The Very Little Princess: Rose's Story (7 page)

and another

and another.

Sometimes Rose came back before the princess fell into sleep again, sometimes she didn't. Sometimes, if Regina had fallen asleep, she woke up the moment Rose found her, sometimes she didn't. The princess never did understand what this sleeping and waking business was about.

What she did understand was that this great girl was exceedingly careless.

Once Rose dropped Princess Regina in the cookie jar among the oatmeal raisin cookies. She left her on a dusty shelf in the basement. She even went off, forgetting Regina in the throne room. The princess had to sit watching the dark creep between the whispering leaves of the willow tree.

The worst, though, was when Rose left her in her desk at school over an entire weekend. The princess couldn't believe anyone could do
such a thing. First the sharp sound of the bell, desks slamming, feet smacking the floor. But no hand reaching in to carry her home.

Then quiet, the slow slap of Mr. Simmons's long, narrow feet moving around the room, the door closing, the door locking.

When Regina heard it open again, she was elated. Rose had remembered! She'd come back before it was too late! The princess already had a good, stern lecture composed in her mind.

But it was only the janitor, sweeping the floor. And then the silence … the terrible silence.

The deep sleep came very soon after.

Rose went off and left Princess Regina so many times and in so many places that the doll couldn't keep track of them all, even when she tried to call up a list of Rose's offenses to shout at her.

She only knew that she woke, every time,
to the mess of Rose's tears. And every time she was furious.

Rose always said she was sorry. She seemed to mean it, too. She promised that she would never leave her tiny charge again, not even for an instant. But Rose was Rose, and promises had a way of not holding.

So the girl and the doll bumped through to the end of the school year, sometimes remembering, sometimes forgetting, sometimes awake, sometimes asleep. Sometimes they could barely stand one another. Sometimes they were the best of friends. And that was the way they emerged into the green and blooming summer.

“Ding-Dong Drat It!”

It was a fine June morning. The sky was so blue it might have been painted overhead with a brush. Clouds were decorative puffs. And the breeze that sent whorls of dust up and down the street was already warm.

Rose walked toward town. She walked toward the hardware store, to be more precise. The tiny doll dangled around her neck from a harness Sam had made out of one of his leather shoestrings.

Regina had been talking about going to see “her” house since Rose had opened her eyes that morning. Once the princess got an idea into her head, there was no ignoring her.

Not that Rose wasn't glad to see the dollhouse, too. She was, though a dollhouse wasn't the kind of thing she had ever cared about before Regina. (That was the way she thought about her life these days—before and after Regina.)

As she walked along, Rose thought about letting Regina explore the dollhouse this time. After all, Mr. Hines, the owner, rarely came to the back of the store.

Maybe she could explore just the bedroom. That was Regina's favorite. It was frilly and pretty, very much like Rose's room. The bed even had a ruffled pink canopy and spread like the ones on Rose's bed. The walls were scattered with pink rosebuds, too. If the furniture
had been white and gold instead of brown, it would have been Rose's room exactly.

The frills suited the princess. Sometimes Rose wished they suited her half as well. As she walked, she tried to imagine turning into the kind of girl who would fit such a room. The kind of girl her mother wanted.

You never know
, she told herself.
I might be different someday
.

She was even feeling a little bit different now. Leaving Mr. Simmons's classroom had been like climbing out of her own stuffy trunk. She could breathe. Why, she hadn't mislaid Regina for more than a week. Maybe she would never lose her again. Maybe nothing bad would ever happen again!

And that was what Rose was thinking that fine summer day as she skipped to the back of the store. How beautiful the day was. How
nice the world was. How happy she was to be alive on this beautiful day, in this nice world.

Even how glad she was to be the servant of a tiny china princess.

But that was before she came to the shelf where the dollhouse had always stood. The empty shelf where the dollhouse had always stood.

Rose stopped. Her heart plummeted.

What was going on?

Her hand flew to gather in the princess hanging around her neck to protect her from the sight.

But Regina had already seen the empty shelf. “Where is it?” she cried in an accusing voice, as if Rose were the one who had spirited the house away. “What's happened to my house?”

“I—I don't know,” Rose stammered. “It was
right here yesterday. Wasn't it yesterday we were here? Anyway, I know it was right here the last time we came.”

“We didn't come yesterday,” Regina informed her. “Don't you remember? Yesterday you made dandelion soup. And then you wanted to wade in the creek and climb the oak tree. We didn't come to the store at all!”

She said all this in the same accusing tone, as though Rose had insisted on doing things that she, Regina, hadn't wanted to do, which wasn't the case at all. She even rolled her eyes as she spoke, the way some other girls Rose knew liked to do. Her sapphire blue eyes rolled up and away as if to share something bad about Rose with the ceiling. Her rolling eyes said very clearly that Rose was strange, that she was dumb, that she was wrong in every way.

And faster than it takes to tell you, all the
good feeling that had been singing through Rose's veins vanished. It disappeared as completely as the dollhouse had.

“Where is it?” Princess Regina said again in a very loud voice.

Rose tightened her hand around the doll. Not to protect her this time, but to keep her quiet. Why was she taking this silly thing with her everyplace she went, anyway? She was no princess! She was nothing more than another eye-rolling girl.

Rose pulled the leather shoestring from around her neck. Letting Princess Regina dangle from her hand in a most undignified manner, she stomped toward the front of the store. She pushed through the door and onto the summer sidewalk.

And that was when she came face to face with Dumb and Meanie.

“It's Rosie!” Dumb exclaimed. “What a surprise!”

(No one
ever
called her Rosie except Sam, and big brothers have special permission when it comes to pet names. Girls who sit in front of you in class but don't know a single true thing about you do
not
have that same permission.)

Rose started to turn away. She wasn't stuck in a seat in school. She didn't have to pay the slightest attention to this pair! But before she could take two steps, Meanie blocked her. Her eyes were hard on the tiny doll at the end of the leather shoestring.

“Look, Dawn!” Meanie said. “Do you see what Rosie has? A dolly!”

Now, Rose wasn't embarrassed to be found with a “dolly.” She didn't care about that at all. But in the few moments it had taken to see that the dollhouse was gone and the few
more to walk back out into the June sun, a firestorm had built up in her belly.

She didn't want to be responsible for a tiny china doll who walked and talked … and rolled her eyes. She didn't want to watch over her day and night. She didn't want to listen to her or try to please her.

It was hard enough just being herself without having somebody else to worry about.

Rose leaned into the girls. “But she's not just a
dolly
,” she said. “Don't you know?” She dangled Regina up in front of their faces. “She's a real princess. So unless you want to be good and sorry, you'd better start bowing.”

Then she gave the tiny doll a shake at the end of her leather shoestring and commanded, “Talk for them, Regina. Show them the kind of princess you are!”

Rose knew better, of course. She understood
that the only protection Regina could have in this too-curious world was for as few people as possible to know that she was awake. She understood especially that Regina needed to stay hidden from girls like these. Even so, the moment might have ended there, with Dawn and Melanie laughing—which is what they were doing—if Rose had walked away. It would have been a humiliating walk, but humiliation can be survived.

However, Rose's brain was buzzing, and her skin was popping. And at that moment, she no longer cared what happened to Regina.

She shook the shoestring again. She shook it hard so Regina danced up and down in the air. And she ordered, “Say something, princess. Give us one of your famous commands!”

You might think, as good as she was at ignoring orders, that Regina would have ignored this one, but she didn't. As Melanie reached for
her, Regina kicked her pink-clad feet and cried in her shrill voice, “Ding-dong drat it! Don't you dare touch me! I'm a princess, don't you know?”

Everything stopped.

When a storyteller says “everything stopped,” we usually mean that every character in the scene went silent. And they did do that, Rose, Dawn, Melanie … even Regina after her outburst. But this stopping was so deep, so complete, that for several long seconds the air itself seemed to hold its breath.

And then … pandemonium broke loose. (Do you know what
pandemonium
is? If not, perhaps you should look it up. You might learn not just what the word means, but where it comes from.)

Once more Melanie grabbed for the doll. This time she got hold of her and jerked the leather shoestring out of Rose's hand.

Princess Regina let out a muffled screech.

Dawn reached for her, too. “Let me have her! I want her!”

Rose realized all too late what she had done. “Stop!” she yelled.

No one did.

“You've got to stop!” Rose yelled again.

The girls paid no attention. They were playing tug-of-war with the leather shoestring.

“Please!” Rose cried. “Stop!”

“STOP!” came another voice entirely. That last
STOP!
was bellowed so loudly that a bank robber running off with his loot probably would have obeyed.

In any case, everyone stopped and turned to the new voice.

Sam moved toward them with long, loose strides.

Melanie's hand, grasping the tiny china doll,
drifted to her side as though she were holding nothing, as though she had meant nothing.

Sam stepped between Rose and the other girls. “What are you doing?” he asked. The question sifted down quietly from his great height.

“Nothing,” Melanie squeaked.

“It didn't look like nothing to me,” Sam said. He held out his hand. Without a word, Melanie handed Regina over.

“It's about time,” the princess said when she was safe in Sam's hand. But he gave her a look that said, as clearly as any words,
Not now!

She went silent again.

Rose threw her arms around her brother's waist.

“Have you been playing tricks again, Rosie?” he asked. He pried her arms loose and tucked Regina into her hand. “Did you convince these girls that this little doll can talk?”

Rose caught on instantly. That was the way things were between Rose and Sam. They understood one another.

“It was just a game,” she said, ducking her head as if she was ashamed. And the truth is she was. She knew how close she'd come to disaster. “I was teasing them a bit … that's all.”

“A bit?” Sam chuckled. “That will be the day.” He winked at Melanie and Dawn as though including them in a good joke. “My little sister never does things by bits. Now, Rose,” he went on. He cupped a hand over her shoulder and turned her to face the girls. “I want you to show your friends how you do it. Talk for the dolly and make us think she's real.”