The Tale of Despereaux - Kate DiCamillo [12]
“They will strip all the fur from your flesh and all the flesh from your bones. When they are done with you, there will be nothing left except red thread. Red thread and bones. Gregory has seen it many times, the tragic end of a mouse.”
“But I need to live,” said Despereaux. “I can’t die.”
“You cannot die. Ah, that is lovely. He says he cannot die!” Gregory closed his hand more tightly around Despereaux. “And why would that be, mouse? Why is it that you cannot die?”
“Because I’m in love. I love somebody and it is my duty to serve her.”
“Love,” said Gregory. “Love. Hark you, I will show you the twisted results of love.” Another match was struck; the candle was lit again, and Gregory held it up so that its flame illuminated a massive, towering, teetering pile of spoons and kettles and soup bowls.
“Look on that, mouse,” said Gregory. “That is a monument to the foolishness of love.”
“What is it?” asked Despereaux. He stared at the great tower that reached up, up, up into the blackness.
“What it looks like. Spoons. Bowls. Kettles. All of them gathered here as hard evidence of the pain of loving a living thing. The king loved the queen and the queen died; this monstrosity, this junk heap is the result of love.”
“I don’t understand,” said Despereaux.
“And you will not understand until you lose what you love. But enough about love,” said Gregory. He blew out the candle. “We will talk instead about your life. And how Gregory will save it, if you so desire.”
“Why would you save me?” Despereaux asked. “Have you saved any of the other mice?”
“Never,” said Gregory, “not one.”
“Why would you save me, then?”
“Because you, mouse, can tell Gregory a story. Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light.”
And because Despereaux wanted very much to live, he said, “Once upon a time . . .”
“Yes,” said Gregory happily. He raised his hand higher and then higher still until Despereaux’s whiskers brushed against his leathery, timeworn ear. “Go on, mouse,” said Gregory. “Tell Gregory a story.”
And it was in this way that Despereaux became the only mouse sent to the dungeon whom the rats did not reduce to a pile of bones and a piece of red thread.
It was in this way that Despereaux was saved.
Reader, if you don’t mind, that is where we will leave our small mouse for now: in the dark of the dungeon, in the hand of an old jailer, telling a story to save himself.
It is time for us to turn our attention elsewhere, time for us, reader, to speak of rats, and of one rat in particular.
End of the First Book
AS OUR STORY CONTINUES, reader, we must go backward in time to the birth of a rat, a rat named Chiaroscuro and called Roscuro, a rat born into the filth and darkness of the dungeon, several years before the mouse Despereaux was born upstairs, in the light.
Reader, do you know the definition of the word “chiaroscuro”? If you look in your dictionary, you will find that it means the arrangement of light and dark, darkness and light together. Rats do not care for light. Roscuro’s parents were having a bit of fun when they named their son. Rats have a sense of humor. Rats, in fact, think that life is very funny. And they are right, reader. They are right.
In the case of Chiaroscuro, however, the joke had a hint of prophecy to it, for it happened that when Roscuro was a very young rat, he came upon a great length of rope on the dungeon floor.
“Ah, what have we here?” said Roscuro.
Being a rat, he immediately began to nibble at the rope.
“Stop that,” boomed a voice, and a great hand came out of the darkness and picked the rat up by his tail and held him suspended upside down.
“Were you nibbling on Gregory’s rope, rat?”
“Who wants to know?” said Roscuro, for even upside down he was still a rat.
“You smart-alecky rat, you smart-alecky rat nib-nib-nibbling on Gregory’s rope. Gregory will teach you to mess with his rope.”
And keeping Roscuro upside down, Gregory lit a match with the nail of his thumb, ssssssttttttt,