Portia's Story

So, basically- this is the terrible

result of when your friend Portia says-

“pleeeease write me a story

about a Princess”. It’s going to

be terrible… not gonna lie… but…

it’s a story… and it has a

Princess somewhere in there.

Love, Ellie.

(AKA- Crumpet &

P.S. Don’t Die)

Please enjoy Part 1 of this story. ****drumroll please****

I never intended for this to be read by ANYONE else other than my dear friend Portia, let alone public consumption... so please bear with me!

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There was a fresh chill in the air, rustles in the leaves and the smell of autumn in the atmosphere and along came riding a girl on her horse. The white horse gleamed as it galloped through the forests. Alongside her were two other horses and their riders. One rider was wearing flashy, expensive, regal clothes and the other had a more rugged appearance with more humble, simple clothes. She was a Princess and these were two men competing for her hand in marriage. The King and Queen in the land were looking to abdicate the throne and wanted their daughter to take over, but the laws of this far away land stipulated that there must be both a King AND Queen in the monarchy. One of these riders was a Prince from a different land and the other was one of their faithful workers (from the castle grounds). His family had worked at the castle for many years. And the law stipulated that if there were any such faithful long time workers, they hadthe opportunity to compete for the Princesses' hand in marriage. It included a race, a dragon capture and a sword fight on ice-skates. And the most valiant man left standing would be deemed worthy of being husband and King.

They were currently racing. The Princess was just riding alongside them for the thrill of it. She desperately wanted the Prince to win for she felt that the worker was just trying to get into the royal family and suspected that he didn't really care about her. The King and Queen knew of this, but... they wanted him to win- simply because they didn't want the Prince to win. For he was from another faraway land and they thought that he would try and make many changes to the Kingdom that they had worked so hard to build.

Before long, the race was almost over. It was SO close and the Princess could not tell who it was going to be. But with just one foot, a truly sad moment happened. By a single step of a horse hoof- the common worker won. It was the dragon capturing challenge next and the Prince was up, she needed him to do well on this one! The dragon was released into the secure area and its colour was even deeper, its size so much bigger and its rage so much more furious than she remembered. It was a deep rusty, yet fiery red colour with piercing green eyes and yellow feet. It flapped its wings in fury and the Prince took his place. The competition judge stood from afar,

READY,

SET......".....Um Miss... Miiiiss...".

What was that noise?? Oh. It happened again, another dream.

"Is this your stop?”

She quickly gathered her thoughts, "Uh... no...no, I get off in Camden".

"Oh you have a good few hours yet Miss", the conductor said.

She smiled- this was Beatrice.

See, this is not story about Princesses and dragons, fairytales and happily ever after’s. But a normal girl and her big dreams. See- life in itself is magical, mysterious, adventurousit’s beautiful. No- this is not a story about Princesses and dragons, fairytales and happily-ever-after’s. This is life.

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Beatrice was travelling on a suspenseful, pivotal journey on the train. She was reading a book...... ‘...men have spent years striving for the moon- that they fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet’. This triggered something in her mind. For as much as Beatrice didn't like to admit, for all her stubbornness, her feistiness, she was a reminiscer and a contemplator. Although she was a realist who lived very much in the present she figured that the key to life was in getting the balance between remembering and forgetting. You forget the hurt that causes you damage, holds grudges. But she figured that holding on to a little of that pain would help her to grow, to be better, and to not repeat the same mistakes again. So she started to think where it had all began.

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Beatrice had lived most of her life in boxes....well 2 boxes to be exact....her life equated to: 2.small.boxes. And she'd never bothered unpacking them. She tried once, but it wasn't but a few weeks till she had to put everything right back in there again. She'd been boxed around England, living in one foster home after the next. Everything was always so temporary and all those words like: security, stability, dependability- that the rest of the world equated to boringness, were the very comforts that she craved and were so desperately missing from her life.

She was orphaned after her mother had gotten sick from childbirth and died a few years after. And soon after that- her father had walked into the road and a HGV vehicle was passing and flattened him. Whether it was intentional or time & unforeseen occurrence was unknown to her and would always plague a little piece of her heart.

She was very young when this had happened and she only had one memory of her parents. And she held on to that with all that she could. Since then, Beatrice lived through her imagination and embellished just about everything with bells and frills and sparkles. Anyway... eventually after she had lived a lot of her childhood as no child ever should, when she was 13 and living in her 3rd orphanagethere was word that there was a couple who lived on a farm looking to adopt a child.

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The train jerked and Beatrice realized she had gone into a deep day dream and wondered if anyone around her had noticed- not that she really cared.

She thought of what a hard case she must have been when she first arrived at Poppy Cove Farm, she was a girl with grand dreams and a whole lot of feistiness, as well as her unintentional mistakes. She would make up wild stories and get carried away. Once while she was a regal duchess at a ball, she danced right into the very real glass ornaments and watched as they shattered into pieces to the ground. John and Ruth (the couple that had taken her in) were not happy and took a while to warm up to Beatrice’s unique ways. Another time, another story later while she was on a deserted island- she lost the family dog Jack and the whole village had to go help look for him, someone lost their child in the process and they didn't find the dog till 2 weeks later.

So she came with her mishaps and sometimes her temper got the better of her too. Well a lot of the time people got the better of her- well a person.... Welll... James to be exact. The first time they met set the stage for what would be the most of their relationship. Alice introduced them to each other (Alice was Beatrice’s friend, for a while her only friend -because each other was all they really needed).

"This is Beatrice", Alice said to James.

"Nice to meet you Bea" he said with such assuredness and just enough innocent charm to get away with it..... Or so he thought. It may have worked for most girls.... but not for Beatrice... not today.

"Its Beatrice" she said firmly with calm fire in her eyes.

He looked at her, as if trying to make her out and perhaps usually he would have made some charming remark... but not today. But as time went on, whenever he did see her- at school, at the shops, at friend's houses- he still called her ‘Bea’. Her reaction would range anywhere from earth shattering volume (she did once scream so loud in his face that it's a modern day miracle that he has full hearing to this day) to deep mild annoyance, then he would call her ‘Beatrice’. Yes Beatrice often got herself in trouble from fights with James. He didn't understand why it made her react so strongly, maybe there was a part of him that liked that, it was a way to get her attention… well that was the way it began. But eventually it became a given that he would at least once refer to her as ‘Bea’ . He was the only one that dared even try to get away with it (some days he was braver than others) but also to others she was just- ‘Beatrice’. But to James, she was- ‘Bea’.

Funnily enough though, that was one of the only things that he went against Beatrice on, he actually admired her and would often agree with her, take her side, defend her- which only annoyed her even more and fuelled the fire. Well she was the fire, he was just the wood that got burned.

Her home life gave her a little more stability though, it wasn't always apparent but they were what she needed. Ruth and John were very kind to Beatrice- from the very beginning, in the way that they knew how.

They knew of Beatrice’s sad past and they didn't want her to experience any more pain but... They had never been parents before. They had not been shown the warmth and love that they wanted to give out and they weren't quite sure how to put it into practice.

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Beatrice smiled as she remembered the time she lost her homework on the way to school.... the homework was on her favourite subject- dramatic story writing. She was dancing on her way to school along the river bank, wind through her hair, acting it all out and lo and behold she wasn't holding onto the paper very tightly, a great big gust of wind came and blew it out of her hand... as it travelled... eventually landing in the river, floating away and dissolving into pieces.. right before her very eyes. After explaining to Mr Lee- the teacher what had happened in her usual elaborately dramatized way, he had no sympathy for her whatsoever and despite all her 'But Mrrrrr Leeee’s' and desperately trying to defend herself, he did not believe her. And he gave her detention after school had finished-so she had to stay late writing sentences, cleaning blackboards, sharpening pencils, organizing books. She ran home as fast as she could, John was in his usual spot in his burgundy red rocking chair by the fireplace. But Ruth was waiting by the door, hand on hip, tapping her fingers angrily and was NOT happy.

"And where miss, have you been?".

Beatrice began to splurt out all what happened to her that day, her great and grand injustice, before Ruth interrupted her-

"Beatrice I don't want to hear it!! You can make all the excuses in this world but I don't want to hear ANY more lies!"

"Buuuuut....."

"NO I don't want to hear it!" Ruth would not listen to reason! Beatrice turned to John, but he just looked at her with disappointment in his eyes. He wanted to believe her, he did. But her story was just so far fetched. "Sorry Beatrice", he said , "but you have to learn to tell the truth at all times".

"You have to learn to get your head out of the clouds Beatrice". Ruth leaves and comes back with a book and a pencil, inside it she writes something inside, she hands it over to Beatrice- it reads 'I will always tell the plain, simple truth'. "You must write this sentence over and over until you complete the whole book, you will come home straight from school every day to do it after your chores, no playing with friends, no other activities until you finish it. Maybe you will one day learn the value of honesty, we can't trust you until you do".

Beatrice wanted to protest but instead felt more like crying, she was hurt. So that's how the day would go, chores, school, straight home to do chores, homework, writing and then bed.

Some days later- Ruth was shopping in the local market, buying her essentials. Mrs Robinson came waddling up to her (she was a hefty woman)

- "Oh your Beatrice is a curious thing isn't she??! I see her in the morning dancing off to school, although not so much lately come to think of it, but oh one morning she was dancing along the river bank and then the poor thing... it was so windy she had a piece of paper that flew into the river and she almost went in after it, I could tell... she had that look in her eyes, kind of like the one in my Ruby's eyes when she's up to no good, I couldn't believ........". Her words faded as Ruth suddenly felt like she'd been hit with a brick, the brick of regret, the brick of painful realisation. She said her slightly on the edge of rude ‘goodbyes’, quickly paid for her things and hurried her way home-

"John we've made a terrible mistake ".

Beatrice smiled as she remembered the day she will never forget, she will never forget coming home that day and the 2 guilty faces she saw sat at the kitchen table as they told her of their grievous mistake.

"Why didn't you tell us??” they said.

"Because you didn't let me, you didn't listen to me... I couldn't explain".

Ruth and John looked at this beautiful, disappointed girl standing before them and they didn't have to say anything, even think anything. They just knew that their only option was the pure, simple un-tampered-with truth.

"Beatrice... sit down. See... Uh... Uh..." , John started nervously as he entered the unchartered territory of raw honesty. "See the way we grew up... we were brought up proper.... but uhh....our fathers didn't bounce us on their knees when we were youngins, they didn't kiss us goodnight before bed". So with that they spoke not with words that reached ears, but with hearts that spoke straight to hearts.

And the truth is: that Ruth and John both came with their individually sad childhoods. John's father was a good man before parenthood but then after- would often go home intoxicated and would abuse John's mother. She often carried secret wounds and secret bruises. Year after year John’s father would promise that he’d change- but he never did. And that's how little John and little Ruthie met; their father's were drinking buddies at the local village pub. They saw each other through all their sadness’s. John helped search for Ruth's father when he went missing while he was drunk (no one else could know such things that made a family seem less than respectable) and when John's mother's frail body gave out because it could take no more, Ruth was there and she would cook and take meals for the family. They bonded over their sadness’s, but perhaps that was the problem. They didn't know how to bond over happiness.

But they were always there for each other. So eventually- they decided that they wanted to be there for each other for always. So they married. They were grateful for the good things they were taught, how to look after a house, how to be respectful, how to earn a living. They grew up in a time and place when you were grateful for any ounce of positivity, no matter how much was laced with sadness.

John continued, "We want to raise you proper.... but we also know that a child needs... love..... But we don’t...quite know.... how......”

Beatrice starts to speak..."I...."

John starts to speak at the same time...”We....e”.

Ruth chips in..."John let her speak".

They both turn to Beatrice.

"It seems to me", Beatrice begins. "That people always want to do things differently, better to how they grew up, but then they have kids and the same circle happens again... and nothing changes! But what if... someone had the courage to make just one, small, simple change. Even if just one person had the courage to make that change, to BE that change...?”

"How about three people?” John says. "We can't promise that we'll be perfect, but we want to try if you will."

Beatrice smiled. And with that she puts one hand in John's and the other hand in Ruth's and then they put their hands in each others.

"Hooow about we start with, if someone finds something out about the other one, we will ALWAYS ask each other first - and not just assume", Ruth suggests.

"I know I know one, I’ll read you both a bedtime story every night before bed", Beatrice was excited about that one.

And so it started, small but sure enough they began making their list of their own family changes they wanted to make. Their very own, new beginning.

And sure enough it wasn't perfect, as no family ever is-but somehow all their broken pieces fit together to create a new kind of perfect. And gradually, little by little- everything flowed a little more naturally. Awkward silences turned into laughter, 'goodbyes' turned into 'love youuu's', quiet evenings turned into game nights, 'good nights' turned into bedtime stories, the house started to feel more like a home and the people felt more like a family. They were people learning to be parents and she was and orphan- learning to be a daughter. And eventually they did learn, they learned better than most.

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There was a whole lot of learning, but a relationship that didn't have to be learned was Beatrice’s friendship with Alice- theirs was just one that flowed right from the second they met. They weren't the same type of person, they weren't good at the same things, they didn't have the same kind of families (Alice had 4 sisters and young parents). But that was the beauty of them. They learned from each other, they found each other intriguing and found love through their differences. Alice would teach Beatrice to sew while Beatrice would teach Alice to fish. Alice would teach Beatrice to do her hair and Beatrice would teach Alice to climb trees. And so it went... They would go from being young and having teddy bear picnics to going growing a little older and going for afternoon tea and scones. They would defend each other through the worst of times; they stood by each other through the saddest and went through the happiest of times together too. They didn't have to try. They just were and always would be.

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Old man Sticklewood was always an un-liked personality, a lot of the children in the village were afraid of him and a lot of adults didn't even like dealing with him.

Beatrice though, liked the misunderstood. She felt like everybody was human and that any unpleasantness was just an outer layer, a veneer. She saw that what really hurt, what really tormented people were the very things unspoken. Because of her impetuously fiery side, she didn't always find this easy and she’d made a few dozen failed attempts to befriend Mr Sticklewood. But. One day when she was a little older someone would remind her- "use that heart of yours to: ask why?".

So Beatrice liked to observe him, to try and see beneath that surface. But see... what people know about someone and what they don't know can very often be the difference. People knew that he was old, had creaking bones and a heart that had been beating for not far off a century long. They even knew of the war he went through, the prisons he must have endured. Pain is a funny thing, some pain is momentary, some pain stays with you always and leaves a mark on your heart that never fully fades. And then some pain changes you forever. Also... pain is relative to everyone as an individual, we all have our own scars and different things that wound us.

So one day, Beatrice felt lovingly courageous. "What is one of the things that makes you the saddest?"

This question struck old man Sticklewood; no one had dared ask such a thing. Least of all a young, bright eyed girl, who had not lived but an ounce of life yet.

“The sun " , Mr Sticklewood replied.

"The sun?"

"The sun".

Stay tuned for PART 2!!