Once upon a time, there were
five kingdoms. Four of them were very famous and popular and beloved and made a
lot of money from tourism every year. But the fifth was small and poor and
never had any tourists. The king and his advisers sat down to figure out what
the other kingdoms had that theirs didn’t.
“How do we get a
princess?” asked the King.
His advisers
explained (briefly) the typical process for something like this, but the King
decided this would take too long so he said they should just hire one instead.
Scouts were sent
throughout the kingdom to find the most beautiful girls in the land. The King
and his advisers had put together a list of traits necessary to be a princess
and “beautiful” was at the top of the list.
Of course, when
the young ladies of the kingdom heard about the search for a princess, they all
wanted to be chosen. They put on their nicest clothes, did their makeup and
hair just right and walked around the kingdom posing and trying to look as
princess as possible. Yes, it seemed every girl in the kingdom wanted to be a
princess…
Except Kathy.
Kathy was a sheep
herder. She had inherited the sheep farm from her father and couldn’t afford to
hire help, so she ran it by herself. It was a lot of work, but she enjoyed it.
She loved her sheep and she loved her life and didn’t want it to change.
Unfortunately for
her, it was about to change. Because,
unluckily, Kathy was the most beautiful girl in the village and was chosen by
the King’s men to come to the castle to try out for the job of princess.
Four other girls
were chosen and the five of them were cleaned up, dressed up, brought before
the King and his advisers and asked a lot of questions.
“What would be
your first act as princess?”
“What does being a
princess mean to you?”
“Why do you want
to be a princess?”
“I don’t,” said
Kathy when it was her turn. She had not been given the option of not participating, she had been unable
to stop the handmaidens from dressing her up in a fancy dress that was so tight
around the waist she could barely breathe in it, but she wasn’t going to lie.
“What?!?”
exclaimed the King. “I thought every girl wanted to be a princess!”
“Well I don’t! I want to be a sheep herder,
which is what I am. I don’t like fancy dresses and make up and high heels and
jewelry. And, by the way, why are those the
things that make a princess anyway? Who’s to say a princess can’t be someone
who likes to work with animals? Or wears casual clothes? Or isn’t necessarily
this skinny? Who decided that a princess has to be pretty and elegant and not
do anything except marry a prince or go to a ball?”
So saying, Kathy
walked away, changed out of the dress they had put her in and returned home to
her sheep.
The next day, while
Kathy was tending her flock, a voice behind her called her name. It was, oddly
enough, the King.
“What brings you
here, sire?” asked Kathy.
“I was up all
night thinking about what you said,” the King told her. “And I think you’re
right. It wasn’t fair for me to single you and those other girls out just
because of the way you look. I think maybe a princess can be whatever she
wants. So, I want you to have this.”
The King held up a
tiara, the official headgear of princesses.
“I appreciate
that, your majesty, but I don’t want to be the princess.”
“That’s just it.
You’re not the princess. You’re a princess! I hereby appoint you
Princess of Sheep!” He placed the tiara on Kathy’s astonished head. “And she,”
he added, pointing at a milkmaid across the road who was also wearing a tiara,
“is Princess of Milk. And over there,” he pointed at another girl in another
tiara, “is Princess of Chocolate Chip Cookies. And there’s also a Princess of
Basketball and a Princess of Crocheting and a Princess of Juggling…”
Yes, from then on,
every girl in the kingdom was a princess. Tall, short, thin, fat, pretty
and…well, let’s say pretty in a different way than the others…they were each
princess of whatever they were best at. And, of course, with all those
princesses, the kingdom became a booming tourist attraction.
And Kathy, the
Princess of Sheep, lived very happily ever after.
THE END
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