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Words on this page
They said the Sun Gem brought blue skies, golden wheat, and sweet red apples.
Read the whole story
The story the pages were drawn from, in full — for reading aloud, or for a child who wants the words without the pictures.
In the Kingdom of Aurelia, everyone looked up when the old King stepped onto his balcony.
His crown flashed like a tiny sunrise. At its center sat the famous Sun Gem, said to bring blue skies, golden wheat, and sweet red apples.
Below the balcony, Sophie carried a basket of royal laundry.
“Careful with those sheets!” called her best friend, who was sorting towels nearby.
“I am careful,” Sophie said.
At that very moment, a gust of wind lifted a long silk sheet over Sophie’s head.
Whoosh!
She bumped into a suit of armor, spun around twice, and landed—plop!—beside the King’s polishing table.
There, on a velvet cloth, lay the Sun Gem.
Sophie picked it up.
It was smooth. It was bright.
And when she tipped it toward the window, she saw a tiny bubble trapped inside.
“A bubble?” she whispered.
She had polished enough palace windows to know glass when she saw it.
The Sun Gem was ordinary glass.
Sophie hurried to tell her best friend. “The crown’s gem isn’t a gem at all!”
Her friend’s eyes grew wide. Then she glanced toward the noble visitors in their tall hats.
“Perhaps,” said her friend slowly, “the King should hear this.”
By supper, Sophie stood before the King’s throne.
His curly white beard trembled. His glasses slid down his bald head’s shiny slope.
“Glass?” he thundered. “You call the Sun Gem glass?”
“It is glass,” Sophie said. “Polished glass.”
The King jumped up so quickly that his crown tipped sideways.
“Blasphemy against the crown!” he cried. “Banish her! No one in Aurelia may give Sophie shelter!”
Two guards marched Sophie toward the city gate. She carried only her laundry basket, with one clean blue sheet folded inside.
Just before the gates closed, a horse clattered from the palace road.
Clank! Clank! Clank!
Gareth, the King’s youngest knight, rode up in silver armor and a shining helmet. He raised one gloved hand.
“Wait,” he said. “The King has ordered Sophie’s basket searched.”
The guards frowned. “For what?”
“For dangerous laundry,” Gareth said solemnly.
He lifted the blue sheet.
It flew over the guards’ heads.
Flap! Flap! Flap!
One guard caught the sheet around his shoulders and stumbled like a very surprised ghost. The other tried to help, stepped on a loose corner, and sat down in a puddle.
While they untangled themselves, Gareth whispered, “Get behind my horse.”
Sophie did not need telling twice.
Under the cover of night, Gareth rode west, and Sophie clung behind him, wrapped in the blue sheet like a fluttering flag.
They crossed Mistwood Forest, where fog curled around their boots. They climbed the Rusty Peaks, where Gareth’s armor squeaked and groaned.
“Squeak,” said one knee plate.
“Do knights usually make that sound?” Sophie asked.
“Only the excellent ones,” Gareth replied.
At the top of the last peak, the wind snatched Sophie’s blue sheet from the saddlebag.
It sailed over the cliff.
“Oh no!” Sophie cried.
They hurried after it and found the sheet caught on a thorny bush far below, glowing pale in the moonlight.
Beyond it was a narrow canyon.
And deep inside the canyon, hidden between red stone walls, sparkled a little town.
Lanterns hung from bridges. Gardens climbed the rocks. Rain barrels brimmed beside cheerful houses.
People looked up as Sophie and Gareth entered.
No one bowed to a crown.
No one asked about a Sun Gem.
An old woman handed Sophie a warm roll. A child pointed at Gareth’s squeaky armor and laughed. Even Gareth laughed, though his helmet wobbled.
Sophie spread her blue sheet across a sunny line between two canyon homes.
The wind filled it like a sail.
Far away, Aurelia’s false crown might still glitter.
But here, beneath a sky that belonged to nobody, Sophie watched the clean cloth dance—and wondered what truth might shine next.
