Free The Ordinary Princess by M. M. Kaye Page A

sound asleep already, curled in a little furry ball in the Ordinary Princess’s apron pocket. He continued to sleep so soundly that she hadn’t the heart to disturb him, so she hung up her apron on a hook in her cupboard and went down to help with the dishwashing without it.
    There appeared to be more dishwashing to be done than ever that night. The piles of greasy dishes seemed as if they reached the ceiling. The Ordinary Princess broke three dinner plates and was severely scolded by the fourth assistant senior cook, whose temper was never very good.
    You have to pay attention when washing dishes, what with the slipperiness of wet plates, and the Ordinary Princess did not have her mind on plates! She was wondering whatever she was going to say to Nurse Marta.
    “Oh dear,” thought the Ordinary Princess, “why did she have to come and spoil it all?”
    She sighed heavily and dropped a soup plate.

    It broke into eighteen quite small pieces, and one of these flew up and caught the fourth assistant senior cook on the nose.
    As we already know, his temper was not of the best, and what with so much extra work, on account of Queen Hedwig of Plumblossomburg and her daughter and all her attendants staying on and on, and a bad attack of toothache that had been keeping him awake for the past three nights ... Well, the end of it was that the Ordinary Princess found herself dismissed.
    The fourth assistant senior cook did not put it as elegantly as that.
    “You’re fired!” shouted the fourth assistant senior cook. “Take a week’s wages!” And with that he had ordered her out of the kitchen.
    “I don’t care!” said the Ordinary Princess, climbing wearily up the fourth flight of stairs on her way to the attic. “I don’t care a bit!” and a large tear rolled down her cheek and dripped off the point of her chin.
    “Oh dear, oh dear,” sobbed the Ordinary Princess, sitting down suddenly on a step. “Whatever am I going to do now?”
    Someone was whistling somewhere...
    “Lavender’s blue,
”Rosemary’s green ...“
    “Hi!” called Peregrine in a loud whisper, appearing unexpectedly at the bottom of the staircase. “I’ve been waiting to catch you. There was something I wanted to say.”
    But the Ordinary Princess went on sitting on the stairs, while her tears splashed onto her shabby dress.
    Peregrine came up the stairs four steps at a time.
    “I say,” he said, “what’s happened?”
    “I’ve been f-f-fired!” sobbed the Ordinary Princess.
    “You’ve been what?”
    “D-d-dismissed,” wept the Ordinary Princess. “I b-broke f-f-four plates, and Cook f-f-fired me!”
    “Good!” said Peregrine approvingly.
    “How can you say that?” flared the Ordinary Princess. She stamped her foot and suddenly stopped crying. “How can you be so horrid when you know quite well that I haven’t saved nearly a hundred pfennigs and I don’t know where I am to get another job.”
    “Darling Amy,” said Peregrine, “don’t cry. I only said ‘Good’ because I think it’s awful, your having to work so hard. You shall have all the pfennigs you want and all the dresses in the world!”
    He lent her his pocket handkerchief, and the Ordinary Princess mopped her eyes, blew her freckled nose, and sniffed.
    “I’d have given you a hundred pfennigs weeks ago,” said Peregrine, “only I was afraid that if I did, you’d just buy a new dress and run off to live in the forest, and I should never see you again.”
    He smiled his nice smile at her, and the Ordinary Princess could not help smiling back. Suddenly she felt much better.
    “You see,” began Peregrine—but just at that moment a door on the landing below opened, and through it came a very gorgeous person indeed.
    He wore a suit of crimson and violet taffeta, all laced with gold and embroidered with twinkling jewels, and wherever there was room for one he seemed to have added a bunch of ribbons. The toes of his purple velvet shoes were quite half a yard