"It is obvious that this is the Well of Confusion," Tabby said intelligently. "Anyone who
gets near it starts acting confused."
Sugarberry, Clever Clover, and Friendly started at her with empty faces. "Why are you,
umm... What's that word for when someone's, like, really smart?" Sugarberry wondered.
"Intelligent, maybe?" Clever Clover suggested. "I think that's it."
"Yeah!" Friendly agreed.
"Oh, right. Intelligent. So, Tabby, why are you intelligent now?" Sugarberry
asked.
"Because if you can not get any more confused," Tabby explained, "you get smart. And
you three are confused now."
"Oh," Clever Clover said.
Tabby went on, "And it affects you for as long as you are in this clearing or in the
network of tunnels beneath it." She started to walk across the clearing. "But, we have got to
find Princess Royal Blue's wand! Come on!"
The other three started to follow her, but suddenly, Friendly tripped over something.
"Just a big rock," he said.
Tabby came over to closer examine the rock he had tripped over. After studying it, she
exclaimed, "This is not just any old rock, Friendly! There is some writing carved into it! It says
this is the burial ground of an ancient pony king!"
Sugarberry looked around nervously. "Maybe we'd better get moving," she
suggested.
"Sugarberry! It is just an old skeleton!" Tabby said. "Maybe he is even buried with
some jewels or other riches!"
"You're not going to dig it up, are you?" Clever Clover asked. "There's something else
carved into the stone on the bottom. I think it says ‘Do not disturb the king' or something like
that."
"He's DEAD!" Tabby burst out. "And I would not be taking the jewels; we could just
look at them! There may not be anything, anyway, in which case we would just cover it back
up."
"Dunno..." Friendly said.
Tabby started to dig besides the protests. "Well, would you look at this!" she exclaimed
after awhile. She held up a sparkling purple wand.
"The pony king had a wand?" Sugarberry asked.
"No, silly!" Tabby said. "This is Princess Royal Blue's wand!"
"Is that what we're looking for?" Clever Clover asked.
"Yes!" Tabby said. "And the skeleton's here, too! Royal Blue must have dropped it
here and the wand felt the presence of the dead king; so it tried to get closer to the skeleton for
some magical reason. Amazing, how it could dig down like that!"
Sugarberry, Clever Clover, and Friendly peered down the hole at the pony skeleton with
a
gold crown resting on his head and a silver staff laid on one of his hooves.
After staring at it for awhile, Friendly exclaimed, "Tabby! Skeleton twitched!"
Sugarberry gasped. "Get out of the hole!"
Tabby shook her head at them. "Skeletons are completely dead. It is impossible that it
could be twitching."
"But that magic wand..." Clever Clover said.
Suddenly, the skeleton jumped up on his feet and glared at Tabby.
Tabby gaped at the skeleton.
"How dare you disturb me in my grave!" the pony king roared.
"But... we were just..." Tabby stammered. "Err... We did not mean to..."
"Now you must pay the price!" the king said angrily.
Tabby reasonably decided it would be better to get out of the hole that to try to reason
with him. She quickly got in position to leap and pushed off.
But the skeleton king was quicker that her. He grabbed her tail and pulled her down,
into
the underground tunnel.
The remaining three all gasped in terror as they watched their friend disappear into the
dark of the tunnel.