Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird by Vivian Vande Velde Page B

whispered, "but it was more than my body could endure."
    The queen, who had been awakened by the door coming down, ordered ten more mattresses and a full-size ladder.
    This time everyone stayed in the room until Princess Courtney was perched on top of her pile of nineteen mattresses. "How is that, my dear?" the queen asked.
    Princess Courtney winced but said quietly, "It will do."
    In the hallway, Prince Royal turned to his mother.
    His mother said, in a tone she'd never used with him before: "Go to bed, Royal."
    There were no more major disturbances in the night, but all night long they could hear—since the door was gone—the bed springs creaking and the princess sighing.
    The next morning, Princess Courtney came to breakfast all stooped over and with bags under her eyes, though she still looked lovely. Actually the queen had bags under her eyes, too, and so did Prince Royal and the servants who were setting out the breakfast.
    The queen asked, "Didn't you sleep well, my dear, once there were nineteen mattresses?"
    "I tossed and turned all night," Princess Courtney said. "It was as though all those mattress were perched upon a pointy mountain."
    While arrangements were being made for the princess to be returned to her own castle, Prince Royal and the queen went back up to her room. The queen climbed the ladder and lay on the mattresses.
    "Do you feel the pointy mountain?" Prince Royal asked.
    "No," his mother said. "But then I'm a queen, not a princess."
    Still, she ordered the servants to take away all nineteen mattresses so she could examine the bed frame.
    "Ah!" she said.
    "Ah?" Prince Royal asked.
    The queen picked up a single squashed pea, which had somehow made its way under the first mattress. "This was what she felt."
    Prince Royal leaned closer to see. "It's quite small," he said.
    "Yes, it is," his mother agreed.
    "I guess this shows that Courtney is, indeed, a perfect princess, that she could feel such a tiny thing under all those mattresses."
    "It does show that," the queen admitted.
    "But it also shows she's very fussy," Prince Royal said.
    "Hard to get along with," the queen added.
    "Impossible to please," Prince Royal finished.
    So they waved good-bye when Princess Courtney set out for home, and Prince Royal never did ask her to many him.
    And after she was gone, everybody went back to bed.

ELEVEN
Twins

    Once upon a time, before Medicare or golden-age retirement communities, there lived a beautiful young girl named Isabella, who stayed at home to take care of her parents. The boys in the village would whistle when they walked by her house and they'd call out, "Isabella, come out and play," or "Isabella, come see Clarence's new puppy," or "Isabella, will you watch us race?"
    But Isabella always said no, she had to take care of her parents.
    The years passed, and Isabella became a beautiful young woman. The young men of the village would carry flowers to her door and they'd say, "Isabella, come out for a picnic," or "Isabella, come to the dance," or "Isabella, will you kiss me?"
    But Isabella always said no, she had to take care of her parents.
    Until the day Isabella's parents died.
    All the young men she had grown up with had married long ago, or they had left the village to seek their fortunes. There were new young men, of course. But—although they knew Isabella as a kind and gentle woman—they were too young to remember when Isabella had been young and beautiful, and they never came knocking at her door.
    Then one day, one of her old suitors who had left the village came back. He was stooped and haggard, looking older than he was, and more wary and suspicious than Isabella remembered. The man's name was Siegfried and he was a woodcutter who lived in a small cottage in the forest. But his wife had just died and he needed help to raise his two small children.
    Isabella was horrified when she learned that Siegfried had left his children alone in the cottage in the woods while he came to the