"Three Little Kings"

by David Schaafsma

Copyright ©2002
ISBN: 0-87714-712-4 eBook edition
ISBN: 0-87714-802-3 PB edition

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

THE AUTHOR

David Schaafsma was raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, the grandson of a Dutch merchant and artist who immigrated to the territory in 1909. After the tremendous tourist boom of the 1970s and 80s, he left Hawaii to pursue a career in physics. Though science remains his full-time occupation, for better or worse, he returned to writing in the early 1990s as a creative outlet. He currently lives in the rural hills of Southern California's avocado country, and is working on several upcoming books, including Thoreau's Children and Denouement.

THE BOOK

Three Little Kings is the tale of three average American men who depart from their everyday lives to seek adventure and success in a faraway land, loosely inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s short story, The Man Who Would Be King. Having reached the age where they have been taught they should take the world by storm and having done little to generate even a squall, these men seek to make their mark elsewhere. Though not driven by lust for riches or fame or power, they nonetheless find themselves inviting a type of notoriety that is less than desirable, even dangerous. In today’s world, an honest man who does not march with the king’s army may find the army marching against him. These three men discover that wishing for a kingdom carries the same caveat to be careful as any other wish.

SAMPLE

The table itself was an impressive sight. Made from solid stone, it seemed as though it could support almost any load, and it had been quite well laden for the morning meal. One could hardly see the stone underneath the plates of waffles, bacon, eggs, spam, cheeseburgers, rice, mangoes, banana pancakes, pickled mountain apples, fried fish, papayas, fried taro, guava juice, coffee, and toast, of course. Both Junior and the Prince had half-full plates in front of them, but were eating slowly so these were obviously not the first plates for either one of them. At one side of the veranda, near the house, Lena was draped in exhaustion over a wrought iron chair that sat somewhat crookedly on the uneven stone paving, a three-quarters full can of ginger ale in one hand.

She perked up noticeably when Dan came out onto the veranda. He waved at her, and she waved back with a smile that would melt the butter on the coldest waffle. John and Peter waved, too, and Denny made a wide-eyed face with his wave. Lalaine had Sunday mornings off, John recalled, so Lena would come out and cook for the Prince one day a week. It was obviously no easy task.

The Prince stood up to welcome them, and even walked around the table to embrace each one as they came forward. Junior stood up and shook hands with all four of them across the table. Both William and Junior gave the impression that something momentous had occurred, above and beyond a successful trip to Zamboanga and getting their boat off the reef. It almost seemed like they were welcoming returning heroes, but the Prince soon altered the mood to a more casual one. As he sat back down to his plate, he motioned for them to do the same. Dan sat down next to the Prince and began to serve himself. John, Denny, and Peter followed suit.

Where Dan and John seemed somewhat reserved in the amount and variety of breakfast they gave themselves, Peter and Denny were unabashedly liberal. They had been so excited about the recovery of their boat that they had been arising early every morning for many days to work on it, and this morning had been no exception. The two of them had apparently worked up quite an appetite, though certainly not to equal the Prince or Junior. Denny gleefully helped himself to three slices of spam, a spoonful of eggs, two waffles, a mountain apple, two slices of fried taro, and a half a papaya.

After the meal, Denny and Peter both looked a bit glassy eyed, and John could see their eyelids grow heavy. The Prince saw it, too, and invited them to take advantage of the lawn chairs. Peter declined at first, but in a few minutes, the Prince invited him again with a look and a gesture, and Peter found he could not refuse. Denny was already fast asleep in one chair, and so Peter plopped down next to him and quickly dozed off. As smart as he was and versed in matters of machines and circuits, Peter was a rank amateur and utterly ignorant in matters of politics and strategy, as Dan and John were about to prove.

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