47 pages 1 hour read

Chad Sell

The Cardboard Kingdom

Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2018

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Chapters 4-6

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 4 Summary: “The Alchemist and the Blacksmith”

Alice is running a lemonade stand, and she markets the lemonade as “potions” to all the kids in the neighborhood. At the end of the day, she celebrates how much money she has made and believes that she will be rich by the end of the week. However, despite the heat, nobody returns the next day, and Alice soon learns that a girl named Becky has opened a blacksmith shop. She is furious and confronts Becky about stealing her customers. Becky claims that she is not competing with Alice because she doesn’t sell lemonade, but this defense only makes Alice angrier. She vows to win her customers back and storms away.

Later that day, Alice rebrands her potions as “Super Super Super” potions and claims to have tripled the amount of pixie dust. The Knight is still not interested because she has already spent her money on a new sword, so Alice breaks the sword to show how poor the craftmanship is. This prompts Becky to change her strategy as well, and she starts making “silver” weapons that are stronger than ever. The back-and-forth escalation continues until Alice has put so much sugar into her potions that it makes the Sorceress sick, and Becky’s swords are so tough that they actually hurt someone.