The Tale of Despereaux - Kate DiCamillo [29]
“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.
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.