by Noora Sullivan

There once was a little girl named Elinor, and one day she saw a gingerbread man lying on her kitchen floor.  He was about two inches long and had little gumballs for eyes, an upside-down candy cane for his nose, a tiny piece of a watermelon for his mouth, and some blue icing for the buttons of his shirt.  She felt disgusted.  Her floor needed to be cleaned all the time!  So she went to her basement to get the vacuum. She put in the plug and she turned on the vacuum cleaner.  The sound scared her.  While she was looking away, the gingerbread man jumped up onto her shoulder said into her ear, “Wait, stop!”

Elinor stopped and she said, “Who said that?”

The gingerbread man said, “It’s me, I’m on your shoulder.  Your right shoulder. I’m the gingerbread man!”

She looked side to side but couldn’t see him because he was so tiny.  When she looked to her right, the gingerbread man said, “Stop!  Stop right there.”  She looked carefully and saw the man.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry! I was about to vacuum you up because I thought you were just a piece of food.”

The gingerbread man walked down her arm to her hand and said, “I am a piece of food, but I am a real-life gingerbread, so please don’t vacuum me.”

Her mom yelled from downstairs, “Elinor, it’s time to eat breakfast!”

Elinor said, “Wait, hide, hide! Go in the fridge!”  But there was no time to open the fridge.  She put her hands behind her, pretending she was itching her back, but really she put the gingerbread man in her back pocket.

Her mom said, “Elinor, it’s time for breakfast.”  Her mom came into the kitchen and stomped her foot on the floor.  “Why aren’t you going downstairs to the dining room?  You know you’re not allowed to eat in the kitchen. It’s stinky as you know!”

“I’m sorry, Mom, I was just, uh, doing something.”

When her mom left, Elinor opened the fridge and put him in the warm part near the light.

“I’m actually sort of freaked out about this,” the gingerbread man said, looking up at the light.  “Are you sure this is going to work?  Am I going to catch on fire or something?”

“If I smell something burning, I’ll come to get you,” Elinor said, and closed the door quickly before her mom yelled at her again.

She and her mother both went to the breakfast area downstairs and ate some cereal, bagels, and some hash-browns.  Elinor ate fast because she didn’t want the gingerbread man to burn.  She still couldn’t believe that he could talk!

When they were done eating breakfast, Elinor’s mother went to work.  Her dad was at work, too, but Elinor could stay by herself with her little brother. Elinor went to the fridge and picked up the gingerbread man and asked him some questions.

“Who are you, anyway?”

He was shivering from the cold.  “IIIIIIII’m ttthhhhe gggggingerbrrrrrread kkkkkking.”
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“I’ve never met a king in my life before!  And wow, you’re pretty cold!  I should give you a blanket.”  She got out a napkin and wrapped it around him.

The Gingerbread King said, “Well, congratulations, this is the first time you’ve seen a king.”

“Where is your kingdom?”

“My kingdom is that gingerbread house you made with your Mom when you were four years old.”

The gingerbread house?  She didn’t even know where it was any more.  That was a long long long time ago.  She thought it was in one of her many pink closets in her bedroom.  So she picked up the Gingerbread King and took him upstairs to look for his kingdom.
As they were walking up the stairs she said, “Wait, how did you end up in the kitchen?”

He shrugged his gingerbread shoulders.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “I was asleep and I just woke up in this kitchen.  Without any of my king clothes!  Somehow I had my pajamas on, even though I sleep in my king clothes.  I don’t understand.”

“Well that’s confusing to me, too!  Maybe if we find your kingdom we can figure it out.”

They went up all twenty steps and Elinor was panting by the time she got to the top.  The Gingerbread King was panting too because he was standing for so long, and because he was fat.  All gingerbread kings were fat, because they ate so many sweets.

When they got to the bedroom, Elinor opened all of her closet doors.  In the very last closet, behind her ant house, she found the gingerbread kingdom.  It went up to her knees and was made of candy canes, icing, watermelon candies, sparkly brown sugar, sparkly white sugar, and, of course, gingerbread. There were ants surrounding the kingdom, protecting it.

“Why don’t you walk through the front door?” Elinor said.

The Gingerbread King walked up to the castle, but an ant guard stopped him.

The ant guard said, “Who are you?  Can you show me your picture?”

The Gingerbread King looked in his pajama pockets but his ID wasn’t in there.  “I’m sorry, but I don’t have my ID.  But I am your king!”

“You’re not the king.  You don’t have your ID.  Our king is in the castle, like he always is,” Said the ant guard.

“The king is not in the castle.  I’m the king!  I’m right here!  If someone is in the castle, he is pretending to be me!”

One ant guard said to another, “Wait a minute, there’s two kings?  That doesn’t make sense!”

Elinor said from above, “I know that he is the real king.  He told me that he was king, and I believed him.”

The ant guard pulled out a royal photograph from his pocket of the king.  “Here’s a photo of the king.  Let’s compare.”  They looked from the photo to the Gingerbread King

“You are the real king.  The man inside is a substitute!  He has lightning strike eyebrows!  He’s lying!  Let’s go get him!”

Elinor said, “Well, we’ve got to get you into the castle.” She held the king up and put him through the castle window.

He climbed up the roof and said his name. “I am the Gingerbread King!”

Everyone stopped moving and said, “No, you’re not! You’re the person who told us to destroy this kingdom!”

He said, “No, that was an imposter.” To prove it, he started listing off facts about himself. He said what his parents’ and children’s and wife’s names were and how he ruled the kingdom very well.

The subjects of the kingdom said, “Well, that’s interesting. Maybe it was an impostor. Maybe it was that mean thief that always tries to rule the kingdom.”

Out of nowhere came a thief wearing the Gingerbread King’s clothing! He arrived in front of the entire crowd. Everybody was silent, but then they suddenly started attacking him since he was an impostor.

The real king said, “Stop! We should give the thief one more chance to talk.”

Everybody stopped and listened.

The thief said, “Well, I am not actually a thief. People say that because I just take things. But that doesn’t mean that I steal. It means that I’m buying stuff. I’m paying for it, too.”

The real Gingerbread King said, “Well that’s interesting! I thought you were just a normal thief that steals.”

“I was just taking over while you were gone!” the thief said. “Remember, that is my job whenever you are not there to rule the kingdom yourself.”

Most of the subjects thought, ‘Well that’s confusing. The king never told us that was this man’s job.’

But other people thought, ‘It doesn’t really matter because the king should do whatever he wants. All kings get to do what they want, unless they are bad.’

Elinor was watching all of this from above.  She whispered because the gingerbread people had very little ears.  She whispered, “Can I have that impostor king for lunch?”

And all the gingerbread people laughed.  Except the impostor king.

THE END