The Birthday Ball by Lois Lowry Read Free Book Online Page A

trousers and slipped the suspenders over the satin-covered shoulders of the prince.
    Prince Percival posed in front of the mirror, flexing one knee at a time, to assess the fit.
    "Mmm, marvelous thighs," the prince murmured to his own image. He tossed his head, looked into the mirror again, and shouted, "Brush, idiot!"
    The valet hurried forward with his second brush, a smaller one made from the hair of a tapir's tail. Gently he brushed the prince's shoulders, which in the few short moments since he had been clothed had become peppered with white flakes of dandruff. It was an affliction of the prince's for which there seemed no remedy, and despite the thick lubricants with which he coated his dyed hair, the dandruff still fell like a perpetual blizzard.
    Part of the valet's job was to accompany the prince everywhere, brushing his shoulders unobtrusively at intervals.
    The prince leaned forward toward the mirror, fingering his mustache and examining his pores. "I'm planning to marry," he told his valet.
    The valet tried to hide his surprise. Who would marry the prince? He couldn't imagine. "I'm pleased to hear that, sir," he said, and leaned forward to brush away a fresh torrent of flakes. "Will you be making a public announcement?"
    "I have to press my suit first," the prince replied. He leaned even closer to the mirror. "Toothpick!" he bellowed suddenly. The valet handed him an ivory toothpick and waited while the prince probed his teeth, found a morsel left from breakfast, examined it, and then ate it a second time. The valet took the used toothpick and wrapped it in a cloth, to be sterilized. He brushed the prince's left shoulder.
    "Just tell me which suit, sir. I have the ironing board at the ready in the laundry room. I'll press your suit."
    Prince Percival whirled toward him, spraying dandruff everywhere. "IMBECILE!" he shouted.
    Terrified, the valet stepped back.
    "I'm a suitor! Got that, you half-wit moron? SUITOR!"
    "Yes, sir. I understand, sir." (He didn't, really.)
    "Pressing my suit means that I must go through the formality of wooing my intended. It's a tedious, ridiculous bit of nonsense. But I will be going to a ball on Saturday night, to press my suit. Got it, idiot? To press my suit! "
    "Yes, sir. I see, sir."
    The valet stepped out of saliva range. Each time the prince said a word that began with the letter p, saliva accompanied the sound. Between the flying dandruff and the globs of spewing liquid—and in addition to the clouds of foul-smelling breath—the valet felt as if he were being attacked by airborne weaponry. He hoped the prince would not say anything else that began with the letter p.
    The prince, calmer now, smoothed his oiled hair and practiced some slow smiles in the mirror: teeth exposed, teeth partially exposed, teeth concealed. He wasn't certain which smile to use on his intended when they met at the ball. They were all, he thought, so attractive.
    "Wouldn't you like to know the name of my intended?" he asked the valet.
    "Yes, sir, I would."
    The prince sighed with pleasure, releasing a particularly terrible cloud of bad breath. "Princess Patricia Priscilla. We will be Prince Percival and Princess Patricia Priscilla, a perfect pair," he said.
    The valet excused himself politely and rushed to the bath chamber to wash the saliva from his face.

10. Dinner Conversation

    Dinner in the castle was always a tedious meal, with many courses served one after another, and the king, queen, and princess seated so far from one another at the long mahogany table that it was difficult for them to converse. Not that it mattered. The queen's hearing was so poor that she misunderstood most of what was said, and the king was so preoccupied with thoughts of butterflies that he didn't care.
    But on this evening, the second day after she had become a pupil-in-disguise at the village school, and four days before her Birthday Ball, the princess wanted to make a request of her parents.
    "Father?" the princess said.