Harriet the Invincible

by Ursula Vernon

  Dial Books for Young Readers

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

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  Copyright © 2015 by Ursula Vernon

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Vernon, Ursula.

  Hamster princess : Harriet the invincible / by Ursula Vernon. pages cm

  Summary: Never a conventional princess, Harriet becomes an adventurer after learning she is cursed to fall into a deep sleep on her twelfth birthday, but after two years of slaying ogres, cliff-diving, and more with her riding quail Mumfrey, things go awry at home and she must seek a prince to set things right. ISBN 978-0-698-40397-0

  [1. Princesses—Fiction. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Blessing and cursing—Fiction. 4. Hamsters—Fiction. 5. Humorous stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.V5985Ham 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2014034037

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Version_1

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  TITLE PAGE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  For Mavis,

  who taught me all about rodents

  CHAPTER 1

  Once upon a time, in a distant land, there was a beautiful princess named Harriet Hamsterbone, who, as her name indicated, was a hamster.

  She was brave and intelligent and excelled in traditional hamster princess skills, like checkers and fractions.

  She was not very good at trailing around the palace looking ethereal and sighing a lot, which are also traditional princess skills, but her parents hired deportment teachers to try and make up for it.

  Her deportment teacher tried to make her walk around with a book on her head to improve her posture. He was later found in the library with a book stuffed in his mouth, and Harriet was grounded for a month.

  She loved her riding quail Mumfrey, and rode him all over the countryside. Riding quail can’t actually fly, but they make excellent steeds for hamsters. Harriet and Mumfrey rode everywhere pretending to slay monsters, since her parents would not actually let her go out to slay real dragons. This was a source of great disappointment for her.

  Despite being kept away from monsters, Harriet was generally happy and not as irritating as some princesses. Yet her mom and dad were often depressed, for they knew that a dark cloud hung over the princess, and indeed, the very kingdom.

  For when the princess was only twelve days old, on the day she was to be christened, a dreadful curse had been placed upon her, and despite their best efforts, the hamster king and queen had no idea how to break it.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Christening: Ten Years Earlier

  On the day of the princess’s christening, everyone in the palace and many of the most important people in the kingdom had come out to witness the ceremony.

  No expense had been spared. In the usual Hamsterbone tradition, there were dukes and earls and a marquess, which is something like a marquis, and several viscounts and one regular count and even a praetor. (The praetor had taken a wrong turn some weeks ago while hunting. He didn’t know what the hamsters were talking about, but had heard something about free food. Praetors are elected officials in certain kinds of kingdoms, and they never pass up free meals.)

  And of course there were three fairy god-mice, to administer the blessings, and the princess herself.

  The assembled crowd shrank back when the wicked fairy appeared, for it was immediately obvious to all that this was no ordinary fairy, but in fact the wicked Ratshade, who had placed third on Fairy God-Mouse Today’s Most Wicked List for eleven years running. Rumor had it that she was a bit bitter about her inability to move up the list, and had been planning something big.

  Ratshade was tall and thin, and her fingernails were so long that they curved in strange rippling claws and made it very difficult for her to blow her nose without causing herself serious injury. Her fur was as white as bone, her eyes were red, and she had a stump for a tail, because she had traded her tail for power when she was young. (This is a thing that rats can do, although most of them are very attached to their tails and wouldn’t dream of parting with them.)

  Ratshade stomped across the dais toward the bassinet that contained the princess. Two fairy god-mice cowered back, but the youngest clutched the back of the bassinet, prepared to snatch the princess away if Ratshade tried to grab her.

  But Ratshade did not touch the princess. She only gazed down at her, clicking her long nails together, and then she laughed, a laugh like bones clattering down a hole in the dark.

  “Very well!” said the wicked fairy. “Very well! She is twelve days old today? Well, when she is twelve years old, she shall prick her finger upon a hamster wheel and fall into a sleep like death!”

  Ratshade vanished in a cloud of oily smoke that smelled like burning hair, and the inhabitants of the kingdom looked at one another in dismay. The princess was cursed!

  CHAPTER 3

  What can we possibly do?” cried the dukes.

  “There’s nothing we can do!” cried the earls.

  “Very difficult to break, fairy curses,” said the marquess.

  “They come true no matter what,” said the viscounts.

  “They’ll bend the world around them and make themselves come true,” said the regular count.

  “Maybe the other fairies can do something,” said the praetor, helping himself to the buffet.

  Everyone stared at him.

  “Brilliant!” cried the dukes and the earls and the marquess and the viscounts and the regular count. “We never would have thought of that!”

  “I can’t believe my empire never conquered yours when we had the chance,” muttered the praetor into his sandwich.

  So the three fairy god-mice put their heads together, while the hamster queen tried to comfort the princess, who had slept through the entire thing and did not actually need comforting.

  “Right!” said the oldest of the fairy god-mice. “We cannot break Ratshade’s curse, O King Hamsterbone, but we can alter it a little. I have changed the curse so that when the princess falls asleep, she shall not need either food or drink while she is sleeping.”

  “I guess th
at’s useful,” said the queen.

  “What about bathrooms?” asked the king. “I mean, I always have to get up in the middle of the night to use the toilet, so—”

  “No bathrooms either,” said the oldest fairy god-mouse, and gave the king a very stern look.

  “And I,” said the middle god-mouse, “have changed the curse so that at the moment it takes effect, enormous thorny briars shall grow up around the princess’s tower, so that no one can get in.”

  “Um,” said the king. “That . . . doesn’t sound quite so useful.”

  “Tough,” said the middle fairy god-mouse, annoyed. “It’s already cast.”

  The hamster king and queen sighed, and turned to the third god-mouse without much hope.

  “So what did you do?” asked the king. “Set the palace on fire? Turn her into a snowflake or a chicken or something?”

  “Errr . . . no,” said the youngest god-mouse. “I don’t do chickens.” She looked down at her feet. “I don’t know if mine will be very useful.”

  “Out with it,” said the king.

  “Wonderful!” cried the dukes, earls, marquess, viscounts, and regular count. (The praetor had filled his pockets with sandwiches and gone back to his own country.)

  “Now that’s fairy work!” said the king admiringly.

  “Ideally I’d like her to get to know the prince a bit before he kisses her,” said the queen. “Make sure he’s a nice boy and understands how to treat his mother-in-law. But that’s still a very good change, my dear!” She beamed at the youngest fairy god-mouse, who looked embarrassed by all the attention.

  And so the princess was christened, and the curse was cast.

  CHAPTER 4

  Despite the doom upon her, Princess Harriet grew up happy. Her parents tried not to worry about the curse, but of course it was difficult. Even though there were a number of princes around that might be convinced to kiss an enchanted princess, the king and queen fretted.

  Princes were not always reliable, and of course they tended not to show up until after the fact. And what if the god-mice hadn’t done their jobs correctly?

  No one knew where to find the wicked fairy Ratshade, who was the only one who might be able to take the curse off completely.

  Hamster wheels were banned from the palace grounds completely, but it was impossible to burn every wheel in the kingdom. Hamsters love their wheels. The king’s advisors told him that it was either the curse or a peasant uprising, and since the curse would find a way to happen anyway, he was better off leaving the wheels alone.

  To make matters worse, Harriet herself grew increasingly bored with life in the palace, and kept wanting to take up more dangerous hobbies.

  Finally, when she was ten years old and the time of the curse was only two years away, her parents took her aside and told her the entire story of the curse.

  Harriet’s parents watched her closely to see how she was taking the news. She sat on the floor and chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip for a while.

  “Okay . . . let me get this straight . . .” she said finally.

  “Yes, dear?” said the queen.

  “So I’m going to prick myself on a hamster wheel on my twelfth birthday and fall asleep, possibly forever, or at least until a prince kisses me.” Harriet’s tone left it very clear that she didn’t put much faith in princes.

  “Right,” said the king.

  “Fairy curses are very persistent, dear,” said her mother. “You can’t thwart them. We did try.”

  “The fairies were very clear on that,” said her father gloomily. “Even if we locked you in a room and didn’t let anyone in, on your twelfth birthday, a hamster wheel would show up somehow.”

  “Ratshade is the only one who can change it,” said the queen, “and she’s vanished completely. She didn’t even make the Fairy God-Mouse Today Most Wicked List last year.”

  Princess Harriet celebrated her newfound freedom by jumping from the top of the highest tower in the kingdom into the moat. She survived three jumps and a belly-flop, because the curse did indeed have to keep her alive until her twelfth birthday. Wicked fairies put a lot of work into their curses, and they hate to see them thwarted by unfortunate accidents.

  And so Princess Harriet spent the next two years cliff-diving, dragon-slaying, and jousting on the professional circuit.

  “At least she’s not still visiting with that awful Crone of the Blighted Waste,” said the king. “She didn’t sound very nice at all.”

  “Harriet wrote that she made good cookies.”

  The princess always wrote home regularly. Her mother would have been appalled to know what she was leaving out of the letters. Just recently, she had decided to Do Something about the people-eating Ogrecats, which had been such a scourge up and down the coast.

  Her mother wouldn’t have approved at all, so she just said that she was going to the beach.

  “I keep thinking we should put a stop to this,” said the king sadly, “but she has so little time left to have fun.”

  “I know,” said the queen. No one had been able to find Ratshade, and there were only three months left before Harriet’s twelfth birthday.

  CHAPTER 5

  Harriet, meanwhile, was having the time of her life. She could go anywhere! Do anything! Climb the highest mountain! Jump off the tallest cliff! The curse wouldn’t even let her drown, which allowed her to go underwater and talk to mer-hamsters, although she had to leave Mumfrey on shore and he got into a bit of a snit about it.

  That evening, in the desolate and dreary Swamp of Sorrow (formerly the Bog of Bleariness, formerly the Fen of Fear, formerly the Marsh of Misery, formerly Farmer Bob’s Mud and Cattail Farm, Inc.), Princess Harriet composed a letter home.

  Princess Harriet studied the letter. No, “Dreaded Ogrecat” would only worry her mother. Perhaps she’d say she was trying to find the Relatively Pleasant Fluffycat of Olingsturm . . . although that didn’t make it any easier to spell . . .

  She decided to write the rest of the letter later, when she had access to a dictionary, or perhaps an atlas. She put her pen away. Anyway, it wasn’t time to write letters. It was time to sleep, and then tomorrow morning, it would be time to pull out her sword and fight monsters.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Ogrecat left enormous paw prints in the muck. They were easy to follow, even with the gloom and the mist that kept oozing around the ground in the Swamp of Sorrow.

  “This is the last ogre of the trip, Mumfrey,” Princess Harriet said to her faithful riding quail. “Then we’ll head home to the palace. It’s a long way home, and Mom will never forgive me if I turn twelve and fall into a horrible enchanted sleep without her.”

  “Qwerrrrrk,” agreed Mumfrey.

  Several hours later, they finally arrived at the Ogrecat’s den. The Ogrecat himself was enormous, with long fangs and bright green eyes and whiskers as thick as drinking straws.

  He was squinting at a very small book held in the tips of his claws.

  “Perfect!” whispered Harriet. “You know what to do, Mumfrey. On the count of three . . .”

  “Qwerk . . .” cheeped Mumfrey. “. . . querrk . . . QWERRRK!”

  “What the—” said the Ogrecat, dropping his book as a small, ferocious hamster landed on him.

  “DIE, FOUL BEAST!” screamed Harriet.

  “QWERRRRRK!” screamed Mumfrey.

  “OWWWW!” screamed the Ogrecat.

  “Your days of eating people are through, you monster!” cried Harriet. The Ogrecat flung her off with a wild shake of his arms and the hamster princess soared through the air, did a reverse one-handed cartwheel (the other hand was holding the sword), and shot to her feet. “You’ll rue the day that Princess Harriet heard of your evil ways!”

  She couldn’t reach much higher than his knees, so she brought the hilt of her sword down on hi
s toes. He yelped.

  “Time-out!” shrieked the Ogrecat, hopping on one foot and trying to pry Mumfrey off his head. “Time-out, time-out, time-out!”

  “Monsters generally aren’t allowed to call time-outs,” said Harriet, stepping back, “but I suppose I’ll allow it. You have to put Mumfrey back on your head afterward though, or it isn’t fair.”

  “Fine!” said the Ogrecat. “I’ll put him anywhere you like! Just get him off and stop hitting me!”

  “You heard the Ogre, Mumfrey,” said Harriet. “Let him go. At least temporarily.” She glared at the Ogrecat.

  Mumfrey sniffed haughtily and stepped down from the Ogrecat’s head. He liked fighting monsters. It was much more interesting than roosting in the palace stables all day, like the other quail back home, and he was disappointed that he had to stop.

  “You’re Harriet,” said the Ogrecat, sounding as if he had just gotten smallpox for Christmas.

  “Princess Harriet,” said the hamster princess. “You’ve heard of me?”

  “We’ve all heard of you,” said the Ogrecat. “All the ogres, anyway. Crazy Princess Harriet, and her mad fighting quail.”

  Mumfrey beamed as much as you can beam with a beak.

  “You’re a princess,” said the Ogrecat. “You jump on monsters in the middle of the swamp and beat them senseless. For a princess, that’s pretty crazy.”