The Tale of Despereaux (3 page)

“No, no, it’s a mouse.”

“A bug,” said the king, who liked to be right.

“A
mouse,
” said the Pea, who knew that she was right.

As for Despereaux, he was beginning to realize that he had made a very grave error. He trembled. He shook. He sneezed. He considered fainting.

“He’s frightened,” said the Pea. “Look, he’s so afraid he’s shaking. I think he was listening to the music. Play something, Papa.”

“A king play music for a
bug
?” King Phillip wrinkled his forehead. “Is that proper, do you think? Wouldn’t that make this into some kind of topsy-turvy, wrong-headed world if a king played music for a bug?”

“Papa, I told you, he’s a
mouse,
” said the Pea. “Please?”

“Oh, well, if it will make you happy, I, the king, will play music for a bug.”

“A
mouse,
” corrected the Pea.

The king adjusted his heavy gold crown. He cleared his throat. He strummed the guitar and started to sing a song about stardust. The song was as sweet as light shining through stained-glass windows, as captivating as the story in a book.

Despereaux forgot all his fear. He only wanted to hear the music.

He crept closer and then closer still, until, reader, he was sitting right at the foot of the king.

THE PRINCESS PEA looked down at Despereaux. She smiled at him. And while her father played another song, a song about the deep purple falling over sleepy garden walls, the princess reached out and touched the top of the mouse’s head.

Despereaux stared up at her in wonder. The Pea, he decided, looked just like the picture of the fair maiden in the book in the library. The princess smiled at Despereaux again, and this time, Despereaux smiled back. And then, something incredible happened: The mouse fell in love.

Reader, you may ask this question; in fact, you
must
ask this question: Is it ridiculous for a very small, sickly, big-eared mouse to fall in love with a beautiful human princess named Pea?

The answer is . . . yes. Of course, it’s ridiculous.

Love is ridiculous.

But love is also wonderful. And powerful. And Despereaux’s love for the Princess Pea would prove, in time, to be all of these things: powerful, wonderful, and ridiculous.

“You’re so sweet,” said the princess to Despereaux. “You’re so tiny.”

As Despereaux looked up at her adoringly, Furlough happened to scurry past the princess’s room, moving his head left to right, right to left, back and forth.

“Cripes!” said Furlough. He stopped. He stared into the princess’s room. His whiskers became as tight as bowstrings.

What Furlough saw was Despereaux Tilling sitting at the foot of the king. What Furlough saw was the princess touching the top of his brother’s head.

“Cripes!” shouted Furlough again. “Oh, cripes! He’s nuts! He’s a goner!”

And, executing a classic scurry, Furlough went off to tell his father, Lester Tilling, the terrible, unbelievable news of what he had just seen.

“HE CANNOT, he simply cannot be my son,” Lester said. He clutched his whiskers with his front paws and shook his head from side to side in despair.

“Of course he is your son,” said Antoinette. “What do you mean he is not your son? This is a ridiculous statement. Why must you always make the ridiculous statements?”

“You,” said Lester. “This is your fault. The French blood in him has made him crazy.”

“
C’est moi?
” said Antoinette. “
C’est moi?
Why must it always be I who takes the blame? If your son is such the disappointment, it is as much your fault as mine.”

“Something must be done,” said Lester. He pulled on a whisker so hard that it came loose. He waved the whisker over his head. He pointed it at his wife. “He will be the end of us all,” he shouted, “sitting at the foot of a human king. Unbelievable! Unthinkable!”

“Oh, so dramatic,” said Antoinette. She held out one paw and studied her painted nails. “He is a small mouse. How much of the harm can he do?”

“If there is one thing I have learned in this world,” said Lester, “it is that mice must act like mice or else there is bound to be trouble. I will call a special meeting of the Mouse Council. Together, we will decide what must be done.”

“Oh,” said Antoinette, “you and this council of the mouse. It is a waste of the time in my opinion.”

“Don’t you understand?” shouted Lester. “He must be punished. He must be brought up before the tribunal.” He pushed past her and dug furiously through a pile of paper scraps, until he uncovered a thimble with a piece of leather stretched across its open end.

“Oh, please,” said Antoinette. She covered her ears. “Not this drum of the council of the mouse.”

“Yes,” said Lester, “the drum.” He held it up high above his head, first to the north and then to the south, and then to the east and the west. He lowered it and turned his back to his wife and closed his eyes and took a deep breath and began to beat the drum slowly, one long beat with his tail, two staccato beats with his paws.

Boom. Tat-tat. Boom. Tat-tat. Boom. Tat-tat.

The rhythm of the drum was a signal for the members of the Mouse Council.

Boom. Tat-tat. Boom. Tat-tat. Boom.

The beating of the drum let them know that an important decision would have to be made, one that affected the safety and well-being of the entire mouse community.

Boom. Tat-tat. Boom. Tat-tat.

Boom.

AND WHAT WAS OUR OWN favorite member of the mouse community doing while the sound of the Mouse Council drum echoed through the walls of the castle?

Reader, I must report that Furlough had not seen the worst of it. Despereaux sat with the princess and the king and listened to song after song. At one point, gently, oh so gently, the Pea picked up the mouse in her hand. She cupped him in her palm and scratched his oversize ears.

“You have lovely ears,” the Pea said to him. “They are like small pieces of velvet.”

Despereaux thought that he might faint with the pleasure of someone referring to his ears as small and lovely. He laid his tail against the Pea’s wrist to steady himself and he felt the princess’s pulse, the pounding of her heart, and his own heart immediately took up the rhythm of hers.

“Papa,” the Pea said when the music was over, “I am going to keep this mouse. We are going to be great friends.”

The king looked at Despereaux cupped in his daughter’s hands. He narrowed his eyes. “A mouse,” he muttered. “A
rodent.
”

“What?” said the Pea.

“Put it down,” the king commanded.

“No,” said the Pea, who was a person not at all used to being told what to do. “I mean, why should I?”

“Because I told you to.”

“But why?” protested the Pea.

“Because it’s a mouse.”

“I know. I’m the one who told you he was a mouse.”

“I wasn’t thinking,” said the king.

“Thinking of what?”

“Your mother. The queen.”

“My mother,” said the Pea sadly.

“Mice are rodents,” said the king. He adjusted his crown. “They are related to . . . rats. You know how we feel about rats. You know of our own dark history with rats.”

The Pea shuddered.

“But Papa,” she said, “he is not a rat. He’s a mouse. There’s a difference.”

“Royalty,” the king said, “has many responsibilities. And one of them is not becoming involved personally with even the distant relatives of one’s enemies. Put him down, Pea.”

The princess put Despereaux down.

“Good girl,” said the king. And then he looked at Despereaux. “Scat,” he said.

Despereaux, however, did not scat. He sat and stared up at the princess.

The king stamped his foot. “Scat!” he shouted.

“Papa,” said the princess, “please, don’t be mean to him.” And she began to weep.

Despereaux, seeing her tears, broke the last of the great, ancient rules of mice. He spoke. To a human.

“Please,” said Despereaux, “don’t cry.” He held out his handkerchief to the princess.

The Pea sniffed and leaned down close to him.

“
Do not speak to her!
” thundered the king.

Despereaux dropped his handkerchief. He backed away from the king.

“Rodents do not speak to princesses. We will not have this becoming a topsy-turvy, wrong-headed world. There are rules. Scat. Get lost, before my common sense returns and I have you killed.”

The king stamped his foot again. Despereaux found it alarming to have such a big foot brought down with so much force and anger so close to his own small head. He ran toward the hole in the wall.

But he turned before he entered it. He turned and shouted to the princess. “My name is Despereaux!”

“Despereaux?” she said.

“I honor you!” shouted Despereaux.

“I honor you” was what the knight said to the fair maiden in the story that Despereaux read every day in the book in the library. Despereaux had muttered the phrase often to himself, but he had never before this evening had occasion to use it when speaking to someone else.

“Get out of here!” shouted the king, stamping his foot harder and then harder still so it seemed as if the whole castle, the very world, were shaking. “Rodents know nothing of honor.”

Despereaux ran into the hole and from there he looked out at the princess. She had picked up his handkerchief and she was looking at him . . . right, directly into his soul.

“Despereaux,” she said. He saw his name on her lips.

“I honor you,” whispered Despereaux. “I honor you.” He put his paw over his heart. He bowed so low that his whiskers touched the floor.

He was, alas, a mouse deeply in love.