The Princess and the Absolutely Not a Princess
Page 4
Yes, that’s it! Maude thought with a jolt. The princess should be taught a lesson!
And who better to teach her than Maude?
20
A NOUN OR A VERB
That night Maude had a wonderful dream involving protest songs and spray paint, and when she woke up the next morning, she was eager to begin the ninth day of school.
“What’s it called when a bunch of people decide not to do something?” she asked her dad and brother over breakfast.
“A boycott?” Walt asked, putting a spoonful of scrambled eggs on Maude’s plate.
“Yes!” Maude grinned.
“Boycott can be a noun or a verb,” Michael-John said.
“How do you boycott?” Maude asked.
“You have to get a large number of people to stop doing something all together,” Michael-John explained.
Maude smiled. A boycott would be the perfect lesson to teach the pink princess. Miranda would definitely learn a lesson if no one went to her party! But how could Maude convince 3B not to go when that was all they talked about?
Maude spent hours jotting down notes in her You Journal. Here are the ideas she came up with:
BIRTHDAY PARTY BOYCOTT IDEAS
Tell 3B aliens have taken over the castle.
Tell 3B there’s bubonic plague at the castle.
Pay 3B not to go to the party.
She also drew a lot of pictures:
21
HELP FROM MICHAEL-JOHN
When Maude got home from school on Friday, Walt was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Dad?” she asked Michael-John, who was actually not in pajamas for once but was still hunched over his dictionaries.
“Beetle symposium. He’ll be home for cena, which I just learned is Latin for dinner.”
“Wasn’t he just at a beetle conference?”
Michael-John nodded, but didn’t look up. “There are a lot of beetles. And this is a symposium. Last week was a conference.”
Maude sat in front of his stack of dictionaries. “I need your help. I’m having a boycott!”
“What are you boycotting?”
“Princess Miranda’s birthday party.”
“Why?”
“Well, she broke rule eighty-seven in the Official Rules of Mountain River Valley Elementary.” She petted Onion the Great Number Eleven. “Rule eighty-seven says if you give out invitations during school hours, you have to give one to everyone.”
“And you didn’t get one?”
Maude shook her head.
“Maybe you lost yours? You lose a lot of things.”
“I might not be that organized, but even I can’t lose something I never had.” Maude took out her You Journal, which was strangely gummy. “The invitations were on fourteen desks. Not on mine. I looked. Everywhere.”
“Oh.”
“I’m tired of writing official letters of complaint to Principal Fish. He never answers. So, I’m going to have a boycott.”
“You need numbers to boycott.”
“I know! I’m going to get Three B to boycott, too. It’s going to be my first official social justice movement!” She found her list in her You Journal and read him her three ideas.
“Those are all terrible ideas,” her brother said. “First, no one will believe you about the aliens. If they do, it might make them want to go more. I’d only go to a princess party if there were aliens.”
Maude nodded in sad agreement.
“And everyone knows that bubonic plague stopped being a real problem in 1959.”
“Shucks,” Maude said. “What about my last idea?”
“How much money do you have?”
Maude closed her eyes. “Nine dollars and seventeen cents.”
Michael-John tapped his fingers on top of a dictionary. “That’s about sixty-five cents per person.”
Maude sighed.
“Oh well.” Michael-John looked back at his dictionary.
Maude put on her glasses. “I need help! Please Michael-John! I need to boycott!”
“Why?”
“The princess is mean,” Maude said. “She goes to school super early even though it’s against school rules.” She took her glasses off.
“You always say you want to get to school early. But then you oversleep and race around putting weird stuff in your pockets and end up late.”
“It’s not weird stuff,” Maude said. “It’s all the stuff I need for school.”
“Maybe the princess goes to school early for extra help.”
Maude ignored this possibility. “Well, it was her stupid ruby pen that got my hard-boiled eggs taken away and she never eats the school food or plays her recorder at music and she just stands there at PE and recess.”
“Do you play the recorder?” Michael-John asked.
“Of course not! School recorders are gross. And my harmonica sounds much better.” Luckily Mr. Mancini, the music teacher, was around 182 years old and hadn’t yet noticed her harmonica.
“You don’t eat school food either,” Michael-John said. “You bring your lunch.”
“Not from a castle.”
“You don’t live in a castle.”
“NO,” Maude screeched. “I DON’T!”
“If you lived in a castle, you’d probably be a princess.”
“I’m absolutely not a princess!”
Michael-John nodded calmly. “But if you were a princess, you’d bring your lunch from your castle.”
Maude scowled. “I bring lunch from home, because Principal Fish still won’t do anything about the Styrofoam lunch trays. You’re not helping, Michael-John. How do I get Three B to join my boycott?”
“What about the truth?”
The truth, Maude thought. The truth? Should she tell 3B about the hard-boiled eggs and the bandana and how she was the only one in the whole class not to get invited?
It was so simple! Truth! Just five little letters. Could she do it? Could Maude Brandywine Mayhew Kaye, the roller-skating social justice revolutionary of Mountain River Valley Elementary, tell the truth?
22
MAUDE TELLS THE TRUTH
The next day was Saturday, which meant there was just one week before Princess Miranda’s birthday party extravaganza. For the first time ever, Maude woke before her rooster crowed. She felt ready to tell the truth and organize a boycott!
She wore her JUSTICE FOR ALL sweatshirt, cargo pants, and VOTES FOR WOMEN sash. She tied the orange bandana around her head and put two pencils, her harmonica, a compass, three Band-Aids, and a small pack of ancient Rainbow Sweeties into her pockets. Then she stomped into the living room.
“I leave now, for Justice!” she told her dad, who was on his head, and her brother, who was reading the definition of the noun fair shake.
“Fair shake means fair chance or treatment,” Michael-John said. “It was first used in 1930.”
“Peace is its own reward,” Walt said.
“I’m busy,” Maude replied. “I don’t have time for quotes or definitions, gentlemen.”
“There’s always time for quotes,” Walt said. “Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘Peace is its own reward.’ Do you know who he was?”
“He freed India from British rule,” Maude said, putting two hard-boiled eggs into her last empty pocket.
“Yes. Mahatma Gandhi inspired movements for freedom around the world.”
“I’m not sure when I’ll be home.”
“Be home by three, my lovely leaf beetle.”
“I’ll try,” Maude said, strapping on her skates.
Using Mountain River Valley’s official school directory, Maude found her classmates’ addresses. She rang doorbells, buzzed buzzers, and knocked on doors with heavy brass knockers. And, when her classmates weren’t home, Maude found them at soccer games, origami instruction, and indoor swimming pools. Maude’s classmates thought it was strange that Maude had found them on a Saturday, but they also liked it. It made them feel special to have Maude skate over and say, “I mu
st talk to you about something important!” With each classmate, Maude would take a deep breath and tell them how rude the princess had been about the hard-boiled egg and handkerchief.
Most of Maude’s classmates thought it was super weird that Maude had offered the princess a hard-boiled egg. They also thought it was unusual that Maude had given the princess a handkerchief when there were boxes and boxes of tissues in 3B. And most of them just nodded as Maude talked about famous boycotts and social justice movements in history. But when she told them the real and painful truth, they all listened.
“The real and painful truth,” Maude would say to Norbert or Agatha or whomever she was talking to, “is that Princess Miranda did not invite me to her birthday party.”
Whomever Maude was talking to would look shocked.
“There was an invitation on everyone’s desk. Except mine!”
“Really?” Fletcher or Felix or Desdemona would ask.
“Really! And even though I know it breaks rule eighty-seven, I’m not here about the rules. I’m here because the next time the princess has a party, she might not invite . . . you!”
Maude enjoyed watching the person across from her think about this. When it was clear they understood, she would take out her You Journal and have them sign under her Birthday Boycott Pledge with numbers one to fifteen. She had signed on the first line, and as she went from house to apartment building to soccer field, she filled up all the other lines, until there were just two more lines left to fill.
Unfortunately, the second-to-last person Maude needed to sign the Birthday Boycott Pledge was the annoying Hillary Greenlight-Miller, who was taking a practice Mandatory National Reading and Writing and Math Exam at the public library.
But five seconds into Maude’s famous-boycotts-in-history speech, Hillary said, “I don’t need a speech, Maude. I won’t go to the party. You’re right, Miranda is rude. I’m surprised I was invited.”
Maude shoved a pencil into Hillary’s hand.
When Hillary signed, Maude let out a sigh of relief. “Great,” she said. “By the way, your answer to question seven is wrong.”
After Hillary, Maude went to Donut’s house. Donut listened as Maude described famous boycotts in history, as well as the story of the hard-boiled egg and the handkerchief. Of all the kids in 3B, Donut understood that Maude was trying to get her classmates to do something important. But Donut loved doughnuts so much that he couldn’t imagine not eating them on purpose.
“I know it’s hard, Donut,” Maude said. “But we must stand together for Justice!”
Donut, imagining hundreds of doughnuts getting eaten by a white lion, frowned.
“We need to teach the princess a lesson. I was the only kid not invited to the party, remember?”
Donut nodded. He felt bad for Maude. Donut liked Maude, even though he also thought she was very unusual. He felt connected to her, because she knew what it felt like to have a parent who’d died. Donut’s father had died, and even though he and Maude never talked about it, Donut felt comforted knowing that there was someone else who felt really sad some days.
His hand was trembling, but he took the pencil from Maude and signed: Duncan David Donatello.
Shocking them both, Maude hugged him.
Then, because she was so happy that she’d gotten every kid in 3B to sign the pledge, which meant she could have her first boycott and first official social justice movement, Maude shared her pack of Rainbow Sweeties with him.
Side by side, they sat on the front porch steps, looking up at Mount Coffee and eating the stale candy. For a moment, Donut wished he’d gotten to know his dad long enough to find out what his favorite kind of doughnut was. For a moment, Maude wished she could have talked to her mom about having a princess in her class. And then, as their dead parents would have wanted, their minds turned to other things.
23
BIRTHDAY BOYCOTT PART ONE
The following Saturday, on the day of the royal birthday party, both Miranda and Maude woke up excited.
Maude whistled as she made her way down to the chicken coop. In just a few hours, Miranda’s party would start, and what a shock it would be to that pink princess when no one came. She’d actually done it! The first of many social justice movements!
“Justice for all,” Maude sang as she gathered the morning eggs.
“Bawk,” Rosalie squawked.
“Good morning, my special Frizzle chicken!” Maude sang. But for some reason her voice sounded weak, not strong. “Your feathers look especially curly this morning.”
“Bawk, bawk,” Rosalie repeated, looking over at the other chickens and General Cockatoo, the rooster, who were pecking together in the yard.
Maude looked at the other chickens and then back at Rosalie. “Are you feeling left out of the chicken games?” Maude asked.
Rosalie looked right at her. Could a chicken actually feel left out? Was it possible that her fancy Frizzle chicken was sad? Maude wondered. Of course not, she told herself, but for some reason she wasn’t quite as happy walking up the twenty-seven stairs as she’d been walking down.
On the other side of town, KD and QM led Miranda to an enormous stack of birthday presents.
“Try to open your gifts quickly,” KD said. “Since everyone will be coming soon.”
Staring at the pile of presents, Miranda shuddered. Not everyone, she thought. She hadn’t invited Maude. If QM and KD knew Miranda hadn’t invited her, they’d probably be mad that she’d broken rule eighty-seven. Maude must have known she’d broken rule eighty-seven, because Maude seemed to know every rule ever invented. She also seemed to know how to finish practice exams quickly and how to avoid playing one of the gross recorders during music class. But still, it was good that Miranda hadn’t invited her. Wasn’t it?
“Aren’t you going to open your present?” QM asked, giving Miranda a puzzled look.
Very slowly, the princess unwrapped the first of many presents before her.
Over at Maude’s house, Walt cracked the morning eggs into a sizzling frying pan and said, “The Italian saint Thomas Aquinas once said, ‘There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.’”
“My chicken Rosalie doesn’t seem to have any friends,” Maude told him. “I don’t know why. She’s just like all the other chickens. I mean her feathers are curly since she’s a Frizzle, but . . . she’s still a chicken, right?”
Michael-John looked up from his dictionary. “A chicken is a chicken is a chicken.”
Walt nodded in agreement. “The Irish writer Oscar Wilde once said, ‘Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.’ Perhaps your curly feathered Rosalie is just being herself.”
“Yeah,” Maude said. Of course, her chicken couldn’t help but be herself. No one could be anything but themselves. Maude couldn’t help but be herself. Hillary Greenlight-Miller probably couldn’t help but be herself, either. No one could. Not even a princess.
“Eggs, my little stag beetle?” Walt asked.
“No,” Maude said. “I’m not hungry.”
Back in the castle, KD handed Miranda another gift.
Princess Miranda looked at it glumly.
“Shouldn’t you be smiling rainbows?” KD asked. “It’s your birthday!”
Miranda shrugged. “I don’t feel like opening gifts,” she said.
QM, shocked that her daughter didn’t want more presents, put her hand on Miranda’s forehead.
At the same moment, across town, Walt put his hand on his daughter’s forehead, because Maude had never said no to eggs.
“Are you certain you don’t want eggs?” Walt asked Maude.
“Go see the white lion,” KD suggested. “He’s terrifyingly beautiful.”
“No, thanks,” the princess and the not-a-princess said AT THE EXACT SAME TIME.
It had been a beautiful sunny day, but at that moment, a huge cloud passed over the sun, and everything went dark.
24
BIRTHDAY BOYCOTT PART TWO
At 11:58 a.m., Miranda walked down the grand staircase, where her parents were waiting. They were shocked by her shoeless feet but said nothing.
At 11:59 a.m., Miranda walked out to the great lawn, where the following happened:
• One dozen pink hot-air balloons rose into the air.
• Thirteen clowns poured out of a tiny automobile.
• The rare white lion roared a terrifying roar.
• Seven screeching monkeys wearing bowties cartwheeled in.
• The castle bells rang out twelve times.
Then everything went silent. Princess Miranda waited.
The clowns stopped laughing, the monkeys stopped screeching, the bells stopped ringing, and the white lion stopped roaring.
Miranda looked all around, and she knew. No one was coming.
25
BIRTHDAY BOYCOTT PART THREE
At the very moment Miranda realized no one was coming to her birthday party, Maude glumly put on a plain yellow T-shirt, brown overalls, and sneakers. Slowly, she tied her orange bandana around her neck and walked past Walt, who was standing on his head, and Michael-John, who was reading the definition of the word onus (which is a noun meaning burden or blame).
When Maude opened the door, Rudolph Valentino rushed past her and down into the yard. Sluggishly, Maude clomped down the twenty-seven steps after him and knelt beside her huge but tomato-less tomato plant. “Not one tomato? Not one?” Suddenly furious, she began ripping it out of the ground.