Go back to the list of chapters from Blow Out the Moon and other stories, like fairy tales, and instructions for how to do cat's cradle.
This is a novel about an American girl who goes to an English boarding school. It's based on a true story and lots of emails from kids who have read it and loved it say it made them laugh out loud. They also say they love it and make interesting comments and ask questions, too. (If you write to me, and give me permission, I'll post your email -- and of course, answer your letter.)
The book has been
published by Little, Brown. and it's online at
amazon.
It's in many bookstores and libraries, too. If you ask your library to order
it, they probably will.
When the Princess Melisande was born, her mother, the Queen, wished to have a christening party, but the King put his foot down and said he would not have it.
"I've seen too much trouble come of christening parties," said he. "However carefully you keep your visiting-book, some fairy or other is sure to get left out, and you know what that leads to. Why, even in my own family, the most shocking things have occurred. The Fairy Malevola was not asked to my great-grandmother's christening -- and you know all about the spindle and the hundred years sleep."
"Perhaps you're right," said the Queen. "My own cousin by marriage forgot some stuffy old fairy or other when she was sending out the cards for her daughter's christening, and the old wretch turned up at the last moment, and the girl drops toads out of her mouth to this day."
"Just so. And then there was that business of the mouse and the kitchen maids," said the King; "we'll have no nonsense about it. I'll be her godfather, and you shall be her godmother, and we won't ask a single fairy; then none of them can be offended."
"Unless they all are," said the Queen.
And that was exactly what happened. When the King and the Queen and the baby got back from the christening the parlormaid met them at the door, and said--
"Please, your Majesty, several ladies have called. I told them you were not at home, but they all said they'd wait."
"Are they all in the parlour?" asked the Queen.
"I've shown them into the throne room, your Majesty," said the parlour maid. "There are several of them."
There were about seven hundred. The great Throne Room was crammed with fairies, of all ages and of all degrees of beauty and ugliness -- good fairies and bad fairies, flower fairies and moon fairies, fairies like spiders and fairies like butterflies -- and as the Queen opened the door and began to say how sorry she was to have kept them waiting, they all cried, with one voice, "Why didn't you ask us to your christening party?"
"I haven't had a party," said the Queen, and she turned to the King and whispered, "I told you so." This was her only consolation.
"You've had a christening," said the fairies, all together.
"I'm very sorry," said the poor Queen, but Maleovola pushed forward and said,
"Hold your tongue," most rudely.
Maleovola is the oldest, as well as the most wicked, of the fairies. She is deservedly unpopular, and has been left out of more christening parties than all the rest of the fairies put together.
"Don't begin to make excuses," she said, shaking her finger at the Queen. "That only makes your conduct worse. You know well enough what happens if a fairy is left out of a christening party. We are all going to give our christening presents now. As the fairy of highest social position, I shall begin. The Princess shall be bald."
The Queen nearly fainted, as Malevola drew back, and another fairy, in a smart bonnet with snakes in it, stepped forward with a rustle of bats' wings. But the King stepped forward too.
"No, you don't!" said he. "I wonder at you, ladies, I do indeed. How can you be so unfairylike? Have none of you been to school -- have none of you studied the history of your own race? Surely you don't need a poor, ignorant king like me to tell you that this is no go?"
"How dare you?" cried the fairy in the bonnet, and the snakes in it quivered as she tossed her head. "It is my turn, and I say that the Princess shall be --"
The King actually put his hand over her mouth.
"Look here," he said; "I won't have it. Listen to reason -- or you'll be sorry afterwards. A fairy who breaks the traditions of fairy history goes out -- you know she does -- like the flame of a candle. And all tradition shows that only one bad fairy is ever forgotten at a christening party and the good ones are always invited; so either this is not a christening party, or else you were all invited except one, and, by her own choosing, that was Maleovola. It nearly always is. Do I make myself clear?"
Several of the better-class fairies who had been led away by Malevola's influence murmured that there was something in what the King said.
"Try it, if you don't believe me," said the King. "Give your nasty gifts to my innocent child -- but as sure as you do, out you go, like a candle-flame. Now, then, will you risk it?"
No one answered, and presently several fairies came up to the Queen and said what a pleasant party it had been, but they really must be going. This example decided the rest. One by one all the fairies said good-bye and thanked the Queen for the delightful afternoon they had spent with her.
"It's been quite too lovely," said the lady with the snake bonnet. "Do ask us again soon, dear Queen. I shall be so longing to see you again, and the dear baby," and off she went, with the snake trimming quivering more than ever.
When the very last fairy was gone the Queen ran to look at the baby -- she tore off its Honiton lace cap and burst into tears. For all the baby's downy golden hair came off with the cap, and the Princess Melisande was as bald as an egg.
"Don't cry, my love," said the King. "I have a wish lying by, which I've never had occasion to use. My fairy godmother gave it me for a wedding present, but since then I've had nothing to wish for!"
"Thank you, dear," said the Queen smiling through her tears. "I'll keep the wish till baby grows up," the King went on. "And then I'll give it to her, and if she likes to wish for hair she can."
"Oh, won't you wish for it now?" said the Queen, dropping mixed tears and kisses on the baby's round, smooth head.
"No, dearest. She may want something else more when she grows up. And besides, her hair may grow by itself."
But it never did. Princess Melisande grew up as beautiful as the sun and as good as gold, but never a hair grew on that little head of hers. The Queen sewed her little caps of green silk, and the Princess's pink and white face looked out of these like a flower peeping out of its bud. And every day as she grew older she grew dearer,and as she grew dearer she grew better, and as she grew more good she grew more beautiful.
Now, when she was grown up the Queen said to the King,
"My love, our dear daughter is old enough to know what she wants. Let her have the wish."
So the King wrote to his fairy godmother and sent the letter by a butterfly. He asked if he might hand on to his daughter the wish the fairy had given him for a wedding present.
"I have never had occasion to use it," said he, "though it has always made me happy to remember that I had such a thing in the house. The wish is as good as new, and my daughter is now of an age to appreciate so valuable a present."
To which the fairy replied by return of butterfly: --
"DEAR KING, -- Pray do whatever you like with my poor little present. I had quite forgotten it, but I am pleased to think you have treasured my humble keepsake all these years.
Your affectionate godmother,
Fortuna F.
So the King unlocked his gold safe with the seven diamond-handle keys that hung at his girdle, and took out the wish and gave it to his daughter. .
And Melisande said, "Father, I will wish that all your subjects should be quite happy." .
But they were that already, because the King and Queen were so good. So the wish did not go off. .
So then she said: "Then I wish them all to be good." .
But they were that already, because they were happy. So again the wish hung fire. .
Then the Queen said, "Dearest, for my sake, wish what I tell you." .
"Why, of course I will," said Melisande. The Queen whispered in her ear, and Melisande nodded. Then she said, aloud --.
"I wish I had golden hair a yard long, and that it would grow an inch every day, and grow twice as fast every time it was cut --".
"Stop," cried the King. And the wish went off, and the next moment the Princess stood smiling at him through a shower of golden hair. .
"Oh, how lovely," said the Queen. "What a pity you interrupted her, dear, she hadn't finished." .
"What was the end?" asked the King.
"Oh," said Melisande, "I was only going to say 'and twice as thick.'" .
"It's a very good thing you didn't," said the King. "You've done about enough." For he had a mathematical mind and could do the sums about the grains of wheat on the chess-board and the nails in the shoes in his Royal head without any trouble at all. .
"Why, what's the matter?" said the Queen. .
"You'll know soon enough," said the King. "Come, let's be happy while we may. Give me a kiss, little Melisande, and then go to nurse and ask her to teach you how to comb your hair." .
"I know," said Melisande, "I've often combed Mother's." .
"Your mother has beautiful hair," said the King; "but I fancy you may find your own less easy to manage." .
And,indeed, it was so. The Princess's hair began by being a yard long, and it grew an inch every night. If you know anything at all about the simplest sums you will see that in about five weeks her hair was about two yards long. This is a very inconvenient length. It trails on the floor and sweeps up all the dust and though in palaces, of course, it is all gold-dust, still it it not nice to have in your hair. And the Princess's hair was growing an inch every night. When it was three yards long the Princess could not bear it any longer -- it was so heavy and so hot -- so she borrowed Nurse's cutting-out scissors and cut it all off, and then for a few hours she was comfortable. But the hair went on growing, and now it grew twice as fast as before; so that in thirty-six days it was as long as ever. The poor princess cried with tiredness; when she couldn't bear it any more she cut her hair and was comfortable for a very little time. For the hair now grew four times as fast as at first, and in eighteen days it was as long as before, and she had to have it cut. Then it grew eight inches a day, and the next time it was cut it grew sixteen inches a day, and then thirty-two inches and sixty-four inches and a hundred and twenty-eight inches a day, and so on, growing twice as fast after each cutting, till the Princess would go to bed at night with her hair clipped short and wake up in the morning with yards and yards and yards of golden hair flowing all about the room, so that she could not move without pulling her own hair, and nurse had to come and cut the hair off before she could get out of bed.
"I wish I was bald again," sighed poor Melisande, looking at the little green caps she used to wear, and she cried herself to sleep o'nights between the golden billows of the golden hair. But she never let her mother see her cry, because it was the Queen's fault, and Melisande did not want to seem to reproach her.
When first the Princess's hair grew her mother sent locks of it to all her Royal relations, who had them set in rings and brooches. Later, the Queen was able to send enough for bracelets and girdles. But presently so much hair was cut off that they had to burn it. Then when autumn came all the crops failed; it seemed as though all the gold of harvest had gone into the Princess's hair. And there was a famine. Then Melisande said
(Pllease email me, Libby, if you'd like to read the rest of this story: my email is on the main Web page..)
Go back to the list of chapters from Blow Out the Moon and other stories, like fairy tales, and instructions for how to do cat's cradle.
This is a novel about an American girl who goes to an English boarding school. It's based on a true story and lots of emails from kids who have read it and loved it say it made them laugh out loud. They also say they love it and make interesting comments and ask questions, too. (If you write to me, and give me permission, I'll post your email -- and of course, answer your letter.)
The book has been
published by Little, Brown. and it's online at
amazon.
It's in many bookstores and libraries, too. If you ask your library to order
it, they probably will.