The Princess and the Hoffmouse

A fairytale inspired by the Hoffman Process, about a mouse rescuing a princess

Once upon a time, to a castle of locked doors and lonely humans, there came a mouse.

Her name was Poff and she had work to do.

The castle was a gargantuan fortress encircled by walls so thick no sound dared enter, so tall their shadows engulfed the surrounding woods in darkness. A tower rose from the heart of the fortress like a claw, jabbing at the sun as it came down in the evenings so that it seemed to bleed. But thick walls and tall towers are nothing to a mouse. There are cracks; there are hollows and tunnels. There is always a way through. Even an ordinary mouse can get in and out of a fort – and Poff was no ordinary mouse. She was a Hoffmouse.

She started by visiting the King’s room. He was sitting at a wide desk, counting coins. Gold glowed in the candlelight and black were the sockets of his eyes. Patiently, Poff watched as, for hours, the King counted all the coins. He made a note of the total, stood up, stretched, and took a step towards the door. A frown came over his face and for a moment, he was lost in thought. Then he turned, sat back down, and started to count the coins all over again. Poff scuttled out under the door. She headed a little way down the stone corridor to the Queen’s room. Passing through a tiny crack in the wall, she saw the Queen, turning slowly in front of a mirror in a magnificent ball dress, night-blue satin laced with diamonds. The Queen struck a few poses before carefully taking off her dress. She disappeared into the shadows at the right of the mirror, and emerged an instant later with another dress, the colour of burnished gold and studded with emeralds. She put the dress on and again, struck a few poses. And the ritual repeated itself again, and again, until the little mouse’s eyes grew tired and she padded away. Scuttling along the bottom of the stair rails, she made her way down to the kitchen, there to lay under a stone by the fireplace. it was nice and warm. What a lot of work there was to do, thought Poff as she faded off to sleep.

In the morning, she found a biscuit on the floor, right next to her. It was only when she’d nibbled all the way through it that she saw the cook. Crouching behind a worktable, he’d been watching her all the time. She froze. He threw a crumb towards her and grinned.

“Dear little mouse, your love for biscuits is inspiring. I, too, love biscuits. You and I shall be friends. My name is Gustavo and I will not hurt you, little one.”

He knelt down and offered Poff another biscuit. With the greatest satisfaction, he watched her gobble up the whole thing. “I am going up the tower now,” he told her. “That is where the Princess lives. It is not easy for me to get there.”

Poff followed him as he left the kitchen and stomped down the hall to a spiral staircase. Up he went, on and on, around and around, and up, up, up, up, with Poff at his heels. With frequent rest breaks, he somehow made it all the way to the top. There, he dropped onto the ground and wheezed for a long time.

Beside him was a metal door, on which there were five locks, the lowest of which was on a hatch, a little above mouse eye-level. Once he’d gotten his breath back, Gustavo knocked twice and, in his gruffest, deepest voice growled,

“Food!”

Then he reached into the depths of his jacket and drew out a covered bowl made of tin. Setting it on the ground, he brought out a jangling set of keys from another pocket. He picked the smallest one out, fitted it into the hatch lock, and took a deep breath. Then, in a single action, he turned it, slid the hatch open, pushed the bowl in, snapped the door shut, and locked it up again.

“Dangerous job, this,” he said, wiping his brow. 

Poff looked at Gustavo with what seemed, strangely, a hint of disgust. She then took a run-up, launched herself at the hatch, and bounced right off. He stared at her. She rubbed her nose.

“I didn’t take you for a suicidal mouse,” he said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Poff glared at him and launched herself at the hatch again. Again, she bounced off.

“A mad mouse.”

Poff positioned herself for another assault.

“You really want to get in, huh?” Gustavo sighed. “Alright. Who am I to question a little creature? Just don’t tell the Queen.” He unlocked the hatch and slid it open. Poff jumped through instantly.

“Aren’t you a brave one… Fine then. I’ll leave it open for you… Risky though… Oh well, good luck! Rather you than me, though I tell you," Gustavo went on muttering to himself, his voice receding as he stomped back down the stairs.

It was pitch dark inside the cell, and there was not a sound. The smell of soupwas strong. But there was something else – she sniffed – something damp, beyond the dampness of the cell. She sniffed again – aha! – a well-known scent: tears.

From the far corner came the faint sound of breathing. Edging along the walls, the mouse found her way over to the shadow of a person on the floor. As Poff’s eyes got used to the darkness, she saw it was a little girl, hunched into a ball, her head tucked between her knees. Suddenly the child lifted her head and saw the mouse.

“Go away,” she said. “Leave me alone.”

Poff stared at the little girl. In the gloom, she could only make out big eyes in a forest of hair. Poff shuffled closer for a better look.

Shrieking, the girl took a swipe at her.

“Why don’t you leave, you creepy little crawly? What do you want from me?!” she yelled

angrily. “I have nothing to give you! I hate mice!”

At that, Poff padded away and slipped out through the hatch.

A moment later, she was back, dragging a biscuit She laid it at the girl’s feet.

The child grabbed it immediately and munched it up. It tasted so good she forgot about the mouse for a moment. When she looked up, the mouse was gone.

In the night, Poff went exploring. Along the ramparts she went, and up the vines that climbed the tower, and in through the arrow slit.

The sun was rising. A strip of light slanted in and streaked across the floor of the cell. In its path lay a child, asleep on a mat. She had the most beautiful face that Poff had ever seen. Her golden-brown locks cascaded all around, like the most luxurious of beds. Poff tiptoed over and put down the burden she’d been carrying in her mouth all this way. It was a chocolate she had stolen from the Queen’s private boudoir.

She scampered away and hid behind a jar in the corner of the cell.

After a while, the girl woke up. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. Halfway through the yawn she froze, as she caught sight of the chocolate. With her mouth still wide open, she picked it up and took a closer look. She looked around. Nobody there. Strange. She closed her eyes for a moment and opened them again. The chocolate was still there. Slowly she unwrapped it. She held it to her nose. A smell from eons ago. From a land of dreams. A cosy smell, enveloping her like a warm hug. She put the chocolate in her mouth and closed her eyes.

Then, all of a sudden, she stood up and skipped around the cell, singing an old song from a lost drawer of her memory. She went over to the arrow slit, and peering into the brightness, chirped out the entire chorus.

Then she did something odd. Walking over the wall that faced the slit, the brightest wall of the cell, she began to scratch at it with her fingernail. Poff looked on in wonder. The girl kept scratching and scratching at the wall. Poff thought perhaps she was trying to dig herself out.

Eventually, the girl stood back from the wall. She gave a gleeful squeak and clapped her hands. As the child stepped away, Poff saw that there were markings on the wall. It was a picture.

The girl had drawn a bird. A glorious bird, soaring on lofty wings.

 “Do you like it?” asked the little girl. “It’s a fire bird. They burn themselves up and then rise out of the ashes even more beautiful than before. My name’s Nadia, by the way. I forgot it until now. I am a princess.”

The next day, Poff brought Nadia a blue chalk. The next, a pink one. And then a yellow, a green, and a red. And so on, until the princess had a full set of coloured chalks, and by then, the cell walls were covered in pictures.

Fantastic worlds sprouted all around; majestic trees in spreading their limbs through intricate forests that swarmed with naughty monkeys, goggle-eyed snakes, rainbow snails and all kinds of winged creatures; black seas splattered with white as they raged, before giving way to turquoise shallows that sighed onto sand; deserts of gold, shimmering in lazy curves that stretched sleepily into deep blue under the cold light of the moon. Then, there were circles and squares, triangles, pentagons and stars, and every shape known and unknown in a strange kind of ordered disorder. After that, came the dragons on bright red wings, not breathing fire but grinning with evil, their teeth sharp and yellow – the Queen, a dragon herself, led the pack, and her mouth dripped with blood. And she took the shape of many creatures, twisted and clawed, always with the same face: the hideous beak nose, the ravenous mouth, the arched eyebrows slanting together in thunderous anger, until every inch of the walls was covered, and the princess’s fingers cramped up.

Still Poff climbed up and down again, no longer bringing chalks, but paints of every hue. One by one, the colours came, and went, and the Queen began to fade away, and the worlds on the wall morphed into other worlds, and Nadia’s fingers grew stronger, and her mind became clear, and her heart was full.

Nadia’s heart was full of something she vaguely remembered from long ago. For years, she had lain on the ground, hugging her knees in the darkness, while each day the Queen delivered a bowl of food and a lungful of spite. The little princess had grown so sick with fear, she could hardly move, hardly utter a breath. Ever so still, ever so silent, she lay as the darkness whispered and roared about her ears.

But now, she felt different. Sometimes, especially after drawing for hours, she was so full of this something that she felt she would burst. What was it? What was this feeling, exploding inside of her?

And now, Nadia’s paintings began to glow. Even in the darkness, they shone. At night, the cell became a web of fluorescent lights, swimming with blues and greens, shot with streaks of gold or sparkling with silver; like a dream, strange and ever-changing, the princess’ little world would come alive.

One morning, Poff arrived and found the walls bare. The pictures were gone. The stone wall lay naked. Nadia stood in the middle of the room with her eyes shut. She had a piece of blue chalk in her hand. She was humming quietly.

It was an ancient melody, one that mothers have sung to their babies since the dawn of time. When the princess came to the end of her song, she was quiet. She stood very, very still.

Poff stood still too. She sniffed the air. It crackled.

With her eyes shut, the princess walked to the wall. With her eyes shut, she lifted her hand and began to draw. Ever so slowly, with her eyes shut, she drew a horizontal line at shoulder height, about a metre in length. Then she drew a line exactly parallel to it, at knee height. After that, she drew a vertical line joining both of them on the left side, and another on the right side. Without opening her eyes, she had drawn a perfect rectangle. Next, slowly and deliberately, she coloured it in solid blue. When the chalk was entirely used up, the rectangle was entirely blue. That is when she opened her eyes.

Poff held her breath.

Nadia looked at the rectangle, and the blue was the sky. She took a step forward and put her hand out into the blue. Her hand went right through. She leaned out a little, shrieked, and threw herself backwards again. She tripped and fell over backwards.

Sitting up on the floor, she pointed at the rectangle, and in a hoarse voice gasped,

“It’s a window!”

A gust of wind came through.

“It’s cold!”

The wind blew her hair into her face.

“It smells like – grass! Trees! Spring!”

Poff ran to the wall with the window and looked back at the princess, and the princess crawled right over to the mouse and looked her straight in the eye:

“You don’t look surprised at all,” she said. “What kind of a mouse are you, really? You know, I think you’ve been planning something like this all along…”

Poff winked. Or did she?

Picking the mouse up in her hands, Nadia cautiously edged over to the window and they both peered out.

The crisp blue sky seemed to smile down on the forest below. The trees rippled in the breeze, stretching away in all directions, as far as the eye could see. Nadia’s eyes had hardly ever been able to look as far as they could see. She’d only seen a narrow patch of the outside world before, through the arrow slit, one eye at a time. The wide, open sky beckoned to her and she yearned to fly right out into it.

“If only I had wings,” she sighed.

She looked down. A vast emptiness gaped below, threatening to suck her in. Her heart leapt into her throat.

As she stepped back in horror, Poff jumped out of her hands and landed squarely on the windowsill.

“What are you doing?” cried Nadia. “You’ll fall! Come back!” Poff scuttled along the windowsill and disappeared. “Nooooo!” howled Nadia, bounding forward.

But the mouse had not fallen. She was scuttling along a drainpipe that ran along the wall just below the windowsill. Nadia watched her dash all the way to a little platform sticking out from the stone wall. Under the platform, a ladder ran all the way to the ground. An emergency ladder, red with rust, bolted into the stone.

It was a very, very long way down.

Standing on the platform, the little mouse stared back at Nadia.

“Don’t give me that look,” said Nadia. “I’m not doing it. That drainpipe will never hold my weight. You can forget it.”

She turned away from the window and stepped back into the darkness of her cell. Now, she could see nothing at all. Her eyes had gotten used to the light.

It was at this precise moment that she realised there was no going back. Enough of the darkness. It was now or never.

Nadia turned back to the window.

“Whatever happens, let it happen,” she said to herself, as she carefully pulled herself up onto the windowsill.

Taking a deep breath, she stood up, and quickly turned away from the void to face the wall. Now, she could see handholds: there was a ledge running about head-high above. Gripping the ledge with her fingers, she took a first step sideways, to the edge of the windowsill. She put a foot out onto the pipe. It seemed stable enough. She put the other foot on. Now all her weight was on the pipe. It seemed to hold.

“Don’t look down,” she thought, and looked down. The void rushed up at her and almost swallowed her there and then.

She shut her eyes.

“Do not do that again.”

She took a step away from the windowsill. Another step. There was a long way to go. On the platform, Poff waited, still and impossibly calm. A warm calm, a wave of calm. Nadia took one more step.

“Little by little,” she thought to herself. “One step at a time.”

Then, she heard – felt – a crack. Her heart once again jumped into her throat and bounded around in there, as she stood, paralyzed, clutching the ledge, eyes tight shut, waiting for the inevitable – waiting for the fall. The abyss below, yawning below her feet… She would tumble to her death, splatter on the ground…

She heard a squeak, and opening one eye, caught sight of Poff at her feet. Suddenly the squeaks turned to words in Nadia’s ears:

“Go! Go now! Trust me! Follow me!”

With that, the mouse ran full pelt towards the platform again. The drainpipe gave another shudder.

Nadia felt her body come to life, and suddenly her arms and legs were moving with a speed and agility she never knew they had. The pipe cracked behind her as she went, and just as she reached the platform the whole thing tumbled to the ground, shattering to pieces.

Nadia collapsed face-first on the platform, shaking and panting. The cold stone felt wonderfully solid. After a while, she rolled over onto her back and gazed up at the sky. Bright blue, all around and everywhere. No walls. She put her hands up above her head and imagined she was flying.

Poff gave a little squeak, which clearly meant,

“That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”

Overcome with sudden rage, the princess turned to Poff with a yell – but it died in her throat.

The mouse looked so little, and so ridiculously smug, that all of Nadia’s anger and fear melted away.

The yell turned to a burst of laughter. Hysterically the princess laughed, and laughed and laughed, and the tears ran down her cheeks like years of pain pouring away into streams of relief and hope.

When she recovered, Nadia picked Poff up and tenderly set her on her right shoulder.

“Here we go,” she said, as she started down the ladder.

With the mouse on her shoulder, Nadia felt safe. She got all the way down the tower in no time at all. As she jumped from the last rung, the whole earth seemed to rise towards her with a tender embrace.

The ground beneath her feet felt – just right.

Nadia looked up at the tower. Diminishing to needle point in the far distance, it seemed to vanish into thin air.

Could there really be a dark cell at the top? No: impossible.

The cell popped out of existence. Nadia turned her back on the tower.

“Into the woods we go,” she said to Poff. “Will you guide me through?”

Sitting tight on Nadia’s right shoulder, Poff gave a firm nod.

Away they went, under the wide blue sky.