by Billy Miner
You have probably never heard of me, because I have never been popular in school, at work, in the neighborhood, the village, or anywhere really. My name is Martha, and I live in the tiny village of Craftfield.
The name “Craftfield” was obviously derived from all the guilds there. Everybody was part of some guild, everyone had some kind of craft they were good at, whether it was forging weapons, sowing and dressmaking, farming, making jewelry, or painting the scenery behind the village… that beautiful snow-peaked mountain top everybody was always bragging about to visitors.
It was a peaceful village. I never had too many problems there. Like I said, everyone was good at something, or multiple things. They all had specific skills that made them stand out and thrive in their own little businesses. There were blacksmiths, tailors, glass blowers, actors, musicians, cooks, and artists, all ready to share their talents with the many tourists and merchants who would come to our village in the summer.
And me?
I was good at nothing!
Honestly, I couldn’t do anything right. I was bad at every trade. I was ingenious or highly intelligent, or experienced in anything. I was myself. I was Martha. And for some people, like my sweet aunt, I was good enough.
My aunt, Sarah, was the kindest person you could think of. She always had warm bread on the kitchen counter when I came home from the market, gave me great advice, and always listened to my complaints. She practically raised me, and I don’t know what I would have done without her.
One day, I came home and asked her something that had been on my mind for a while.
“Aunt Sarah,” I started. “I feel ugly. I feel stupid. It seems like boys are never interested in me. Do you think I am ugly?”
“Of course not, dear,” she said. “What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know. I just lack a little self-esteem, I guess. I don’t know if people are actually attracted to me.”
“Listen, Martha. I think you are as pretty as a princess. Don’t you let anyone tell you differently.”
“Thanks, Aunt Sarah.”
I went to bed with a heavy heart though. I had been single for a while. I was already 25 and I had never even had a boyfriend. Would my life ever go somewhere? I picked up a book and started reading a little before I blew out the candle next to my bed. If I would have known what I found out the next day, I think I would have been a lot more cheerful that night.
Entry 2: The Bakery
Well, like I mentioned before, I had no talents. I was incredibly clumsy. And I just happened to work at the local bakery, where a lot of things could go wrong.
Not a good combination, let me assure you that.
I arrived on time. Thank goodness for that. But as I kept working, I tripped, slipped, burnt something, and I… hold on… wait a minute. Let me start from the beginning. So here is what happened:
I was using the rolling pin for the dough perfectly. Nothing wrong about that. I put everything in the oven to let it bake. Fantastic. Everything still okay.
But then it happened…
I was happily serving customers and watching the bread in the oven. It was simple: Just talk to a customer, give them what they need, and look back after every order to see if the bread was done yet.
But then he came in.
I still don’t know his name, but all I knew, was that he took my breath away with his long strides and his waving hair. He entered the bakery, stood in line for a few minutes and then asked, “Can I have a loaf of white bread, please? One of those in the corner?”
Wow. He spoke to me.
He actually spoke to me and he smiled when he did it. That had to be a sign, right? The whole bakery stopped in my imagination. The world around me slowed down and I started daydreaming. I stared at those glimmering blue eyes and sighed when I saw him quickly stroke his hair with his left hand.
I could see ourselves riding a horse through romantic landscapes in the shimmering moonlight, dressed in royal attire and meant to be together. I could picture our first kiss, the very moment we would completely throw ourselves into each other’s hands to be together forever. The vision became blurry. What was that smoke doing which came at our horse and us? Now my clothes were going to smell like smoke!
I snapped out of it. It was actual smoke. I was back at the bakery and reality hit. The smoke was coming from the oven.
“Oh no! The bread!” I said.
As fast as I could, I took two oven mitts, opened it, and took the bread out. I put it on the counter without hesitation. It was burnt. It had become useless.
Terrible. My boss was never going to forgive me! But as if that wasn’t bad enough, the mistake set a sequence of other catastrophes in motion, because the smoke blurred another baker’s vision, who had just walked into the room. She came in and saw the smoke.
“What happened here?” she asked.
“I am sorry,” I said. “I’ll get rid of the smoke. And I will bake another loaf of bread.”
When I said it, I was waving with my hands and arms to eliminate some of the smoke from a few feet in front of me. I coughed, and I closed my eyes as I kept waving.
Big mistake.
I wasn’t looking, right? And when I waved, I accidentally hit my colleague.
“Ouch!”
She got slapped in the face by my waving hand, because of which she lost her balance and knocked over an open bottle of liquid oil. The oil fell on the ground and spread throughout the bakery room within seconds. This caused the floor to slippery, so when another colleague came in, alerted by all the noise, she slipped.
It was a disaster.
When the second colleague slipped, she slid all across the room and hit a giant bag of flour in the corner. The bag of flour imploded and caused huge amounts of its content to blow up in the air. The flour powdered through the entire room, making the customers in line be covered with the stuff.
They coughed and coughed, and made attempts to brush the flour off their clothes. But none of them succeeded of course, so eventually, they left the store.
We lost them.
And my boss lost money.
I was forced to clean up the whole mess. I threw the bread away, aired out the smoke, dusted off the flour from all four corners of the bakery room, and spent more than an hour scrubbing the surface of the oily floor. After that, I was sent home for the day.
Welcome to my life!
Entry 3: Travel
The day after the accidents in the bakery happened, I was still moping around, feeling sorry for myself. My aunt had come to my room to comfort me, but it still wasn’t enough. But then something strange occurred. I never would have guessed what somebody told me that day.
It was man, a royal servant from the other side of the country. I had seen those come to town before as tourists, but this one specifically came to our door.
He knocked.
My aunt opened up.
And before I knew it, the man came in, with his extravagant clothes and colorful hat and feather, and introduced himself as Richard, a royal servant from the palace. He had traveled from far to meet me.
“What?” I asked. “You want to meet me? What’s so special about me?
“You are the heir to the throne,” he said in all seriousness.
“Uhm… what?”
I still couldn’t believe it.
“Aunt Sarah, did you know about this?”
“I am sorry, Martha. I was sworn to silence. When your parents died, your stepmother insisted that you would be taken away and undergo a regular childhood to keep you from being spoiled. There was nothing I could say against that. She was in charge and she demanded that I would raise you. Of course I didn’t mind, since you were such a sweet little girl, but I really didn’t have any say in it. However, if I could undo it, I wouldn’t, because I think you felt right at home at my place.”
“Whoa. Hold on. This is a lot of new information to me. I am the princess? I am the PRINCESS?!!!! Wow!!!”
I
thought for a moment. Then I asked, “So why do you want me to become a princess now?”
“Her majesty the queen, your stepmother, has sent me to approve your return, and to inform you that you will need to pass a test to become queen.”
“Test? What kind of test?”
“I don’t know. I am here to guide you there, and that is all I can do.”
“Can Aunt Sarah come with us?” I asked.
“Of course. We have a room in the palace just for her.”
“I knew this day would come,” Aunt Sarah commented with a smile. “I just didn’t know when. This is exciting. Are you ready to pack your bags, Martha?”
“Yes!” I said as I ran up the stairs.
Usually I am fairly careful when I pack my suitcase, but this time, I just threw in a bunch of clothes and some personal belongings and came downstairs in a heartbeat. I was ready to be a princess! It was going to be wonderful.
Looking around to see if we forgot everything, I pulled my aunt outside the door and saw a beautiful, golden carriage with horses standing in front of our door. Was this for me? Wow.
I jumped into the carriage, opened by the coachman, and sat inside the little transportation vehicle on the soft, silky seats.
“Go!” I yelled excitedly.
They were a little slow, but after some time, they left. We rode through the streets of Craftfield. I looked out the window as we passed by the tiny homes with guilds and the visitors from different regions.
Suddenly, I realized I had forgotten something.
“Stop!” I said.
“What is it?” Aunt Sarah asked as the carriage came to a halt.
“I just realized I had to do something quickly. Just wait here. I will be back soon.”
I jumped out and ran around the corner until I reached the bakery. I opened the door and went inside. I asked where I could find my boss and my colleague showed me the backroom where she was at.
“Hey,” she said. “I told you not to come back until tomorrow. Do you even understand how many losses we suffered yesterday because of your stupidity?”
“I just came here to tell you that… I QUIT!” I said laughingly. “Ha-ha-ha!”
With that, I ran outside and felt better than ever. What a relief. I never had to work at that awful place again. I went back to the carriage, stepped inside, sat down, and said, “Carry on.” We continued our journey and I was happy as a clam.
On the way to the palace, we saw mountains, rivers, green hills, and other landscapes. I sincerely enjoyed the journey. Well, for the most part actually, because on at one point, things didn’t look so peachy.
The palace was few days away from Craftfield, so we traveled during the nighttime too. And it so happened to be that we slowly rode through a spooky forest. It didn’t take long before I freaked out a little because of the gloomy atmosphere and the thick darkness.
“Wh-where are we?” I asked.
“Nothing to be worried about,” Richard said. “I passed through this forest on the way to your village too, and nothing happened. It just looks a little creepy; that’s all.”
I still wasn’t at ease, and perhaps that was a good thing, because my instincts were right. Something was wrong. I felt it, and it was real.
“Wrraaaaahh!” we heard from the left and the right side of the carriage.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Richard admitted.
“Say, Richard, did you go travel through this forest in the daytime or in the nighttime?” I asked with suspicion.
“Uhm… the daytime. Why?”
“Ughh..” I sighed. “Then how do you know if it is safe during the night?”
“I guess I don’t.”
The sound was heard again, this time closer. I couldn’t help myself and I looked out the window, expecting the worst kind of monsters to attack our carriage.
They were endermen!
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Richard commanded the coachman.
“I can’t,” the coachman said. “If I go any faster, the horses will trip. You may not have noticed it, but this is a terribly rocky road. We have to do something else.”
“I’ll do something,” I said with determination.
“No,” my aunt cautioned. “They will kill you! Are you nuts?”
“I don’t care,” I said. “They will kill us anyway, even if I don’t try to fight them.”
Richard joined me by jumping out of the carriage after me. He grabbed his sword and killed an enderman. Within a few seconds, he stabbed another one, and another. Meanwhile, I grabbed a branch and started hitting those shadowy creatures on their heads. One by one they fell to the ground. Some of them dead, others unconscious. But it didn’t suffice. More endermen were coming and we were surrounded.
“I don’t want to die!” I cried.
“Just stay behind me,” Richard said.
But I was hysterical. I couldn’t contain myself anymore and stepped away from the carriage when an enderman came at me. I yelled that they had to go away, but that only angered them more. The enderman swung his long arms at me. I evaded his assault, but by doing so, I tripped over a large tree trunk that was broken in the first place. The forest was full of trees, but again, it just happened that I was tripping over the one loose tree which was about to collapse and hit the ground.
Clumsy me.
Because I tripped, it triggered the last little balancing part that was holding up the tree diagonally to break. The ripping caused the tree to crack and fall down. Noisily and heavily the giant tree lost its balance and fell down.
Booof!
It landed on almost all the remaining endermen. Some of them tried to crawl out from underneath, others were squashed like tomatoes. Richard was amazed.
“Oops,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Sorry?” Richard said as he stabbed the two last endermen that were still standing. “You just saved our lives, Martha. I am grateful for your clumsiness.”
“Ha-ha. You’re welcome, I guess,” I said, a little embarrassed.
From that point on, our journey had no further disturbances.
Entry 4: Royal Manners
We arrived there in the afternoon and went inside immediately. The palace looked magnificent. Crystal decorations and golden ornaments were prevalent amongst the many towers, bridges, and beautiful garden area that surrounded this royal place. Inside, there were red velvet carpets, glamorous mirrors, and historical knight armor pieces on either side of the hallway. It was a feast for the eyes to glance upon.
We entered a big room. There she was, my stepmother.
“Hello,” she said, pleasantly surprised by our late arrival. “Any problems along the way?” she asked Richard.
“Nothing we couldn’t solve, your highness.”
“Excellent,” she said. “Then let’s meet the newbie.”
She walked towards me and extended her hand.
“Pleased to meet you,” I said.
“It’s good to finally see you, Martha. And although I did not want you to grow up here, bathing in luxurious comforts, I do care for you. And it was my own decision to have you experience the outside world to rule them more wisely. I think, after all this time, your Aunt Sarah sees the benefits of these arrangements, don’t you, Sarah?”
“Yes, your highness. And we are happy to be here.”
“Very well. Then let’s get to it. Perhaps you have already discussed my character on the road, but let me be clear as glass. I am concerned about you, and you will notice that I can be very patient and tolerant. However, you may have also talked about my strict observance of royal rules in accordance to the etiquette we should maintain, so we can be a good example to our servants and citizens.”
“We talked about it a little bit,” I admitted.
“Then I will immediately introduce you to the manners and habits you will need to refine to qualify.”
“Wait,” I said. “Do you mean that I am not allowed to be an actual princ
ess yet until I master some etiquette?”
“You are a bright, aren’t you? Yes, that’s exactly what I am saying.”
“But I am the princess,” I protested. “You have no right to deny me that privilege. It’s my heritage.”
“I know,” she said. “That is why we have to get on it right away. I am the queen, and I have the authority to determine the rules here. So come along, and I will show you what you have to do.”
I still didn’t like her attitude, but I think she was also a little fed up with mine. Clearly there was no arguing with this woman. She was focused and stern, and would see to it that I would behave according to her guidelines.
We left the room and entered the dining room. She ordered one of the waiters in there to get lunch. This was going to be interesting. She sat me down and looked at me.
“No, no, no,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t slouch. Sit up like a royal heir.”
I tried to sit up, but it was never good enough. During lunch, she basically corrected me more than ten times, and it was starting to bug me.
“Hold up your tea cup like this,” she said one time, “and make sure you put your pinky up to show some class.”
I tried to do it perfectly, but my pinky was just a little crooked. It wouldn’t stand up without my ring finger coming up as well. It was very tricky.
“Ugh…” she sighed as she rolled her eyes. “She is a real piece of work. Keep trying, Martha. I know you can do it… eventually.”
It took longer than I expected, but lunch was over. I stood up and walked towards the door.
“Noooo,” the queen said again.
Now what did I do wrong?
“Walk like a princess,” she criticized. “Elegantly, smoothly… softly, and upright. You have to feel like you are above the ground, as if you are floating in the air, slightly stepping on your toes and silently presenting yourself as royalty.”
This was the trickiest part of all. I ended up skipping, hopping, tripping, and slouching like an awkward zombie. I saw her bury her face in her hands each time and giving me another try, and another, and another. However, when she saw me waddling like a duck in an attempt to fulfill her accurate but confusing description, she gave up.