Princess Boo - A Serial Story by Ssal Nogard

(No, this story is not about Princess Boo Boo or Honey Boo Boo!) 

CHAPTER ONE: 

I. Continued: Princess Boo Wakes Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed

The butler backtracked, walking backwards, hoping that if he moved slowly and unobtrusively enough, she would not notice him. Princess Boo often became that self-absorbed and would often forget the people she sent to the executioner’s. It was working. The butler was almost at the door when Princess Boo looked up, still chewing, and mustered “Oh yeah and don’t forget to check in at the executioner’s. He closes at five.” The buter bowed, resigned yet with a little twinge of self-satisfied victory. No one had ever told the Princess she perpetually woke up on the wrong side of the bed. For her, it was natural. For others, it was constant limbo. The most definite kind.

II. Princess Boo Tries to Figure Out How to Wake Up on the Right Side of the Bed.

Princess Boo finished her breakfast and took a walk between her castle and her father’s. It was quite a walk indeed and had there been any budling of conscience in her base metal attitude, she might have acknowledged that it was amazing that her breakfast was actually only lukewarm and not downright frigid when it reached her, as the distance from her castle to her father’s fairly took her breath away. That is why Princess Boo always took a walk after breaking fast. She needed to fill her tiny lungs with fresh air. Her perennial allergies got the best of her after a night indoors, and she had to cram her alveoli with oxygen. Taking a deep breath, Princess Boo closed her eyes (almost veering off the wide road paved for her alone, she wouldn’t even share it with the King Father), and exhaled, coughing itchily as post-nasal drip added two degrees of sourness on her puss. But the air lifted her spirits and Princess Boo traipsed along until she was almost at her father’s castle, a much older and more grandiose dwelling than hers. After all, his had been in the family for centuries, so if more family lived there, his should naturally be bigger, having undergone several expansions and additions, the King Father explained to his disgruntled daughter when she saw that her castle would not have the bells, whistles, and price tag of her father’s.

As Princess Boo inhaled deeply again, which is how she was able to pose so stilly for the Royal Portrait Painter, her nose tickled and she gave an “ah, ah-chooh!” Darn allergies, Princess Boo thought. She would have to punish the Royal Meteorologist for not warning her that pollen levels were high today. I really should get indoors, thought Princess Boo, the pollen is extra allergic today. As Princess Boo entered her father’s abode, she took out her nasal spray and deftly squirted more than the recommended dose into her sniffling nasal cavity. Being a princess, Princess Boo always spoke her mind, yet she also minced words, assuming that her subjects should always know what it was that she wanted at that exact moment. And so it was that her nasal cavity had the sniffles and the pollen was extra allergic today.

“Where is my father?” she asked no one in particular but loud enough for several to hear. A guard stationed at a doorway replied that her father was finishing the daily trials. Princess Boo walked past without a thank-you but with the smallest hint of acknowledgement. Noblesse oblige, Princess Boo’s nod of her outturned chin exuded, noblesse oblige. 

When Princess Boo navigated the labyrinth of corridors, she came to the tiny library outside the public hearing hall where the King Father held the daily trials. Princess Boo did not like to attend these hearings, always wrinkling her nose at her father’s invitations. “After all,” her father observed with as little emotion as possible, “you will rule this kingdom someday,” and here the king showed the sense of humor that was not passed to his daughter, “and listening to your people’s grievances now will make you a better judge, jury, and executioner tomorrow.”

“There will always be complainers,” Princess Boo spoke sagely, determined to continue taking care of her own concerns instead of wasting them on her subjects. “It’s like working for the public sector, King Father. Do you know why everyone hates going to the post office? You wait and wait and stand until your feet get corns and those corns get blisters,” at which everyone looked at Princess Boo, “or your blisters get corns” continued Princess Boo, “but the postal workers never work expeditiously until it’s time to close, and that’s only because we won’t pay them overtime for moving like starfish!” She was about to say “turtles” but instead remembered a documentary of sea creatures that aired a time-lapse video of two starfish battling to the death that she had seen on a public television channel, the topic being the public sector. Princess Boo finished with a triumphant nod and superior smile, expecting everyone to nod vigorously at her insightful observations. Princess Boo rarely had plain insights. Hers were of the kind that rose to the level of never-before-heard-of insightful observations. Like a century-old discovery not yet mentioned that day, joked the Royal Candlestick Maker, sending the Royal First-Floor Maid and the Royal Indoor Window Washer into muffled fits of giggles, after which they were next found in the padlocks, saved only by the tightening budget that prevented the executioner from offing three more heads that day.

Seeing Princess Boo flop herself into a cushiony seat in the ancillary library, the Royal External Window Washer hastened to clean the windows on the second floor, spilling his pail of cleaner and dropping his squeegee onto the Royal Gardener’s head below. Princess Boo was already mesmerized by her own research: the Right Side of the Bed. And could not figure how this would keep her breakfast hot by the time it was served to her. She typed in the search words: “right side of bed” and “hot breakfast” and retrieved half a million results from Bed-and-Breakfasts sites. Of course Bed-and-Breakfasts serve hot meals, that’s their whole shtick! But what does the right side of the bed have to do with the temperature of my breakfast? Princess Boo was nothing if not dogged and while searching thusly the “left-side-of-the-bed” and “cold breakfasts” simultaneously, she did not hear her father enter and sit beside her.

The King Father was a tall, bearded (naturally) handsome man. He would have been handsome even had he not been so good-natured. Actually, sternness also became his noble features, but he was slow to use negativity in his dealings both public and private. He never understood why his daughter was so generally ill-tempered, specially given that his late wife, the queen, had been extraordinarily even-tempered and had a smile that made people want to do things for her simply to have that bright smile bestowed upon them. He should have suspected when Princess Boo was still a swaddling papoose, all yellow and colicky and the Royal Physician ordered that Pea Boo (that was what the King Father called Princess Boo back then) get more sunlight. Her cradle was moved to a corner window for maximum exposure, and when the King Father and Queen Mother were holding each other gazing down at their precious bundle and the sun broke out from behind the clouds, the rays woke the slumbering infanta so that she bawled like a cacophony of unlidded Pandora’s boxes. The crown princess was moved to a dark corner where she gurgled and giggled at the dark, funny shadows that scared most young children (still even the King Father sometimes). 

The King Father was broken back to reality, glad that his reverie was ended, and gave an involuntary shudder by, “What is the right-side-of-a-bed?” his daughter asked, still poring through her search results.

The King Father did not know how to answer, given that his daughter obviously had never woke up in so much as a neutral mood. So he asked, “Why do you ask?”

“Must you always (it was always superlative with Princess Boo) answer a question with a question?”

“When I don’t know the answer, yes.”

“And when you do know the answer, you still won’t tell me.” Princess Boo snapped.

“Allow me my vicarious thrills, Pea Boo. If I had not been born a crown prince, I would have been happily teaching or professoring at some small intimate university.”

“It would have been a waste. Students aren’t there to learn, only get a degree to fill a line on their resume.” 

“Not all are like that.”

“Enough. I ask because the butler, who I sentenced to the guillotine and then the scaffolds before appearing before the firing squad (Princess Boo was weak on sequence as well) had the gall, the chutzpah to tell me that my breakfast is always cold because I wake up on the wrong side of the bed.”

“If you don’t know what that means, then why were you so offended as to condemn the poor butler not once but three times? Given that we are tightening the national budget that means that you were exceedingly offended.”

“Unh, I’m not stupid, King Father. Just because I don’t understand what someone says, doesn’t mean that I don’t know that he’s disagreeing with me in some way. He only dared say it because I had already condemned him.”

The King Father had a thought and leaned forward keenly. “Then why do you care, Pea Boo?”

“I care because someone might hear you call me ‘Pea Boo’ and I don’t care what the butler claimed, especially since it makes no sense. I’ve been Googling it for the last half hour and as I suspected, he makes no sense whatsoever.” Overcasually, which meant her voice was one key higher, “Just wanted to make sure, that’s all.”

That was as close as the King Father would ever get to a conscience in his daughter, so he sprung--he sprang, he jumped--at the opportunity. “Pea Boo, now listen. The butler was right--to some extent--sort of.” Princess Boo had started to twist her face into that stubborn look so that the king backtracked to save the precious opportunity at hand. Less disconsolate (Pea Boo, not the King Father), the King continued. “If you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, then your breakfast is bound to be cold. But if you wake up on the right side of the bed, then your breakfast is bound to be hot, just the way you like it.”

“Why?” Princess Boo asked suspiciously.

“Because people who wake up happy don’t tend to notice unimportant things!” as if that settled the matter.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Which is why it should be hot!” Pea Boo, er, Princess Boo declared.

“I don’t mean that breakfast isn’t important. Why I just endorsed a public policy of serving free breakfast in schools. I mean that happy people won’t notice if their bacon isn’t sizzling because they’re happy to have a meal when so many others do without.” His daughter’s expression did not change, which meant she was not understanding.

“You’re not making sense, King Father. If my breakfast is cold, it could be caused by many other factors, such as taking a long time to transport it to me, which is usually the case.”

“Yes, yes, but we’re simplifying, making it a binary function, black and white. There’s ‘cold’ and there’s ‘hot,’ which represents ‘all temperatures that are not cold or are satisfactory with Princess Boo.’ We’re grouping ‘happiness’ with the ‘right side’ of the bed and the way you wake up as the ‘wrong side’ of the bed, (and upon seeing his Pea Boo’s sulky expression) for illustrative purposes only, of course. Therefore, if your breakfast isn’t cold, then it’s because you woke up on the right side of the bed!” Had the king realized how literally contrary his Princess Boo was, he would have given up right then and there. Or, he would have explained it to her in logical terms, with pencil and paper in mathematical terms. Unfortunately, the king was a touchy-feely kind of guy and often got ideas through to others by osmosis, whereas Princess Boo often explained ideas precisely in terms of steps, but used terms imprecisely.

Thus, “I shall think about it” was the best that Princess Boo could give her hungry father, who watched her with a new keenness not seen in his eyes since his wife died. Princess Boo noticed this too, and for all her dismissive attitude, could not find it in her heart to crush the King Father’s excitement, for she had never been able to excite him as long as she could remember, and that traced back to the days before her mother fell sick weeks before she died. Realizing that she was not her mother’s daughter, Princess Boo also realized that there might never be another time her father would be happy like this again. So she determined to herself to wake up on the right side of the bed the next morning.

Before leaving, her father smiled, “that’s as much as I ask for, though success might be nice,” he teased.  He was whistling as Princess Boo left the ancillary library, something that he had done often when his wife was around.

The rest of the day, Princess Boo thought long and hard about how she was going to wake up on the right side of the bed the next morning. She attended dancing class and tripped twice (her shoes didn’t fit right), she scored an A- on her oral French exam because she could not pronounce the French “u” sound. (“Do I look French to you?” she asked her language instructor.) Princess Boo struggled with the answer that everyone seemed to know except her. As a result, during lunch she did not notice that her soup was cold and during dinner, almost forgot about her dinner until her ice cream melted and was no longer cold. She couldn’t figure it out, she frowned in concentration as she scooped the last spoon of liquidy, room-temperature ice cream, but she wouldn’t give up and she also couldn’t ask anyone because although she didn’t know how to wake up on the right side of the bed, she did know that people seemed to think something was wrong with her because she didn’t, and wondered if that is what they meant when they said she always woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

III. The next morning, Princess Boo opened her eyes. She started to roll over to the right side of the bed, but the puzzle that had stumped her all of yesterday was as real as the down poufs floating in the air above her. No wonder her allergies never subsided, as she involuntarily reached for her nasal spray on the left side of her bed, almost falling over the edge because there were so many things on Princess Boo’s nightstand, which was the size of a long dinner table that could seat a ballroom. As she realized she was about to rise on the left side of the bed, Princess Boo stopped. She rolled flat on her back and looked at her slim figure under the down blanket, up at the ceiling, to the left where on the far wall the sun shone through the burnout velvet curtains she had installed, and the right. Oh yes, Princess Boo said to herself, My bed is in the corner. With the right side against the wall, no wonder Princess Boo always woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

Now, how am I going to wake up on the right side of the bed? This was a riddle worthy of a Minotaur, thought Princess Boo. It was a shame that she had had the monster beheaded. After all, it would not tell her how to get out of the maze, and Princess Boo had no time to negotiate with it that day. But shame did not as yet turn to regret, as Princess Boo was a scrapper.  Being slender, Princess Boo started pushing the wall against the right side of the bed. Not budging. “That’s what I get for insisting that my bed frame be made of solid oak.” Pushing again, “Unnh, I should have had it made from pieces of oak,” she regretted between gritted teeth. Out of breath, Princess Boo pulled a crowbar she had hidden under her mattress, “In case of burglars” she explained to each new maid, who found it and would inevitably look at it wonderingly. Digging the sharp end between her solid (and single) oak bed frame, Princess Boo pulled with all her might. The little leverage she had increased until she was able to move the bed several inches from the wall. Comparing the space between the right side of the bed and the wall to her waist, Princess Boo thought she could squirm through. Sometime during this complex maneuver, the butler came in with her breakfast tray and found the crown princess stuck between the bed frame and the wall.

“Are you okay, your Highness?” He asked.

“Uh, yes,” Princess Boo’s voice came out from under the bed.

“Do you need some help?” the butler asked inquisitively, Nosily, Princess Boo thought.

“Ah, no, I’m almost,… I’ve almost,” and the bed opened up from the wall and unceremoniously landed the Princess with a thump on the floor by the wall. “Oof!” crawling back to the left side of the bed, Princess Boo snatched up a bottle of pills that she had dropped and never bothered to pick up (“Refill my allergy meds” she had ordered one of her servants) and clutched it in her right hand, waving it victoriously as she squirmed out from under the bed. “Allergies, picking up my allergy pills is all,” dusting the bottle as she plopped back in bed. She hurriedly settled into her breakfast position, fluffing up her soft down pillows, dismissing the new butler because she didn’t want him to see if her experiment failed, and dug into her bacon. It was cold. “I probably took too long getting out of the right side of the bed,” Princess Boo reasoned. Otherwise, my bacon wouldn’t have gotten so cold. I’ll have to get out of bed faster tomorrow morning, she thought, which triggered some deep buried memory. Long ago, when she used to have breakfast with her mother and father, Princess Boo complained that breakfast was cold. “Perhaps,” replied her saintly mother, “if you got out of bed faster, the food would still be hot when you arrived for breakfast.” 

“Why can’t the Royal Chef just cook breakfast later,” Princess Boo asked churlishly, irritated at the morning sun for being so cheerful as it bounced into the breakfast hall.

“Because if you expect the rest of the world to start working before you get up, the cook has to cook for everyone, not only our family.” Which didn’t sit quite right with Princess Boo’s worldview of things, especially in the morning. Although Princess Boo was sad when her mother died, she thought that breakfast would always be hot because she wouldn’t have to get out of bed, walk all the way to the breakfast hall where the morning comestibles would be cold by the time she arrived. For some reason, breakfast was still cold, and this was beginning to really bother Princess Boo.

Sometime during the day, after calculus and during target practice, Princess Boo had an awesome idea. She called the Royal Builder to her. “Yes your highness?”

“I want you to move the wall of my bedroom adjacent to the right side of my bed.”

“I beg your pardon, your Highness?”

“Move the bedroom wall that is next to my bed. On the right side.”

The Royal Builder thought Princess Boo wanted to enlarge the size of her bedroom. Thus, “Is that possible?” is what the Royal Builder thought, but what he actually said was, “You mean you want your bedroom to be bigger in size?”

“No,” impatiently, “I want the wall next to the right side of my bed to be moved so that I have more space to get up on the right side of the bed. Notice I have all the room in the world to get up on the left side but absolutely none on the right. I need some Feng Shui in my bedroom.”

“Why don’t you move your bed away from the wall?” asked the confused Royal Builder.

Why not indeed? First, Princess Boo had a vague inarticulate feeling that this was cheating. Also, the nightstand on the left side of her bed extended the entire width of her room, which was lengthy indeed, there were so many items that Princess Boo needed on her nightstand just in case she might need it in the middle of the night. She certainly didn’t want to get up and fetch it and calling one of her servants took too long, she was usually asleep by the time they got there. Abstracting from the fact that her nightstand reached the far wall where her long vanity table held many of the items that Princess Boo didn’t want to get up to fetch in the middle of the night, Princess Boo’s bed could not be moved, even if she had felt like cheating.

“I’ve thought this through and it can’t be done,” snapped Princess Boo. “The nightstand would have to be shortened, and I would have to decide which items to take off because they wouldn’t fit anymore and that would take a lot longer than moving the right wall!” Princess Boo loosed an arrow that hit the target bullseye, ending all discussion.

“Yes your, Highness,” bowed the Royal Builder.

“And make sure it’s completed by morning,” stopping the Royal Builder in his tracks.

“Ah, as in tomorrow morning, your Highness?”

“Of course. And remember, don’t move my bed. Leave it right where it is in the corner. Move the wall. And don’t try to pull a fast one either. I can tell the difference.” Princess Boo was notching another arrow. “Darn it,” she thought, “I forgot to measure the width of my room. How will I know if he moved the wall or my bed by shortening the nightstand?”

Princess Boo’s bedroom really was that big.