Dear readers, we’ve made a few small changes thanks to your feedback. We’ve made images smaller and lower quality to load faster (you’re welcome, reader H), are using simpler vocabulary (you’re welcome reader Quentin), and we’ve added more characters to stories (can’t remember who mentioned that). We also will digress less, since someone mentioned that digressions are distracting and don’t add to the narrative form we work so hard to perfect.

Enough preamble, here’s the first picture with some words under it (see Quentin, simple words):

Princess Pricklepants was very busy working on her farm, but even with more cows than she could count (anything more than four is really hard), she wasn’t making a lot of money selling milk. She held a council with the cows, and asked for ideas. Bessie the cow spoke up, “I think if we got more animals we’d ultimately benefit from increased production. Also, Quentin needs a dictionary. Cows have large vocabularies, it’s the way we are. Deal with it.” So Princess went to the place where you get animals and got some more.

The new crocodiles were happy in their pond. The cows seemed moderately concerned but were hopeful that crocodile eggs would fetch a good profit. Jane, the cow accountant ran the numbers, but even after a few hours there was still no new money coming in. Strange. She said some technical things about taxes and capital investment we don’t need to repeat. She complained that she got a CPA, and we really should go into those details, but we ignored her. While Jane complained that it would add to the believability and richness of detail to the story if we talked about tax benefits from depreciations of capital something-or-others, Princess went to the place where you get animals to get some more.

The cows weren’t so sure about the bear. Bessie, the generic cow, said something very inappropriate that we can’t repeat. Other cows mentioned that the bear didn’t seem as polite as the crocodiles. Jane, the cow accountant, noted that bears don’t actually produce anything that farms need. Christine, the cow safety officer, mentioned that bears were potentially dangerous. Bessie, the generic cow, also mentioned that the bear looked angry.

“Rawr,” said the bear (whose name was Boris, and who was offended that nobody had really given any proper introductions, so impolite – he was Canadian, and was upset at how rude these animals were). Princess and the cows decided to spend some time far from the bear whose name and nationality they didn’t know.

They had another meeting. “Princess, you need to do something about the bear.” Jane, the cow accountant, mentioned that there were some concerns about accounts, but maybe they could wait for the bear situation to be handled.

They had a farm to run, so Princess bravely introduced herself to the bear formally and used her impeccable manners to make friends. But still even with cows, crocodiles, and a bear, Jane, the cow accountant, was insistent about the fact that the farm still wasn’t earning enough money. In fact it seemed like they somehow had less money, which she tried to explain in a long drawn out explanation. While Jane was rambling, Princess left to go to the place where you get animals to get some more.

In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a good idea to get a Spinosaurus. The Spinosaurus was terribly rude as well as terrifyingly dangerous. The cows all insisted that a Spinosaurus was not a farm animal. Boris mentioned that he thought that Spinosauruses were extinct, though obviously he wasn’t a well educated bear.

Christine, the cow safety officer, mentioned that bears ate berries, roots, and honey, cows ate grass, crocodiles didn’t eat, but she was pretty sure that the Spinosaurus ate hedgehogs, cows, and bears.

The crocodiles were happy, though, as they basked in the sun at the pond.

“I have an idea, eh,” said Boris, stepping forth with great gravitas and bearing. “Things are getting complex. It’s especially challenging with that hoser Quentin limiting our prodigious vocabularies. I am a very erudite bear with a Masters degree in Comparative Mythology, so this is killing me. Let’s check the internet to see what it says about hedgehog-run farms with cows, bears, crocodiles, and Spinosauruses. There’s probably tons of web page site whatevers about that topic.” So Princess searched websites, and finally went to a hedgehog farmer’s web forum (hedgehogfarmercentral.com) to try to figure things out. The other hedgehogs on the Internet suggested she go to hedgehogfarmsupply.com to order some automated assistants. One helpful forum member mentioned that if she used her Ink credit card she would earn points that might be useful to offset farm expenses. There was something else about how it would code as office supplies, but the post was too long to finish reading. Princess had online farm shopping to do. So she ordered some automated farm assistants.

The helper robots were very good at teaching the Spinosaurus manners. The cows liked the robots, they worked with the bear to overcome his irrational fear of Spinosauruses, and the crocodiles liked the robots, bonding over the fact that they had a lot in common.

The farm started making a profit, they were producing milk, crocodile eggs, the robots taught the bear to collect a lot of honey to sell, and the dinosaur did an incredibly nice job at being a dinosaur. The only problem was that the robots did such a wonderful job at running the farm that there wasn’t a need for Princess to even be there any longer.

So, with all her farm business humming along nicely, Princess decided to take a trip to the outer reaches of interstellar space to pursue her real passion – space exploration.

Next: Princess Pricklepants and the Planet of the Dinosaurs