The Tale of Despereaux - Kate DiCamillo [5]
“Please,” said Despereaux, “don’t cry.” He held out his handkerchief to the princess.
The Pea sniffed and leaned down close to him.
“Do not speak to her!” thundered the king.
Despereaux dropped his handkerchief. He backed away from the king.
“Rodents do not speak to princesses. We will not have this becoming a topsy-turvy, wrong-headed world. There are rules. Scat. Get lost, before my common sense returns and I have you killed.”
The king stamped his foot again. Despereaux found it alarming to have such a big foot brought down with so much force and anger so close to his own small head. He ran toward the hole in the wall.
But he turned before he entered it. He turned and shouted to the princess. “My name is Despereaux!”
“Despereaux?” she said.
“I honor you!” shouted Despereaux.
“I honor you” was what the knight said to the fair maiden in the story that Despereaux read every day in the book in the library. Despereaux had muttered the phrase often to himself, but he had never before this evening had occasion to use it when speaking to someone else.
“Get out of here!” shouted the king, stamping his foot harder and then harder still so it seemed as if the whole castle, the very world, were shaking. “Rodents know nothing of honor.”
Despereaux ran into the hole and from there he looked out at the princess. She had picked up his handkerchief and she was looking at him . . . right, directly into his soul.
“Despereaux,” she said. He saw his name on her lips.
“I honor you,” whispered Despereaux. “I honor you.” He put his paw over his heart. He bowed so low that his whiskers touched the floor.
He was, alas, a mouse deeply in love.
THE MOUSE COUNCIL, thirteen honored mice and one Most Very Honored Head Mouse, heeded the call of Lester’s drum and gathered in a small, secret hole off King Phillip’s throne room. The fourteen mice sat around a piece of wood balanced on spools of thread and listened in horror while Despereaux’s father related the story of what Furlough had seen.
“At the foot of the king,” said Lester.
“Her finger right on top of his head,” said Lester.
“He was looking up at her, and . . . it was not in fear.”
The Mouse Council members listened with their mouths open. They listened with their whiskers drooping and their ears flat against their heads. They listened in dismay and outrage and fear.
When Lester finished, there was a silence dismal and deep.
“Something,” intoned the Most Very Honored Head Mouse, “is wrong with your son. He is not well. This goes beyond his fevers, beyond his large ears and his lack of growth. He is deeply disturbed. His behavior endangers us all. Humans cannot be trusted. We know this to be an indisputable fact. A mouse who consorts with humans, a mouse who would sit right at the foot of a man, a mouse who would allow a human to touch him” — and here, the entire Mouse Council indulged in a collective shiver of disgust — “cannot be trusted. That is the way of the world, our world.
“Fellow mice, it is my most fervent hope that Despereaux has not spoken to these humans. But obviously, we can assume nothing. And this is a time to act, not wonder.”
Lester nodded his head in agreement. And the twelve other members of the Mouse Council nodded their heads, too.
“We have no choice,” said the Head Mouse. “He must go to the dungeon.” He pounded his fisted paw on the table. “He must go to the rats. Immediately. Members of the council, I will now ask you to vote. Those in favor of Despereaux being sent to the dungeon, say ‘aye.’ ”
There was a chorus of sad “ayes.”
“Those opposed say ‘nay.’ ”
Silence reigned in the room.
The only noise came from Lester. He was crying.
And thirteen mice, ashamed for Lester, looked away.
Reader, can you imagine your own father not voting against your being sent to a dungeon full of rats? Can you imagine him not saying one word in your defense?
Despereaux’s father wept and the Most Very Honored Head Mouse beat his paw against the table again and said, “Despereaux Tilling will appear before the mouse community. He will hear of his sins; he will