Once Upon A Story

Description

The Castle Janitor

Briarstone Castle is hosting the biggest fairy-tale convention in a hundred years—just in time for the Five-Crown Inspection. There’s only one problem: everything that can go wrong… will.
A beanstalk crashes through the ballroom. Glitter gets everywhere. Princes knock over armor. And a dragon shows up three hours early with a barbecue smoker the size of a small cottage.
Luckily, Edwin Broomwell, castle janitor for forty-three years, has seen it all—and cleaned it all. With a little patience, a lot of mops, and the help of a dragon named Gus who believes brisket is an art form, Edwin may just earn the Five Crowns—and remind everyone that the real magic is in the people who keep it going.

The Department of Ever-Afters

What if your happily ever after was assigned by a government algorithm? Ember has a perfectly satisfying life. He grows roses. He bakes sourdough. He collects teacups. Unfortunately, he’s also a dragon. According to the Department of Ever-Afters, that means Ember has been officially classified as a fire-breathing, treasure-hoarding villain and scheduled to battle Prince Geoffrey every Thursday at three. Ember would like to decline. The Department would like to inform him that declining destiny is not an available option.
So, Ember marches into the kingdom’s most bewildering bureaucracy, where princesses are required to be rescued, wolves keep getting assigned grandmothers, heroes are issued swords whether they want them or not, and everyone is expected to stay neatly inside the story someone else has written for them. But when Ember discovers that Prince Geoffrey would rather design curtains than slay dragons, he begins to wonder whether the problem isn’t the characters at all. Maybe it’s the story.
Funny, fast-paced, and unexpectedly meaningful, The Department of Ever-Afters is a fairy-tale satire about labels, expectations, and finding the courage to tell the world: You’ve got the wrong dragon.

Tooth Fairy Customer Service

No dollar under the pillow? Time to call the Tooth Fairy.
When one determined kid discovers their Tooth Fairy payment is missing, they call the Royal Tooth Fairy Customer Service Department to file a claim. Linda, the cheerfully by-the-book representative, has a lot of questions. Clouds. Dragons. Imaginary friends. British-accented dog conversations. But the computer insists: you’ve grown up. Transferred to Gary—six hundred years of experience and zero patience for nonsense—the truth finally comes out. The computer made a mistake. The dollar was found. And magic? Magic is real… if you still take time to look.