Chapter 7: The Plan

A rough paw clumsily drew the curtain at the tent entrance aside, and for a moment, the chubby profile of Edward the Sentry Bear was silhouetted sharply against the setting sun.  Edward bowed with the grudging grunt of a bear whose belly is a little to large for comfortable obeisance, and he moved aside to make way for the three princesses.  Carrie, Samantha, and Anna each stepped into the tent in turn, ducking slightly to avoid catching their heads on the curtain.  Ken shuffled slowly behind them.  His left leg was sticking out at an awkward angle.

Anna paused to let Ken catch up, and then she turned toward Johnny and curtsied.  "Thank you for your generous hospitality, Your Highness," she said.

The prince rose, bowed politely, and offered them a seat on a pile of velvet cushions in the corner of the tent.   It was traditional Doll Kingdom hospitality, but as the princesses sank awkwardly into the mound of foam and velvet, they wished they could have had instead the wooden chair on which Phoebe was perched in the corner. There was a moment's tussle against gravity and foam.  Arms flailed about helplessly as the girls fought to maintain a dignified distance from the floor.

"You slept well?" Johnny inquired when they had ceased struggling against the sinking pillow pile.

"Very well indeed," Anna said.  "It was the first good night's rest I have had since the Barbies overthrew Norland."

"And you?" He turned to Carrie and Samantha.  "You are feeling better?"

"Much better, thank you," Carrie replied.

"Is he alright?" Johnny gestured toward Ken who was splayed out on a cushion in the corner with his leg nearly perpendicular to his body.  Ken was the only one who did not seem to care whether he stayed upright.  At the moment, he was pondering the striped pattern on the ceiling.

"I'm afraid his leg is giving him some trouble," Anna said.  She reached over and laid a consoling hand on Ken's forehead.  "He thinks he probably slept on it wrong.  But it should be better after he walks on it for a while."

"Excellent." Johnny motioned toward the map on the table.  "Phoebe and I have been discussing battle strategy, but I fear we are no closer to having a plan.  In our previous conference, you said we were outnumbered."

"I fear it is true, Your Highness."  Carrie shook her head miserably.  "How many soldiers do you have under your command?"

"Ninety-five."

"Does that figure include a near-sighted sheep?"

The prince flushed slightly and averted his eyes.  "Shep has his talents.  Most of them more fit for ... um... a peaceful farming life, perhaps."

"So ninety-four."

"For all practical purposes, yes."

"We are outnumbered ten to one, at least!" Samantha exclaimed.

In the silence that followed, everyone pondered these odds with a sense of growing dread.  Carrie, Samantha, and Anna gazed at each other in despair.  When they had first stumbled into the Doll Kingdom camp, they had felt fortune favoring them at last.  But now, it seemed that even this hope had been squashed like the pillows underneath them.  A small band of knights and archers and an elderly sheep were no match for the vast Barbarian army.  It would be madness to even attempt an attack.

"I ... I suppose we had better retreat then." Carrie choked out the words over the lump in her throat.  "Perhaps at... at... your castle, a defense could be mounted...."

"NEVER RETREAT!"

The whole company started and turned to see Phoebe.  She had leaped to her feet and was standing in the corner of the tent with her fist raised, her black curls frizzed out wildly behind her.  Her eyes glowed with battle glory as the song of the minstrel played triumphantly in her mind.

"My wife is right," Johnny observed calmly.  "It is too early to talk about retreat!"

Phoebe nodded firmly and resumed her chair, drumming her fingers cheerfully on the table to keep time with the ballad.

"What we need is some advantage," the prince continued.  "Some edge over our enemy.  Can you give me anything?  Is there some weakness among the Barbies that we can use to our advantage?  Is there a division in their ranks?  A particular lapse in their battle strategies?  Anything?"

The princesses all thought hard.

"They sleep at night..." Samantha ventured.

"No good at all," said Anna. "They always post their Kens as sentries."

"Well, the Kens then," said Carrie.  "They are not very bright."  She glanced at Ken. "No offense."

Ken did not even seemed to notice the remark.  He was swinging his sore leg slowly back and forth  over his head as if trying to work out the kinks.

"Kens are not particularly intelligent, but they are loyal," Anna observed thoughtfully.  "I do not think they approve of the looting, but even so, they would warn the Barbies of an attack.  Perhaps the greed of the Barbies is a weakness, if only we can think how to exploit it.  They do love clothes more than anything in the world."

"I would think they love their shoes most of all," Ken suddenly remarked, flexing his knee first one way and then another distractedly.

"Will that help us?" Johnny inquired.

"No!" Anna declared, her voice edged in frustration.  "It only makes the Barbies more horrible!"

Ken raised his head from the cushion to fix her with a slightly injured expression.  "Well, you can hardly blame the Barbies, dearest Anna.  Their feet are so deformed from walking in those spiky shoes that they cannot unbend their ankles.  They must have their shoes or they can barely hobble around on their toes."

This was a long speech for Ken.  He sank back on his pillow in exhaustion at the end of it.

The rest of the company stared at him.

"Are you saying..." began Phoebe.

"... that the Barbies..." broke in Johnny.

"... CANNOT FIGHT WITHOUT THEIR SHOES?" they both exclaimed in unison.

Ken, who had drifted into staring at the striped pattern of the tent roof again, glanced at Anna in consternation, unsure how to handle the fact that the conversation was still going on and had now turned in his direction.

Anna struggled out of the depths of her cushion and knelt down beside him.  "Ken, dear," she said gently, "are you quite sure of what you are saying?  The Barbies have deformed feet?"


Ken seemed encouraged by her demeanor.  He sat up with new confidence.  "Yes, Anna, my sweet.  Have you never notice how they stagger when they take their shoes off?  They cannot unbend their ankles.  Tiffany's third cousin Chelsea once lost a whole trunk of shoes in a river, and her Ken had to carry her for three days until new shoes were finished.  It would have only taken three hours, but she insisted on having them embroidered with 120 pink pearls.  We could not find a pink oyster, and there was all kinds of trouble."

The four princesses and the prince glanced at each other with new hope in their eyes.  For a moment, no one dared even say it.

But at last, Phoebe blurted out the thought on everyone's mind:  "So all we have to do is steal their shoes!"

Ken picked at a bit of dust on his cushion.  "I've always wondered why no one tried that," he murmured.

"Ken!"  Anna exclaimed.  "You are our hero!"

"Me?" Ken's eyes opened wide.  "Are you sure?"

"Quite sure!"

"Well, then," Ken muttered vaguely, "imagine that!"  And he leaned back on his cushion and smiled contentedly at the stripes on the ceiling.

Next:  The raid.