Welcome to the SAG Foundation's Storyline Online

Today we're reading The Kiss That Missed written and illustrated by David Melling.

Once upon a Tuesday the King was in a hurry as usual.

"Goodnight," he said and blew his son a royal kiss.

It missed.

The young prince watched it rattle around the room,

then bounce out of the window and into the night.

The prince told the Queen.

The Queen told the King,

and the King had a quick word with his loyal Knight.

"Follow that Kiss!" he squawked.

The Knight mounted his horse...

Eventually ...

and galloped off in hot pursuit until they came to the wild wood.

Wild creatures with wild eyes,

too much hair, and very bad manners lived here.

It was dark. It was smelly. It was ...

...snowing.

They were not alone.

There were bears with long claws and growly roars,

swooping owls of all shapes and sizes,

and a pack of hungry wolves with dribbly mouths.

"EEK!" squeaked the Knight.

And then, suddenly ...

...with a sparkle the Royal Kiss came floating by and,

in turn, said goodnight to everyone.

Bears stopped being growly,

Owls stopped being swoopy,

Wolves stopped being dribbly,

And before you could say "Follow that kiss!"

They all settled down for a good night's sleep.

After a while they sat down on a wrinkly old tree trunk to rest.

The wrinkly old tree trunk twitched...

and slowly rose into the air...

above the woods and into the clouds.

At last they found themselves staring into a pair of very hairy nostrils.

A dragon with "this-pair-would-be-nice-on-toast" eyes leered greedily at them.

Suddenly... with a sparkle the Royal Kiss came floating by

and flew right up the dragon's nose.

He sat up, sniffed, and blinked.

Slowly, he opened his mouth, took a deep breath, and...

Sneezed!

"Hang on!" he said as they tumbled through the trees.

"Come back!" he puffed as he lumbered after them.

"I want to pick you up and...

kiss you goodnight."

Slowly they all made their way back to the castle.

That night the prince was happy,

the Queen was happy,

and the King promised to stop always being in a hurry.

He made sure everyone was comfortable

and slowly read them a bedtime story from beginning to end...

almost.

The end. I'm Karan Brar again and thank you guys for checking out Storyline Online.

See ya!