I've had this all uploaded and ready to go for the past two weeks! Its just I haven't had time to press the publish button! So I better get this up! Sorry for the long waiting in between one day soon people I will get my act together I will!


"In the spirit of our last winters topic, I'd like to write about King Arthur, knights in shining armours, Guinevere and the round table!" she sighed excitedly, "Can't you just feel the story!"

"Shall we meet in the summer, we can all play together for inspiration!" Diana suggested.

"Oh Wonderful!" Ruby exclaimed happily.

"I can't think of anything better then spending time with my chums." Jane agreed.

"Oh!" Anne exclaimed. "Oh this is just thrilling!" she said "Ruby you can be the beautiful Guinevere." Anne started planning. "Diana the brave Lancelot, and Jane you maybe Merlin!" she smiled which made the girls laugh.

"And who shall you be Anne?" Ruby asked her. Anne leapt from her seat drawing a stick from the ground as a sword she leapt onto the table. She stood strong "I shall be King Arthur!" he exclaimed. "Come now my brave knights and my beautiful milady!" she acted as they all giggled holding out her hand to Ruby who stood next to her on the ground unsure of the sturdiness of the table. "Let is save Camelot!"

Diana laughed "Abracadabra!" she laughed, before they laughed and made a battle call together, Gilbert barely had time to run up the path and hide behind the big tree which stood at the top.

"Look my knights!" Anne exclaimed "Lets make us daisy chains for our crowns! Anne exclaimed starting picking at the flowers.

"And I a shield of ummm..." Jane started but got stuck that far.

"How about we weave one." Diana exclaimed "we have long thick grass." She suggested. "mine is not all that imaginative as I just have to pick up a stick." Diana giggled as they walked over to the patches of grass.

"Maybe we can weave in some old leaves." Jane suggested.

"I like that." Diana nodded.

Ruby giggled with Anne for a moment as they started on their flower crowns. "Say Anne, do you suppose real princesses have flower crowns?" she asked.

"I think," Anne started not looking away from her flowers as she placed them together... "that nature has its own royalty, and that upon the coronation of a magical creature who can keep the flowers alive the blooms can fulfil their true purpose for all eternity."

Ruby smiled "I wish I had your fancies Anne." She replied to her dreamily. "I know none of us writes like you do..."

"Oh Ruby don't be so hard on yourself!" she exclaimed. "Dearest Ruby can you not see? If you only open your mind past Gil- I mean I certain someone, your mind can expand you can find a whole new world right here!" She exclaimed.

Ruby swallowed making another chain in the flowers, "Can you not imagine he wasn't so bad?" she asked of Anne.

Anne looked to her frustrated "I'll pretend I never heard that."

Ruby only sighed.


His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;

On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;

From underneath his helmet flow'd

His coal-black curls as on he rode,

As he rode down to Camelot.

From the bank and from the river

He flash'd into the crystal mirror,

"Tirra lirra," by the river

Sang Sir Lancelot.

Two weeks later, Gilbert cam down from his horse. It was a hot day that day he had decided to take a ride down to the pond. He hummed merrily an old tune he had known since he was a boy. He didn't know what it was about this warm summers day which brought back the old tune to his mind, but he didn't let it bother him too much as he bent over and wet his brown curls back from the hot sun, almost making the seem black. He stretched back his now broadening shoulders. "Come on Galahad." He clicked softly to his horse as he tugged gently at the reigns.

"Tirra-lirra-lirra, in the spring, Orioles and robins sweetly sing; From the leafy branches we can hear, Tirra-lirra-lirra, ringing clear! Tirra-lirra-lirra, is our song, When the lovely summer days are long; Rowing on the river or the sea, Tirra-lirra-lirra, sing with glee." He sang quietly as he continued walking down the pond.


The girls were still inspired by the story of Camelot, Their crowns and shields from a couple of weeks later were preserved as dried flowers in the corner, in particular they had been inspired by the lady of Shallot.

Ruby had read it and been inspired by the story of the flowers laying around the tower had brought some dried flowers with her, each done in its own wreath or garland, The flowers now hung around the room.

Jane had weaved a woollen rug which now hung off one of the walls of the shack

Diana had heard it and was inspired by the music mentioned brought an old wooden flute which they played with therein.

Anne had heard it and had been inspired by the four stone towers. Had collected stones throughout the two weeks and had built in one corner of the shack a round stone structure, symbolising the towers.

"Oh ladies what inspiration we have!" Anne exclaimed. "Come!" she told them "let us follow in her footsteps." she said grabbing Diana's hand who grabbed Ruby's who grabbed Jane's as she opened the door upon reciting as the girls giggled as they weaved back and forth through the clearing through the trees

"She left the web, she left the loom,

She made three paces thro' the room,

She saw the water-lily bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

"The curse is come upon me," cried

The Lady of Shalott!"

"...Down she came and found a boat

Beneath a willow left afloat,

And round about the prow she wrote

The Lady of Shalott."

Anne said as they arrived at the boat in front of them. "Of course you must be Elaine, Anne," Diana started.

The girls continued upon their conversation until they pushed off Anne on to the pond. Diana opened her book and started to read "Lying, robed in snowy white

That loosely flew to left and right—

The leaves upon her falling light—

Thro' the noises of the night

She floated down to Camelot:

And as the boat-head wound along

The willowy hills and fields among,

They heard her singing her last song,

The Lady of Shalott."

The three girls played merrily down the pond side, having no care when they lost sight of the dory for a while, because everyone knew there were parts of the pond you couldn't see or access from the side, they recited the poem picking flowers as they went.

Gilbert looked in amazement at his only imaginary friend, as she clung to the pile.

"Anne Shirley!" he exclaimed, not for the first time since he met Anne had she surprised him and in the years to come he would realise this wouldn't be the last, however this time, she wasn't just impossible, but... "How on earth did you get there?" he exclaimed.

He couldn't just leave her there no matter what the circumstances so without waiting for an answer he pulled close to the pile and extended his hand. He was rather surprised when she took it and scrambled down into the dory, where she sat, drabbled and furious, in the stern with her arms full of dripping shawl and wet crepe.

"What has happened, Anne?" asked Gilbert, taking up his oars with a deep sigh.

"We were playing Elaine" explained Anne frigidly, without even looking at him as if he were a stranger to her, but to him he wasn't if only she knew how much he understood her, "and I had to drift down to Camelot in the barge—I mean the flat. The flat began to leak and I climbed out on the pile. The girls went for help. Will you be kind enough to row me to the landing?"

Gilbert obligingly rowed he watched her as he rowed. They were playing Elaine. Another inspiration for their story book club that was for certain, the last time he had the time to go and listen Anne said they would be playing Camelot all summer, it had certainly inspired her that past winter in class. As the days got longer so did the fields which needed gathering in, so did the cows and pig, chickens and livestock which needed more attention. Indeed Gilbert's summer had not been spent in play, but in work. Not that he minded, he liked to work but this was one of the few times his father had told him "go and relax son" so he did. He never expected to find Anne here, Avonlea was small but if you wanted to avoid someone you could, but here she was, alone, vulnerable and being saved by her very own Lancelot and she didn't even notice! Indeed he was better then Lancelot surely! For he had saved his Lily-Maid. He thought as they came to the landing.

"I'm very much obliged to you," she said haughtily as she turned away. But Gilbert had also sprung from the boat and now laid a detaining hand on her arm.

"Anne," he said hurriedly, "look here. Can't we be good friends? I'm awfully sorry I made fun of your hair that time. I didn't mean to vex you and I only meant it for a joke. Besides, it's so long ago. I think your hair is awfully pretty now—honest I do. Let's be friends." He hadn't much thought it through before it was out of his mouth, but he knew he was being as honest and earnest and brave, as brave as any knight.

"No," she said coldly, "I shall never be friends with you, Gilbert Blythe; and I don't want to be!"

"All right!" Gilbert sprang into his skiff with an angry color in his cheeks. "I'll never ask you to be friends again, Anne Shirley. And I don't care either!"

He pulled away with swift defiant strokes, rowing as if it would help the red anger which rose inside from the some place as his bile. Angry and hot he could be as determined as she!

He brought the dory ashore and tied it up and marched straight up to Galahad mounting him. He speed through the woods almost in a blind white rage! Before he came to a clearing, with trees all around it, little sprigs of wild flowers growing around the old shack, in front of it was a circular campfire.

Oh if he were any other man! He would unmount this horse and wreck the whole thing in a rage! She would deserve it for breaking his heart!

He unmounted the horse fully expecting himself to do it. As he looked at the rocks which surrounded the campfire he stopped himself as he saw they were decorated.

Sir Galahad. One read, painted with a golden goblet, next to it. Gilbert smiled picking it up "The holy grail." He whispered to himself before he looked up at his horse named after the knight before he put it back. Then one my one he noticed the other 24 stones all painted and decorated round the campfire.

Sir Lancelot. With a red cross and a joust.

Sir Gawain, the rock painted green with a women painted on the rock.

Sir Percival with a sword and a fairy.

Sir Bedivere a cup and a sword.

Sir Tristian with an Irish flag and a bow and arrow.

Quite unexpected he found himself wiping a tear away. He found painted on the nearby fallen tree King Arthur and Queen Guinevere.

For the first time he entered the shack. He opened the door where his curiosity turned into wonder a smile appearing at his face.

Wreths of dried flowers hung around the room, on the makeshift table were some genuine cut flowers in an old vase. There were crowns and shields not only out of vines and leaves but an actual wooden one with a wooden sword!

Their crowns and shields from a couple of weeks later were preserved as dried flowers in the corner, in particular they had been inspired by the lady of Shallot, he smiled at the weaved rug on the wall, it must have taken hours to complete, but there it was displayed with other items of their little book club.

Gilbert found a piece of paper. For all they had taken care to have a nom de plume there was really no hiding who had written this piece, although it seemed to be the last page in the story as if it had been left there accidentally.

... "What are you telling me?" King Arthur asked Merlin. "That this place is full of magic?"

"No sire," Merlin shook his head. "Only that inventions have been found, imagine what men before the wheel would have thought of that!" Merlin explained, "these advances may be magical to you but no more magical then the wheel of our day."

"But I saw a wheel back there, in fact two which moved itself, it had no horses!" King Arthur replied. "You, are a wizard I suppose!" he exclaimed "many things aren't so magical to you."

"That was a bicycle sire, and I never supposed those things are not magical, I said these people live amongst miracles and magic that its not even noticed anymore, real magic just as ever is rarely recognised. In fact it is something they are still struggling with even as this town lives. Nearly 600 miles away is a man accused of witchcraft in a small town called Saleem, they are almost as suspicious as Camelot is of sorcery."

"Is it true? Is he a witch?"

"No." Merlin chuckled "Just a very clever man who knows a bit on how to heal." Merlin informed him "Though your father had men put to death on much less."

"I am not my father." Arthur replied to him.

"I know sire." Merlin nodded. "The man is Saleem is the last, or will be the last to be hunted for witchcraft. "As science continues to advance the impact of magic becomes less and less obvious its hard to say what is magic and what is miracle and what is science."

King Arthur looked around him, impressed with what he saw and nodded, "I am impressed with such a place Merlin." He acknowledged, Druids can live in peace and safety, along with everyone else." He thought outloud, "How I wish this for Camelot." He chuckled "How I wish for Camelot!" he corrected himself.

Gilbert took a deep breath and read that last 8 words again "How I wish for Camelot!" he corrected himself.

Anne had written it, the emphasises seemed right there, she longed for knights in shining armour for the magic and the wonder the beauty!

Gilbert chuckled and scratched the back of his head shaking it, she wouldn't think about the cleanliness or the relative poverty these people would live in!

'Oh what advantages we have!' Gilbert thought to himself. Yet he could see, why the romance of Camelot would appeal to Anne.

He took a sigh and wiped a tear knowing he couldn't share this with Anne. Knowing he never would. So maybe if he challenged her? Maybe if he competed with her intellect so she could understand what he understood. He couldn't share this with her with friendship, maybe he could show her it through competition? That's how he could prove to her his passions. Gilbert smiled and nodded leaving the shack behind, he was going to start proving his worth to her.