The Birthday Ball by Lois Lowry Read Free Book Online

preened. He strutted.
    "Right hip? Ah, yes, " he cooed to his own image on a sunny morning as he stood sideways in his underwear and observed his own stance and the jut of his hipbone.
    "Pecs?" he murmured, and changed his position so that he could see the muscles of his chest bulge around the shoulder straps of his black silk undershirt. "Oh, niiicce, " he said admiringly, turning slightly to the left and then to the right.

    He smoothed his hair and then wiped his hand free of the hair oil, using the bedsheet and leaving a smear of black dye. He looked at his clothing, draped over a nearby chair. As he did so, he bellowed, "Valet!"
    A valet is a sort of manservant, the one who tends the wardrobe and the needs of a nobleman. The Prince of Pustula's valet was a thin, mild-mannered middle-aged man who had, astonishingly, no name. Once, he had. His parents, upon his birth, had named him Hal. He had been Hal through his school years and during his quite successful career as an importer of Far East goods.
    Then, unfortunately, he had been summoned before the prince because of a tiny snag in a pair of black silk socks imported from Asia. Hal the importer had been terrified by the summons. He knew what such a command had meant to others in the past. There were egg suppliers in exile, dentists in dungeons, and even a trouser presser locked away in a tower, all because of small flaws in their work.
    Trembling, he had gone before the prince and knelt, as was required. Prince Percival flung the snagged sock at him and shouted obscenities.
    Feeling he had nothing to lose, Hal picked up the sock and examined it while the prince continued to roar and shriek. With his thumb and forefinger, he repaired the tiny snag by pushing a thread through and then smoothing it straight. Then, with his head bowed, he held the flawless sock up in a conciliatory and supplicating gesture.
    The prince grabbed it. He looked at it. He turned it over and over in his thin-fingered hands.
    "It's fixed!" he shouted.
    "Yes, sir."
    "It was unfixable!"
    Hal did not know what to say. It was against the law not to answer the prince. But it was also against the law to answer him with a no.
    In desperation he replied, "Yes, sir," agreeing (though he knew it was not true) that the sock had been unfixable.
    "You performed a haberdashery miracle!"
    Hal did not know what the word haberdashery meant. He did know he had not performed a miracle. But at this point he felt he had no choices left. Lie or be executed, he thought.
    "Yes, sir," he said.
    "You will be my new valet! Your new name is Valet!"
    And thus Hal's future had changed. Once he had been a successful, well-traveled man, with business contacts in many domains. He had owned a camel and a horse. He had several maids. He had hoped to become affianced soon, to the daughter of a rug merchant.
    But now he was a lowly valet and even his name had disappeared.
    On this morning, summoned by the prince's bellow, he hurried into the room carrying his valeting equipment.
    "Dress me," the prince commanded.
    The valet bowed and began. First he opened the small suede bag that he carried and removed a soft brush with lemur-hair bristles. He picked up the black satin shirt with voluminous sleeves that was draped over the corner of the chair, examined it, brushed it meticulously, then held it while the prince slid his arms into the sleeves, shivering with delight at the feel of the sleek fabric. The valet buttoned the shirt and its cuffs as the prince gazed at himself in the mirror.
    Next the valet lifted the velvet trousers from the chair and brushed them assiduously. He took out a perfumed spray from his bag and sprayed the trousers. He examined each button and tested the zipper.
    Then, convinced, to his relief (for he worried terribly each morning), that the trousers were in perfect condition, he knelt and held them discreetly in just the right position for the prince to insert his legs, one after the other.
    He raised the