The legend of Silly Lizzy

There’s something about Lizzy, she is a bit annoying but the most annoying things about her are somewhat like me… when I looked above my circumstances… when I changed my attitude life started to change. It also features my one day famous saying…

Sympathy is addictive one craves it like a drug;

Beware the overly Sympathetic...

Sympathy is never Ever FREE.

Elizabeth DeValli had 2 respectable parents who loved Harmony, Justice and fighting dragons. Tahnee and Lockie loved all their daughters very much, but supposed Elizabeth to be a somewhat unusual child as the middle of three girls she had trouble getting along with her sisters and even more trouble making close friends. Lizzy, as she was often called in her childhood, was given the gift of a „good imagination‟ by the wise fairy Kathléna and she longed for a kindred spirit a really close friend who actually understood her. She often found herself alone day-dreaming causing her peers and even her sisters to further misunderstand her; they would often catch her talking to her invisible friends, and smiling for no apparent reason “off with the Pixies,” they‟d laugh as they walked away.

Although she had known reasonably little pain or suffering in her life and her parents taught her and her sisters of brave and famous Dragon-Fighters, such as Solomon the Daring and Kateleigh and Danika the ingenious who lived a thousand years ago and fought many dragons; Lizzy spent most of her days dreaming of a better family, nicer friends and a fantastic life. What Lizzy was yet to understand was how good her life really was and how many blessings there were enriching her life that she overlooked every day. Things like beautiful smiles of her little sister, warm hugs from her Mum, a Dad who was firm but fair, enough food to eat, a nice warm bed, a house to keep out the cold (yes, even though she had to share her room) clear air and clean drinking water. Lizzy was not a bad person, she just did not realise how many good things she had in her life that she could be thankful for.

When Lizzy would get into trouble for fighting with her sisters (usually Renée) she would go off and sulk in her tree house, saying to anyone who would listen: “Renée is such a liar, she broke her word again, I'm stupid for even believing what she said” or “It’s not fair! 

My sisters always pick on me, if I had been given nicer sisters, we wouldn’t be having this problem” She conveniently forgot the ways she used to cause mischief and stir trouble by hiding their toys/make-up and playing childish tricks on them, that made them feel ridiculous.

When she did not do well in her tests at school she would blame it on not having been given smarter brains. However her teachers would often catch her gazing out of the window, day-dreaming. They would say: “Lizzy are you working?”

“Yes,” Lizzy would tersely reply, annoyed about having her thoughts interrupted.

When Lizzy became older she used to dream of a knight riding along on his palomino horse and rescuing her from her nasty sisters and boring life. In fact, she was so busy dreaming one day as she was out riding her buckskin (for all you non-horsey people that is a horse creamy in colour with brown mane and tail), Hermes that she didn’t see a blue dragon had appeared in front the horse and scared him. Hermes jumped to the side and bolted. Lizzy lost her seat landing on the hard ground. She didn’t see that the dragon had “pony for dinner”. In fact, she didn’t see anything for almost an hour.

She woke up in a warm bed in a strange house with a deceptively handsome young man, (in rather shabbier than usual clothes) who introduced himself as Ralph-Ray and told her that her horse had run off and it was lucky she fell, and he rescued her, because her horse fell over a cliff. Lizzy was sad about losing Hermes, she wept until her head ached and her sight was fuzzy. Ralph-Ray gave her red medicine called Sympathy, it tasted very nice and would make her feel better for a time, but eventually she would feel sad again. In fact whenever Lizzy would complain, Ralph-Ray would always have plenty of Sympathy ready for her. What she didn‟t know, was that all of her complaining was making his pet blue dragon bigger, and the bigger the dragon grew, the more miserable Lizzy felt.

The other thing that Lizzy definitely did not realise was that Ralph-Ray was preparing to make her into dragon’s dinner any day now. He chained her in his dungeon and everyday he would check on her. When she cried and told him that she thought he was her friend, he laughed wickedly and told her about the other people who ended up in the same place that she was going... Dragon’s Belly.

“Wa Ha Ha Ha Ho” he laughed loudly as Lizzy cried.

Lizzy started to realise, that her life at home had been pretty good compared to the one she had now. She started to miss her family even, Renée. Her problems with her older sister seemed humongous several days ago but miniscule now… Renée - the sister who always called her immature, locked her out of their room whenever she had friends over, put a line of masking tape down the middle of the room and screamed like a banshee if she put even a toe over the border, never shared her things unless their parents made her and borrowed Lizzy’s things all the time without asking first. Lizzy thought that if she ever got out of here, she would love to see them again, even for a moment. She wanted to apologise for taking them for granted.

She started to be thankful for her family, and as she thought of reasons to be thankful, more and more reasons popped into her head and the dragon started to get smaller.

Ralph-Ray was worried about his pet and went to get some dragon medicine, from the door-to-door salesman who came to the house, the next day.

While the salesman was showing his medicines to Ralph-Rae, three Dragon-fighters crept past him in an effort to find the trapped Lizzy. Cara, was ready with the Salt that she flung at the dragon. The salt hit him as he flew away, but his cry alerted Ralph-Rae.

Michael (the peddler) was ready for him, telling Ralph-Ray that it sounded like he really needed a lot of this one pointing to the big barrel, of a greenish vomit looking medicine. Naming a very outrageous price, he pointed out that the dragon may not live without it. So Ralph-Ray went out to his well (the secret hiding place, his aunt had for all her gold, which she didn't need any more) to purchase the medicine.

The dragon-fighters went through the house looking for Lizzy, Deborah found her first and untied her, while Lord Forest carried her out to the carriage which was waiting.

She and Cara were waiting with the ropes, ready to tie up Ralph-Rae. When he returned, they locked him in his dungeon and covered him with the “dragon medicine” which was full of salt (very bad for dragons).

When Ralph-Ray realised that he had been tricked he was furious, and beganyelling, screaming and swearing. Lord Forest told him that he really should do something about his temper.

Ralph-Ray yelled and screamed again as Deborah tipped out his entire stock of Sympathy medicine saying, “You won’t be requiring this anymore, Ralph-Rae”.

The four Dragon fighters took Lizzy to hospital where she recovered from her injuries. Cara and Deborah visited her each day and by talking with them, she realised that she had some changes to make; this time she put in a whole lot more effort at Jae School her family re-arranged the house so that each of the sisters could have a room to themselves, it was quite a lot of work, but was certainly nice to have her own space. As she was no longer silly, Elizabeth used her whole name.

Elizabeth was careful about the friends she made, realising with the help of her new friends, she didn't need people’s sympathy to be happy and playing tricks on people was not the way to make good friends. She set about to be a friend and she found that she now had many friends. She even worked on getting along better with Renée , who realised that there were things she was mad with Lizzy about that really were not her fault, and other things Lizzy agreed to work on, like not always trying to get her into trouble by whining and telling tattle-tales. Instead of trying to be rescued, she decided to help people who needed it. She used her imagination in more suitable ways, such as the school drama club, and telling stories to younger children in the lunch break and eventually she became a very skilful and compassionate dragon-fighter.

Sympathetic or pathetic was her new slogan.

Activities

1. Match the word with the meaning;

Livid tersely Provoke Comparatively Obscure

Annoy Angry Not well known abruptly fairly

3. All of the names of the Dragon-Fighter’s weapons tell something about that weapon and all are real names except one; Nasi-Ella... Nasi-Ella comes from the letters NaCl which are the short form of Sodium Chloride which is the scientific name for what dragon-fighting weapon. If you don’t know; google it.

4. We all have things we can be thankful for, but sometimes we forget. Take a few minutes to write a list of the things you are thankful for and have a fantastic day.

Sometimes older siblings (without realising they are doing it) hold it against younger children in the family when they feel rejected as the next baby is born, and receives more attention than themselves. It really is not the baby's fault, and many parents are careful to make sure that people play with the older children before they let them see the new baby to try to avoid this sibling rivalry. Is there something you are holding against someone that may not be their fault. Talk to someone you trust about the situation and maybe your relationship with the person you have difficulty with will improve too.