The Tale of Despereaux

The queen loves soup more than anything, aside from the Princess Pea and King Phillip. For this reason, Cook serves soup at every meal and goes to great lengths to craft soups that are art. On this day, the soup is particularly amazing. Roscuro takes a few sips as he comes to the surface of the queen’s soup bowl, and even he thinks it’s lovely. The Pea, though, shouts again that the rat is now in her mother’s soup. Everyone stops what they’re doing and stares at Roscuro. The narrator has to be honest at this point: rats aren’t beautiful or cute. They’re nasty, especially if they’re in one’s soup bowl.

After a long silence, Roscuro says, “I beg your pardon” to the queen. The queen flings her spoon, lets loose a horrible scream, and then observes aloud that there’s a rat in her soup. These are her last words—she falls over backwards, dead. The king’s men all try to save the queen as Roscuro, deciding it’s best to leave, starts to crawl away. But he remembers the prisoner’s regret that he didn’t look back at his daughter, so Roscuro looks back. He sees the Princess Pea glaring at him with a look that tells him to go back to the dark dungeon, where he belongs. This look breaks Roscuro’s heart—yes, even rats have hearts, like all other living things. Perhaps if Roscuro hadn’t looked over his shoulder, his heart would not have broken, and we wouldn’t be hearing this story.