The Tale of Despereaux: Book the Second

Reader, do you know the definition of the word “chiaroscuro”? If you look in your dictionary, you will find that it means the arrangement of light and dark, darkness and light together. Rats do not care for light. Roscuro’s parents were having a bit of fun when they named their son.

From that moment forward, Roscuro showed an abnormal, inordinate interest in illumination of all sorts.

He was always, in the darkness of the dungeon, on the lookout for light, the smallest glimmer, the tiniest shimmer.

His rat soul longed inexplicably for it; he began to think that light was the only thing that gave life meaning, and he despaired that there was so little of it to be had.

He finally voiced this sentiment to his friend, a very old one-eared rat named Botticelli Remorso.
“I think,” said Roscuro, “that the meaning of life is light.”

Botticelli wiped his eyes and shook his head and sighed a sigh of great contentment.

At that point, it is most effective to run back and forth over the prisoner's feet, inducing physical terror along with the emotional sort.

But as he stared up at the man, the door to the dungeon was suddenly flung open and a thick and brilliant shaft of afternoon light cut into the dark of the dungeon.

Who cares about the light? Your obsession with it is tiresome.

Mice are nothing but little packages of blood and bones, afraid of everything. They are despicable, laughable, the opposite of everything we strive to be.

Roscuro looked up, past Botticelli to the delicious sliver of light that shone out from underneath the door.

Go and take the red cloth from him. The cloth will satisfy your cravings for something from that world.

“I am,” said Roscuro, “exactly that. A rat. Allow me to congratulate you on your very astute powers of observation."

“I don’t need the company of a rat.”
“What about the solace a sympathetic ear can provide? Do you need that?”

He was not alarmed to hear of such a hideous thing. His parents, after all, had not much cared for him, and certainly, if there was any profit in it, they would have sold him.

"Allow me to ease your burden,” said Roscuro. He stood on his hind legs and bowed at the waist. “I will take this reminder of your sin from you,” he said.

Gregory the jailer and those who were consigned to his domain did not laugh or smile or clink glasses with the person sitting next to them.

He lifted his tail off the ground and held it at an angle and marched in time to the music the minstrels were playing on their guitars.

There was, in the banquet hall, a most beautiful and ornate chandelier.

They danced to the rhythm of the minstrels’ music, swaying back and forth, twinkling and beckoning.

Hanging by one paw, he swung back and forth, admiring the spectacle below him: the smells of the food, the sound of the music, and the light, the light, the light.

Rat.
In the middle of all that beauty, it immediately became clear that it was an extremely distasteful syllable.

And not until he heard it from the mouth of the princess did Roscuro realize that he did not like being a rat, that he did not want to be a rat. This revelation hit Roscuro with such force, that it made him lose his grip on the chandelier.

Cook’s love and admiration for the queen and her palate moved the broth that she concocted from the level of mere food to a high art.

Cook’s love and admiration for the queen and her palate moved the broth that she concocted from the level of mere food to a high art.

The soup was a masterwork, a delicate mingling of chicken, watercress, and garlic.

Roscuro, as he surfaced from the bottom of the queen's capacious bowl, could not help taking a few appreciative sips.

Reader, in the spirit of honesty, I must utter a difficult and unsavory truth: Rats are not beautiful creatures.

In response, the queen flung her spoon in the air and made an incredible noise, a noise that was in no way worthy of a queen, a noise somewhere between the neigh of a horse and the squeal of a pig, a noise that sounded something like this: neiggghhhhiiiinnnnkkkkkk.

And he saw that the princess was glaring at him. Her eyes were filled with disgust and anger.

There were, of course, dire consequences of Roscuro’s behavior.

The king’s men succeeded only in getting lost in the dungeon’s tortuous mazes.

Making soup illegal, outlawing rats, these things soothed the poor king's heart.

And as Roscuro worked and planned, the jailer Gregory held tight to his rope and made his own way through the darkness, and in a dank cell, the prisoner who had once had a red tablecloth and now had nothing, spent his days and nights weeping quietly.

And though she did not yet know it, she would be instrumental in helping the rat work his revenge.