The king and queen had died long ago and their seven year old son, the prince was left behind. After his parents' death, the prince was alone As he was very young, his aunt took him with her to the neighbouring kingdom, where she lived with her family.

The prince's aunt was a kind woman and took great care of him, like her own son. The prince missed his home so whenever he felt sad his aunt brought him back to visit the castle.

But most of the time it was only Jackson, his parents and a few servants who lived in the castle.

One day, when Jackson was looking around in the castle. He noticed something strange about one of the main paintings. He saw that normally, the painting showed the King with a sword in his hand standing next to his son and some members of the palace. But now, everything was in its place, except the king.

The king had disappeared from the painting.

Jackson was shocked and worried on seeing this. He could not understand the reason for thisand thought that he must have been mistaken.

Confused, he went away from there.

But, after a while, when Jackson walked past the painting once again, he noticed that the king was still missing. The boy was now astounded. He saw that the sword of the painting had grown in size and had covered almost the whole painting and was about to hit the prince. Terrified, Jackson ran away from there.

Jackson did not tell his parents anything about this as he knew that they would be worried and began looking for the missing king everywhere in the castle.

Where was the king????

He looked in all the rooms, in the kitchen, in the guest room, he looked everywhere……

But he could not find the king.

After about an hour, Jackson finally found the king……..

He saw the king in one of the castle bathrooms, which had the biggest bathtub, quietly enjoying a wonderful bubble bath.

Jackson was speechless and stood stunned there. On seeing Jackson standing there shocked, the king smiled and explained to him, “Dear boy, I have spent years and years hanging on the walls of the castle, and its been so long, no one has ever cleaned the dust off me. Not even once. I have become so dirty that I could not stand it anymore. So, I had to run off to get a bath.”

Jackson smiled and was about to say something to the king, when suddenly………

THUMP!!!

Jackson fell down from the bed.

He was confused and looked around, trying to analyze what had happened.

Then, he gathered himself…..

He ran straight to the painting and found the king intact in the painting.

He had been dreaming……

With a sigh of relief, Jackson saw the painting carefully and realized that the painting was really dirty.

He called the servants and got the painting cleaned thoroughly. From then on, he took care of the cleanliness of all the paintings and other precious things.

Moral: Keeping things clean is always very essential.

Questions:

Q1. Where did Jackson live?

Q2. Why was Jackson shocked and worried?

Q3. What did Jackson search for?

Q4. Where did Jackson find the King and why?

Q5. What lesson did Jackson learn?

Glossary

Custodians   : People who have responsibility to take care or  protect something

Armour         : The metal coverings formerly worn to protect the body in battle

Astounded    : Shocked or surprised

Analyze         :  Examine in detail