The Tale of Despereaux (2 page)

“Look,” said a brother named Furlough, “his eyes are open. Pa, his eyes are open. They shouldn’t be open.”

It is true. Despereaux’s eyes should not have been open. But they were. He was staring at the sun reflecting off his mother’s mirror. The light was shining onto the ceiling in an oval of brilliance, and he was smiling up at the sight.

“There’s something wrong with him,” said the father. “Leave him alone.”

Despereaux’s brothers and sisters stepped back, away from the new mouse.

“This is the last,” proclaimed Antoinette from her bed. “I will have no more mice babies. They are such the disappointment. They are hard on my beauty. They ruin, for me, my looks. This is the last one. No more.”

“The last one,” said the father. “And he’ll be dead soon. He can’t live. Not with his eyes open like that.”

But, reader, he did live.

This is his story.

DESPEREAUX TILLING LIVED.

But his existence was cause for much speculation in the mouse community.

“He’s the smallest mouse I’ve ever seen,” said his aunt Florence. “It’s ridiculous. No mouse has ever, ever been this small. Not even a Tilling.” She looked at Despereaux through narrowed eyes as if she expected him to disappear entirely. “No mouse,” she said again. “Ever.”

Despereaux, his tail wrapped around his feet, stared back at her.

“Those are some big ears he’s got, too,” observed his uncle Alfred. “They look more like donkey ears, if you ask me.”

“They are obscenely large ears,” said Aunt Florence.

Despereaux wiggled his ears.

His aunt Florence gasped.

“They say he was born with his eyes open,” whispered Uncle Alfred.

Despereaux stared hard at his uncle.

“Impossible,” said Aunt Florence. “No mouse, no matter how small or obscenely large-eared, is ever born with his eyes open. It simply isn’t done.”

“His pa, Lester, says he’s not well,” said Uncle Alfred.

Despereaux sneezed.

He said nothing in defense of himself. How could he? Everything his aunt and uncle said was true. He
was
ridiculously small. His ears
were
obscenely large. He
had
been born with his eyes open. And he was sickly. He coughed and sneezed so often that he carried a handkerchief in one paw at all times. He ran temperatures. He fainted at loud noises. Most alarming of all, he showed no interest in the things a mouse should show interest in.

He did not think constantly of food. He was not intent on tracking down every crumb. While his larger, older siblings ate, Despereaux stood with his head cocked to one side, holding very still.

“Do you hear that sweet, sweet sound?” he said.

“I hear the sound of cake crumbs falling out of people’s mouths and hitting the floor,” said his brother Toulèse. “That’s what I hear.”

“No . . .,” said Despereaux. “It’s something else. It sounds like . . . um . . . honey.”

“You might have big ears,” said Toulèse, “but they’re not attached right to your brain. You don’t
hear
honey. You
smell
honey. When there’s honey to smell. Which there isn’t.”

“Son!” barked Despereaux’s father. “Snap to it. Get your head out of the clouds and hunt for crumbs.”

“Please,” said his mother, “look for the crumbs. Eat them to make your mama happy. You are such the skinny mouse. You are a disappointment to your mama.”

“Sorry,” said Despereaux. He lowered his head and sniffed the castle floor.

But, reader, he was not smelling.

He was listening, with his big ears, to the sweet sound that no other mouse seemed to hear.

DESPEREAUX’S SIBLINGS tried to educate him in the ways of being a mouse. His brother Furlough took him on a tour of the castle to demonstrate the art of scurrying.

“Move side to side,” instructed Furlough, scrabbling across the waxed castle floor. “Look over your shoulder all the time, first to the right, then to the left. Don’t stop for anything.”

But Despereaux wasn’t listening to Furlough. He was staring at the light pouring in through the stained-glass windows of the castle. He stood on his hind legs and held his handkerchief over his heart and stared up, up, up into the brilliant light.

“Furlough,” he said, “what is this thing? What are all these colors? Are we in heaven?”

“Cripes!” shouted Furlough from a far corner. “Don’t stand there in the middle of the floor talking about heaven. Move! You’re a mouse, not a man. You’ve got to scurry.”

“What?” said Despereaux, still staring at the light.

But Furlough was gone.

He had, like a good mouse, disappeared into a hole in the molding.

Despereaux’s sister Merlot took him into the castle library, where light came streaming in through tall, high windows and landed on the floor in bright yellow patches.

“Here,” said Merlot, “follow me, small brother, and I will instruct you on the fine points of how to nibble paper.”

Merlot scurried up a chair and from there hopped onto a table on which there sat a huge, open book.

“This way, small brother,” she said as she crawled onto the pages of the book.

And Despereaux followed her from the chair, to the table, to the page.

“Now then,” said Merlot. “This glue, here, is tasty, and the paper edges are crunchy and yummy, like so.” She nibbled the edge of a page and then looked over at Despereaux.

“You try,” she said. “First a bite of some glue and then follow it with a crunch of the paper. And these squiggles. They are very tasty.”

Despereaux looked down at the book, and something remarkable happened. The marks on the pages, the “squiggles” as Merlot referred to them, arranged themselves into shapes. The shapes arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase:
Once upon a time.

“ ‘Once upon a time,’ ” whispered Despereaux.

“What?” said Merlot.

“Nothing.”

“Eat,” said Merlot.

“I couldn’t possibly,” said Despereaux, backing away from the book.

“Why?”

“Um,” said Despereaux. “It would ruin the story.”

“The story? What story?” Merlot stared at him. A piece of paper trembled at the end of one of her indignant whiskers. “It’s just like Pa said when you were born. Something is not right with you.” She turned and scurried from the library to tell her parents about this latest disappointment.

Despereaux waited until she was gone, and then he reached out and, with one paw, touched the lovely words.
Once upon a time.

He shivered. He sneezed. He blew his nose into his handkerchief.

“ ‘Once upon a time,’ ” he said aloud, relishing the sound. And then, tracing each word with his paw, he read the story of a beautiful princess and the brave knight who serves and honors her.

Despereaux did not know it, but he would need, very soon, to be brave himself.

Have I mentioned that beneath the castle there was a dungeon? In the dungeon, there were rats. Large rats. Mean rats.

Despereaux was destined to meet those rats.

Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.

DESPEREAUX’S BROTHERS AND SISTERS soon abandoned the thankless task of trying to educate him in the ways of being a mouse.

And so Despereaux was free.

He spent his days as he wanted: He wandered through the rooms of the castle, staring dreamily at the light streaming in through the stained-glass windows. He went to the library and read over and over again the story of the fair maiden and the knight who rescued her. And he discovered, finally, the source of the honey-sweet sound.

The sound was music.

The sound was King Phillip playing his guitar and singing to his daughter, the Princess Pea, every night before she fell asleep.

Hidden in a hole in the wall of the princess’s bedroom, the mouse listened with all his heart. The sound of the king’s music made Despereaux’s soul grow large and light inside of him.

“Oh,” he said, “it sounds like heaven. It smells like honey.”

He stuck his left ear out of the hole in the wall so that he could hear the music better, and then he stuck his right ear out so that he could hear better still. And it wasn’t too long before one of his paws followed his head and then another paw, and then, without any real planning on Despereaux’s part, the whole of him was on display, all in an effort to get closer to the music.

Now, while Despereaux did not indulge in many of the normal behaviors of mice, he did adhere to one of the most basic and elemental of all mice rules: Do not ever, under any circumstances, reveal yourself to humans.

But . . . the music, the music. The music made him lose his head and act against the few small mouse instincts he was in possession of, and because of this he revealed himself; and in no time at all, he was spied by the sharp-eyed Princess Pea.

“Oh, Papa,” she said, “look, a mouse.”

The king stopped singing. He squinted. The king was nearsighted; that is, anything that was not right in front of his eyes was very difficult for him to see.

“Where?” said the king.

“There,” said the Princess Pea. She pointed.

“That, my dear Pea, is a bug, not a mouse. It is much too small to be a mouse.”