto her wild stallion waiting nearby, and set off to explore distant lands. She would have to find a wild stallion first, but that didn’t stop her from picturing the scene over and over again. The whole world was waiting