The Very Little Princess: Zoey's Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

to feel heavy. So heavy she could barely move it.
    And then … and then …
    “Zoey!” Regina called. Or she tried to call, but no sound—not even a tiny one—came from her mouth.
    She could no longer blink, no longer move, no longer form a thought. Not even a frightened one. Nor even an angry one.
    And then the princess was a doll again. Only that. A tiny doll made of fine china.
    Beautiful, but completely still.

    Zoey, of course, knew nothing about what was happening to Princess Regina. She was too busy gathering flowers.
    And then she’d had to go back inside the house. She made herself go in to ask if she could pick an iris—just one—from Hazel’sgarden. She had found lots of flowers, but one of the majestic purple irises growing by the back door was exactly what a bouquet for a princess needed.

    “Yes,” Hazel had said when Zoey asked. “Of course.” And before Zoey could thank her and go on her way again, she’d added, “Would you like some ice cream?” Homemade vanilla ice cream in a bright blue bowl, with chocolate sauce poured over it and peanuts crumbled on top. (The argument had stopped, at least for the moment, when Zoey came into the kitchen.)
    Zoey would have run back to the weeping willow tree to get Princess Regina before she sat down to the ice cream, but since the doll didn’t eat—
couldn’t
eat, apparently—there seemed no point. Besides, Princess Regina might feel bad, sitting there next to ice cream she couldn’t even taste.
    All of which meant that Zoey had been gone longer than she had meant to be when, at last, she burst through the delicate branches of the weeping willow, her hands stuffed to overflowing with flowers.
    “Look! Just look what I found!” she cried, and she held out her bouquet.
    She’d found a few lilacs that were still fresh. At the edge of the woods, she’d picked some white flowers and some pink ones, too. She didn’t know what they were called, but she would find out their names later. Hazel would know their names, she was sure, but she hadn’t wanted to go back in again to ask.
    She’d added bright yellow dandelions to the bouquet, too. There were lots of bright yellow dandelions growing in her grandmother’s yard.
    And there was, of course, the one perfect iris she had picked, with permission, fromHazel’s flower garden by the back door.
    “Look!” Zoey cried again. “Flowers for Your Royal Highness!” That’s the way she and her mother talked when they played the game. “Your Royal Highness.” “Your Majesty.” Sometimes even silly, made-up titles like “Your High Royalness.”
    Zoey knelt in front of the mossy throne and spread her bouquet out on the ground before Princess Regina. Then she checked the tiny doll’s face. Was she pleased?
    Zoey looked. Then she looked again, harder.
    “Princess Regina?” she said. And she reached out a careful finger to touch the doll’s arm.
    But Princess Regina didn’t answer. And she didn’t move. And her arm … there was something wrong with her arm. It felt hard, of course. It always felt hard. After all, Princess Regina was made out of china.
    Now it felt still.
    Too still.
    “Princess?” Zoey touched the doll’s other arm.
    Nothing.
    “Princess Regina?” She stroked the doll’s face. More nothing.
    And then—I’m sure you’ll understand, Zoey wasn’t a crybaby by any means, but she couldn’t help it—she snatched up the silent doll and burst into tears.

Chapter 7
The Secret
    Zoey ran for the house. Where else could she go? As she ran, she sobbed and, with both hands, swiped at the tears running down her cheeks.
    One hand held the tiny doll, so Regina’s golden hair and gauzy pink dress were soon soaked.
    As Zoey approached the front porch, though, she slowed. When she came to the bottom of the steps, she stopped.
    What was it that Princess Regina had said to her?
Grown-ups can never know
.
    If she ran to her mother and Hazel, she would have to tell them why she was crying. And