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Chapter 4

In which Sandy gets bounced, and we meet an army of sheep

In the morning, Sir Don seemed to have recovered from his bruises, and was anxious to set out immediately in search of adventures. Not waiting for me, he saddled Rocinante, and bridled Dapple. Then he mounted his horse and, seeing a long wooden pole propped up against the wall of the barn, grabbed it to carry with him.

By that time the other people who had been staying at the inn were up and around, and most of them were watching him. Riding up to the front of the inn, Sir Don took his new lance and pounded on the door.

“Many and great are the favors that I have received at your castle, and I shall remain deeply obliged for them all the days of my life. If I can repay you by taking vengeance for you on some one who has done you an injustice, just remember that it is my duty to protect the helpless and to avenge wrongs. If you have anything of this kind you wish me to do for you, you have only to say so, and I promise you, by my order of knighthood, I will do it.”

Looking somewhat worried, the innkeeper replied, “Sir Knight, I do not need you to avenge any injuries, for I know how to deal with people myself who do me an injustice. I only want you to pay the bill you have run up for staying the night at my inn, for the food you have eaten, and for fodder for your animals.”

“You mean this is an inn and not a castle?”

“Yes, and a very respectable one.”

“Then I have been in error all this time, for I truly thought that it was a castle, and a very fine one at that. Once again the evil wizard has fooled me, causing my eyes to see a castle where there was only a country inn. But since it is an inn and not a castle, the only thing to do is for you to excuse me from paying, for I cannot break the knight errant’s rule. Knights errant never pay for their lodging. It is the duty of all those who meet a knight such as I to welcome them into their home without payment. All must do this out of respect for the work knights errant do to right wrongs and uphold justice.”

“The only justice I want is to be paid for you and your assistant here having spent the night in my inn. Pay up, or you’ll be sorry!”

“This I cannot do.” Sir Don grabbed his lance and rode out of the gate—leaving me standing there next to the innkeeper.

“Well, young man, what are you going to do about paying the bill for this crazy knight?”

I had three dollars from my allowance in my pocket, and offered that to the innkeeper. He laughed and threw it on the ground. American money wasn’t going to do me any good in this place. “I’m sorry sir, but that’s the only money I have. And Sir Don’s not crazy; he’s just a little strange.”

The innkeeper turned to the crowd of people who’d gathered around. “Well, my good fellows, you know what we do to guests who can’t pay their bill. Go to it!”

Before I knew it, someone brought out a thick, woolen blanket and stretched it out. They all grabbed an edge, making it like a trampoline. The innkeeper lifted me up onto the blanket, and the people holding it started to toss me up and down. At first it was scary, but then it started to be fun. I had learned how to bounce on a trampoline at summer camp, so I knew just what to do. Every time I came down, I just relaxed. When I hit the blanket, they would toss me a little higher. I started to laugh—this was even better than a trampoline. I must have bounced six feet in the air!

After about five minutes, they stopped the bouncing and I got off. I knew I shouldn’t hang around much longer, so I looked for Dapple. He was over munching on a pile of hay by the stable. I got on and started to ride away from the inn, in the same direction I had seen Sir Don going.

It only took me about ten minutes to find Sir Don. He was waiting for me under a tree. He had watched the whole blanket-bouncing episode. He apologized for not having come to rescue me when the innkeeper had put me on the blanket. “Are you sure that wasn’t a castle? For if it had been a castle, then I would have come at once to your aid, for it is a knight errant’s duty to protect one such as you from injustice.”

“Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t all that bad. After a while it wasn’t so scary. It started to be fun. But if you ever stay at that inn again, I really hope you have some money with you, ’cause the innkeeper was really mad.”

“I assure you that I will never set foot inside that castle—I mean that inn again. It is not worthy of having one such as I stay there. Now let us continue our search for adventure.”

“I’m getting worried about being away from home so long. Couldn’t you just tell me which way Boise is?”

“In all of Spain there is no such place as Boise. Perhaps you mean Barcelona?”

“No, I mean Boise. And why are you talking about Spain? We’re in Idaho.”

Then it finally dawned on me. I wasn’t in Idaho—I was in Spain. There were no cars here, no power poles, and no one had heard of a cell phone. I wasn’t even sure I was still in the 21st century. I knew I wasn’t dreaming. I just didn’t have a clue how I got here.

“Sandy, since there is no Boise around here, I think you will just have to stay with me a while longer. I’m sure we can find your home soon. Until we do, I encourage you to be patient. Before you and I part ways, I’m confident that you will see for yourself just how honorable and respectable it is to be a knight—and something tells me that one day you, too, will be a knight, and will follow the honorable profession of knight errantry.” With that, he started off down the road. I was puzzled by what he said about me getting to be a knight some day, but I figured I’d better follow him. I didn’t have many other options at that point. I sure as heck didn’t want to be here by myself.

We rode for about an hour, ’til we got to the top of a hill. We looked around the countryside and tried to figure out where we were. There was a forest off to one side. On the other was an open field, where we saw a huge cloud of dust moving towards us. There wasn’t any wind, so it couldn’t be a dust storm.

Sir Don suddenly perked up. “Ah—an army of soldiers coming our way. I only hope that they are friendly soldiers. Just to be sure, I will get my lance at the ready.” He grabbed his pole and started riding toward the dust cloud. I followed, but a ways behind. After what happened at the inn, I didn’t want to have anything to do with soldiers.

Sir Don rode right into the middle of the dust cloud. When I got close enough to see inside the cloud, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. There wasn’t any army! What was causing the dust was a huge flock of sheep, being driven by some shepherds. In the middle of the flock was Sir Don, still on his horse, but trapped by all the sheep.

“Sir Don!” I called out as loud as I could. “This isn’t an army—it’s a flock of sheep.”

Sir Don turned to one of the shepherds. “Is this true, valiant sir, that this is no army but only sheep?

With a very amused look on his face, the shepherd decided to humor Sir Don and play along. “Oh great knight, it is true that this is no army, but rather a mere flock of sheep. There is no need to do battle, for the sheep mean you no harm. If you will but hold your horse still, I will get the sheep away from you so you can go on your way.” Waving his stick, the shepherd gradually moved the sheep. When Sir Don got back to where I was waiting, he seemed a bit flustered.

“Well, Sandy, now you see what a knight’s life is like. When we see a cloud of dust, as knights we first assume that the dust is caused by an army of soldiers. If it is a good army, it may need our help; if it is a bad army, we must do what we can to defeat it, or at least slow it down before it does harm to others. This time, it wasn’t an army—it was sheep—but if every time we saw a dust cloud we assumed it was made by sheep, we would miss our opportunity to carry out our knightly duty on that occasion when it was truly an army in need of our help.”

Finally this guy was making sense! It was like my mom and me. She thinks that every time there’s a problem, it’s because we forgot to do something or didn’t work hard enough. Lots of times it seems that there’s something going on that isn’t fair, but my friends don’t see it. Like Mr. Priestly, my school teacher. He keeps telling me that if I don’t work harder and pay attention, I’m going to flunk school and have to repeat. But the things he wants us to read are boring, and have nothing to do with real life. The stories in the knight books are what life is all about. There’s something in those stories I need to learn, and once I learn it, I’m sure everything will be OK. All Mr. Priestly can see is sheep.

Sir Don started riding down the road. I caught up with him and rode alongside for a while. I was starting to get hungry, since we hadn’t eaten breakfast. I asked Sir Don if we could stop and eat something.

“Well, my good friend, that is a problem. You see, we have no food to eat. Perhaps you didn’t notice, but all the food we had was in the saddlebags that were on your donkey. While they were bouncing you up and down at the inn, someone took the saddlebags—I guess as payment for our staying there…”

I looked around and saw that what he said was true. No saddlebags! No food! Now what were we going to do?