The Very Little Princess: Rose's Story by Marion Dane Bauer Page B

world like someone who was waiting for something … for someone.

    And so this story ends. Princess Regina is tucked away in her own house. Rose is free to be Rose, a challenge enough all by itself.
    Will Rose ever learn the secret of waking the doll? Or will she wake her accidentally without knowing how it happens?
    Either way, if Regina does wake, the two of them are sure to have more adventures, moredisagreements. And eventually, because Rose is Rose and because caring for another waking creature is very hard, Regina will be left to sleep again.
    Perhaps when Rose grows up, she will even forget about Regina’s power to wake. The truth is grown-ups do forget a lot.
    But all this lies outside the story I’m telling. A story, any story, contains only the smallest part of a life.
    There is one thing that I can tell you for certain will happen, though.
    Rose will have a daughter one day, not a china doll but a real baby who breathes and eats and, yes, poops. And Rose’s ideas won’t be so grand when it comes to naming her. She’ll not call her Regina. Queen. She’ll go for something shorter, more ordinary.
    Like Zoey. Not Princess Zoey. Just Zoey.
    It’s a good name.
Zoey
means
life
, in case you didn’t know. And what is more sweet, more painful, more miraculous than life?
    Rose will try hard, very, very hard—though it’s an enormously difficult thing to do—to take care of Zoey every minute.
    And if Rose is still Rose and can’t always manage? Well, her mother, the good Hazel, will be there.
    And at Hazel’s house a tiny doll will be waiting to waken.