“That was a close call,” Sam said finally.
“I know,” Rose said. And then she added, “I’m sorry.”
It was Sam’s turn to say “I know.” He might have added, “You’re always sorry,” but he didn’t. That was the kind of big brother Sam was.
He did add something else, though. “You’ve got to keep Regina safe,” he reminded her. “She’s got no one except you.”
“Yeah!” Regina chimed in. “That’s your job … keeping me safe.”
Sam went on, ignoring the bossy doll. “She’s not like us,” he said. “If she gets hurt, she can’t heal like we can. She can’t even grow.”
Rose stopped walking for an instant, startled by the idea. The princess couldn’t grow. She would always be three and one-quarter inches tall. She couldn’t heal, either. If she got chipped or broken, she would be chipped or broken forever.
And she didn’t seem to learn the way growing people did. She would never be any different than she was at this moment, bossy and self-centered and … was she scared? Was it possible the tiny princess was scared? Rose knew that she would be scared if she were so tiny in such an enormous world.
The doll suddenly felt heavy at the end of her leather harness. Rose lifted the shoestring away from her neck, but then she let Regina fall back into place over her heart again.
Forever. It was a big word. She would be taking care of Princess Regina forever.
They had walked another block before Sam said, “I had a reason for coming for you. I’ve got something for you.”
“Something for me?” Princess Regina cried.
Rose was still too caught in forever to respond, but she came alert when Sam said, “Something for both of you.”
Regina danced at the end of her leather harness, and even Rose’s steps lightened a bit.
Sam would help her with forever. And his surprises were always good!
Rose cupped her palm beneath Regina to give her a softer ride.
“Hey,” the princess said. “Get your hand away. I can’t see!”
Rose let her hand fall away. Regina truly was a prickly little thing. But it was okay. Rose understood prickly.
Sam led the way up the walk to their yellow house. He led the way through the front door and up the stairs to Rose’s room. He pushed the door open and stepped back, bowing.
“Your High Royalnesses,” he said, “enter your kingdom.”
Rose entered. At first she saw nothing, only what she had left behind when she’d gone downstairs for breakfast that morning. An unmade bed. A tumble of clothes on the floor. (Her mother always told her to put her dirty clothes in the hamper in the bathroom, but somehow they never got there.) Some books and toys scattered here and there.
But then … there it was. Rose didn’t know how she had missed seeing it when she stepped into the room. She gasped and Regina squealed.
“My house!” Regina cried.
And Rose said, “It’s here!”
Here, indeed, it was. The dollhouse that had once been on the shelf in the back of the hardware store now sat on the window seat in Rose’s room. Sometimes when you bring something home from the store, it seems to get smaller on the trip home. In Rose’s room, the dollhouse had grown more grand.
“Take me to it!” Regina ordered. “This instant!”
So Rose did. She tiptoed across the room, removed Princess Regina from her harness, and set her down very gently in the dollhouse bedroom.
And oh … the bedroom!
Not only did the dollhouse look fine there in Rose’s room, but the little bedroom had been transformed. It had always been remarkably like Rose’s own, with the ruffled pink canopy and pink bedspread on the bed and its scattering of rosebuds on the walls. Now it was exactly like hers.
The brown furniture had been painted white with delicate gold trim!
“You?” Rose asked, turning to her brother. “You did this for Regina … for me?”
“For both of you,” Sam said. “I thought she’d be safe here. And I figured she wouldn’t need you so much if she had her own house.”
“Need her?” Regina bounced on the bed. She bounced so high her head nearly bumped the pink canopy. “Why would I need her? I have everything I could possibly want right here!”
Rose stepped back, away from the dollhouse. “You mean,” she said to Regina, “you want to stay here?”
“Of course!” Princess Regina said. She skipped over to the tiny dressing table and sat in front of the oval mirror. “Now and then, perhaps,” she said, “you can take me out to my throne room … or for a walk in the woods. As for going into town and meeting those nasty girls”—her tiny shoulders shuddered—“who needs it? I’ll stay right here, thank you very much.”
“If you’re sure,” Rose said, though she wasn’t at all sure herself. Was this what she wanted?
Sam, however, seemed pleased. “Sounds good to me,” he said. “Let’s get some lunch.” And he headed for the stairs.
Rose followed, but slowly.
She stopped in the doorway, looking back. Princess Regina still sat in front of the mirror, arranging her hair, smoothing a wrinkle from her pretty pink gown, examining her flawless china skin.
“Bye,” Rose said.
When Regina didn’t reply, she said more loudly, “Good-bye, Your Royal Highness!”
Then, without waiting for an answer, she followed Sam downstairs.
It was just as well Rose didn’t wait, because the princess didn’t bother to answer. After all, a princess isn’t obligated to speak every time she is spoken to.
She gathered her golden hair in both hands and held it up. Should she wear it this way? She let it fall. Or that?
After a few minutes and a few different hairstyles, she got up and crossed the room to look through the dollhouse window. From there she could see out the larger window in Rose’s room into the yard. That was good. If she got bored, she could always look out the window.
Not that she expected to get bored.
She did wish she could go into the other rooms, though. Unfortunately, the dollhouse wasn’t designed that way. There was no stairway, not even doors between the rooms. She needed a human hand to move her from room to room through the open front.
And that was a problem, too. Why was the front of the house open? She would never have any privacy. What if she didn’t always want her servant watching?
Regina lay down on the bed. She got up. She sat in the graceful velvet chair, then got up from there, too.
She walked to one wall and then to the other. She walked to the window and to the gaping front of the house.
“Maybe,” she said to herself and to the empty room beyond her cozy dollhouse, “it would be all right if Rose came back … just for a little while.”
She sat on the window seat, smoothed her satin skirt, crossed her ankles prettily, and waited.
The girl, the big, clumsy girl, would return. Whatever mistakes Rose made along the way, she always came back.
Rose did come back, of course. It was, after all, her room, her dollhouse, her doll. Not to mention her responsibility. But not for several hours.
Sam kept her busy all afternoon.
After lunch he suggested a bicycle ride. Sam was the one who had taught Rose to ride her bike, but he’d never before asked her to ride with him. “Your legs are too short, pip-squeak,” he’d say. “You can’t keep up.”
This day, though, he said, “How about we get our bikes out and go for a ride.”
And they did.
He kept pace alongside her, too, never riding out ahead. He didn’t call her pip-squeak, either … except once when she had to stop for the third time on their way up the big hill behind the Methodist church.
After their bike ride, they got ice cream sandwiches from the freezer in the back of the grocery store. And then, to Rose’s delight, Sam suggested that they go swimming at the quarry. The quarry was where all the big kids went. Sam had never taken Rose there before.
At the quarry, he held her up when the water was too deep and never called her pip-squeak even once.
It was nice, Rose had to admit to herself, not to have to worry about Regina for a while.
Rose was tired when they got home for supper, but still, she hurried upstairs to see her doll.
She let out a sigh of relief when she stepped into the room. There the princess sat on the window seat inside the dollhouse, looking right at her. Her ankles were crossed neatly, and her tiny hands were folded in her lap.
Everything was fine. Regina even looked happy, sitting there in her own little bedroom.
“Have you been having fun?” Rose asked, crossing to the dollhouse. “I’ve had the best time. First, Sam and I went biking. We even went up the hill behind …”
But her voice trailed off. Princess Regina didn’t seem to be listening. In fact, she didn’t seem to be doing anything, not even moving.
She was just sitting … staring … as deaf and dumb as any other china doll.
“Oh!” Rose cried, and she scooped the tiny doll into her hand. “Oh … don’t! You can’t go off to sleep.” She shook Regina gently. No response.
This was so unfair. She hadn’t forgotten this time. Regina had told her to go. The princess had practically dismissed her!
After a moment, Rose laid the doll down very gently on the dollhouse bed and backed away until she bumped into her own bed. She sat down abruptly.
She would not cry! She would not!
Rose sat for a long time watching Regina, but she didn’t pick her up again. After a while, she wiped away a tear. Only one. There would be no more.
Princess Regina was safe now. The princess had her own little house, and she was perfectly safe.
To tell the truth, Rose didn’t know how to feel. She was almost as glad as she was sad not to take care of the princess any longer. She didn’t have to take constant orders. She didn’t have to protect the doll from every kind of accident. She didn’t have to keep her hidden from grabby hands.
But still …
Rose cocked her head and studied Regina. The tiny doll’s expression had changed since Rose had discovered her. She no longer looked down and away as though avoiding too-friendly hands. She looked directly out into the world like someone who was waiting for something … for someone.
And so this story ends. Princess Regina is tucked away in her own house. Rose is free to be Rose, a challenge enough all by itself.
Will Rose ever learn the secret of waking the doll? Or will she wake her accidentally without knowing how it happens?
Either way, if Regina does wake, the two of them are sure to have more adventures, more disagreements. And eventually, because Rose is Rose and because caring for another waking creature is very hard, Regina will be left to sleep again.
Perhaps when Rose grows up, she will even forget about Regina’s power to wake. The truth is grown-ups do forget a lot.
But all this lies outside the story I’m telling. A story, any story, contains only the smallest part of a life.
There is one thing that I can tell you for certain will happen, though.
Rose will have a daughter one day, not a china doll but a real baby who breathes and eats and, yes, poops. And Rose’s ideas won’t be so grand when it comes to naming her. She’ll not call her Regina. Queen. She’ll go for something shorter, more ordinary.
Like Zoey. Not Princess Zoey. Just Zoey.
It’s a good name. Zoey means life, in case you didn’t know. And what is more sweet, more painful, more miraculous than life?
Rose will try hard, very, very hard—though it’s an enormously difficult thing to do—to take care of Zoey every minute.
And if Rose is still Rose and can’t always manage? Well, her mother, the good Hazel, will be there.
And at Hazel’s house a tiny doll will be waiting to waken.
The Very Little Princess Page 5