Princess of Boring

Chapter 2

King Algernon slumped back in the chair as his daughter's cries faded away. He could send someone to look for a monkey later. Maybe Lady Francis would know where to find one. He'd have to make it up to her. Then he'd have to explain the monkey to Annuetta's mother. The staff would be upset. Why did everything have to be so complicated?

He thought so hard, his head hurt.

The King reached out to drink some water but his glass was empty.

"Let me fill that for you," a young girl said. She wiped up the water with a cloth and refilled the glass. Then she walked around the table straightening the pads of paper and the pencils in front of each chair. All the glasses went on a cart along with the sopping wet cloth. She used another cloth to wipe away the marks from the princess's shoes, straightened the chairs and scanned the table before nodding to herself.

"Is there anything else you need, your Majesty?" she asked.

"Do you get bored?" the King asked.

The girl looked at him and tilted her head to one side.

"Frequently," she said.

"What you do about it?"

"Nothing," the girl said. "Sometimes life is boring, sometimes it is not. Don't you get bored?"

"I wish," the King said. "I don't have time to be bored. If it isn't one thing, it's another. Now, the princess wants me to buy her a monkey. Her mother is going to be furious when she learns about the monkey."

"If I could be so bold, your Majesty," the girl said. "Maybe the princess's problem is not that she doesn't have a monkey, but she has too much stuff and not enough friends."

"We tried bring children in to play with her, but she got bored and stopped playing. The children wouldn't come back."

"You can't order someone to be friends," the girl said.

"What would you do?" The King leaned forward on his chair, forgetting that he was talking to a servant girl and not one of his advisors.

"I would take everything out of her room."

"She'll be furious." The King rubbed at the mark his daughter's shoe made on the table.

"The windows in the upper hall need to be cleaned," the girl said. "Order me to clean all the windows."

"What is your name, girl?"

"Sally, your Majesty."

"Well Sally, I think the windows in the upper hall need to be cleaned. All of them."

"Yes, your Majesty." Sally curtsied and rolled the cart out of the room.

***

Princess Annuetta woke and stretched. Something was wrong. She opened her eyes and looked around. Her bed was empty. Her quilts were there, her pillows were there, but not one stuffed toy lay on the bed. She turned in a big circle. All her stuff had vanished. Nothing lay on the floor. Nothing leaned against the walls, or hung from the ceiling.

She screamed and ran from her room all the way to her parent's room where they sat drinking tea and eating scones.

"Someone stole all my things!" the princess said when she caught her breath. "I demand you catch them and have them hanged."

"We don't hang people, dear," her mother said. "Would you like some tea?"

"I gave it all away," her father said. "You told me you were too old for all those toys. Have a scone."

"Everything?" the princess said. She dropped to the floor and put her head in her hands. "You gave everything away?" Her voice raised in volume on every word.

"Please," her mother said, "don't scream, you know how it hurts my head." She handed the princess a scone with butter.

Princess Annuetta ate the scone without thinking.

"But I'm going to be bored," she said, not having to work at all on her sad face.

"You were going to be bored anyway," her father said and handed her some tea. Annuetta drank the tea, then turned and walked up to her room.

It looked so...empty. There wasn't even anything to kick. The princess flopped on the floor and stared at the ceiling.

"I'm bored," she said, and started to cry.

The princess finished crying and was still bored. Then she heard an odd sound, like someone humming.

She jumped up and ran out her door. A girl, not much older than her, was cleaning windows. As she wiped the glass, she hummed quietly. Cart with buckets of water and piles of clothes stood beside her.

"What are you doing?" the princess asked.

"Good morning, your Highness," the girl said. "I'm cleaning windows."

"You can clean windows later," Annuetta said. "Come play with me."

"I'm sorry," the girl said. "The King has ordered me to clean all the windows in the hall. When I'm done, I can play with you."

"But there are so many windows, you'll never be done." Annuetta went back into her room and laid on the floor. The girl's humming came through the door. The princess had an idea. She put on her oldest dress and ran back out into the hall.

"If I help you," she said, "you'll finish faster and be able to play with me."

"It's a very boring job," the girl said. "I have to be careful to clean the whole window, then wipe off the water and leave no streaks."

"Please?" the princess said, "I have nothing else to do. Father gave away all my toys."

"You must promise not to complain then," the girl said. "Complaining makes the job longer."

"Promise," Annuetta said.

"Okay, your highness," the girl said. "This is how you must wash the window." She used a rag to rub water over the glass. "Not too much water, and not too little. Then you use this to take the water off again."

The princess turned the odd-looking rubber thing over in her hands, then watched as the girl started at the top of the window and used the rubber to squeeze all the water off the glass. Then she took another cloth and ran it around the edges of the window to catch any drips that she made. Finally, she used a cloth to wipe the water off the window sill.

"You try that window." The girl pointed to the next window.

The princess soaked her cloth in the soapy water and tried to do everything exactly as the girl showed her. It took her a couple of tries to get it right. She wiped off the extra water from the glass and the window sill.

"Isn't nice to be able to see the view again?" the girl said. "Look at the deer by the forest."

Princess Annuetta hadn't looked out at the view in such a long time. There were deer eating the grass under the branches of the oak trees and horses grazing in a field not too far way. The sky shone blue and clear. When she looked away, the girl was two windows further down the hall. Annuetta ran to catch up.