The Tale of Despereaux

In the pantry, Despereaux weeps out of pain and relief at his unlikely survival. He falls asleep as the sun sets and dreams of its light morphing into a knight. He watches the knight swordfight the surrounding darkness—which manifests as his parents, then the brother who led him to his death, and finally, a rat. Despereaux asks the knight who he is—if he is salvation. The knight says Despereaux already knows the answer, but when the mouse inches closer, the armor is empty. Seeing the empty suit leads Despereaux to believe that he doesn’t exist: “it’s all just make-believe, like happily ever after” (182).

While Despereaux sleeps, Roscuro implements his plan. First, he chews Gregory’s rope so the jailer will get lost in the dungeon. Next, he arms Mig with a knife, and the two sneak into Pea’s room in the middle of the night. They go over Roscuro’s plan: Mig will threaten Pea with the knife but not hurt her. She will lead the princess on a “little journey” to the dungeon. Mig believes Roscuro’s lie—that they will swap the two girls’ duties and outfits to make the former a princess. The narrator offers insight into Roscuro and Mig’s thoughts—the latter wanting her dream so badly that she convinced herself of the ridiculous plan. Roscuro’s real plan is to chain the princess in the dungeon, keeping her in the dark forever.

Pea dreams of her mother offering her a spoonful of soup when she is suddenly woken up by Mig brandishing a knife. She starts to protest, and Mig explains too much of the plan. Roscuro reveals himself to the princess and threatens to have Mig use the knife as he is in charge. He taunts the princess, asking if she recognizes him as the rat who killed the queen. Roscuro tells Pea to put on her banquet gown and crown; he crawls up her back to fasten her buttons. Pea licks her lips, still remembering her dream, and quietly promises her mother she has “not forgotten soup” (194).

The trio marches silently through the castle with the tip of Mig’s knife pressed against Pea’s back. The princess reflects on her hatred for the rat who killed her mother, and the sorrow left behind. She empathizes with Mig, because she realizes the poor girl wants to be a princess so badly, she allowed herself to be misled.

When Despereaux wakes from his dream of the knight, he realizes he is too late to save Pea from being taken. Cook frantically searches for Miggery Sow and yells that Gregory lost his way in the dungeon and died. Cook starts to cry that they can’t even comfort themselves with soup since it is illegal. Despereaux hears Cook cry, “They’ve taken our little darling away. There ain’t nothing left to live for without the princess” (202). Despereaux empathizes with Cook and looks for the king.

On his way to find the king, Despereaux stumbles into a Mouse Council meeting. Because he is covered in flour from the pantry and his red thread resembles a trail of blood, the mice think he is a ghost. Lester calls out to his son and admits that he dreams about his sentencing every night. He pleads for forgiveness. Despereaux grants it, “because he sensed that it was the only way to save his own heart, to stop it from breaking in two” (208). Despereaux then turns to the Council and demands that they repent—but he is met with silence. He realizes that there is no point in arguing, because “he knew things that they would never know; what they thought of him, he realized, did not matter, not at all” (208). A stunned Council unanimously votes to forget the ghostly visit. Lester cries at having been forgiven.

Despereaux finds the king in Pea’s room, crying for his missing daughter and beating his chest with his crown. Though frightened, Despereaux speaks up, saying he knows where Pea is. The king is dubious, saying that a mouse is one step removed from a rat. He clamps his hands over his ears when Despereaux reveals Pea’s location, calling the mouse a lying, thieving rodent. Despereaux tries to explain Pea’s capture by Roscuro, but the king responds that rats are illegal—and therefore, do not exist. He says he hired a magician from a distant land to help. The mouse has an epiphany, thinking that the knight from his dream may be himself. Resolved to become the hero the princess needs, he goes to find the threadmaster.

The threadmaster recognizes Despereaux, who shares his plan to save the princess with a spool of red thread. Convinced, the threadmaster ties thread around the small mouse’s waist and gives him a makeshift needle-sword. Despereaux learns the other mouse’s name: Hovis. He says Despereaux is justified in his quest because he chooses to face danger. Emboldened by Hovis’s words, Despereaux leaves for the dungeon.

Despereaux pushes the spool of thread throughout the castle. By the time he reaches the kitchen, he is shaking with exhaustion. He gains a second wind upon remembering Hovis’s faith in his quest—but stops when he sees Cook making illegal soup. He takes a deep breath and pushes the spool forward. Cook turns around at the sound.

Seeing no one, Cook returns to her soup, and a breeze carries the delicious smell over to Despereaux. The smell gives him some strength, and he attempts to sneak by Cook again. She spots Despereaux—but to his surprise, she bursts into laughter, relieved that the midnight intruder is a mouse instead of a soldier discovering her illicit soup. Despereaux is surprised that he feels hurt by Cook’s laughter rather than grateful she is in no mood to kill him.

Cook tells Despereaux to take this opportunity to leave, but he is lured by the soup. In a moment of empathy, Cook brings Despereaux a ladle of soup because “There ain’t no point in making soup unless others eat it” (232). The soup is the same as that of the banquet—chicken, garlic, and watercress—and Despereaux reports that it is delicious. He tells Cook of his quest to save the princess, and she laughs at the ridiculousness of it—but wishes him luck nonetheless.

The dungeon is darker and smellier than Despereaux remembers, but the soup in his belly and the love in his heart propel him. He decides to tell himself a story: “I will make some light” (237). He tells his own story, that of a mouse who saves a princess from a dastardly rat with a spool of thread. Suddenly, he loses control of the spool and it goes tumbling into the darkness, spinning wildly until it settles at the foot of the rat Botticelli Remorso.

A terrified Despereaux pushes on. Following the thread, he comes across Botticelli, who hints that he knows Pea’s location. Botticelli promises to show Despereaux the way out of the goodness of his heart, but he intends to kill him once he is seasoned with tears and “thwarted love” (244). Despereaux feels uneasy, but holds on to Botticelli’s tail as he leads him further into the darkness.

As Despereaux follows Botticelli into the dungeon’s maze, he sees the bones and loops of red thread of mice who died. A parade of rats begins to follow the pair. Botticelli protects Despereaux from the crowd by claiming him as his own prize. Despereaux pleads for the rat to lead him to the princess, and Botticelli tells him to open his eyes and see the light ahead.

Prior to Despereaux’s arrival, Mig wears Pea’s crown—and Roscuro insults her. He orders Mig to enchain Pea, as he is condemning the princess to darkness like she did him years ago. A confused Mig asks if she will still be a princess after all is done, but Roscuro echoes the painful phrase, “No one cares what you want” (253). Mig cries, saying she wants her mother; Pea comforts her and says she wants her own mother too. Roscuro screams at Mig, but she refuses to do as he says. Roscuro says that if the girls kill him, they will never find their way out of the dungeon. At a standstill, the trio sits and waits until Botticelli arrives with a small mouse.

Despereaux shouts Pea’s name, and she shouts back. Roscuro blocks Despereaux; Mig swings her knife at Roscuro’s head and misses.

Roscuro screams, his tail severed by Mig’s knife. As the rat flinches, Despereaux points his sword at his heart. Botticelli laughs, and Despereaux pauses, knowing that “as a knight it was his duty to protect the princess. But would killing the rat really make the darkness go away?” (262). Roscuro smells the soup on Despereaux’s whiskers and is reminded of the banquet—of his social status, of a future without light. He cries, and the other rats jeer. Pea pleads with Despereaux not to kill Roscuro. Despite not liking Roscuro, Pea promises him soup if he leads the group out of the dungeon. He agrees, and they go upstairs to eat soup together.

Roscuro is eventually allowed access to the lit areas of the castle, albeit with a broken heart “mended in crooked ways” (266). He tells Pea of the prisoner with the red tablecloth, and Miggery Sow is reunited with her father, who treats her like a princess for the rest of his days. Despereaux and Pea remain close friends.