Ninety-Nine Irons

Stories for Another Day

The king and the queen were sitting together, enjoying a nice cup of mint tea with honey, when a messenger came with an envelope for the king. The king opened it and then he groaned and put his head in his hands.

“What is it, my dear?” asked the queen.

“My older brother Ranald is coming for afternoon tea,” groaned the king.

“But that’s not such a bad thing,” said the queen. “You like your brother Ranald, and you always get along well.”

“I like him very much, but every time he comes, he finds something to complain about. Nothing is ever perfect enough for him,” said the king. “Last time he came, everything was perfect and then he noticed a wrinkle in the tablecloth.”

Ranald was the king’s older brother. Some of you who may be lucky enough to have an older brother or even an older sister may have noticed that they enjoy being helpful and pointing out things you may have overlooked yourself, like one of your shoelaces being undone, or that you have left the lid off the toothpaste. If you are very clever, you may be asking yourself why, if Ranald was the older brother, he wasn’t the king, but that’s a story for another day.

“I’m sure everything will be perfect,” said the queen comfortingly. “The important thing is that he feels welcome and you enjoy yourselves together. I’ll ask the cook to make your favourite lemon tart and some fairy cakes, and three kinds of sandwiches.”

The king stood up, and shook his head in a way that always made the queen sigh to herself, because it meant that he had made up his mind to something that was usually going to make a lot of people uncomfortable.

“No, today everything is going to be ABSOLUTELY perfect,” the king said. “There will be apricot tart as well as lemon tart, and cream cakes as well as fairy cakes, and four kinds of sandwiches, but none of those ones with cucumber – nobody likes cucumber sandwiches! And I will iron the tablecloth myself!”

“But my dear, you don’t…” began the queen.

“But me no buts,” said the king, holding up his hand to stop her. “Send for the cook at once. I’m going to the laundry.”

The queen sighed again. As she often said to her hairdresser, Polly, once the king got an idea into his head, there was nothing she or anyone could do about it.

The king had never been to the laundry before, needless to say, and he had to ask three different footmen to tell him the way before he found it. Then he gave orders to the laundry-maids to bring the very best tablecloth. “I will iron it myself,” he said grandly.

“But your majesty,…” said the First Laundry-maid.

“But me no buts,” growled the king. “Bring me the tablecloth and the iron.”

In those days irons didn’t heat themselves up. You had to put the iron on top of the stove and wait till it was hot enough, but not too hot, before you ironed something. When it cooled down, you put it back on top of the stove to get hot again.

The laundry-maids spread the best tablecloth on the ironing board and stood back nervously. The king took the iron and started smoothing the long white tablecloth. In a few minutes, the iron was cold again.

“This iron has stopped working!” the king shouted. He tossed it over his shoulder, out of the window, which was a dangerous thing to do because who knows who might have been walking past underneath the window? “Bring me another iron!” he shouted.

“But your majesty…” twittered the laundry-maids.

“But me no buts!” shouted the king. “Bring me a better iron!”

They fetched another iron and put it on the stove. In a minute or so, the king grabbed it up, ready to iron.

“But your majesty…” ventured the First Laundry-maid, “the iron will be too hot…”

“But me no buts!” yelled the king. He pressed the iron onto the tablecloth but it was too hot, of course, and it burnt a big black hole right in the middle of the tablecloth.

“This iron is faulty too!” shouted the king. “Bring me another iron, and another tablecloth.” He tossed the iron over his shoulder, out the window.

The laundry-maids scurried around and brought the second-best tablecloth and another iron, and set it on the stove. The king set to work again. In no time he had burnt a hole in the second-best tablecloth too. He threw that iron out of the window and demanded that they bring him another iron, and yet another tablecloth.

Some time later, a boy called Rustum happened to be walking along underneath the window of the castle laundry, when an iron sailed out of the window and almost hit him on the head. By dodging swiftly he managed to catch it. “That was lucky,” he said to himself. “It could have been very dangerous.”

He looked around and saw a big pile of irons, ninety-eight altogether, in the ditch under the window. He looked up at the window and down at the irons, and he wondered. He went into the castle, and found his way to the castle laundry. Even before he reached the door, he could hear the king shouting, “Bring me another iron, and another tablecloth!”

The laundry-maids were too afraid to say anything by now. In fact four of them were in tears, and one of them had already taken off her apron and gone home sobbing, so one of the footmen said, “But your majesty, there are no more irons and no more…”

“But me no buts!” roared the king. “Bring me another iron this minute!”

Rustum cleared his throat from the doorway and stepped forward. “Here, your majesty,” he said, holding out the iron that had nearly knocked him unconscious.

“Hah!” said the king. “And another tablecloth.” The king, being a king, rarely said please, or thank you.

“Yes, your majesty,” said Rustum. He murmured to the head footman for a minute, then he said, “Unfortunately there are no more tablecloths to be had.”

“No more?” said the king.

“None whatsoever,” said Rustum. “You have burnt holes in every one of the palace tablecloths.”

“All of them?” said the king plaintively. He was thinking of what his brother Ranald would say. His arm holding the iron slumped, which was no wonder because he had been ironing for a long time and an iron is no featherweight. “What am I going to do?” he said. “My brother Ranald is coming for tea and everything has to be perfect.”

“Perfect?” said Rustum.

“Absolutely perfect,” said the king sadly. He looked at the big pile of tablecloths with black burn marks in the shape of an iron on each one and he nearly burst into tears himself. “What are we going to do?”

“Well, I can think of several things,” Rustum said thoughtfully. “We could put a plate over the hole where the burnt part is.”

“But Ranald is sure to pick up the plate and see the hole at once,” said the king. “That is exactly the sort of thing that he would do.”

Rustum said, “You could make black burnt spots all over the tablecloth and say it was a fun new pattern.”

“Ranald wouldn’t believe it for a second,” the king said glumly.

“Then there’s only one thing to do,” Rustum said, smiling, because this was his favourite idea anyway. “Have afternoon tea al fresco!”

“What?” said the king. “In the fresh air?” Being a king, he had had a very good education, and he knew what ‘al fresco’ meant.

“Yes,” Rustum said. “Arrange a small table under the trees with some pretty lace for a tablecloth and have afternoon tea in the garden. The weather is perfect, and besides, it will be unusual and charming.”

A smile spread across the king’s face. He threw the last iron out of the window and said to the footmen, “See to it at once!” and strode off to get his sun hat.

The afternoon tea was a great success. The table looked very nice, with piles of cakes and sandwiches and tarts, and a little posy of flowers in the middle of the table which the queen had arranged herself. Ranald enjoyed everything very much. As they sat under the trees laughing and talking, he said to the king, “This is such a good idea. The weather is perfect!”

“Absolutely perfect!” smiled the king.

“The only thing missing,” Ranald said, “is some nice cucumber sandwiches.”