Meet Princess Cimorene--a princess who refustes to be proper. She is everything a princess is not supposed to be: headstrong, tomobyish smart...   And bored.   So bored that she runs away to live with a dragon. And not just any dragon, but Kazul--one of the most powerful and dangerous dragons arounds. Of course, Cimorene has a way of hooking up with dangerous characters, and soon she's coping with a witch,a a jinn, a death-dealing talking bird, a stone prince, and some very oily wizards.   If this princess ran away to find some excitement, it looks like she's found plenty! With a new look and new introduction from the author. "What a charmer! . . . Laugh-out-loud reading pleasure."-- Booklist (starred review) "Full of excitement . . . and good humor. . . . Wrede's delightful voice is all her own."-- School Library Journal (starred review) "[An] upbeat and lively story."-- VOYA PATRICIA C. WREDE has written many novels, including Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot and The Grand Tour coauthored with Caroline Stevermer, as well as the four books in her own series, the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. She lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota. 1 In Which Cimorene Refuses to Be Proper and Has a Conversation with a Frog   Linderwall was a large kingdom, just east of the Mountains of Morning, where philosophers were highly respected and the number five was fashionable. The climate was unremarkable. The knights kept their armor brightly polished mainly for show'it had been centuries since a dragon had come east. There were the usual periodic problems with royal children and uninvited fairy godmothers, but they were always the sort of thing that could be cleared up by finding the proper prince or princess to marry the unfortunate child a few years later. All in all, Linderwall was a very prosperous and pleasant place.   Cimorene hated it.   Cimorene was the youngest daughter of the King of Linderwall, and her parents found her rather trying. Their first six daughters were perfectly normal princesses, with long, golden hair and sweet dispositions, each more beautiful than the last. Cimorene was lovely enough, but her hair was jet black, and she wore it in braids instead of curled and pinned like her sisters.   And she wouldn't stop growing. Her parents were quite sure that no prince would want to marry a girl who could look him in the eye instead of gazing up at him becomingly through her lashes. As for the girl's disposition'well, when people were being polite, they said she was strong-minded. When they were angry or annoyed with her, they said she was as stubborn as a pig.   The King and Queen did the best they could. They hired the most superior tutors and governesses to teach Cimorene all the things a princess ought to know'dancing, embroidery, drawing, and etiquette. There was a great deal of etiquette, from the proper way to curtsy before a visiting prince to how loudly it was permissible to scream when being carried off by a giant. (Linderwall still had an occasional problem with giants.)   Cimorene found it all very dull, but she pressed her lips together and learned it anyway. When she couldn't stand it any longer, she would go down to the castle armory and bully the armsmaster into giving her a fencing lesson. As she got older, she found her regular lessons more and more boring. Consequently, the fencing lessons became more and more frequent.   When she was twelve, her father found out.   'Fencing is not proper behavior for a princess," he told her in the gentle-but-firm tone recommended by the court philosopher.   Cimorene tilted her head to one side. "Why not?"   'It's . . . well, it's simply not done."   Cimorene considered. "Aren't I a princess?"   'Yes, of course you are, my dear," said her father with relief. He had been bracing himself for a storm of tears, which was the way his other daughters reacted to reprimands.   'Well, I fence," Cimorene said with the air of one delivering an unshakable argument. 'so it is too done by a princess."   'that doesn't make it proper, dear," put in her mother gently.   'Why not?"   'It simply doesn't," the Queen said firmly, and that was the end of Cimorene's fencing lessons.   When she was fourteen, her father discovered that she was making the court magician teach her magic.   'How long has this been going on?' he asked wearily when she arrived in response to his summons.   'since you stopped my fencing lessons," Cimorene said. "I suppose you're going to tell me it isn't proper behavior for a princess."   'Well, yes. I mean, it isn't proper."   'Nothing interesting seems to be proper," Cimorene said.   'You might find things more interesting if you applied yourself a little more, dear," Cimorene's mother said.   'I doubt it," Cimorene muttered, but she knew better than to argue when her mother used that tone of voice. And that was the end of the magic lessons.   The same thing happened over the Lat