The Ickabog(65)

Bert followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the Cornucopian army. A just and brave man, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he ends up at the head of it.

Daisy became the world’s foremost authority on Ickabogs. She wrote many books about their fascinating behavior, and it is due to Daisy that Ickabogs became protected and beloved by the people of Cornucopia. In her free time, she ran a successful carpentry business with her father, and one of their most popular products were toy Ickabogs. The second-born Ickaboggle lived in what was once the king’s deer park, close to Daisy’s workshop, and the two remained very good friends.

There was a museum built, in the heart of Chouxville, which attracted many visitors each year. This museum was set up by Prime Minister Goodfellow and his advisors, with help from Daisy, Bert, Martha, and Roderick, because nobody wanted the people of Cornucopia to forget the years when the country believed all Spittleworth’s lies. Visitors to the museum could view Major Beamish’s silver medal, with Flapoon’s bullet still buried in it, and the statue of Nobby Buttons, which had been replaced, in Chouxville’s biggest square, with a statue of that brave Ickabog who walked out of the Marshlands carrying a bunch of snowdrops, and in doing so saved both its species and the country. Visitors could also see the model Ickabog that Spittleworth had made out of a bull’s skeleton and some nails, and the huge portrait of King Fred fighting a dragonish Ickabog that never existed outside the artist’s imagination.

But there’s one creature I haven’t yet mentioned: the firstborn Ickaboggle, the savage creature who killed Lord Flapoon, and who was last seen being dragged away by many strong men.

Well, in truth, this creature was something of a problem. Daisy had explained to everyone that the savage Ickaboggle must not be attacked or mistreated, or it would hate people more than it already did. This would mean that at its Bornding, it would bring forth Ickaboggles even more savage than itself, and Cornucopia could end up with the problem Spittleworth had pretended it had. At first, this Ickaboggle needed to be kept in a reinforced cage to stop it killing people, and volunteers to take it mushrooms were hard to find, because it was so dangerous. The only people this Ickaboggle even slightly liked were Bert and Roderick, because at the moment of its Bornding they’d been trying to protect its Icker. The trouble was, of course, that Bert was away in the army and Roderick was running a sheep farm, and neither of them had time to sit all day with a savage Ickaboggle to keep it calm.

A solution to the problem arrived at last, from a very unexpected place.

All this time, Fred had been crying his eyes out down in the dungeons. Selfish, vain, and cowardly though he’d definitely been, Fred hadn’t meant to hurt anyone — though of course he had, and very badly too. For a whole year after he lost the throne, Fred was sunk into darkest despair, and while part of the reason was undoubtedly that he now lived in a dungeon rather than in a palace, he was also deeply ashamed.

He could see what a terrible king he’d been, and how badly he’d behaved, and he wished more than anything to be a better man. So one day, to the astonishment of Spittleworth, who was sitting brooding in the cell opposite, Fred told the prison guard that he’d like to volunteer to be the one to look after the savage Ickabog.

And that’s what he did. Though deathly white and trembly kneed on the first morning, and for many mornings afterward, the ex-king went into the savage Ickabog’s cage and talked to it about Cornucopia, and about the terrible mistakes he’d made, and how you could learn to be a better, kinder person, if you really wanted to become one. Even though Fred had to return to his own cell every evening, he requested that the Ickabog be put into a nice field instead of a cage, and to everyone’s surprise, this worked well, and the Ickabog even thanked Fred in a gruff voice the following morning.

Slowly, over the months and years that followed, Fred became braver and the Ickabog gentler, and at last, when Fred was quite an old man, the Ickabog’s Bornding came, and the Ickaboggles that stepped out of it were kind and gentle. Fred, who’d mourned their Icker as though it had been his brother, died very shortly afterward. While there were no statues raised to their last king in any Cornucopian city, occasionally people laid flowers on his grave, and he would have been glad to know it.

Whether people were really Bornded from Ickabogs, I cannot tell you. Perhaps we go through a kind of Bornding when we change, for better or for worse. All I know is that countries, like Ickabogs, can be made gentle by kindness, which is why the kingdom of Cornucopia lived happily ever after.





And that is how the fifth great city of Cornucopia came into being. Its name was Ickaby.

By Agata, Age 8





J.K. ROWLING is the author of the seven Harry Potter books, first published between 1997 and 2007. The adventures of Harry, Ron, and Hermione at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry have sold over 500 million copies, been translated into over 80 languages, and made into eight blockbuster films. Alongside the book series, she has written three short companion volumes for charity, including Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which later became the inspiration for a new series of films, also written by J.K. Rowling. She then continued Harry’s story as a grown-up in a stage play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which she wrote with playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany, and which has been playing to great acclaim in theatres in Europe, North America, and Australia.