The 'Real' Tale of Despereaux

By G. E. Shuman

“The Tale of Despereaux; being the story of a mouse, a princess, some soup, and a spool of thread.” This is how Wikipedia introduces its own description of the children’s’ classic novel by Kate DiCamillo. It is a great story, which has become a celebrated and award-winning film classic also. While being all of this, the reader must remember, it is only a novel… a fanciful story. The ‘real’ tale of Despereaux follows, for those who wish to read on.
The story begins on a sunny summer afternoon, in this very year, as a matter of fact. The lady and her family had just finished dining at a popular local restaurant, and they, together, were walking, slowly and full of rice and noodles, to their vehicle. As the family approached their awaiting conveyance, the lady’s husband happened to notice a small, strangely-shaped ‘something,’ on the ground, in the open space directly ahead of them. His first thought was that this was a stray gray rock, standing a bit up on end, right in the middle of an empty parking spot. As the family moved closer to the spot, and to their vehicle, the husband looked down and simply said: “Hum. Look at that.”
“It’s a BABY!” His wife, the lady of the story, excitedly, and somewhat sorrowfully, exclaimed. “Oh! It’s just a BABY!” She said again, as she stooped down in front of the small creature. “It doesn’t even have it’s EYES open!” She continued. “What are we going to do with it?”
This reaction was all to the immediate surprise of her husband, who at first imagined his wife disgusted by the site of a mouse only a few spaces from their ride home. He soon realized that the creature he had pointed out to his family was not a mouse. It was a BABY mouse, and the difference between the two was, simply, the very difference between God and Satan… between good and evil, to the woman he had married.
The lady immediately picked up the infant creature, and escorted the entire family to the vehicle and then to a store to purchase something to keep the baby in; a nursery, or incubator of sorts, disguised as a clear plastic food container.
The infant, rodent-resident of planet earth, which, I suppose had as much right to life and breath as any other creature here, was immediately transported to the lady’s home, and cared for as any other infant would be. ‘He‘, named Despereaux by the lady’s proclamation, was fed warm milk through a dropper, and slept in a tiny, tissue-padded home under a warming piano lamp. All this, for four days and four nights. The baby was handled delicately, and the lady and her husband took turns holding the fragile one, as he held the tip of the dropper between very tiny hands.
The entire family, even the six-foot eight-inch basketball-playing teen son and his younger sister, watched the tiny fellow, hoping that he would grow, and survive. This was a hope that was not to be fulfilled. At about that fourth day, Despereaux opened his eyes and glimpsed the strange world around him for the first and only time. As that day ended in darkness, so did the tiny Despereaux.
During those previous days of care, the husband, who’s words you happen to be reading now, was somewhat taken by just how infinitely complicated even this tiny and, seemingly, worthless specimen of life really was. This creature, which, if an adult, it would be considered a good riddance to get him caught in a trap, was, during the lady’s care, just a helpless baby. The baby breathed, and ate, and slept, and woke, exactly as all babies do. ’He’ had a heart, and lungs, and stomach, and liver, and eyes, and ears… and everything else babies have, in the same number and relative size that all babies have, and was only attempting to live and to grow… once again… as all helpless babies do. The husband imagined that this, seemingly-disposable creature was infinitely more complex than the most advanced invention of man. And that ’he’ was alive, and even had the ability to sadden us when ’he’ was no longer.
It strikes me as terribly thoughtless, that we take such tiny creatures for granted, just as if we had designed them, or, in our wildest dreams, could ever imagine that we COULD design them, ourselves. Am I strange to feel this way? I do not know. I do know that the lady’s family learned all of this from the tiny, ‘real’ Despereaux.