The Princess who Didn't Know She Was a Princes

Today, I got to be a little girl again and live a little girl dream: to be a princess.

My sister and I have been wanting to throw a tea party for the three girls down the street for months now, ever since we first cleaned their house this summer. It was never harder to force myself to concentrate on cleaning--all I wanted that day was to lay down my sponge and bleach and play with them!

Today, we finally got to play. :)

They came all dressed up in pretty dresses, but they were soon embellished further with scarves from the closet, Sharon's necklaces, and crowns that they decorated with sequins and fluffy gold string. (Was there ever a more girly affair?)

Then we sat down to tea, lemon tarts, peanut brittle, heart-shaped pb&j sandwiches, and frozen grape pops. The frozen grapes were a smash hit--mainly, I think, because of their potential for creative construction projects.


Then they wanted a story.

"Have you ever heard of the princess who didn't know she was a princess?" I asked.

They hadn't.

"This princess," I began, "never smiled. No one had ever told her she was special. They told her she was ugly. She didn't live in a castle. She had the grossest job ever. What is the grossest job you can think of?"

They thought for a minute. "Ohh! It's the people who have to dig through trash to find people's brooches!" Paige offered.

"Yeah, that's gross," I said, "but her job was even worse. She had to clean up after pigs and feed them."

"Even their poop?" asked one of the twins.

"Yep." I could hardly keep from laughing.

Then I told them how the King knew she was a princess all along and wanted her to come live with him in the castle.
"One day" I began, "he said to his son, the prince, 'Go tell her that I want her to be my little girl and live with me. Tell her that I love her. ' So the prince went down from the castle to see her.

"The girl saw him at the fence and scowled. 'What do you want?' she asked the prince. 'I came to tell you that the King, my father, loves you and wants you to come live with him.' 'Huh,' she huffed, turning her face away. 'I don't believe you. Now get outta here!'

"He left, but the next day he was back, holding a flower. 'Here; smell this,' he said, holding it up to her nose. She sniffed, but her face turned sour. 'Ugh!' she said. 'It smells terrible!' 'No, it doesn't,' said the prince, very surprised. 'It's a rose!' 'I don't care if you call it a nose!' she said. 'It smells awful.' She sniffed the nearest dirty pig and smiled. 'Now THAT smells good!' she said. The prince just shook his head. 'You don't know you're a princess,' he said sadly.

"The next day he came back, but in his hands was a shiny violin. He started to play a beautiful song--something like what's playing on the CD", I said, nodding in the direction of the music coming from the kitchen. "But the girl just covered her ears and screeched, 'Stop it! Stop it! What a horrible noise!' The prince stopped. 'Well,' he said slowly, 'what sounds good to you?' In answer, she squealed in the perfect imitation of the pigs around her and ended with a great big snort."

"Like this?" asked Claire, and she snorted from the bottom of her toes.

"Exactly like that," I said.

"The next day, the girl was expecting him. When the prince came, his hands were empty, but he smiled and reached into his pocket. 'Here; taste this!' he said. 'It's a cookie!' She took a bite, but then she spit it out. 'Ptooooy! Yuck! What are you trying to do, poison me?' The prince's eyes became shiny with tears. 'You have lived with the pigs so long that you don't know what smells good,' he said. 'You don't know what sounds good. You don't know what tastes good. And you don't know that you're a princess!'

"The girl's face got red and hot and she turned away from the prince.

"The man who owned the pigs lived at the top of the hill. He was cruel to the girl and he carried a big whip. After the prince left, he stomped down the hill in his big boots. 'Don't listen to that stupid prince,' he growled. 'He wants to give you bad smells, hurt your ears, and poison you with cookies, but I'm going to send you where you won't ever have to listen to him again.' The girl looked up, very surprised. 'I'm going to give you a beating, and sell you tomorrow to the pig owner in the next town!' he said.

The girl started to cry. The pig-owner looked so angry and his whip was curling threateningly at his feet. The pig-owner in the next town was a big man with an even bigger whip and a big, cruel face. She knew that he would beat her every day and she had heard that he didn't ever feed his workers. Her scalp prickled with fear and her hands shook as she scooped the pig's food with the bucket. Then another thought stopped her. How would the prince ever find her? He was strange, but she had begun to like his visits. Now she would be all alone.

Her eyes were red and puffy and tears were still leaking out when the prince came the next day. 'What's wrong?' he asked. She wiped a dirty hand across her nose, smearing her tears in a muddy line. 'The pig-owner is gonna beat me with his whip and then sell me to the mean pig-owner in the next town', she croaked. The prince's face got very soft, as if he was going to cry himself. Then he looked up the hill at the house, and his jaw grew solid with anger. 'Don't cry,' he told the girl. 'I'm going to do something.' He walked up the hill and disappeared into the house.

"The sun climbed to the top of the sky and then started to sink again. Still the prince didn't come back. He was gone for so long, that she began to wonder if something terrible had happened.

"Just then, the prince came out! But now he didn't look like a prince. His clothes were dirty and old, his lip and eye were bleeding, and his hands were tied behind his back. The pig-owner was holding the other end of the rope. As they walked past the pig-pen, he shoved the pen's door open. 'Get outta here,' he snarled at her. 'I'm selling him instead, and I can't be paying for your upkeep anymore.' The prince looked at her and smiled a little smile with his swollen lip. 'Go live with the King!' he said.

"She watched them disappear down the hill, and then she stared at the open door. She finally walked through, and stood there, feeling strange. Where could she go? She couldn't go to the castle. Why would anyone want someone as ugly as her? She turned into the woods and walked until it was too dark to see. She sat down on a rock and started to cry. She was hungry, she was scared, and she missed her pigs. She also missed the prince. He was kind to her, even if he was strange. Why would he let the pig-owner tie him up and sell him instead of her?

"Just then, she heard someone laugh. The voice sounded familiar, and she looked up. There was the prince! The rope was gone, his lip wasn't swollen anymore, and he was wearing clean, princely clothes again. He was smiling at her.

"'How did you--why--?' she stuttered. He laughed again and took her dirty hand.

'Don't you know that the King is much stronger than the pig-owners? They couldn't keep me locked up.' He held her other hand. 'Come with me to the castle and be a princess. The King loves you.'

"She pulled her hands away. 'But I'm dirty,' she said.

'He loves you anyway,' said the prince.

Her eyes filled with tears. 'I stink like pigs', she said.

'He wants you to be his princess,' said the prince.

The tears spilled down and she started to sob. 'I'm ugly', she cried.

The prince pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. 'To my father,' he said, 'you're already beautiful.'

They walked together to the castle. The King met them at the door. He was tall and strong, and the girl was a little bit afraid, but then he smiled and her fear flew away. When he wrapped his strong arms around her, she forgot that she was dirty and ugly. 'I'm so glad you're home, my princess,' he whispered into her hair.

"Did she marry the King?" asked Emily. "No, silly, she married the prince," said Paige. I hadn't thought that far in the story yet. "Um...yeah, she married the prince," I said.

Then I had a flash of inspiration. "It took her a long time to learn how to be a princess," I said, "even though she already was one. She had to learn what smelled good, what tasted good, and what made beautiful music. She had always lived with pigs, so living with the King was strange at first, but the longer she lived with him, the more beautiful she became. When she married the prince, they would go together into the countryside, looking for more little girls like her, who took care of pigs. When they would found them, they would tell them that the King loved them and they brought many of them to the castle to be princesses."

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I don't think they totally got the analogy I was going for, but that's ok; their attention spans are about as long as...a really short thing.