Living in a Tent is hard but it's worth it

All the inhabitants of the castle were now out of the castle, in tents and in the large pool on the huge lawn. The Genie Lamp home improvement workers with their limitless Dragon Home Depot cards had gutted a lot of the castle and were rewiring electricity, plumbing, and wiring for internet throughout the castle. Although all the residents of Grandma Dragon's Castle were thrilled to have a remake of their apartments, they were weary of camping out. Now, the children didn't know any different but the parents did. It's difficult to have all your stuff in boxes and crates and only the essentials unpacked and spread out on a table somewhere for you to pick through every time you need to brush your teeth or wash the dishes or do some laundry. So Grandma Dragon had some of the Genie workers set up a cafeteria and a laundry service so the mothers and fathers didn't have such a difficult time of just doing the basics.

She was thrilled with the changes happening to the castle and she decided to have a drawing among the children to see which one would get to take a tour with her when she inspected it the next day. The kids were so excited. Grandma put a bunch of papers in a big hat. Each one was folded in four ways and on only one of them there was a big X. All the children reached their hands into the hat the next morning at school hoping that they would get the big red X on their paper. Leify and Isaac Nospompos were first and they were disappointed. Then Patrick, Lavender and the rest took their turn. But the one to get it was Legolas the Horned Creature's son. Grandma was pleased that he had picked it because she also need him to move the sword in the top rafter of the top tower of the castle so the workers could finished wiring and cleaning up there. As the reader may know, no one could touch the sword except for the Jedi Knight and Legolas was a Jedi.

Legolas was so excited for that afternoon to come that he could hardly sit through class. And when lunch came and everyone went to the big cafeteria tent, he went to his room and put on his Jedi robes. Grandma was a little surprised at first but she didn't say anything. She didn't realize how honored Legolas felt to be chosen to tour the castle before it was even done.

Sivart the Genie and a few of the head Genie workers escorted Grandma, Grandpa and Legolas across the newly built draw bridge over the very cleaned out moat (but not filled yet). Legolas noticed that the moat had some really cool cement apartments and tunnels built on the bottom and sides. They had thick windows and were wired for internet like Grandma promised. They had beautiful water plants as seedlings sitting in jars just waiting for the moat to be filled up. It was so clean too. All the yucky mud was scrapped up, and beautiful clean shiny colorful rocks and sand replaced the floor and shelves; blues and greens, orange, pink purple and yellow shininess would soon sparkle out of the moat. It was just like an aquarium. He couldn’t wait to tell Pigaletto about it. The draw bridge was automated so Grandma just pushed a button and it went up or down. The chains that held it were shiny stainless steel.

All (and I do mean all) the floors in the castle were retiled or the wood was refinished. All the walls were either scrubbed clean (if they were brick or rock) or repainted a nice high gloss white enamel. The bathrooms were all refinished and each family's apartment had a brand new bathroom complete with tub, shower, and sink. Some families (like the fairies) had several new facilities and each one had a kitchen. All the furniture was either refinished or replaced. The old shining armor of knights that stood at attention down a great hall (they had long lost their luster) were polished so that Legolas could see his reflection in them. The carpets were washed, the windows were replaced with new clean glass. All the electricity was replaced and in every room there were at least 2 internet plug ins.

Grandma's kitchen was the most transformed though. It was completely gutted and Legolas wondered if it would ever be a kitchen again. The workers still had a lot to do. Carpet to be laid, lighting to the base, base, base basement had to be wired, the old elevators up and down were gone and they were still waiting for the Dragon Home Depot to receive the shipment of new ones. There were some other really cool improvements. Grandma had redesigned some of the empty rooms. One was turned into a theatre with theatre chairs and a big theatre pop corn maker and soda bar on the side. The screen was huge and Legolas nearly flipped out thinking about how much fun the kids would have watching Finding Nemo or Pirates of the Caribbean. One room was turned into an indoor swimming pool and Jacuzzi. Legolas started thinking about where on earth he had put his swimming suit. He knew he had used it after he had helped clean out the pool but he could remember where he put it to dry. He was just thinking about this when Grandma showed him the laundry room. It would a great relief for his mother to just bring up her laundry and have it delivered washed, dried and folded to their apartment in the basement. That's what Grandma told him would happen. Each family had their own washer and dryer too but this would help the families spend more time with each other and give some of the idle creatures in the building an occupation. There was a racquet ball court, an indoor GYM with weights and cardio machines. There was a huge project room with sewing machines, tape glue colors and paper, a large game room with two pool tables, ping pong tables and fooz ball tables. There was a large elegant dining area that Grandma said would be for Sunday night dinners and other special occasions. There was a big room that had mirrors on all the walls and a wood floor. There were mats on the sides. Legolas wondered about this room and Grandma told him that it was dance, and wrestling, yoga room. "You just pull out the mats when you want to wrestle or do yoga" she explained.

Legolas's feets were tired and he was getting hungry and they hadn't even made it to the top tower. Grandma decided to skip to that part because she could see that Legolas was tired so they headed up into the top, top, top tower. Legolas was so pleased to see that the topest tower was a bit more sturdy than it was before with steel enforcements and such. He retrieved the sword and looked around. There was a telescope up there. Grandma had decided to build a new housing area for all the fairies and turn the topest tower into a comfortable astronomy room. Legolas loved studying about the stars and moon and planets and he yelled out loud "Oh Grandma this is so cool!"

Legolas stayed up very late that night in the cafeteria with a lot of the other children, telling them all about the new stuff and improvements on the castle. The children's heads were filled with wonder and amazement.

"A Jaccuzi right in the Castle?" said Bonny Fairy. "That's so fun!"