The Princess

They sat at the kitchen table. Mom sipping tea, Cameron picking up a crayon and coloring … something. “So, what do you want to be for Halloween?” her mother asked.

Cam turned her paper over to start anew. “I want to be happy!”.

Enough to make her mother smile. But not enough to create a costume. “Well, you’ll be happy in lots of costumes. Which would you like to try?”

Cam closed her eyes. Imagined her story books beside her bed. She still liked Peppa Pig. Dora. Rosie Revere the Engineer. “A storybook princess,” she blurted out.

“Oooooh, good choice,” her mother said. “We can make a fancy-schmancy princess outfit. Does the princess in your story fly?”

“Yes. She flies on a dragon. But she’ll park it in our driveway on Halloween.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” her mother said. “Can you ask it not to breathe on our car so the paint doesn’t peel off?”

“Her dragon doesn’t breathe fire. It breathes a coconut smell.”

“Naturally,” her mother agreed.

“Mommy?”

“Yes, Princess?”

“Who will be my prince?”

“Maybe in your story, this is where you learn you don’t need a prince.”

“Oh, right. Because I’m already funny.”

Yes, her mother thought. That, you are.