The Tale of Despereaux - Kate DiCamillo [32]
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.
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