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Lawn Party was a yearly ritual most Kings and Queens viewed as tiresome at best; they were apt to put in a token appearance, drink the quick traditional toast, and then be away after bidding the farmers enjoy themselves and thanking them for another fruitful year (this was also part of the ritual, even if the crops had been poor). If Roland had been that sort of King, Peter and Ben would never had gotten the chance to know each other. But, as you might have guessed, Roland loved the Farmers’ Lawn Party, looked forward to it each year, and usually stayed until the very end (and more than once was carried away drunk and snoring loudly).
    As it happened, Peter and Ben were paired in the three-legged sack-race, and they won it . . . although it ended up being much closer than at first it seemed it would be. Leading by almost six lengths, they took a bad spill and Peter’s arm was cut.
    â€œI’m sorry, my prince!” Ben cried. His face had gone pale, and he may have been visualizing the dungeons (and I know his mother and father, watching anxiously from the sidelines, were; if it weren’t for bad luck, Andy Staad was fond of growling, the Staads would have no luck at all); more likely he was just sorry for the hurt he fancied he had caused, or was amazed to see that the blood of the future King was as red as his own.
    â€œDon’t be a fool,” Peter said impatiently. “It was my fault, not yours. I was clumsy. Hurry and get up. They’re catching us.”
    The two boys, made into a single clumsy three-legged beast by the sack into which Peter’s left leg and Ben’s right one had been tightly tied, managed to get up and lurch on. Both had been badly winded by the fall, however, and their long lead had been cut to almost nothing. Approaching the finish line, where crowds of farmers (not to mention Roland, standing among them without the slightest feeling of awkwardness, or of being somewhere he shouldn’t) were cheering deliriously, two huge, sweating farm boys began to close in. That they would overtake Peter and Ben in the last ten yards of the race seemed almost inevitable.
    â€œ Faster , Peter!” Roland bellowed, swinging a huge mug of mead with such enthusiasm that he poured most of it onto his own head. In his excitement he never noticed. “ Jackrabbit, son! Be a jackrabbit! Those clod-busters are almost up your butt and over your back! ”
    Ben’s mother began to moan, cursing the fate that had caused her son to be paired up with the prince.
    â€œIf they lose, he’ll have our Ben thrown into the deepest dungeon in the castle,” she moaned.
    â€œHush, woman,” Andy said. “He’d not. He’s a good King.” He believed it, but he was still afraid. Staad luck was, after all, Staad luck.
    Ben, meanwhile, had begun to giggle. He couldn’t believe he was doing it, but he was. “Be a jackrabbit, did he say?”
    Peter also began to giggle. His legs ached terribly, blood was trickling down his right arm, and sweat was flooding his face, which was starting to turn an interesting plum color, but he was also unable to stop. “Yes, that’s what he said.”
    â€œThen let’s hop !”
    They didn’t look much like jackrabbits as they crossed the finish line; they looked like a pair of strange crippled crows. It was really a miracle they didn’t fall, but somehow they didn’t. They managed three ungainly leaps. The third one took them across the finish line, where they collapsed, howling with laughter.
    â€œJackrabbit!” Ben yelled, pointing at Peter.
    â€œJackrabbit yourself!” Peter yelled, pointing back.
    They slung their arms about each other, still laughing, and were carried on the shoulders of many strong farmers (Andrew Staad was one of them, and bearing the combined weight of his son and the prince was something he never forgot) to where Roland slipped blue ribbands over their necks.