Now she was in her thirteenth year, with jet black hair that hung in huge sausage curls down her back, which were tied up at night with long grass peels, and were wetted by pure lake water. Her hair was as gleamy and fresh-looking as ever. And when she tied it up with grass, she was careful to put basil in it, that would take the odors from the wet lake away from it, and make it smell so good you would want to just take one of the locks and eat it — maybe. She had never thought of doing that, but other people must have.
And now, she was playing. Playing, singing, and finding conkers, throwing them across the country to her beloved dog, Flame. He would jump and collect them, and run back with them. It was wonderful. He would be very careful not to miss the conker, for if he did, it could fall into the lake, and then he would not be able to have a conker, or a horse chestnut. We’ll call them conkers. Real chestnuts were harder to get, for though the horse chestnuts came in spikey shells, they were not so spikey that you couldn’t get them out. The chestnut shell was so spikey that you had to stamp on it. And when you tried to get the chestnut out after the shell was cracked open, it still could prick your finger. So the dog was being very careful not to lose them in the lake. And indeed he was good at jumping and catching them. He caught them almost every time.
Suddenly something awful happened. She threw the conker and it hit a tree, which rumbled and shook. Tons of conkers fell on the poor dog. She’d hit the largest conker in the largest conker tree, so that it had made the branch shake and all the fresh conkers in it fall all over poor Flame. Oh, how it bruised him, for they were huge ripe conkers. The girl picked up every single one. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Then Flame rolled over and they laughed together. That would be a good dinner for them, all those conkers. They were not very tasty on their own, but she found that if she let them sit in the sun all day, then put some parsley in, which grew very near by, mixed it with corn, and then added a bit of pepper in, it made a good dinner for them. Pepper was hard to buy, but she could get a job, whenever she wanted, and work, and buy some. As soon as she had enough to get the pepper she would say, ‘Thank you very much,’ keep on working for a while, and then go off.
As she picked the conkers up under the tree, she noticed something. There in the grass was a large purse of blue silk, with ruffles on it. Inside it were a number of precious things like a silver brush, and a tiny sewing kit, with scissors in the shape of a bird, and spools of gold and silver thread, and thimbles and needles so bright you could see them a mile away. She wanted to confiscate that purse, but she knew she could not. Just then, a ringing bell charmed in her ear. She looked up. What she saw was nothing but a lovely princess about her age.
The princess had neatly, neatly brushed hair. Her hair was in thick curls, and it was yellow. Shiny yellow hair. The girl loved the sight of that hair. The princess’s shoes were fancy and her dress, oh her dress, it was the most beautiful lavishing color of blue — turquoise blue. It was a lovely blue. Puffy sleeves, so gorgeous, and it reached down at her ankles. And little roses at the end. It was puffy beyond belief!
‘Hello,’ the princess said quietly. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Oh, ah, urn, uh—’ The girl was speechless. She was dressed thoroughly in rags and did not think it was a good idea to talk to this distinctive person. But then she thought she must answer. She didn’t have a name, though, she’d never had one. What was her name? she wondered. ‘Ah, mm, I don’t have one,’ she said finally, stuttering. ‘Urn, your majesty,’ she said. For the princess was obviously of royal vintage.
‘Hah, don’t bother about it,’ the princess laughed. ‘Don’t bother. I’m not very much a relative of the Queen, you see. My dad’s brother was related to the Queen so I trace back from the Queen, yes, it’s true, but not really closely …’ she said.
‘Oh wow,’ said the girl. ‘But, please — your name?’
‘Oh, urn, just call me, urn, just call me—’ The princess seemed to be thinking, too. ‘Just call me, well, most people call me Mademoiselle Saram Shi-Kah, but just call me Shee, for Shee-Kah.’
‘All right, Shee,’ the girl said. ‘Shee, how is it spelled?’
‘Oh, Shee,’ she said, ‘well, it’s spelled as She is normally spelled.’
‘And, and how is that?’ The girl looked a little scared.
‘Well, to be quite honest,’ the Princess said, ‘it could be spelled “she” but that’s probably not how it’s spelled. To be quite honest, I’ve never thought of it. I think I’d like it if you’d spell it, S-h-e-e. Notice the doubled e.’
‘Oh, right,’ the girl said, ‘Of course. And — what does an “e” look like?’
The Princess took the ruffled purse that the girl handed her and opened it up. In it she found the most beautiful notepad, with lovely marbled silk outside, and if you lifted the silk off there was beautiful Chinese paper, embroidered. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Oh yes,’ the girl said.
The princess wrote down a lovely ‘e’—the kind of ‘e’ that only princesses would learn how to write. It was a gorgeous letter. ‘That’s how I write it. But you know some people write it this way.’ She gripped her pen; it was a lovely quill pen, too — a blue one to match her outfit — and wrote a smaller ‘e,’ not as fancy.
It seemed ordinary to the girl. ‘Yes, yes, that’s the one I’d be able to write,’ she said.
‘Right,’ the princess nodded. ‘That’s the one that most people write. But impress people with this one,’ she said, pointing to the one that she’d drawn first. ‘It’s really fun. It makes you seem so royal,’ she said. ‘What would you like me to call you?’
‘Well, um, well, I think my last name is …’
‘Oh, come on, don’t tease me,’ the princess said laughing, with a whiff of her hand. ‘You have to have a name.’
Well, I, er, don’t,’ she said. ‘You see, I’m, um, er, call me, urn, Sorsumpon …’ She tried to make up a name. ‘That’s what you should call me.’
‘Where does that name come from?’ the princess asked.
‘Um — my brain,’ the girl said nodding. ‘I don’t have a name. I’m a servant, I’m a peasant girl, an orphan,’ she said. ‘And, well, I don’t have a name at all. I wish I did, though. If you’d like, I’ll tell you what I’d like to be — actually, I think what I’d like is, call me Sally. It’s a nice name, I like it. It’s the only one I know,’ she confessed.
Then she talked the grownup way, the way she loved to talk, the way that she didn’t talk when she was scared. The more mature way, not the scared, childish way, but the grownup way — she spoke: ‘Now would you care to have some fresh conkers cooked in the heat of the sun?’ she asked.
‘Oh,’ said the princess nodding. ‘I, I’d love to. But I must return to the castle. Please come with me. Oh, but wait, I can’t go in the dining room with my hair like this.’ She touched one of her beautiful curls. ‘I just can’t, I can’t go in with my hair curled. Oh, why can’t mine be straight like yours?’
‘I was just thinking why can’t mine be curly like yours?’ the girl said.
‘Oh, you wouldn’t want curly hair,’ the princess said. ‘You’d be too embarrassed to go into a dining room with it.’
‘I’ll switch hairstyles with you,’ said the girl. ‘I’ll tell you how I keep it down — because I used to have somewhat frilly hair — and you tell me how you keep it up.’