The Princess and the Pea
Book Created and Written By:
Stephanie Edge, Clarissa Gosciej,
Jenica Hale, and Megan Swiss
Once upon a time there was a handsome prince who wanted nothing more than to marry a beautiful princess; but she had to be a real princess. The prince traveled far and wide, but he could not find the princess of his dreams. There were many princesses, but it was very tricky to figure out which princesses were real. There was always something not right about them. So the prince came home and was very sad, for he truly wanted nothing more than to find a true princess and fall in love with her.
One night a strong storm came from the West. The thunder shook the ground, the lightning flashed in the sky and the rain poured down in torrents. Suddenly a loud knock was heard at the front city gate, so the old King came down to unlock it.
At the gate stood a princess! But oh goodness! She was soaked from the rain and her hair covered most of her face due to the wind. The water ran from her head, down her dress and right down into the toes of her shoes. Her dress was ripped up the back and she was covered with leaves and twigs. And yet, she said to the King that she was a princess.
“Well, we will see if she is a real princess,” thought the old queen. But she didn’t say a word, instead she went into the guest bedroom, took off all of the bedding from the bedstead, and placed one single pea on the bottom. After she had done this, she took twenty mattresses and laid them down on top of the pea. After she had done this, she decided to add twenty eider-down beds on top of the twenty mattresses. “She will never even feel a thing, there is no way on Earth she is a real princess,” muttered the queen.
That whole night, the princess laid upon the large bed, stacked with mattresses and eider-down beds. The next morning at breakfast, the old Queen asked how the princess had slept.
“Oh, terribly!” the princess said. “I was hardly able to close my eyes all night! Heaven only knows there must have been something in the bed. I must have been laying on something to cause my body to be black and blue all over. I am in such pain, and I am still exhausted!”
Then they knew that the princess was a true princess, because through twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down beds, she had felt the pea.
No one but a real princess could be so sensitive.
So the prince now knew that the princess was a real princess, and he took her as his wife. The pea ended up in a museum. It can still be seen as long as no one has stolen it.
And that is how the prince found his true princess.
The End.