Sleeping Beauty: The One Who Took the Really Long Nap Read online

  Besides two ladies-in-waiting, Sara was the only one still in my room. “You’ll be in my favorite guest quarters next door,” I told her, staring down at the circular pattern on the rug. Once she left, I would pretend to sleep and then head down to the cellar.

  “If it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience,” Sara said softly, “I’d rather stay in here with you. I’m so used to sharing a bed with my sister, I don’t think I would slumber if left alone. And your bed is so big you could fit ten of me and twenty of my sister and still not notice we were there.”

  I looked up in surprise. I could not wipe the smile off my face. “Fifty of you and a hundred of your sister!” I replied.

  “Two hundred!” she shouted.

  “THREE HUNDRED!” I yelled.

  I decided right then and there to give Sara all the presents the other girls brought me, which sat unopened downstairs. Sara had already given me the best gift I could have asked for. “Sara?” I said as she began wiping the bright lip paint off her lips with a piece of damp cloth.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think I’m quite strange?”

  “Of course,” she replied. “That’s why we’re friends. I’m strange, too.”

  “No, I don’t mean strange good, I mean strange bad. Because of them?” I tilted my head into the sitting room where the last two ladies-in-waiting sat.

  She did not answer right away. Then she said, “Well, I do not think it is the customary thing, but your parents have good reason to worry after you. And to be truthful, with my father gone and my mother working all hours of the day and night, I wouldn’t mind it if people looked after me every now and again.”

  “I shall look after you,” I declared.

  She smiled. “You will need those seven-league boots for that.”

  Sara had once told me a tale about magical boots that allowed the wearer to cover seven leagues in just one step. She figured if I owned them, I could reach her house from the castle in a little more than three steps.

  It turned out I did not need magic boots to look after Sara. A few weeks after my birthday party, Sara learned that her mother was going to marry a blacksmith in another part of town. She was selling the farm and moving the family. The blacksmith had five children of his own, and the house was tiny. Sara was distraught.

  I immediately asked Mama if Sara could stay with us. Mama said of course she could. But Sara insisted she could not simply be a guest. She wanted to be useful. So I said good-bye to long-suffering Becca, and hello to Sara, my new lady-in-waiting who also happened to be my best friend.

  At nine years old, my favorite food was roast mutton. For months I would eat nothing else. Having a hearty meat-eater for a son pleased Mother, but the kitchen staff was beginning to worry.

  One night Father’s trusted chamberlain was helping him prepare for bed and muttered something under his breath. When Father asked him to repeat it, he at first refused. Father asked again. It is impossible to say no to my father twice, so the chamberlain was forced to repeat his comment. “All I said, sir — and forgive me my boldness —was to wonder aloud about your son’s, ah, eating habits.”

  Father looked surprised. “Many children have strange tastes. Why, when I was the Prince’s age, I would eat only quail eggs and strawberry jam.”

  “I am sure you are right, Your Highness. It is probably only a phase. Let us put on your nightclothes now.”

  The chamberlain held up Father’s dressing gown, but Father narrowed his eyes and said, “You do not believe it is a phase, do you?”

  “I am sure I don’t know, Your Highness,” said the chamberlain, no doubt wishing he had never mentioned anything.

  “You think he may be part ogre, like the Queen.”

  The chamberlain chewed on his lip and didn’t answer. Father sighed and sat down on the edge of his bed. “I admit, I have wondered the same thing.” He put his head in his hands. The chamberlain awkwardly patted Father on the shoulder.

  “Er, it will be all right, Your Highness. I am sure your first theory was correct. So the boy likes mutton? A lot. So what? I haven’t seen any other ogre-ish tendencies in him.”

  “Nor have I,” Father said, raising his head slightly. “But how can we be certain?”

  The chamberlain paced the room, unused to being taken into the King’s confidence in this way. “We can devise a test,” he suggested. “Although we don’t know what day, or days, of the month his ogre-ish blood will rise to the surface — not that I’m saying it will — but if it does, we need to be prepared ahead of time.”

  “What kind of test?” Father asked miserably.

  The chamberlain shook his head. “I am not sure. Perhaps you could consult with the castle chaplain? He could pray on it.”

  Father stood up and clasped his chamberlain on the forearm. “That is an excellent idea. I shall do that first thing in the morning.”

  The chamberlain nodded and began dressing Father in his nightclothes.

  “And by the way,” Father continued, “you’re fired for being so impertinent as to speak to me about my son.”

  The chamberlain gaped and turned white.

  “Ha-ha, just kidding, old man,” Father said. “You’re not fired.”

  (Besides my mom’s “issues,” my dad’s “sense of humor” was also why it was hard to keep good help around.)

  The next morning Father went directly to the castle chaplain, and together they devised a test for me. They found as many strangers as they could, and each day invited a different one to have lunch with me and Father out on the Great Lawn. Mother always had committee meetings at lunchtime (she was very active in the community, part of her whole “beloved by the masses” thing), so Father knew the newcomers to the castle would be safe.

  I was so thrilled to be spending time with Father that it never even dawned on me to suspect anything. As the month was winding down, Father had run out of strangers and had to invite the same ones back again. Even though I loved spending time with Father and felt important for the first time in my life, the lunches were deadly boring. By the time the guests started to repeat, I tried desperately to get out of going. Father agreed that all I had to do was show up and shake the person’s hand. Then I could be on my way. This was fine with me. Not that I had any grand plans for my free time. I longed to immerse myself in my studies, but no tutors stayed around long enough for me to get through a whole geography or history lesson. Most children would probably be pleased with that, but I was often bored. I wanted to learn about the outside world, but no one was there to teach me. I spent much time in the aviary with the falconer, who let me feed the birds that accompanied Father when he went out hunting. Even though they had very sharp beaks, they never bit me. The falconer said I was his favorite visitor. I happened to know I was also the falconer’s only visitor, but I appreciated him trying to make me feel good.

  On the last day of the month, with the last lunch a few hours behind us, Father found me playing with my toy soldiers in the library. He sat down next to me on the floor, something I can’t ever remember him doing, and said, “Congratulations, my boy! You don’t have a drop of ogre blood in you!”

  I stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  Then he told me about the test, and how I had passed by apparently not attacking any of the guests.

  “But why did you think I might have gotten some of Mother’s ogre blood? Have I done something terrible?” My heart began to race at the thought of it. Perhaps I did horrible things and didn’t remember them! Why had I never considered that I might have inherited her ogre ways?

  “Oh, no, nothing like that,” Father assured me. “Actually, it was the mutton.”

  “The mutton? What mutton?”

  “All the mutton you eat at every meal. We thought perhaps the fact that you were drawn to such a meat-filled meal indicated you had a thirst for … for … other meaty things.”

  I shuddered at the thought. “To be honest, I am getting very tired of mutton. I was goin