The time had come in Nottingham for the annual Halloween Carnival. The town children were giddy and could not wait. They had been planning their costumes for months. Little John was going dressed as a king, Allen-A-dale as a knight and Will as a wizard. Robin was the only child who had not decided on a costume. “Robin, you better hurry up and decide. The carnival is tonight,” said Little John. Robin replied, “Yes, I know but all the good costumes are taken.” Allen offered to let Robin have his costume but Robin would not hear of it. “Allen don’t be foolish. You have been working on that knight costume since last year’s carnival. I’m not about to take that from you! ” exclaimed Robin.“Then what are you going to do? You can’t go without a costume?” said Will. “ Ah, don’t worry about me. Just run along and I will meet you there shortly,” assured Robin.
Robin went inside the house and just started grabbing stuff. He then took the pile of stuff that he had gathered and began going through it to see what he could come up with. The first thing he picked up was his father’s green nightshirt. He set that aside and picked up the next item. It was a pair of his mother’s Christmas tights. The only other thing he saw that looked promising was his father’s hunter green archer’s hat. He hastily put on the garments and ran out the door. Outside he grabbed his bow and quiver and headed straight for the carnival.
As he walked toward the courtyard, where the carnival was taking place, he bumped into a large group of older kids. “Hey, fancy pants, watch where you’re going!” angrily blurted their leader. “ Yeah! Watch where you’re going!” echoed the group. At that moment the group began closing in around Robin. “What are you going to do about?!” quipped Robin. “ We are going to break every bone in your scrawny little body, that’s what,” uttered the leader. “Wow, that’s original. Why don’t you do something that actually takes some skill?” murmured Robin. “What you say, boy?” asked the leader, “ You saying it don’t take skill to bust you up?” Robin answered, “ There is no skill involved when it’s 15 against one. A group of 15 girls could probably beat me up just as easy; however, I bet you couldn’t hold a candlestick to my archery skills.” The leader slyly smirked and laughed, “Boy, you must not know who you be talking to?! This here is the whole high school archery team. You, little boy, are no match for us. We’ve been taking state for nearly six years. That’s probably longer than you’ve been alive. Now, Do you really think you are gonna beat all of us?” While the leader was blabbing on and on about how great an archer he was, Robin quietly removed an arrow from his quiver and threaded a white glove that he had found in his shirt pocket onto it. He then placed the back of the arrow against the string and pointed his bow at the leader. Then he drew back the string and shot the arrow. He watched as it flew straight toward the leader’s face but as it got closer it curved just enough where the only thing that hit the leader was the glove. “I challenge thee to an archery contest,” howled Robin. The leader just stood there in shock. “I challenge thee to an archery contest,” repeated Robin. Just then the leader fainted and the rest of the group dropped their arrows and ran. Robin merrily ran to find his friends and enjoy the rest of the festival. The End!!!!
Image Information : Kid Robin Hood
Web Source: The Kid's Window
Author's Note: Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham was my inspiration this week. I ended up changing quite a bit of the story but I think I kept enough that you can still see that the two are related. I made Robin a lot younger. In my story he is probably around five or six and in the original he was fifteen. I also changed the setting by making it take place at the Halloween Carnival instead of at an archery contest. In both stories Robin bets the bad guys that he can beat them; however, in the original story he actually kills them. In mine, he just scares them by shooting at the leader.
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