The Tale of Despereaux

34

READER, you did not forget about our small mouse, did you?

“Back to the light,” that was what Gregory whispered to him when he wrapped Despereaux in his napkin and placed him on the tray. And then Mig, after her conversation with Roscuro, carried the tray into the kitchen, and when she saw Cook, she shouted, “It’s me, Miggery Sow, back from the deep downs.”

“Ah, lovely,” said Cook. “And ain’t we all relieved?”

Mig put the tray on the counter.

“Here, here,” said Cook, “your duties ain’t done. You must clear it.”

“How’s that?” shouted Mig.

“You must clear the tray!” shouted Cook. She reached over and took hold of the napkin and gave it a good shake, and Despereaux tumbled out of the napkin and landed right directly, plop, in a measuring cup full of oil.

“Acccck,” said Cook, “a mouse in my kitchen, in my cooking oil, in my measuring cup. You, Mig, kill him directly.”

Mig bent her head and looked at the mouse slowly sinking to the bottom of the glass cup.

“Poor little meecy,” she said. And she stuck her hand into the oil and pulled him out by his tail.

Despereaux, gasping and coughing and blinking at the bright light, could have wept with joy at his rescue. But he was not given time to cry.

“Kill him!” shouted Cook.

“Gor!” said Mig. “All right.” Holding Despereaux by the tail, she went to get the kitchen knife. But the mouse tail, covered as it was in oil, was slick and difficult to hold on to and Mig, in reaching for the knife, loosened her grip, and Despereaux fell to the floor.

Mig looked down at the little bundle of brown fur.

“Gor,” she said, “that killed him for sure.”

“Kill him even if he’s already dead,” shouted Cook. “That’s my philosophy with mice. If they’re alive, kill them. If they’re dead, kill them. That way you can be certain of having yourself a dead mouse, which is the only kind of mouse to have.”

“That’s some good sophosy, that is, kill ’em, even if they’s already dead.”

“Hurry, you cauliflower-eared fool!” shouted Cook. “Hurry!”

Despereaux lifted his head from the floor. The afternoon sun was shining through the large kitchen window. He had time to think how miraculous the light was and then it disappeared and Mig’s face loomed into view. She studied him, breathing through her mouth.

“Little meecy,” she said, “ain’t you going to skedaddle?”

Despereaux looked for a long moment into Mig’s small, concerned eyes and then there came a blinding flash and the sound of metal moving through air as Mig brought the kitchen knife down, down, down.

Despereaux felt a very intense pain in his hindquarters. He leapt up and into action. Reader, he scurried. He scurried like a professional mouse. He zigged to the left. He zagged to the right.

“Gor!” shouted Mig. “Missed him.”

“Ain’t that a surprise?” said Cook just as Despereaux scurried under a crack in the pantry door.

“I got the little meecy’s tail, though,” said Mig. She bent over and picked up Despereaux’s tail and held it up, proudly displaying it to Cook.

“So?” shouted Cook. “What good will that do us when the rest of him has disappeared into the pantry?”

“I don’t know,” said Mig. And she braced herself as Cook advanced upon her, intending to give her a good clout to the ear. “I don’t know.”

35

DESPEREAUX WAS PONDERING the reverse of that question. He was wondering not what he would do with his tail, but what he would do without it. He was sitting on a bag of flour high atop a shelf in the pantry, crying for what he had lost.

The pain in his hindquarters was intense and he wept because of it. But he also cried because he was happy. He was out of the dungeon; he had been recalled to life. His rescue had happened just in time for him to save the Princess Pea from the terrible fate that the rat had planned for her.

So Despereaux wept with joy and with pain and with gratitude. He wept with exhaustion and despair and hope. He wept with all the emotions a young, small mouse who has been sent to his death and then been delivered from it in time to save his beloved can feel.

Reader, the mouse wept.

And then he lay down on the sack of flour and slept. Outside the castle, the sun set and the stars came out one by one and then they disappeared and gave way to the rising sun and still Despereaux slept. And while he slept, he dreamt.

He dreamt of the stained-glass windows and the dark of the dungeon. In Despereaux’s dream, the light came to life, brilliant and glorious, in the shape of a knight swinging a sword. The knight fought the dark.

And the dark took many shapes. First the dark was his mother, uttering phrases in French. And then the dark became his father beating the drum. The dark was Furlough wearing a black hood and shaking his head no. And the dark became a huge rat smiling a smile that was evil and sharp.

“The dark,” Despereaux cried, turning his head to the left.

“The light,” he murmured, turning his head to the right.

He called out to the knight. He shouted, “Who are you? Will you save me?”

But the knight did not answer him.

“Tell me who you are!” Despereaux shouted.

The knight stopped swinging his sword. He looked at Despereaux. “You know me,” he said.

“No,” said Despereaux, “I don’t.”

“You do,” said the knight. He slowly took the armor off his head and revealed . . . nothing, no one. The suit of armor was empty.

“No, oh no,” said Despereaux. “There is no knight in shining armor; it’s all just make-believe, like happily ever after.”

And in his sleep, reader, the small mouse began to cry.

36

AND WHILE THE MOUSE SLEPT, Roscuro put his terrible plan into effect. Would you like to hear, reader, how it all unfolded? The story is not a pretty one. There is violence in it. And cruelty. But stories that are not pretty have a certain value, too, I suppose. Everything, as you well know (having lived in this world long enough to have figured out a thing or two for yourself), cannot always be sweetness and light.

Listen. This is how it happened. First, the rat finished, once and for all, the job he had started long ago: He chewed through Gregory’s rope, all the way through it, so that the jailer became lost in the maze of the dungeon. Late at night, when the castle was dark, the serving girl Miggery Sow climbed the stairs to the princess’s room.

In her hand, she carried a candle. And in the pockets of her apron were two very ominous things. In the right pocket, hidden in case they should encounter anyone on the stairs, was a rat with a spoon on his head and a cloak of red around his shoulders. In the left pocket was a kitchen knife, the same knife that Miggery Sow had used to cut off the tail of a certain mouse. These were the things, a rat and a knife and a candle, that Mig carried with her as she climbed up, up, up the stairs.

“Gor!” she shouted to the rat. “It’s dark, ain’t it?”

“Yes, yes,” whispered Roscuro from her pocket. “It is quite dark, my dear.”

“When I’m princess . . .,” began Mig.

“Shhhh,” said Roscuro, “may I suggest that you keep your glorious plans for the future to yourself? And may I further suggest that you keep your voice down to a whisper? We are, after all, on a covert mission. Do you know how to whisper, my dear?”

“I do!” shouted Mig.

“Then, please,” said Roscuro, “please institute this knowledge immediately.”

“Gor,” whispered Mig, “all right.”

“Thank you,” said Roscuro. “Do I need to review with you again our plan of action?”

“I got it all straight right here in my head,” whispered Mig. And she tapped the side of her head with one finger.

“How comforting,” said Roscuro. “Perhaps, my dear, we should go over it again. One more time, just to be sure.”

“Well,” said Mig, “we go into the princess’s room and she will be sleeping and snoozing and snoring, and I will wake her up and show her the knife and say, ‘If you does not want to get hurt, Princess, you must come with me.’”

“And you will not hurt her,” said Roscuro.

“No, I won’t. Because I want her to live so that she can be my lady in waiting when I become the princess.”

“Exactly,” said Roscuro. “That will be her divine comeuppance.”

“Gor,” whispered Mig. “Yes. Her divine comeuppance.”

Mig had, of course, no idea what the phrase “divine comeuppance” meant, but she very much liked the sound of it, and she repeated it over and over to herself until Roscuro said, “And then?”

“And then,” continued Mig, “I tells her to get out of her princess bed and come with me on a little journey.”

“Ha,” said Roscuro, “a little journey. That is right. Ha. I love the understatement of that phrase. A little journey. Oh, it will be a little journey. Indeed, it will.”

“And then,” said Mig, who was now coming to her favorite part of the plan, “we take her to the deep downs and we gives her some long lessons in how to be a serving girl and we gives me some short lessons in how to be a princess and when we is all done studying up, we switch places. I gets to be the princess and she gets to be the maid. Gor!”

Reader, this is the very plan that Roscuro presented to Mig when he first met her. It was, of course, a ridiculous plan.

No one would ever, not for one blind minute, mistake Mig for the princess or the princess for Mig. But Miggery Sow, as I pointed out to you before, was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And, reader, too, she wanted so desperately to become a princess. She wanted, oh, how she wanted. And it was because of this terrible wanting that she was able to believe in Roscuro’s plan with every ounce of her heart.

The rat’s real plan was, in a way, more simple and more terrible. He intended to take the princess to the deepest, darkest part of the dungeon. He intended to have Mig put chains on the princess’s hands and her feet, and he intended to keep the glittering, glowing, laughing princess there in the dark.

Forever.

37

SHE WAS ASLEEP and dreaming of her mother, the queen, who was holding out a spoon to her and saying, “Taste this, my sweet Pea, taste this, my darling, and tell me what you think.”

The princess leaned forward and sipped some soup from the spoon her mother held out to her.

“Oh, Mama,” she said, “it’s wonderful. It’s the best soup I have ever eaten.”

“Yes,” said the queen. “It is wonderful, isn’t it?”

“May I have some more?” said the Pea.

“I gave you a small taste so that you would not forget,” said her mother. “I gave you a small taste so that you would remember.”

“I want more.”

But as soon as the princess said this, her mother was gone. She disappeared and the bowl and the soupspoon disappeared along with her.

“Lost things,” said the Pea, “more lost things.” And then she heard her name. She turned, happy, thinking that her mother had come back. But the voice was not her mother’s. The voice belonged to somebody else and it was coming from someplace far away and it was telling her to wake up, wake up.

The Pea opened her eyes and saw Miggery Sow standing over her bed, a knife in one hand and a candle in the other.

“Mig?” she said.

“Gor,” said Mig softly.

“Say it,” commanded Roscuro.

Mig closed her eyes and shouted her piece. “If you does not want to get hurt, Princess, you must come with me.”

“Whatever for?” said the princess in an annoyed tone. As I have noted before, the princess was not a person who was used to being told what to do. “What are you talking about?”

Mig opened her eyes and shouted, “You got to come with me so after we take some lessons, you some long lessons and me some short ones, together way down in the deep downs, I can be you and you can be me.”

“No!” shouted Roscuro from Mig’s pocket. “No! No! You are doing it wrong.”

“Who said that?”

“Your Highness,” said Roscuro. And he crawled out of Mig’s pocket and made his way up to her shoulder and situated himself there, laying his tail across her neck to balance himself. “Your Highness,” he said again. And he raised the spoon slowly off his head and smiled, displaying his mouthful of truly hideous teeth. “I think it would be best if you do as Miggery Sow suggests. She is, as you can quite clearly see, in possession of a knife, a large knife. And she will, if pushed, use it.”

“This is ridiculous,” the princess said. “You can’t threaten me. I’m a princess.”

“We,” said Roscuro, “are all too aware of the fact of what you are. A knife, however, cares nothing for the fact that you are royalty. And you will bleed, I assume, just like any other human.”

The Pea looked at Mig. Mig smiled. The knife glinted in the light of the candle. “Mig?” she said, her voice shaking the tiniest bit.

“I really do not think,” said Roscuro, “that Mig would need much persuasion to use that knife, Princess. She is a dangerous individual, easily led.”

“But we are friends,” said the Pea, “aren’t we, Mig?”

“Eh?” said Mig.

“Trust me,” said Roscuro. “You are not friends. And I think it would be best if you addressed all your communications to me, Princess. I am the one in charge here. Look at me.”

The Pea looked right directly at the rat and at the spoon on his head. Her heart skipped one beat and then two.

“Do you know me, Princess?”

“No,” she said, lowering her head, “I don’t know you.”

But, reader, she did know him. He was the rat who had fallen in her mother’s soup. And he was wearing her dead mother’s spoon on his head! The princess kept her head down. She concentrated on containing the rage that was leaping up inside of her.

“Look again, Princess. Or can you not bear to look? Does it pain your royal sensibilities to let your eyes rest on a rat?”

“I don’t know you,” she said, “and I’m not afraid to look at you.” The Pea raised her head slowly. Her eyes were defiant. She stared at the rat.

“Very well,” said Roscuro, “have it your way. You do not know me. Nonetheless, you must do as I say, as my friend here has a knife. So get out of bed, Princess. We are going on a little journey. I would like it if you dressed in your loveliest gown, the one that you were wearing at a banquet not so long ago.”

“And put on your crown,” said Mig. “Put that on your princess head.”

“Yes,” said Roscuro. “Please, Princess, do not forget your crown.”

The Pea, still staring at Roscuro, pushed the covers back and got out of bed.

“Move quickly,” said Roscuro. “We must take our little journey while it is still dark and while the rest of the castle sleeps on — ignorant, oh so ignorant, I am afraid, of your fate.”

The princess took a gown from her closet.

“Yes,” said Roscuro to himself, “that is the one. The very one. Look at how it sparkles in the light. Lovely.”

“I will need someone to do my buttons,” said the princess as she stepped into the dress. “Mig, you must help me.”

“Little princess,” said Roscuro, “do you think that you can outsmart a rat? Our dear Miggery Sow will not lay down her knife. Not even for a moment. Will you, Miggery Sow? Because that might ruin your chances of becoming a princess, isn’t that right?”

“Gor,” said Mig, “that’s right.”

And so while Mig held the knife pointed in the direction of the princess, the Pea sat and let the rat crawl over her back, doing her buttons up for her, one by one.

The princess held very still. The only movement she allowed herself was this: She licked her lips, over and over again, because she thought that she could taste there the sweet saltiness of the soup that her mother had fed her in her dream.

“I have not forgotten, Mama,” she whispered. “I have not forgotten you. I have not forgotten soup.”

38

THE STRANGE THREESOME made their way down the golden stairs of the castle. The princess and Mig walked side by side and Roscuro hid himself again in the pocket of Mig’s apron and Mig pointed the sharp tip of the knife at the princess’s back and together they went down, down, down.

The princess was led to her fate as around her, everyone slept. The king slept in his giant bed with his crown on his head and his hands crossed on his chest, dreaming that his wife, the queen, was a bird with green and gold feathers who called his name, Phillip, Phillip, Phillip, without ceasing.

Cook slept in a too-small bed off the kitchen, dreaming of a recipe for soup that she could not find. “Where did I put that?” she mumbled in her sleep. “Where did that recipe go? It was for the queen’s favorite soup. I must find it.”

And not far from Cook, in the pantry, atop a bag of flour, slept the mouse Despereaux, dreaming, as you know, reader, of knights in shining armor, of darkness, and of light.

And in the whole of the darkened, sleeping castle, there was only the light of the candle in the hand of Miggery Sow. The candle shone on the princess’s dress and made it sparkle, and the princess walked tall in the light and tried not to be afraid.

In this story, reader, we have talked about the heart of the mouse and the heart of the rat and the heart of the serving girl Miggery Sow, but we have not talked about the heart of the princess. Like most hearts, it was complicated, shaded with dark and dappled with light. The dark things in the princess’s heart were these: a very small, very hot, burning coal of hatred for the rat who was responsible for her mother’s death. And the other darkness was a tremendous sorrow, a deep sadness that her mother was dead and that the princess could, now, only talk to her in her dreams.

And what of the light in the princess’s heart? Reader, I am pleased to tell you that the Pea was a kind person, and perhaps more important, she was empathetic. Do you know what it means to be empathetic?

I will tell you: It means that when you are being forcibly taken to a dungeon, when you have a large knife pointed at your back, when you are trying to be brave, you are able, still, to think for a moment of the person who is holding that knife.

You are able to think: “Oh, poor Mig, she wants to be a princess so badly and she thinks that this is the way. Poor, poor Mig. What must it be like to want something that desperately?”

That, reader, is empathy.

And now you have a small map of the princess’s heart (hatred, sorrow, kindness, empathy), the heart that she carried inside her as she went down the golden stairs and through the kitchen and, finally, just as the sky outside the castle began to lighten, down into the dark of the dungeon with the rat and the serving girl.

39

THE SUN ROSE AND SHED LIGHT on what Roscuro and Miggery Sow had done.

And finally, Despereaux awoke. But, alas, he awoke too late.

“I haven’t see her,” Louise was shouting, “and I tell you, I wash my hands of her. If she’s missing, I say good riddance! Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

Despereaux sat up. He looked behind him. Oh, his tail! Gone! Given over to the knife and where the tail should be . . . nothing but a bloody stub.

“And more foul play. Gregory dead!” shouted Cook. “Poor old man, that rope of his broken by who knows what and him lost in the dark and frightened to death because of it. It’s too much.”

“Oh no,” whispered Despereaux. “Oh no, Gregory is dead.” The mouse got to his feet and began the long climb down from the shelf. Once he was on the floor, he stuck his head around the door of the pantry and saw Cook standing in the center of the kitchen, wringing her fat hands. Beside her stood a tall woman jangling a ring of keys.

“That’s right,” said Louise. “All the king’s men was down there searching for her in the dungeon and when they come back up, who do they have with them? They have the old man. Dead! And now you tell me that Mig is missing and I say who cares?”

Despereaux made a small noise of despair. He had slept too long. The rat had already acted. The princess was gone.

“What kind of world is it, Miss Louise, where princesses are taken from right under our noses and queens drop dead and we cannot even take comfort in soup?” And with this, Cook started to cry.

“Shhhh,” said Louise, “I beg you. Do not say that word.”

“Soup!” shouted Cook. “I will say it. No one can stop me. Soup, soup, soup!” And then she began to cry in earnest, wailing and sobbing.

“There,” said Louise. She put a hand out to touch Cook, and Cook slapped it away.

“It will be all right,” said Louise.

Cook brought the hem of her apron up to wipe at her tears. “It won’t,” she said. “It won’t be all right ever again. They’ve taken our little darling away. There ain’t nothing left to live for without the princess.”

Despereaux was amazed to have exactly what was in his heart spoken aloud by such a ferocious, mouse-hating woman as Cook.

Louise again reached out to touch Cook, and this time Cook allowed her to put an arm around her shoulder. “What will we do? What will we do?” wailed Cook.

And Louise said, “Shhh. There, there.”

Alas, there was no one to comfort Despereaux. And there was no time, anyway, for him to cry. He knew what he had to do. He had to find the king.

For, having heard Roscuro’s plan, reader, Despereaux knew that the princess was hidden in the dungeon. And being somewhat smarter than Miggery Sow, he sensed the terrible unspoken truth behind Roscuro’s words. He knew that Mig could never be a princess. And he knew that the rat, once he captured the Pea, would never let her go.

And so, the small mouse who had been dipped in oil, covered in flour, and relieved of his tail slipped out of the pantry and past the weeping ladies.

He went to find the king.

40

HE WENT FIRST to the throne room, but the king was not there. And so, Despereaux slipped through a hole in the molding and was making his way to the princess’s room when he came upon the Mouse Council, thirteen mice and one Most Very Honored Head Mouse, sitting around their piece of wood debating important mouse matters.

Despereaux stopped and stood very still.

“Fellow honored mice,” said the Most Very Honored Head Mouse, and then he looked up from the makeshift table and saw Despereaux. “Despereaux,” he whispered.

The other mice of the council leaned forward, straining to make some sense of the word that the Head Mouse had just uttered.

“Pardon?” one said.

“Excuse me?” said another.

“I didn’t hear right,” said a third. “I thought you said ‘Despereaux.’ ”

The Head Mouse gathered himself. He tried speaking again. “Fellow members,” he said, “a ghost. A ghost!” And he raised a shaking paw and pointed it at Despereaux.

The other mice turned and looked.

And there was Despereaux Tilling, covered in flour, looking back at them, the telltale red thread still around his neck like a thin trail of blood.

“Despereaux,” said Lester. “Son. You have come back!”

Despereaux looked at his father and saw an old mouse whose fur was shot through with gray. How could that be? Despereaux had been gone only a few days, but his father seemed to have aged many years in his absence.

“Son, ghost of my son,” said Lester, his whiskers trembling, “I dream about you every night. I dream about beating the drum that sent you to your death. I was wrong. What I did was wrong.”

“No!” called the Most Very Honored Head Mouse. “No!”

“I’ve destroyed it,” said Lester. “I’ve destroyed the drum. Will you forgive me?” He clasped his front paws together and looked at his son.

“No!” shouted the Head Mouse again. “No. Do not ask the ghost to forgive you, Lester. You did as you should. You did what was best for the mouse community.”

Lester ignored the Head Mouse. “Son,” he said, “please.”

Despereaux looked at his father, at his gray-streaked fur and trembling whiskers and his front paws clasped together in front of his heart, and he felt suddenly as if his own heart would break in two. His father looked so small, so sad.

“Forgive me,” said Lester again.

Forgiveness, reader, is, I think, something very much like hope and love, a powerful, wonderful thing.

And a ridiculous thing, too.

Isn’t it ridiculous, after all, to think that a son could forgive his father for beating the drum that sent him to his death? Isn’t it ridiculous to think that a mouse could ever forgive anyone for such perfidy?

But still, here are the words Despereaux Tilling spoke to his father. He said, “I forgive you, Pa.”

And he said those words because he sensed that it was the only way to save his own heart, to stop it from breaking in two. Despereaux, reader, spoke those words to save himself.

And then he turned from his father and spoke to the whole Mouse Council. “You were wrong,” he said. “All of you. You asked me to renounce my sins; I ask you to renounce yours. You wronged me. Repent.”

“Never,” said the Head Mouse.

Despereaux stood before the Mouse Council, and he realized that he was a different mouse than he had been the last time he faced them. He had been to the dungeon and back up out of it. He knew things that they would never know; what they thought of him, he realized, did not matter, not at all.

And so, without saying another word, Despereaux turned and left the room.

After he was gone, the Head Mouse slapped his trembling paw on the table. “Mice of the Council,” he said, “we have been paid a visit by a ghost who has told us to repent. We will now take a vote. All in favor of saying that this visit did not occur, vote ‘aye.’ ”

And from the members of the Mouse Council, there came a tiny but emphatic chorus of “ayes.”

Only one mouse said nothing. That mouse was Despereaux’s father. Lester Tilling had turned his head away from the other members of the Mouse Council; he was trying to hide his tears.

He was crying, reader, because he had been forgiven.

41

DESPEREAUX FOUND THE KING in the Pea’s room, sitting on his daughter’s bed, clutching the tapestry of her life to his chest. He was weeping. Although “weeping,” really, is too small a word for the activity that the king had undertaken. Tears were cascading from his eyes. A small puddle had formed at his feet. I am not exaggerating. The king, it seemed, was intent on crying himself a river.

Reader, have you ever seen a king cry? When the powerful are made weak, when they are revealed to be human, to have hearts, their diminishment is nothing short of terrifying.

You can be sure that Despereaux was terrified. Absolutely. But he spoke up anyway.

“Sir?” the mouse said to the king.

But the king did not hear him, and as Despereaux watched, King Phillip dropped the tapestry and took his great golden crown from his lap and used it to beat himself on the chest over and over again. The king, as I have already mentioned, had several faults. He was nearsighted. He made ridiculous, unreasonable, difficult-to-enforce laws. And, much in the way of Miggery Sow, he was not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.

But there was one extraordinary, wonderful, admirable thing about the king. He was a man who was able and willing to love with the whole of his heart. And just as he had loved the queen with the whole of his heart, so, too, he loved his daughter with the whole of it, even more than the whole. He loved the Princess Pea with every particle of his being, and she had been taken from him.

But what Despereaux had come to say to the king had to be said and so he tried again. “Excuse me,” he said. He wasn’t certain, really, how a mouse should address a king. “Sir” did not seem like a big-enough word. Despereaux thought about it for a long moment.

He cleared his throat. He spoke as loudly as he was capable of speaking. “Excuse me, Most Very Honored Head Person.”

King Phillip stopped beating his crown against his chest. He looked around the room.

“Down here, Most Very Honored Head Person,” said Despereaux.

The king, tears still falling from his eyes, looked at the floor. He squinted.

“Is that a bug speaking to me?” he asked.

“No,” said Despereaux, “I am a mouse. We met before.”

“A mouse!” bellowed the king. “A mouse is but one step removed from a rat.”

“Sir,” said Despereaux, “Most Very Honored Head Person, please, you have to listen to me. This is important. I know where your daughter is.”

“You do?” said the king. He sniffed. He blew his nose on his royal cloak. “Where?” he said, and as he bent over to look more closely at Despereaux, one tear, two tears, three enormous, king-sized tears fell with an audible plop onto Despereaux’s head and rolled down his back, washing away the white of the flour and revealing his own brown fur.

“Sir, Most Very Honored Head Person, sir,” said Despereaux as he wiped the king’s tears out of his own eyes, “she’s in the dungeon.”

“Liar,” said the king. He sat back up. “I knew it. All rodents are liars and thieves. She is not in the dungeon. My men have searched the dungeon.”

“But no one really knows the dungeon except the rats, sir. There are thousands of places where she could be hidden, and only the rats would know. Your men would never be able to find her if the rats did not want her found.”

“Accccck,” said the king, and he clapped his hands over his ears. “Do not speak to me of rats and what they know!” he shouted. “Rats are illegal. Rats are against the law. There are no rats in my kingdom. They do not exist.”

“Sir, Most Very Honored Head Person, that is not true. Hundreds of rats live in the dungeon of this castle. One of them has taken your daughter and if you will send —”

The king started humming. “I can’t hear you!” he stopped to shout. “I cannot hear you! And anyway, what you say is wrong because you are a rodent and therefore a liar.” He started to hum again. And then he stopped and said, “I have hired fortunetellers. And a magician. They are coming from a distant land. They will tell me where my beautiful daughter is. They will speak the truth. A mouse cannot speak the truth.”

“I am telling you the truth,” said Despereaux. “I promise.”

But the king would not listen. He sat with his hands over his ears. He hummed loudly. Big fat tears rolled down his face and fell to the floor.

Despereaux sat and stared at him in dismay. What should he do now? He put a nervous paw up to his neck and pulled at the red thread, and suddenly his dream came flooding back to him . . . the dark and the light and the knight swinging his sword and the terrible moment when he had realized that the suit of armor was empty.

And then, reader, as he stood before the king, a wonderful, amazing thought occurred to the mouse. What if the suit of armor had been empty for a reason? What if it had been empty because it was waiting?

For him.

“You know me,” that was what the knight in his dream had said.

“Yes,” said Despereaux out loud in wonder. “I do know you.”

“I can’t hear you,” sang the king.

“I’ll have to do it myself,” said the mouse. “I will be the knight in shining armor. There is no other way. It has to be me.”

Despereaux turned. He left the weeping king. He went to find the threadmaster.

42

THE THREADMASTER was sitting atop his spool of thread, swinging his tail back and forth and eating a piece of celery.

“Well, look here,” he said when he saw Despereaux. “Would you just look at that. It’s the mouse who loved a human princess, back from the dungeon in one piece. The old threadmaster would say that I didn’t do my job well, that because you are still alive, I must have tied the thread incorrectly. But it is not so. And how do I know it is not so? Because the thread is still around your neck.” He nodded and took a bite of his celery.

“I need the rest of it,” said Despereaux.

“The rest of what? Your neck?”

“The rest of the thread.”

“Well, I can’t just hand it over to any old mouse,” said the threadmaster. “They say red thread is special, sacred; though I, myself, after having spent so much time with it, know it for what it is.”

“What is it?” said Despereaux.

“Thread,” said the threadmaster. He shrugged and took another loud bite of celery. “Nothing more. Nothing less. But I pretend, friend, I pretend. And what, may I ask, do you intend to do with the thread?”

“Save the princess.”

“Ah, yes, the princess. The beautiful princess. That’s how this whole story started, isn’t it?”

“I have to save her. There is no one but me to do it.”

“It seems to be that way with most things. No one to do the really disagreeable jobs except oneself. And how, exactly, will you use a spool of thread to save a princess?”

“A rat has taken her and hidden her in the dungeon, so I have to go back to the dungeon, and it is full of twists and turns and hidden chambers.”

“Like a maze,” said the threadmaster.

“Yes, like a maze. And I have to find my way to her, wherever she is hidden, and then I have to lead her back out again, and the only way to do that is with the thread. Gregory the jailer tied a rope around his ankle so that he would not get lost.” As the mouse said this, he shuddered, thinking of Gregory and his broken rope, dying, lost in the darkness. “I,” said Despereaux, “I . . . I will use thread.”

The threadmaster nodded. “I see, I see,” he said. He took a meditative bite of celery. “You, friend, are on a quest.”

“I don’t know what that is,” said Despereaux.

“You don’t have to know. You just have to feel compelled to do the thing, the impossible, important task at hand.”

“Impossible?” said Despereaux.

“Impossible,” said the threadmaster. “Important.” He sat chewing his celery and staring somewhere past Despereaux, and then suddenly he leapt off his spool.

“Who am I to stand in the way of a quest?” he said. “Roll her away.”

“I can have it?”

“Yes. For your quest.”

Despereaux put his front paws up and touched the spool. He gave it an experimental push forward.

“Thank you,” he said, looking into the eye of the threadmaster. “I don’t know your name.”

“Hovis.”

“Thank you, Hovis.”

“There’s something else. Something that belongs with the thread.” Hovis went into a corner and came back with a needle. “You can use it for protection.”

“Like a sword,” said Despereaux. “Like a knight would have.”

“Yes,” said Hovis. He gnawed off a length of thread and used it to tie the needle around Despereaux’s waist. “Like so.”

“Thank you, Hovis,” said Despereaux. He put his right shoulder against the spool of thread and pushed it forward again.

“Wait,” said Hovis. He stood up on his hind legs, put his paws on Despereaux’s shoulders, and leaned in close to him. Despereaux smelled the sharp, clean scent of celery as the threadmaster bent his head, took hold of the thread around Despereaux’s neck in his sharp teeth, and pulled on it hard.

“There,” said Hovis, when the piece of thread broke and dropped to the ground. “Now you’re free. You see, you’re not going into the dungeon because you have to. You’re going because you choose to.”

“Yes,” said Despereaux, “because I am on a quest.” The word felt good and right in his mouth.

Quest.

Say it, reader. Say the word “quest” out loud. It is an extraordinary word, isn’t it? So small and yet so full of wonder, so full of hope.

“Goodbye,” said Hovis as Despereaux pushed the spool of thread out of the threadmaster’s hole. “I have never known a mouse who has made it out of the dungeon only to go back into it again. Goodbye, friend. Goodbye, mouse among mice.”

43

THAT NIGHT Despereaux rolled the thread from the threadmaster’s lair, along innumerable hallways and down three flights of stairs.

Reader, allow me to put this in perspective for you: Your average house mouse (or castle mouse, if you will) weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of four ounces.

Despereaux, as you well know, was in no way average. In fact, he was so incredibly small that he weighed about half of what the average mouse weighs: two ounces. That is all. Think about it: He was nothing but two ounces of mouse pushing a spool of thread that weighed almost as much as he did.

Honestly, reader, what do you think the chances are of such a small mouse succeeding in his quest?

Zip. Zero. Nada.

Goose eggs.

But you must, when you are calculating the odds of the mouse’s success, factor in his love for the princess. Love, as we have already discussed, is a powerful, wonderful, ridiculous thing, capable of moving mountains. And spools of thread.

Even with the love and purpose in his heart, Despereaux was very, very tired when he reached the door to the castle kitchen at midnight. His paws were shaking and his muscles were jumping and the place where his tail should be was throbbing. And he still had a very, very long way to go, into the kitchen and down the many stairs of the dungeon, and then, through, somehow, someway, through the rat-filled darkness of the dungeon itself, not knowing where he was going . . . and oh, reader, when he stopped to consider what lay ahead of him, Despereaux was filled with an icky feeling of despair.

He leaned his head against the spool of thread, and he smelled celery there and he thought of Hovis and how Hovis seemed to believe in him and his quest. So the mouse raised his head and squared his shoulders and pushed the spool of thread forward again, into the kitchen, where he saw, too late, that there was a light burning.

Despereaux froze.

Cook was in the kitchen. She was bent over the stove. She was stirring something.

Was it a sauce? No.

Was it a stew? No.

What Cook was stirring was . . . soup. Soup, reader! In the king’s own castle, against the king’s law, right under the king’s very nose, Cook was making soup!

As the mouse looked on, Cook put her face into the steam rising from the pot and took a deep breath. She smiled a beatific smile, and the steam rose around her and caught the light of the candle and made a halo over her head.

Despereaux knew how Cook felt about mice in her kitchen. He remembered quite clearly her instructions to Mig regarding himself: Kill him. The only good mouse is a dead mouse.

But he had to go through Cook’s kitchen to get to the dungeon door. And he had no time to waste. Soon daylight would dawn and the whole castle would be awake and a mouse would have no chance at all of pushing a spool of thread across the floor without attracting a great deal of attention. He would have to sneak past the mouse-hating Cook now.

And so, screwing his courage to the sticking place, Despereaux leaned against the spool of thread and set it rolling across the floor.

Cook turned from the stove, a dripping spoon in her hand and a frightened look on her face, and shouted, “Who’s there?”

44

“WHO’S THERE?” shouted Cook again.

Despereaux, wisely, said nothing.

The kitchen was silent.

“Hmmmmph,” said Cook. “Nothing. It’s nothing at all. Just my nervous Nellie ears playing tricks on me. You’re an old fool,” she said to herself as she turned back to the stove. “You’re just an old fool afraid of being caught making soup.”

Despereaux slumped against the spool of thread. And as he leaned there, his heart pounding, his paws shaking, a small wonderful something occurred. A midnight breeze entered the kitchen and danced over to the stove and picked up the scent of the soup and then swirled across the floor and delivered the smell right directly to the mouse’s nose.

Despereaux put his head up in the air. He sniffed. He sniffed some more. He had never in his life smelled anything so lovely, so inspiring. With each sniff he took, he felt himself growing stronger, braver.

Cook leaned in close to the kettle and put the spoon in and took the spoon out and blew upon the spoon and then brought it to her lips and sipped and swallowed.

“Hmmmmm,” she said. “Huh.” She took another sip. “Missing something,” she said. “More salt maybe.” She put the spoon down and took up an enormous saltshaker and sprinkled salt into the kettle.

And Despereaux, feeling emboldened by the smell of soup, again set to work pushing the spool of thread.

“Quickly,” he said to himself, rolling the spool across the floor, “do it quickly. Do not think. Just push.”

Cook whirled, the saltshaker in her hand, and shouted, “Who goes there?”

Despereaux stopped pushing. He hid behind the spool of thread as Cook took the candle from the stove and held it up high.

“Hmmmmmph,” she said.

The candlelight came closer, closer.

“What’s this?”

The light came to rest directly on Despereaux’s big ears sticking up from behind the spool of thread.

“Ho,” said Cook, “whose ears are those?”

And the light from the candle then shone full in Despereaux’s face.

“A mouse,” said Cook, “a mouse in my kitchen.”

Despereaux closed his eyes. He prepared for his death.

He waited, reader. And waited. And then he heard the sound of laughter.

He opened his eyes and looked at Cook.

“Ho,” said Cook. “Ho-hee. For the first time in my life, I am glad to see a mouse in my kitchen.

“Why,” she asked, “why am I glad?

“Ho-hee. Because a mouse is not a king’s man here to punish me for making soup. That is why. Because a mouse is not a king’s man here to take me to the dungeon for owning a spoon. Ho-hee. A mouse. I, Cook, am glad to see a mouse.”

Cook’s face was red and her stomach was shaking. “Ho-hee,” she said again. “And not just any mouse. A mouse with a needle tied around his waist, a mouse with no tail. Ain’t it lovely? Ho-hee.” She shook her head and wiped at her eyes. “Look, mouse, these are extraordinary times. And because of that, we must have some peace between us. I will not ask what you are doing in my kitchen. And you, in return, will tell no one what I am cooking.”

She turned then and went back to the stove and set down the candle and picked up the spoon and again put it in the pot of soup and took it back out and tasted the soup, smacking her lips together.

“Not right,” she said, “not quite right. Missing something, still.”

Despereaux did not move. He could not move. He was paralyzed by fear. He sat on the kitchen floor. One small tear fell out of his left eye. He had expected Cook to kill him.

Instead, reader, she had laughed at him.

And he was surprised how much her laughter hurt.

45

COOK STIRRED THE SOUP and then put the spoon down and held up the candle and looked over at Despereaux.

“What are you waiting for?” she said. “Go, go, go. There will never be another opportunity for a mouse to escape from my kitchen unharmed.”

The smell of soup again wafted in Despereaux’s direction. He put his nose up in the air. His whiskers trembled.

“Yes,” said Cook. “That is soup that you are smelling. The princess, not that you would know or care, is missing, bless her goodhearted self. And times are terrible. And when times are terrible, soup is the answer. Don’t it smell like the answer?”

“Yes,” said Despereaux. He nodded.

Cook turned away from him. She put the candle down and picked up her spoon and started to stir. “Oh,” she said, “these are dark days.” She shook her head. “And I’m kidding myself. There ain’t no point in making soup unless others eat it. Soup needs another mouth to taste it, another heart to be warmed by it.”

She stopped stirring. She turned and looked at Despereaux.

“Mouse,” said Cook, “would you like some soup?” And then, without waiting for an answer, she took a saucer and spooned some soup into it and set it on the kitchen floor.

“Come closer,” she said. “I don’t aim to hurt you. I promise.”

Despereaux sniffed. The soup smelled wonderful, incredible. Keeping one eye on Cook, he stepped out from behind the spool of thread and crept closer.

“Go on,” said Cook, “taste it.”

Despereaux stepped onto the saucer. Soup covered his paws. He bent his head to the hot broth. He sipped. Oh, it was lovely. Garlic and chicken and watercress, the same soup that Cook had made the day the queen died.

“How is it?” asked Cook anxiously.

“Wonderful,” said Despereaux.

“Too much garlic?” said Cook, wringing her fat hands.

“No,” said Despereaux. “It’s perfect.”

Cook smiled. “See?” she said. “There ain’t a body, be it mouse or man, that ain’t made better by a little soup.”

Despereaux bent his head and sipped again, and Cook stood over him and smiled, saying, “It don’t need a thing, then? Is that what you’re saying? It’s just right?”

Despereaux nodded.

He drank the soup in big, noisy gulps. And when he stepped out of the saucer, his paws were damp and his whiskers were dripping and his stomach was full.

Cook said to him, “Not done already, are you? Surely you ain’t done. You must want more.”

“I can’t,” said Despereaux. “I don’t have time. I’m on my way to the dungeon to save the princess.”

“Ho-hee.” Cook laughed. “You, a mouse, are going to save the princess?”

“Yes,” said Despereaux, “I’m on a quest.”

“Well, don’t let me stand in your way.”

And so it was that Cook held open the door to the dungeon while Despereaux rolled the spool of thread through it. “Good luck,” she said to him. “Ho-hee, good luck saving the princess.”

She closed the door behind her and then leaned against it and shook her head. “And if that ain’t an indicator of what strange days these are,” she said to herself, “then I don’t know what is. Me. Cook. Feeding a mouse soup and then wishing him good luck in saving the princess. Oh my. Strange days, indeed.”

46

DESPEREAUX STOOD at the top of the dungeon stairs and peered into the darkness that waited for him below.

“Oh,” he said, “oh my.”

He had forgotten how dark the dark of the dungeon could be. And he had forgotten, too, its terrible smell, the stench of rats, the odor of suffering.

But his heart was full of love for the princess and his stomach was full of Cook’s soup and Despereaux felt brave and strong. And so he began, immediately and without despair, the hard work of maneuvering the spool of thread down the narrow dungeon steps.

Down, down, down went Despereaux Tilling and the spool of thread. Slowly, oh so slowly, they went. And the passage was dark, dark, dark.

“I will tell myself a story,” said Despereaux. “I will make some light. Let’s see. It will begin this way: Once upon a time. Yes. Once upon a time, there was a mouse who was very, very small. Exceptionally small. And there was a beautiful human princess whose name was Pea. And it so happened that this mouse was the one who was selected by fate to serve the princess, to honor her, and to save her from the darkness of a terrible dungeon.”

This story cheered up Despereaux considerably. His eyes became accustomed to the gloom, and he moved down the stairs more quickly, more surely, whispering to himself the tale of a devious rat and a fat serving girl and a beautiful princess and a brave mouse and some soup and a spool of red thread. It was a story, in fact, very similar to the one you are reading right now, and the telling of it gave Despereaux strength.

He pushed the spool of thread with a great deal of gusto. And the thread, eager, perhaps, to begin its honorable task of aiding in the saving of a princess, leapt forward and away from the mouse and went down the dungeon stairs ahead of him, without him.

“No,” cried Despereaux, “no, no, no!” He broke into a trot, chasing the thread through the darkness.

But the spool had a head start. And it was faster. It flew down the dungeon stairs, leaving Despereaux far behind. When it came to the end of the stairs, it rolled and rolled, until finally, lazily, it came to a stop right at the gnarled paw of a rat.

“What have we here?” said the one-eared rat to the spool of thread.

“I will tell you what we have,” said Botticelli Remorso, answering his own question. “We have red thread. How delightful. Red thread means one thing to a rat.”

He put his nose up in the air. He sniffed. He sniffed again. “I smell . . . could it be? Yes, most definitely it is. Soup. How strange.” He sniffed some more. “And I smell tears. Human tears. Delightful. And I also detect the smell” — he put his nose high into the air and took a big whiff — “of flour and oil. Oh my, what a cornucopia of scents. But below it all, what do I smell? The blood of a mouse. Unmistakably, mouse blood, yes. Ha-ha-ha! Exactly! Mouse.”

Botticelli looked down at the spool of thread and smiled. He gave it a gentle push with one paw.

“Red thread. Yes. Exactly. Just when you think that life in the dungeon cannot get any better, a mouse arrives.”

47

DESPEREAUX STOOD TREMBLING on the steps. The thread was most definitely gone. He could not hear it. He could not see it. He should have tied it to himself when he had the chance. But it was too late now.

Despereaux’s dire situation suddenly became quite clear to him. He was a two-ounce mouse alone in a dark, twisting dungeon full of rats. He had nothing but a sewing needle with which to defend himself. He had to find a princess. And he had to save her once he found her.

“It’s impossible,” he said to the darkness. “I can’t do it.”

He stood very still. “I’ll go back,” he said. But he didn’t move. “I have to go back.” He took a step backward. “But I can’t go back. I don’t have a choice. I have no choice.”

He took one step forward. And then another.

“No choice,” his heart beat out to him as he went down the stairs, “no choice, no choice, no choice.”

At the bottom of the stairs, the rat Botticelli sat waiting, and when Despereaux stepped from the last stair onto the dungeon floor, Botticelli called out to him as if he were a long-lost friend. “Ah,” said Botticelli, “there you are. Exactly. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Despereaux saw the dark shape of a rat, that thing that he had feared and dreaded for so long, finally step out of the gloom and come to greet him.

“Welcome, welcome,” said Botticelli.

Despereaux put his paw on the needle.

“Ah,” said Botticelli, “you are armed. How charming.” He put his paws up in the air. “I surrender. Oh, yes, certainly, exactly, I surrender!”

“I . . .,” said Despereaux.

“Yes,” said Botticelli. “You.” He took the locket from around his neck. He began to swing it back and forth. “Please, go on.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” said Despereaux. “I just need to get by you. I . . . I am on a quest.”

“Really?” said Botticelli. “How extraordinary. A mouse on a quest.” Back and forth, back and forth went the locket. “A quest for what?”

“A quest to save the princess.”

“The princess,” said Botticelli, “the princess, the princess. Everything seems to be about the princess these days. The king’s men were down here searching for her, you know. They didn’t find her. That goes without saying. But now a mouse has arrived. And he is on a quest to save the princess.”

“Yes,” said Despereaux. He took a step to the left of Botticelli.

“How inspiring,” said Botticelli. He lazily took a step to his right, blocking Despereaux’s way. “Why the hurry, little friend?”

“Because,” said Despereaux, “I have to —”

“Yes. Yes. You have to save the princess. Exactly. But before you save her, you must find her. Correct?”

“Yes,” said Despereaux.

“What if,” said Botticelli, “what if I told you that I know exactly where the princess is? What if I told you that I could take you right directly to her?”

“Ummm,” said Despereaux. His voice shook. His paw on the needle trembled. “Why would you do that?”

“Why would I do that? Why would I help you? Why . . . to be of service. To do my part for humanity. To aid in the saving of a princess.”

“But you are a . . .”

“A rat,” supplied Botticelli. “Yes. I am a rat. And I see by your trem-trem-trembling that the greatly exaggerated rumors of our evil nature have reached your oversize ears.”

“Yes,” said Despereaux.

“If,” said Botticelli, swinging the locket back and forth, “if you allow me to be of assistance, you will be doing me a tremendous favor. Not only can I do a good deed for you and for the princess, but my actions will help to dispel this terrible myth of evil that seems to surround rats everywhere. Will you let me assist you? Will you let me assist myself and my kind?”

Reader, was it a trick?

Of course it was!

Botticelli did not want to be of service. Far from it. You know what Botticelli wanted. He wanted others to suffer. Specifically, he wanted this small mouse to suffer. How best to do that?

Why, take him right directly to what he wanted. The princess. Let him see what his heart desired, and then, and only then, faced with what he loved, would Despereaux die. And at the end of it all, how tasty the mouse would be . . . seasoned with hope and tears and flour and oil and thwarted love!

“My name, little friend, is Botticelli Remorso. And you may trust me. You must trust me. Will you tell me your name?”

“Despereaux. Despereaux Tilling.”

“Despereaux Tilling, take your paw from your weapon. Come with me.”

Despereaux stared at him.

“Come, come,” said Botticelli, “let go of your needle. Take hold of my tail. I will lead you to your princess. I promise.”

What, reader, in your experience is the promise of a rat worth?

That’s right.

Zero. Zip. Nada. Goose eggs.

But I must ask you this question, too. What else was there for Despereaux to hold on to?

You are right again.

Nothing.

And so the mouse reached out. He took hold of the rat’s tail.

48

HAVE YOU EVER had hold of the tail of a rat? At best, it is an unpleasant sensation, scaly and cold, similar to holding on to a small, narrow snake. At worst, when you are dependent upon a rat for your survival, and when a part of you is certain that you are being led nowhere except to your death, it is a hideous sensation, indeed, to have nothing but a rat’s tail to cling to.

Nonetheless, Despereaux held on to Botticelli Remorso. And the rat led him deeper and deeper into the dungeon.

Despereaux’s eyes had, by this point, adjusted quite well to the darkness, though it would have been better if they had not, for the things he saw made him shiver and shake.

What did he see?

He saw that the floor of the dungeon was littered with tufts of fur, knots of red thread, and the skeletons of mice. Everywhere there were tiny white bones glowing in the darkness. And he saw, in the dungeon tunnels through which Botticelli led him, the bones of human beings, too, grinning skulls and delicate finger bones, rising up out of the darkness and pointing toward some truth best left unspoken.

Despereaux closed his eyes.

But it didn’t help. He saw as if his eyes were still open wide the bones, the tufts of hair, the knots of thread, the despair.

“Ha-ha, exactly!” Botticelli laughed as he negotiated the twists and turns. “Oh, yes, exactly.”

If what was in front of Despereaux was too horrible to contemplate, what followed behind him was, perhaps, even worse: rats, a happy, hungry, vengeful parade of rats, their noses up in the air, sniffing, sniffing.

“Mouse!” sang out one rat joyfully.

“Yes, oh, yes, mouse,” agreed another. “But something else, too.”

“Soup!” called out another rat.

“Yes, soup,” the others agreed.

“Blood!” sang a rat.

“Blood,” they all agreed together.

And then they sang: “Here, mousie, mousie, mousie! Here, little mousie!”

Botticelli called out to the other rats. “Mine,” he said. “This little treasure is all mine, gentlemen and ladies. Please, I beg you. Do not infringe on my discovery.”

“Mr. Remorso,” said Despereaux. He turned and looked behind him and saw the rats, their red eyes and their smiling mouths. He closed his eyes again. He kept them closed. “Mr. Remorso!” he shouted.

“Yes?” said Botticelli.

“Mr. Remorso,” said Despereaux. And he was crying now. He couldn’t help it. “Please. The princess.”

“Tears!” shouted the rats. “We smell tears, mousie, we do.”

“Please!” shouted Despereaux.

“Little friend,” said Botticelli. “Little Despereaux Tilling. I promised you. And I will keep that promise.”

The rat stopped.

“Look ahead of you,” he said. “What do you see?”

Despereaux opened his eyes.

“Light,” he said.

“Exactly,” said Botticelli. “Light.”

49

AGAIN, READER, we must go backward, before we go forward. We must consider, for a moment, what had occurred with the rat and the serving girl and the princess down in the dungeon before Despereaux made his way to them.

What happened was this: Roscuro led the Pea and Mig deep into the dungeon to a hidden chamber, and there he directed Mig to put the princess in chains.

“Gor,” said Mig, “she’s going to have a hard time learning her lessons if she’s all chained up-like.”

“Do as I say,” said Roscuro.

“Maybe,” said Mig, “before I lock her up, her and me could switch outfits, so we could start in already with her being me and me being a princess.”

“Oh, yes,” said Roscuro. “Certainly. A wonderful idea, Miss Miggery. Princess, take off your crown and give it to the serving girl.”

The Pea sighed and took off her crown and handed it to Mig, and Mig put it on and it slid immediately right down her small head and came to rest, quite painfully, on her poor, abused ears. “It’s a biggish thing,” she said, “and painful-like.”

“Well, well,” said Roscuro.

“How do I look?” Mig asked, smiling at him.

“Ridiculous,” he said. “Laughable.”

Mig stood, blinking back tears. “You mean I don’t look like a princess?” she said to the rat.

“I mean,” said Roscuro, “you will never look like a princess, no matter how big a crown you put on your tiny head. You look exactly like the fool you are and always will be. Now, make yourself useful and chain the princess up. Dress-up time is over.”

Mig sniffed and wiped at her eyes and then bent to look at the pile of chains and locks on the floor.

“And now, Princess,” he said, “I’m afraid that the time for your truth has arrived. I will now tell you what your future holds. As you consigned me to darkness, so I consign you, too, to a life spent in this dungeon.”

Mig looked up. “Ain’t she going upstairs to be a serving maid?”

“No,” said Roscuro.

“Ain’t I going to be a princess, then?”

“No,” said Roscuro.

“But I want to be a princess.”

“No one,” said Roscuro, “cares what you want.”

As you know, reader, Miggery Sow had heard this sentiment expressed many times in her short life. But now, in the dungeon, it hit her full force: The rat was right. No one cared what she wanted. No one had ever cared. And perhaps, worst of all, no one ever would care.

“I want!” cried Mig.

“Shhhh,” said the princess.

“Shut up,” said the rat.

“I want . . .,” sobbed Mig. “I want . . . I want . . .”

“What do you want, Mig?” the princess said softly.

“Eh?” shouted Mig.

“What do you want, Miggery Sow?!” the princess shouted.

“Don’t ask her that,” said Roscuro. “Shut up. Shut up.”

But it was too late. The words had been said; the question, at last, had been asked. The world stopped spinning and all of creation held its breath, waiting to hear what it was that Miggery Sow wanted.

“I want . . .,” said Mig.

“Yes?” shouted the Pea.

“I want my ma!” cried Mig, into the silent, waiting world. “I want my ma!”

“Oh,” said the princess. She held out her hand to Mig.

Mig took hold of it.

“I want my mother, too,” said the princess softly. And she squeezed Mig’s hand.

“Stop it!” shouted Roscuro. “Chain her up. Chain her up.”

“Gor,” said Mig, “I ain’t going to do it. You can’t make me do it. I got the knife, don’t I?” She took the knife and held it up.

“If you have any sense at all,” said Roscuro, “and I heartily doubt that you do, you will not use that instrument on me. Without me, you will never find your way out of the dungeon, and you will starve to death here, or worse.”

“Gor,” said Mig, “then lead us out now, or I will chop you up into little rat bits.”

“No,” said Roscuro. “The princess shall stay here in the darkness. And you, Mig, will stay with her.”

“But I want to go upstairs,” said Mig.

“I’m afraid that we are stuck here, Mig,” shouted the princess, “unless the rat has a change of heart and decides to lead us out.”

“There will be no changes of heart,” said Roscuro. “None.”

“Gor,” said Mig. She lowered the knife.

And so, the rat and the princess and the serving girl sat together in the dungeon as, outside the castle, the sun rose and moved through the sky and sank to the earth again and night fell. They sat together until the candle had burned out and another one had to be lit. They sat together in the dungeon. They sat. And sat.

And, reader, truthfully, they might be sitting there still, if a mouse had not arrived.

50

“PRINCESS!” Despereaux shouted. “Princess, I have come to save you.”

The Princess Pea heard her name. She looked up.

“Despereaux,” she whispered.

And then she shouted it, “Despereaux!”

Reader, nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name.

Nothing.

For Despereaux, the sound was worth everything: his lost tail, his trip to the dungeon, and back out of it and back into it again.

He ran toward the princess.

But Roscuro, baring his teeth, blocked the mouse’s way.

The princess cried, “Oh no, rat, please. Don’t hurt him. He is my friend.”

Mig said, “Don’t worry, Princess. I will save the meecy.”

She took the kitchen knife. She aimed to cut off the rat’s head, but she missed her mark.

“Whoopsie,” said Miggery Sow.

51

“OWWWWWWWW!” screamed Roscuro.

He turned to look at where his tail had been, and as he did, Despereaux drew his needle and placed the sharp tip of it right where the rat’s heart should be.

“Don’t move,” said Despereaux. “I will kill you.”

“Ha-ha-ha!” Botticelli laughed from the sidelines. “Exactly.” He slapped his tail on the floor in approval. “Absolutely delightful. A mouse is going to kill a rat. Oh, all of this is much better than I anticipated. I love it when mice come to the dungeon.”

“Let me see,” said the other rats, pushing and shoving.

“Stand back,” Botticelli told them, still laughing. “Let the mouse do his work.”

Despereaux held the trembling needle against Roscuro’s heart. The mouse knew that as a knight, it was his duty to protect the princess. But would killing the rat really make the darkness go away?

Despereaux bowed his head ever so slightly. And as he did so, his whiskers brushed against the rat’s nose.

Roscuro sniffed.

“What . . . is that smell?” he asked.

“Mousie blood!” shouted one rat.

“Blood and bones!” shouted another.

“You’re smelling tears,” said Botticelli. “Tears and thwarted love.”

“Exactly,” said Roscuro. “And yet . . . there’s something else.”

He sniffed again.

And the smell of soup crashed through his soul like a great wave, bringing with it the memory of light, the chandelier, the music, the laughter, everything, all the things that were not, would never, could never be available to him as a rat.

“Soup,” moaned Roscuro.

And he began to cry.

“Booooooo!” shouted Botticelli.

“Sssssssss,” hissed the other rats.

“Kill me,” said Roscuro. He fell down before Despereaux. “It will never work. All I wanted was some light. That is why I brought the princess here, really, just for some beauty . . . some light of my own.”

“Please,” shouted Botticelli, “do kill him! He is a miserable excuse for a rat.”

“No, Despereaux,” said the princess. “Don’t kill him.”

Despereaux lowered his needle. He turned and looked at the Pea.

“Boooo!” shouted Botticelli again. “Kill him! Kill him. All this goodness is making me sick. I’ve lost my appetite.”

“Gor!” shouted Mig, waving her knife. “I’ll kill him.”

“No, wait,” said the princess. “Roscuro,” she said to the rat.

“What?” he said. Tears were falling out of his eyes and creeping down his whiskers and dripping onto the dungeon floor.

And then the princess took a deep breath and put a hand on her heart.

I think, reader, that she was feeling the same thing that Despereaux had felt when he was faced with his father begging him for forgiveness. That is, Pea was aware suddenly of how fragile her heart was, how much darkness was inside it, fighting, always, with the light. She did not like the rat. She would never like the rat, but she knew what she must do to save her own heart.

And so, here are the words that the princess spoke to her enemy.

She said, “Roscuro, would you like some soup?”

The rat sniffed. “Don’t torment me,” he said.

“I promise you,” said the princess, “that if you lead us out of here, I will get Cook to make you some soup. And you can eat it in the banquet hall.”

“Speaking of eating,” shouted one of the rats, “give us the mousie!”

“Yeah,” shouted another, “hand over the mouse!”

“Who would want him now?” said Botticelli. “The flavor of him will be ruined. All that forgiveness and goodness. Blech. I, for one, am leaving.”

“Soup in the banquet hall?” Roscuro asked the princess.

“Yes,” said the Pea.

“Really?”

“Truly. I promise.”

“Gor!” shouted Mig. “Soup is illegal.”

“But soup is good,” said Despereaux.

“Yes,” said the Pea. “Isn’t it?”

The princess bent down before the mouse. “You are my knight,” she said to him, “with a shining needle. And I am so glad that you found me. Let’s go upstairs. Let’s eat some soup.”

And, reader, they did.

52

BUT THE QUESTION you want answered, I know, is did they live happily ever after?

Yes . . . and no.

What of Roscuro? Did he live happily ever after? Well . . . the Princess Pea gave him free access to the upstairs of the castle. And he was allowed to go back and forth from the darkness of the dungeon to the light of the upstairs. But, alas, he never really belonged in either place, the sad fate, I am afraid, of those whose hearts break and then mend in crooked ways. But the rat, in seeking forgiveness, did manage to shed some small light, some happiness into another life.

How?

Roscuro, reader, told the princess about the prisoner who had once owned a red tablecloth, and the princess saw to it that the prisoner was released. And Roscuro led the man up out of the dungeon and to his daughter, Miggery Sow. Mig, as you might have guessed, did not get to be a princess. But her father, to atone for what he had done, treated her like one for the rest of his days.

And what of Despereaux? Did he live happily ever after? Well, he did not marry the princess, if that is what you mean by happily ever after. Even in a world as strange as this one, a mouse and a princess cannot marry.

But, reader, they can be friends.

And they were. Together, they had many adventures. Those adventures, however, are another story, and this story, I’m afraid, must now draw to a close.

But before you leave, reader, imagine this: Imagine an adoring king and a glowing princess, a serving girl with a crown on her head and a rat with a spoon on his, all gathered around a table in a banquet hall. In the middle of the table, there is a great kettle of soup. Sitting in the place of honor, right next to the princess, is a very small mouse with big ears.

And peeking out from behind a dusty velvet curtain, looking in amazement at the scene before them, are four other mice.

“Mon Dieu, look, look,” says Antoinette. “He lives. He lives! And he seems such the happy mouse.”

“Forgiven,” whispers Lester.

“Cripes,” says Furlough, “unbelievable.”

“Just so,” says the threadmaster Hovis, smiling, “just so.”

And, reader, it is just so.

Isn’t it?