Rumpelstiltskin and the Three Mermen

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Rumpelstiltskin. He bought some sunflower seeds from the local market and brought them home to plant.

Soon, there was a whole field of sunflowers. They were very pretty, but something was wrong. They just kept growing and growing. As they grew, they started to get tangled together. Eventually, they grew into a giant sunflower stalk.

Rumpel, as he was called for short, decided to climb it. He'd always wondered if he could stand on a cloud, so he brought a rock with him to test the idea. When he climbed up high enough, he used the rock. He'd hoped it would lay on the cloud, but it fell straight through. As it fell, he realized that it had been irresponsible of him to test the cloud with a rock. He hoped there was no one below.

He decided to keep climbing and find out what the top of the sunflower stalk looked like.

It was very hot at the top and there was a boat on an ocean. Rumpel was pretty sure it was real, so he got in. There were oars and a motor on the back. He decided to use the motor.

Things went well at first, but suddenly the boat sank in the middle of the ocean! Rumpel swam for his life.

Since he would probably die anyway, Rumpel decided to go underwater. He saw an exotic and wide selection of fish, but they were on a dinner table. The dinner table was in a pool, which was inside a house, which had a chain on it leading up to a buoy on the surface.

Thinking the house might have air in it, Rumpel went inside. He got a few drops of water in when he opened the door, but not much.

Inside, there was a fireplace and three beds. One bed was made of brick, another of straw, and the third of sticks.

Tired from swimming, he decided to take a nap on one of the beds. He tried to sleep on the hay one, but it fell into a big pile of hay, which wasn't really comfortable. He tried the sticks, but then he saw bugs and stuff that he didn't really want to sleep with. But the brick one had a mattress – a nice, normal mattress! - and a pillow. So he decided to sleep on that one, since it was most normal and comfortable looking.

He fell asleep quickly, but was soon awoken by an earthquake that dumped him onto the ground.

Three little mermen with feet walked in. One of them asked, “What's up with the little kid sleeping on our floor?”

“He's not sleeping,” one of the others said. “He's just lying down.”

And finally the third one said, “I think he's dead.”

Rumpel stood up, not dead at all. “Who are you?” he asked.

They cleared their throats and started to sing. “We are three mermen-”

“Please!” Rumpel said. “No singing!”

They frowned and one said, “Kill joy.”

“Why are we listening to a stranger?” another asked and his friends nodded in agreement.

They started to sing again, but since it's hard to write a song like that, we'll skip that part.

When they were done singing, they said, “And who are you?”

“I am Rumpel. Rumpelstiltskin.”

Before they could find any more information about each other, there was a knock on the door.

“Who could that be?” one merman said as he went to open the door.

A big wind blew through the room and the door closed.

Another merman tried to open the door, and got blown away just like the first.

The third one put on his anti-wind suit and opened the door. It turns out a scuba diving wolf was blowing at the house. He was wearing not only scuba gear, but a general's uniform.

“I'll eat you all!” the wolf said. “But first, I'll blow you around for a while. I love doing that.”

But before the wolf could enter the house, it began to rise. It shot up above the surface of the ocean, pushed by another giant sunflower stalk.

Eventually, the house hit a cloud.

Rumpel grabbed a chair and tossed it out. It broke when it hit the cloud and Rumpel cried out, “It's a solid cloud!”

One of the mermen looked sad. “That was my favorite chair,” he said.

They all jumped onto the cloud and walked toward a gingerbread house in the distance. As they got closer, the gingerbread house got bigger and bigger. Eventually they were so close that the doorknob was out of reach, even when they stood on each other!

Behind them, the wolf from before made it to the top of the sunflower stalk. He started following after them as the door creaked open, opened by by a giant witch.

The witch grabbed Rumpel and the Mermen, saying, “I'll bake you one, two, three, four! Four. I'll bake you four in my oven and eat you for dinner.”

“Can I have some?” the wolf asked, finally making it to the house.

The witch sighed, but said, “Okay.” She wasn't interested in eating him because she didn't like wolf meat, but she'd always wanted a pet wolf. She tossed him in a cage and went into the kitchen to make their dinner.

While the witch stood with the four in her hand and waited for the oven to heat up, Rumpel had an idea.

“Bite her!” he yelled. And they all sank their teeth into her hand.

The witch screamed in pain and dropped them onto the floor.

They ran out of the house, but fell when their feet hit the cloud. It wasn't solid anymore!

Luckily, they landed in a very deep lake. Which just happened to be the lake behind Rumpel's house.

They went inside, where Rumpel's mother gave them some soup and told her son he wasn't allowed to climb anymore sunflowers.

The mermen moved into the lake and they all lived happily ever after.

THE END.