Stories from the Kingdom of Klah

Mystic Charles had a secret. It wasn’t that he could teleport, everybody knew that, for that was how he delivered the royal mail. It wasn’t even the fact that it was really his splendid knitted hat that gave him this ability, not the crystal staff as everyone presumed (though this was really a secret too, as frequent attempts were made by naughty people to steal the staff). No, the secret I am referring to is that as well as being an excellent burglar decoy, the crystal staff doubled as a tap dancing prop when Mystic Charles was in the privacy of his bedroom. Although Mystic Charles had been practicing for years and was surprisingly agile, no one had ever seen him dance – for unfortunately even though he had travelled the world a thousand times, he remained frightfully shy, and never whispered his passion to a soul. “Tomorrow”, he thought to himself every day. “I will have the courage tomorrow”. In his heart he longed to tap dance for the King & Queen, in the meantime he delivered their mail.

Mt Sackleview was once known as the only mountain you could see the ocean in all directions from. These days he is mainly known for being the only mountain in Klah history to have sent a formal letter to the local council complaining about back problems from the weight of all the tourists, and now only those riding small hovercraft are able to experience the view. There are rumours however, that Sackleview is currently penning another letter complaining now about the hovercraft noise, and that these too may soon be banned. Some are now referring to him as "Sacklewhinge", and we await his letter of complaint about this too

Royal Master Artist (Nina van der Voorn) is seen here on her way to the annual Moomitzell Celebration & Appreciation, which takes place in the streets of Klah at the end of Autumn. The moomitzell, for those of you not acquainted with this fascinating creature, is very important to the citizens of Klah as it produces and supplies over 90% of their milk. Moomitzell milk is much more nutritious than cow’s milk, and several exciting studies have been conducted suggesting that drinkers of moomitzell milk are six times as likely to successfully flip pancakes than consumers of regular cow’s milk.

A famous landmark in Klah – the seemingly unremarkable at first sight, but definitely very remarkable at first conversation, Oracle Shrubbery. This famous piece of foliage is known for its strange habit of starting up discussions with random passerbys, and its favourite topic seems to be Things That Are About To Happen Very Soon. So far he has accurately predicted winning racehorses, number one pop songs, and several full moons. Oracle Shrubbery’s explanation for this is that his roots go very deep and the ends have spread into the future, allowing him Deeper Understanding.

Many of you will have heard how nature is connected. There are small fish that zap around big fish and keep them clean, sea anemones that hitch around on the backs of crabs, and plants that will feed you in exchange for a good watering.

On the mysterious island of Klah, a species of native singing cat is responsible for the blooming of many fruits and flowers. The sound of forty cats wailing together in an alleyway is not normally something anyone in their right mind would go out of their way to hear, but these particular cats are considered an audial delicacy, and draw crowds from distant lands who flock to the island at different times of the year to watch flowers unfurl and vegetables hurl themselves up from the earth, each to a different type of music. 

For example, when it is time for the parsnips to arise, the cats perform a jazzy funk number, and when it is time for the roses to bloom a tragic opera rings through the streets, because it is well known that roses love a good heroine death. There are love ballads to turn the lemons sour, psy-trance for the goji berries and cabbages are always up for a snazzy disco. 

The cats still sometimes fight as cats (and temperamental artists) do, they brawl over creative differences and who gets the lead part in musicals, but they fight to music so it becomes a beautiful rhythmic fight dance, throwing shapes not punches and swiping xylophones not faces. When the fight dances occur strange new varieties of plants are often born, such as corn cobs made of pearls, forests of broccoli so enormous that people build treehuts in the branches, and perhaps most importantly, a potent purple catnip with sardines for flowers, which fuels the cats and continues the cycle of beasts and birds and all things fruity in Klah, & thus, the world continues.