The Cook Fainted And The Cat Could Talk!

Mrs. Davy, the housekeeper, was hiding behind the doorway when the tired lady knocked on the door asking for food and water. (She was really a witch, but a good witch.) "Oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do now? Will the prince always be ugly and covered with hair? Oh my goodness, will he be even meaner than he was before she put the spell on him? Oh I don't think the day will ever come when someone could love him. He is mean as a snake."
The older lady plumped up her mob cap and started towards the kitchen. She was going to tell the cook what had happened.

As she walked through the dining hall she glanced at the mirror and to her amazement her white cap that she had worn for years was suddenly pink. "Pink? My cap is pink.Oh oh oh, did that witch put a spell on me too? I don't think I did anything wrong. What on earth is going on around here?"

When she got to the kitchen she gasped in disbelief. There at the old wooden kitchen table there was a tea party going on. The servants had all stopped working! They were having a tea party! That was not all. The tea cups were talking and jiggling all over the table. The maids were laughing and having fun,. It was not possible. No one was allowed to have fun inside the prince's castle. "Oh dear oh dear, we will all be put out on the road to fend for ourselves. Oh what did that witch do to us?"

The enchantress or good witch had indeed cast a spell on the servants and the tea set in the mean prince's castle. The witch had also cast a spell on Mouse, the kitchen cat. He now had the ability to climb the walls and was loving life. "Oh look we are in for so much trouble. I see a man riding a horse coming this way. Meow! Let's hide before the prince or should I say, the Beast, finds us all in the kitchen. Meow! Suddenly he croaked like a frog, then he howled like a wolf, then all at once he was talking like a human." I can talk. I want fish for supper cook, and could I have a lot of it?"
The cook fainted, the maids laughed and Mrs. Davy ran for the coat closet. She thought she would be safe there. She left the door open a crack so that she could watch for the Beast.

They soon heard a knock on the door. They all shivered at the poor man's fate. He continued to knock on the door, but the Beast didn't answer it. Well, Mrs. Davy certainly wasn't going to. She couldn't believe her eyes, but the door opened and there stood a strange man.

Mrs. Davy Said He Was Mean As A Snake!

Long ago and far into the dark and lonely forest there lived a very spoiled young prince. He demanded things from his servants and never said please or thank you. He was not liked by any of his neighbors either. He was so hateful that he didn't even have any friends; not even one.  He lived all by himself except for a few servants, in a huge castle and actually liked it that way. He yelled at his servants to bring him his food. He often threw it on the floor and said it wasn't fit to eat. He yelled for clean clothes and insisted that his servants be at his beck and call at all hours of the day and night. Mrs. Davy, the housekeeper, would sometimes hide behind the doorway to make sure he didn't throw anything at her.

 Since he lived in a castle in the woods it was seldom visited by any people. Not many animals would get close to the front gate. Even the birds and squirrels were afraid of him. He often would chase and scare the bunny rabbits and chipmunks just for fun. He was not a nice person at all.

One day a very pretty older woman knocked on his door. She asked him if he had any extra food and water. She told him that she was so very tired of traveling and was very hungry and thristy.
Just as the prince was going to slam the door in her face he told her that she was old and ugly. He told her she shouldn't be allowed on the roads. The mean prince even told her he wouldn't give her a scrap of food or water and to disappear before he had his dog chase her down the road and into the forest with the rest of the ugly animals and lizards and frogs.

Just as the prince was about to get his dog, Mika, the nice woman's face changed as well as her clothing. She said, "You should always be nice to other people, my dear, because now I have put a spell on you for the rest of your miserable life until the day that you find love and have it returned. If you don't change your ways it may never happen. From this day forward you shall be called the Beast as well as look like one. Until the day someone loves you, you will be covered from head to toe with long ugly hair. You will no longer will be able to call others ugly because you will be the ugly one."

                                                                           ******
Marlee Belle's father had received a letter saying that at least one of his ships had in fact, arrived safely at the dock. He should hurry and see for himself  before the ship was taken over by thieves. He was so excited he told his wife and children about the trip that he must take. He said he shouldn't be gone very long; maybe just a couple of weeks. He had to ride the only horse that they had.

 They overwhelmed him with wishes that they wanted him to fulfill. They wanted new clothing and shoes. They wanted special food again, and most of all they wanted their own lifestyle back. They wanted to move back to to the city to a brand new home. He sadly shook his head and went upstairs to ask his little beauty what she would like him to bring back for her. She said, "Oh father, please don't spend money on me. I have all the worldly goods that I need."
Her father started to argue with her and told her that all of her brothers and sisters wanted something. He wanted to bring her something special. Marlee Belle said, "If you wish, dear father, you may bring me back a beautiful rose. Only if you can find one. Please don't wory about me. I am perfectly happy here with my flowers and my dog. I will make a wish for you a safe trip father. I will blow on the seeds of the beautiful yellow dandelion to assure you safe travels."

Marlee Belle's father kissed her forehead, waved good-bye, and went to get his horse ready to travel.

The Work Was Never Done On The Farm

Marlee Belle's father moved his large family to the only home he still possessed. Their huge beautiful home had been destroyed by fire and he had lost all of his ships by pirates and storms at sea. He was bankrupt and couldn't pay his bills, but he did own this small cottage in the country. His family was not a bit happy, but of course, Marlee Belle maintained her cheerful nature. She did think about her former life in the city, but was not disappointed to be in the country. The air was fresh and clean and not a single soul made fun of her for being different. She couldn't help that she loved flowers and books rather than gold and jewels. She also couldn't help that her father spent more time with her than with her sisters. When she thought of these things, it sometimes made her feel sad and a bit lonely. She knew her father loved her, but wished that more people did.

Life on the farm was hard for the sisters especially to get used to. Someone had always done the dishes and the cooking for them. Even Marlee Belle's mother knew little about running a household since she had always had a housekeeper to do those things. It seemed to her like the work was never done. Her hair was a mess and her fingernails were chipped and often dirty. She complained to her husband on a daily basis, but he said they would have to make the best of it.

Laundry was always in piles to be washed and hung either on a rope or spread out on bushes to dry. No one knew how to cook, or to grow a garden for food.

They had chickens to lay eggs and for food as well so they also had to be fed. Times were hard.
The sisters complained that their beautiful dresses were now rags. They hadn't had a new dress in over two years!

They also had goats, and a black cow and her calf to feed. They would need the meat and milk for food in the winter. There was only one horse left from all of the horses in the stables of their old home, so they took very good care of him.

 They were so very fortunate that the little farm did have a small lake that had fish in it. Marlee Belle's brothers did seem to like the farm and all the chores as well. They felt for the first time in their lives, that they were part of a family. They worked together and teased each other. For the first time in a long time their parents saw them smiling and laughing as brothers should. They were used to being rich and spoiled, now they were poor, but they seemed happier than they used to be. You could hear them whistle with the birds in the mornings out in the fields or while they were fishing for food.

Then one day Marlee Belle's father received a letter. This letter would hopefully change their future.

Her Father Called Her Beauty

Marlee Belle was one of six children. She had two sisters and three brothers. Her brothers adored her, but her sisters did not. They were jealous of her because she was so beautiful and always so happy. They thought she was foolish because she was always smiling and singing happy songs. People often saw her walking with her dog speaking and waving to friends as she went. Her father absolutely adored her. He tended to dote on her and offer her gifts of beautiful things more often than he did her sisters.  She was so beautiful that he often called her Beauty, but not around her brothers and sisters. She often refused her father's gifts and said, "I have everything I need, father. You can give your beautiful gifts to my sisters."

Her father was a very very rich man. They lived in a huge home and had many servants that did everything for them; cooking, cleaning, laundry and gardening. They had servants that fed the animals outside and made sure that flowers were planted and the lawn trimmed.
Her father owned many ships that carried merchandise from other countries that people purchased from him. These ships were called merchant ships in those days.

 His daughters all had beautiful clothing and jewels from their ears to their toes. As Marlee Belle's sisters grew older they had many gentlemen callers wishing them to be their wives. In those days when a man married a woman she brought to their marriage what was called a dowry. The more wealthy the father of the girl, the bigger the dowry so often it was not love that the man brought to the marriage, but greed for the father's wealth and property. It angered Marlee Belle's sisters that she had more offers of marriage than they did. They were jealous of her good nature and beauty. They often showed their displeasure to Marlee Belle by giving her sour looks and talking amongst themselves about her. They even called her names behind her back. But they never ever let their father know how poorly they treated poor little Marlee Belle for fear of losing his favor as well as the gifts he was so very generous with.

Marlee Belle's father was soon to be served a terrible blow. One day their big beautiful house caught on fire. It burned to the ground and along with it all of their beautiful furniture and books that had all of the accounts in it of merchants that he owed money to. He also lost all of his gold and silver. Oh it was a terrible day, that's for sure. More bad fortune was soon to follow.  The huge ships that he owned were doomed to be lost at sea. Some were robbed by pirates, and others were blown by terrible high winds and smashed upon the rocks or sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor. Those big ships were full of valuable merchandise that would never be found.
All of a sudden it seemed none of his friends liked him. He was shunned by his neighbors. He no longer had any money or friends. To Marlee Belle's father it seemed like the whole world was against him.

He had only one option and that was to move his family to a little house in the country. It was his very last possession.

They Had The Most Popular Love Story Of All Time

Long long ago about three or four hundred years ago there was a man whose name was Petrus Gonsalvus. He was born with a disease that was and still is very rare. It is called Ambras Syndrome. Even now in the world there has only been about fifty people born with this disease. What the disease does is cover one's body with an unusual amount of hair. The hair covers their whole body. Some not very nice people call it werewolf syndrome. I have often talked in my stories about self esteem and bullies. Well Petrus was a real life person, but he was treated worse than an animal. He was bullied and shamed his entire life.
 He was born in 1537 on the largest Canary Island off the coast of West Africa if  I'm not mistaken.

He was called terrible names. He was called wild man and freak. He was finally captured and put in a cage. He was just a boy. They ground up raw meat and threw it in his cage as they would any wild animal. Somehow he was shipped to France to a new king as a gift to be presented to him at his coronation ceremony. The new king's name was King Henry ll.

Oddly enough, the new king didn't think of  Petrus as a freak. He took him out of his cage and dressed him in nice clothes. As you see in the first picture the ruffle around his neck was worn by the noble people or people of royalty. He was given cooked food and an education that only noble folks received. It is incomprehensible to me, but he was educated so well, that he could speak and write fluently in three different languages.

Sadly to say not very many years later the king was killed in a jousting competition. Jousting was a very common sport in those days. The goal was to knock a competitor from his horse.  That is a story in itself. You will see a picture as a likeness from those days.

When the king was killed his widow (wife) was the owner of Petrus. She decided it would be really fun to see what would happen if the hairy ugly man married a beautiful woman. She wanted a lot of little hairy babies to give to her friends as pets. She did find a beautiful woman whose name was Catherine. Catherine and Petrus did not meet each other until the day of their wedding.

Catherine and Petrus had seven children. Four of their children had an abnormal amount of hair like their father. The queen was so very happy.  She took their babies away from them and sent them as pets to her friends.  It is unclear to me just exactly what happened to the queen, but at some point in time Petrus and his family worked for a Duke who had paintings done of them by a Flemish artist.  The paintings were found in an album he kept labeled as insects and animals. The Duke did not bother having their normal children painted only the "little beasts" as the queen had called them.

Petrus and Catherine were married for forty years. It was said to be the greatest love story in all of literature and now of course, in cinema. Their story was originally written in a fairy tale by a French author Gabrielle Barbot de Villeneuve. He had a pointed way of telling the story of the women in those days having no say in who they married. They could not refuse a marriage at all.
Sixteen years later a Madame de Beaumont revised the fairy tale and posted it in a magazine for young ladies. I would so much love to have read that magazine. I am sure it had something to do with women at some point saying "no."
I am told that this revised fairy tale reads a bit like Cinderella. I ordered it and am reading it now. It is a bit difficult to read because of the old English and words that I am not familiar with.

They toured all of Europe and lived in Italy where I think they actually made their home. There is no record of Petrus' death because he was considered not human, but they think he died in 1618. Catherine, of course, was beautiful, and her death was recorded in 1623.

Marlee's "dream story" will be more of a take on the movie version combined with the real life version of Petrus and Catherine. This combination and a little of my imagination plus Marlee's should be a fun series. Hopefully she will find what she has been looking for all this time. How to be a real princess.

Marlee Wants To Learn How To Be A Real Princess

When Marlee got to looking at her book that she and Grandma Lu had written, she remembered the dress. "Oh that was a really pretty dress. I love to dress up and play make believe. She put the book down and got up and went into her room at Grandma B's. Since she was three now she was getting really good at changing her own clothes. Sometimes she would change them two or three times a day. It was really fun to get bigger. Today she and Whitlee were going outside in their new outfits. Their daddy wanted to take their picture.

When Whitlee Jo went down for a nap, Marlee decided that she would add another dress to the one she had on. She thought that red and yellow looked good together. "This would be in my closet if I was a princess," she thought.

 "Oh, Stashia, how do I get to be a real princess? I know it says that I was in that book that Grandma Lu helped me write, but that was pretend. I'm going to call my friends. Maybe they might want to be princesses. Do you think? I know, we could all be a princess. We could have a whole castle full of just beautiful girls in beautiful dresses. We could make our own rules.We could have all of our favorite foods to eat too. Everyone would be happy and nobody would be sick. Do you think there might be a school where you learn to be a real princess? How do you get to be a real princess? Come on Stashia; think. You gotta know. You just gotta." All Marlee got for an answer from Stashia was a low noise in her throat.

There was another best friend that lived at Marlee's house. Her dog, LaRue. He loved Marlee more than anything. Oh how he missed her when she went to visit Grandma B. He would curl up to some of Marlee's toys and patiently wait for her to come home.

 It was fun thinking about being a princess. She loved dressing up and looking pretty. At least that's what all of the grownups thought. Actually she was quite bored being beautiful. "I just know that there is more to being a princess than looking pretty. I know you have to be nice and kind. But I think there is something else that I just don't know."
 She so much wanted to be a princess, but she just didn't know how to do it. "Maybe I should just look for a Prince Charming. Oh, I don't know how to do that either." She was getting so very tired of changing clothes. "There has to be an easier way to be a princess. She layed down to rest and before she knew it she was sound asleep.

But in her dreams she no longer looked like a beautiful princess. She was hungry and tired and so dirty and cold. She was on a dreary rainy street in a country called  France more than three hundred years before Marlee was even born.

If You Were A Princess What Would You Take With You

Marlee said to Stashia, "What do you mean? I'm not a princess; at least I don't think so. Some people call me that, but that's just 'cause they love me."
Stashia and Marlee had been "talking" since she was sixteen months old, so their conversation was easily understood between them. "Don't you remember the book that you and Grandma Lu wrote? You were running around here like a crazy girl yelling, 'I need a Prince Charming. I am Propunzel, come and save me.' Don't you remember that?"
"Oh yes, now I remember. I think Grandma B has that book around here somewhere."
She went to the kitchen and asked her Grandma if she could read the Propunzel book. She was told yes, but to be very careful and sit on the couch quietly and read it.

Stashia hopped up on the couch beside Marlee and watched as she turned the pages. She grinned to herself just like any dog would that was best friends with a little girl. Marlee stopped and stared a little bit, then she turned to Stashia and said, "Do you remember what happened? I remember that Prince Charming found me in the forest and took me away to his father's castle. I can remember that they said I was a Princess and that someday we would live happily ever after. What happened next? I don't think Grandma Lu and I thought about when I got bigger. Should I ask her, or just think about happy stuff.?"
Stashia told her that Grandma Lu had just got back from vacation and that she was probably tired from her trip. "Just think about what it would be like to be a princess when you were growing up. Do you think that would be fun?"

Marlee said, "Okay. If I get to be a real princess I will take you and LaRue with me." Stashia made a low noise in her throat. She wasn't thrilled about having another traveling companion.

Arieanna's mama had gotten her a copy of the Propunzel book one day when she was at Marleewood.

It just so happened that she had been reading the Propunzel book too. She had lots of books, but she kept thinking about the book that Marlee and Grandma Lu had written. "I wonder what it would be like to be a princess.

 Hmm, I wonder if I could bring my guinea pigs with me and of course, my kitty."

Charlie's nanny had gotten the Propunzel book and had given it to Charlie to read. Charlie had fallen asleep reading about Propunzel and living in the forest in a really big castle. "Oh, I would love to be a princess. I could have a picnic any time  I wanted to.

It seems that Marlee and Grandma Lu had written a popular little book. Books about princesses and prince charmings and make believe are so fun aren't they? Emma loves to dress up like a princess too and so does another little girl whose name is Marlee. Will all of their dreams come true?