Sleeping Beauty

Rhlan was dusting the museum. No one visited it any more, so when Rhlan dusted, he was alone in the large cold stone building. The place was filled with dust, the candelabra’s stood with unlit candles. The walls were filled with paintings of past kings and queens and other noble people. On the many pedestals around the rooms stood statues and memorabilia of kings and queens and other noble people. Everything had its own nameplate and short story about why it was there but no one ever came to read them.

Rhlan came once a month to dust the museum, as his brother and sister had done before him. His ma said that if they dusted the museum, the Lord gave them a bronze coin. That was the reason that he came to this big empty building once a month, all alone with only his dust cloths. He wondered why the King even kept it, if no one came here any more.

He was a short boy, only twelve years old with dull brown hair that flopped into his matching eyes. He wore worn patched breeches that had been handed down to him from his older brother, Nero, and a plain white shirt. Finishing wiping down a heavy helmet, with gold embossing around the edge that had been chipped away slightly, he entered the next room.

The museum was full of rooms, but this one was the one Rhlan probably liked the most. Instead of a huge statue, in the center of the room lay a four poster bed. Around of course, were smaller pedestals with bits and pieces that needed dusting all the same, and the walls were still covered by paintings. But on the four poster bed in the center of the room, lay a beautiful young girl.

She looked older than her sister, so Rhlan guess she was maybe seventeen or so. She had golden hair that spread out on the pillow like the rays of the sun and her skin was a milky white. She wore a pink dress, and the bed sheets were a creamy silk.

She lay on the bed like she was asleep, but she never woke. Rhlan’s ma had told him about her the first time he was to go to the museum. She told him that the beautiful girl was a princess, named Aurora. Who was cursed by a witch a long long time ago. Now the girl would sleep until her true love woke her up.

Rhlan crept towards the bed, forgetting the other things in the room that needed dusting for the moment. The first thing he did in this room, was always the girl on the bed. Even though the Princess Aurora was real, she sadly needed dusting just as much as the statues.

Gently he wiped her golden hair free of dust, wondering what it would be like, to suddenly fall asleep and not know when you would wake up. Smoothing down the bed sheets, Rhlan wondered if she was dreaming. Finished dusting Aurora, Rhlan stood back and looked at her once more before turning to finish the rest of the room.

He was half way through wiping down a big battle-axe used by Theodorus the Small, when he heard a small sound. He paused and listened, could something have fallen over? But there was no other sound. Rhlan shrugged and continued dusting. Over and under the dull silver of the axe he ran the cloth, careful not to cut himself on the sharp edge. Rhlan turned his attention to the nameplate that went with the Axe when he heard a noise again.

This time he stopped dusting and turned, biting his lip in confusion. Why would there be noises coming from a museum that no one came to? He was sure he had left everything as he had found it so nothing could have fallen over. Maybe one of the paintings was coming out of the wall because the hook was rusty? Rhlan sighed and surveyed the room.

On the four poster bed in the center of the room, the princess Aurora sat working kinks out of her neck. Rhlan blinked. Dropping his dusting cloth he rubbed his eyes. But when he looked again, she still sat there, now running a hand through her hair to make sure it was knot free.

Rhlan took a step forward, still unable to believe that the Princess was awake at last. She looked up and caught sight of him.

“You boy,” she said primly. “Fetch me some water. I am thoroughly parched.”

Rhlan only stepped towards her again, trying to comprehend why she was awake.

“You’re awake,” he said. The Princess rolled her eyes at him.

“Yes, thank heavens,” she replied with a dramatic sigh. “I desaray I have been asleep for too long.”

“But you ain’t supposed to wake up yet!” Rhlan protested.

“And why not boy?” the Princess returned, “I should think its long past time I should have woken up. Where are we anyway? I don’t remember any of this,” she waved a hand at the miscellaneous objects on pedestals around the room, “being in my room. Have they redecorated the palace?”

“Palace?” Rhlan asked, a small smile coming to his face. “We ain’t in the palace.”

“Well where are we then?” Princess Aurora demanded to know. “And where is everyone?”

“The Museum,” Rhlan replied.

“The Museum?” Aurora repeated. “Oh yes,” she smiled faintly, “I imagine I had so many visitors they couldn’t leave me in the castle. I suppose I have people out side waiting to see me now?”

Rhlan coughed slightly. “Ahh,” he started.

“Well don’t hold them up boy,” Aurora told him. “Go on and let them in.”

“But there ain’t no one there.”

“What?” Aurora looked shocked.

“No one comes to the Museum,” Rhlan explained. “Well no one except me now days. I do the dustin’ you see,” he explained.

“You do the dusting? It’s an outrage!” cried Aurora. “Completely preposterous. I simply can’t believe they would have put me here!”

“Well it’s probably cos you’ve been asleep for so long.” Rhlan told her. “No one was sure when you was goin’ ta wake up. An’ I still don’t see how ya did wake up.”

“What do you mean you don’t see how I woke up?” Aurora demanded, “I was asleep and I woke up! What is so hard to comprehend about that?”

“But you ain’t supposed to wake up until your true love comes along,” Rhlan explained. “Me ma told me. ‘The Princess was put to sleep by a curse from an evil witch. And she will sleep forever until her true love comes along and wakes her up.’”

Princess Aurora’s mouth was hanging open in a very unlady like way. Rhlan pointed to the small nameplate by the bed with the explanation of why the princess was there on it.

“I think it says the whole story there,” he added. Aurora looked down at the nameplate and cried out throwing herself on back on the bed dramatically.

“I can not bear to read it,” she declared. “You will simply have to do so for me.”
Rhlan only looked at her lying on the bed.

“Well?” she prompted.

“But I can’t read,” Rhlan told her honestly.
There was a pause and then Aurora sat up very straight. She looked at him sharply and then not saying a word turned to the nameplate and read what it said herself. Rhlan watched her eagerly, wanting to know if his ma really had told him true. But the Princess read quietly, her blue eyes flying over the words. She seamed to have finished reading, but all she was doing was sitting on the bed, her eyes focused on the wall behind him.

“Well?” Rhlan asked. “Was me Ma right?”

“Not only have they put me in a museum where no one comes,” the Princess stated, too calmly for Rhlan’s liking. “Not only have they told everyone the wrong story about why I am here.” Rhlan took another step back from the bed. “They have my name wrong!” wailed the Princess in finaly, throwing herself back on the bed and burying her face in the pillow.

Rhlan paused for a moment, considering this before asking: “Ya names not Aurora then?”

“Ahh!!” the Princess who’s name was not Aurora wailed into her pillow. Suddenly she sat up. “No my name is NOT Aurora! My name is Amora!” she told him. Then, sobbing some more, she threw herself back into her pillow.

Rhlan looked around the room worriedly, wishing there were someone else here. That the Princess would have woken up on some other day, with someone else in the room. He looked hesitantly back at the princes, completely unsure of what to do. Carefully he stepped forwards again.

“Well… it will be alright,” he tried. “I mean, now that you are awake, you can tell everyone can’t you?” Amora’s sobbing ceased slightly. “And,” Rhlan continued encouraged, “you probably cant go back to sleep for so long again either. Not now you have woken up right?”

“Wrong!” Amora howled. Sitting up she flung her golden hair over her shoulders.

“How’s that?” Rhlan asked. “You was cursed right? And now that you’ve broken it—”

“I was not cursed!” Amora interrupted loudly.

“Then how did you fall asleep?”

“I am allergic to carrots,” Amora told him as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“But the witch?” Rhlan was completely confused. How did you fall asleep for centuries from being allergic to carrots?

Amora sighed dramatically. “There was no witch,” she informed Rhlan, “they probably have mistaken her from my fairy Godmother.”

“Did she curse you then?” Rhlan interrupted unsure about why a fairy Godmother would curse her Goddaughter.

“No,” Amora replied with another sigh. “She didn’t curse me. She was the one who warned my parents that I was allergic to carrots in the first place. She saw it at my christening you understand. She is a fairy, so she knows these types of things.”

“Oh,” Rhlan said.

“Yes,” Amora continued. “Well my Father, the King, of course decreed that there would be no carrots in the palace cooking, but there was nothing he could do about it for the peasants. They needed carrots for their food you see.” She smoothed her pink skirts. “All my food was tested of course, just to make sure that no carrots would get into the cooking by accident. But then when I was eighteen I had to go to the village, duties of a princess and all,” Amora waved her hand in the air to illustrate her story, “and one of the villagers must have forgotten that I don’t eat carrots. So they offered some to me. I of course had never seen a carrot before, and thought they looked delicious so I ate some, and fell asleep.”

Amora looked at Rhlan expectantly as if she thought he should applause for her story telling. But Rhlan only looked back thoughtfully.

“So your names not Aurora?” he asked just to clarify.

“No my name is Princess Amora Andrina Arista Attina of Neverland, first born and heir to King Peter the Child and Queen Wendalina the Mother,” she informed him formally.

“That’s a lot of names,” Rhlan commented. “I'm just Rhlan,” he added.

“Well who ever you are,” Amora said, “I shall need to be continuing directly to the palace. Call a coach for me and send a messenger ahead. They shall need to be informed of my arrival.”

Rhlan screwed up his face in thought.

“What is it?” Amora asked him when he didn’t move.

“Well, Princess,” Rhlan said, “it’s like I said before. We’re at the Museum and nobody comes here except for me.”

“And?” Amora prompted. “Surly we are in the capital, the Palace should only be a few moments away by carriage.”

“But we ain’t in the capital,” Rhlan replied, “The capital is miles away to the east I think.”

“What?” Amora asked appalled beyond belief. “I refuse to just stay here! This is my kingdom! I am the Princess!”

“Well you don’t have to stay here now that you are awake,” Rhlan replied. “But I dunno if its your kingdom any more, Princess. Ya ‘ave been asleep for an awfully long time.”

Amora looked at him for a long moment before her bottom lip quivered and she threw herself back on to the bed. There was nothing Rhlan could say to console the princess this time. Shrugging he left her on the bed and returned to his dusting.