The Blue Ribbon Book

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Clomp. Clomp, clomp. Clomp.

"Lottie, for the last time, put some proper shoes on!" Abby O'Chanter was getting tired of this. First Rye, wearing boots several sizes too big, and now, Lottie!

"Nu-uh." Said Lottie. "These Rye-y's boots. Mine now. 'f I take 'em off, she'll take 'em back."

From his seat at the table in the O'Chanters cottage in Village Drowning, Harmless laughed as he surveyed the scene. The boots did, in fact, belong to Rye O'Chanter, but she wasn't doing a very good job of keeping track of them. He'd make a High Chieftain out of Lottie yet.

Just then, the eldest O'Chanter daughter in question stormed through the door. "Mother, have you seen my--Oh! Harmless!" Temporarily distracted from her quest to find her boots, Rye berated her father with questions; where has he been, what has he been doing, did he see other luck uglies, the usual.

Once he answered her questions to her satisfaction, Rye turned on Lottie, "There they are!" And attacked her sister with tickles.

Of course, this was a normal occurrence in the O'Chanter's cottage, with their family being who they were.

What was not a normal occurrence, was that today, Lottie had a lovely blue ribbon in her flaming red hair that Harmless had given to her for her birthday a few days before. This blue ribbon caught Rye's eye, bringing up a memory of the day in Willow's Wares that had started her adventures.

Plucking the ribbon from her sister's hair, Rye cried jokingly, "Blue! You can't wear this!"

Lottie gave her older sister a questioning look. "Why can't I, Rye-y?"

Doing her best impression of Constable Boil, Rye said in a nasally voice, "By order of Earl Morningwig Longchance, no woman may wear an article of blue in the village of Drowning. That is why you can't wear this."

"Says who?" Asked Lottie stubbornly, reaching for the ribbon Rye held.

Rye thought for a moment, "Well, Longchance, I suppose. You know, that's what happened to a ribbon Mother had, in Willow's Wares."

Lottie looked interested now.

Abby rolled her eyes; she knew what would happen next. Rye would get Lottie hooked on the trail of the ribbon, Lottie would 'search' for a while, then she would give up and forget about the ribbon entirely.

And so Rye told her sister the entire story, from Drowning to Pest, of the adventure that started with necklace and a blue ribbon.