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The queen jingled a large ring of keys fastened to the gold belt around her waist. “Don’t worry. We’re safe. There’s no reason to consult him. We’ll surprise him when we’ve found him the perfect wife.”
(In fact, the poor prince does not appear in this story at all. Which, given that it is entirely about finding him a wife, is rather mysterious, isn’t it? Why do they keep him in that tower? Hmmm …)
The king sighed with relief, snatching the queen’s nose handkerchief to wipe his brow. She pulled another out of her dress, glaring at him. “Now that one will need to be burned.”
They both cringed at the word burned, then cleared their throats and stared royally at nothing. It was their greatest skill as rulers.
The first princess arrived on a Tuesday.
Tuesdays are the most disagreeable day of the week. Fridays are always welcome. They’re like your friend who has the best jokes and shares treats at lunch. Thursdays try to overcompensate to get you to like them more than Fridays. Their jokes are never as good as Fridays’, but at least they try. Saturdays and Sundays are like your favorite cousins who come to stay and there’s a sleepover and everything is super fun. Mondays are like your mom after your cousins leave. She’s tired and cranky because the whole house is a mess, but at least you had a good time. And Wednesdays squat in the middle, balancing everything, ready to tip from the dull beginning of the week into the inevitable slide into the weekend.
But Tuesdays! Tuesdays are the bullies of the week. Last weekend is a distant memory; next weekend is still too far away to look forward to. And if everyone is still tired from Monday? Tuesday doesn’t care! Tuesday will kick you right in the stomach and laugh all the way until next week, when it does it again.
The queen, being very disagreeable herself, felt a special kinship with Tuesdays. She thought it appropriate that the princess chose that day to arrive, and took it as a very good sign.
The princess was small, with a pointed nose and squinty eyes. She resembled a rat who had been dressed in brown silk and weighed down with gold. But at least she was like a normal rat and not an albino one, so her eyes weren’t red. This isn’t as scary as Snow White’s story. I’m glad.
While the princess was eating supper—and complaining about every course, a fact that filled the king and queen with hope—the king took their new servant boy, Jack, aside.
“You’ve prepared the room?”
“Yup.”
“And the pea? You didn’t forget the pea.”
Jack nodded with a pained look on his face. “I took care of that. But I still don’t understand why you wanted me to do it.”
The king sniffed haughtily. “Of course you wouldn’t understand. Which is why you are a servant and I am the king. Now go and make the pease porridge for the rest of the servants to eat. You can eat the scraps from the princess’s plate.”
“What kind of porridge??” Jack asked.
“Pease porridge! It’s the least we can do for our servants. No, really, it’s the very least we can do to keep them alive.”
Jack shrugged and did as he was told. This whole job thing was weird. He didn’t much like it, but it was better than being shoved in a well.
After dinner, the king and the queen sat in the library with the princess. She complained about the journey from her kingdom.
She complained about the height and width of the stairs to the castle, which she felt were several centimeters from what the ideal height and width of stairs should be. She was very passionate about stairs, as it turned out.
She complained about the color of the flames in the fireplace, which she thought should be rather more yellow than orange. She disliked the color orange in general, which she found offensive and thought should be banned.
And she complained about the prince, whom they had not invited to come down.
The king and queen were very encouraged. They complained about the prince constantly, and they had known him since he was born. So for her to complain about him before meeting him was an indication that she was very intelligent. She seemed just about perfect!
When they sent the princess off to bed, they were giddy with excitement. All she had to do was pass the pea test, and they would have a wife for their son!
The king and queen were dressed and sitting on their thrones bright and early the next morning, waiting to give the princess the good news.
“I couldn’t sleep at all last night, imagining a pea beneath my mattress!” the queen said. “I am so tired and grouchy, I will probably sentence a peasant to life in prison today for no reason at all.”
The king smiled proudly. “And soon we will have a daughter-in-law every bit as wonderful as you.”
The princess stormed into the throne room, hair askew, squinty face twisted up into a ratty expression of fury. A furious rat is something no one ever wants to behold, much less first thing in the morning. Even calm rats are preferably avoided, unless they are your pets. But you wouldn’t want one for a daughter-in-law.
However, in this case, the king and queen were delighted.
“How did you sleep?” the king asked, giggling as he had not done since he was a little boy and had his tutor whipped for telling him four times two wasn’t ten.
