Nicholson Baker - The Everlasting Story of Nory

‘Oh, Shee,’ she said, ‘well, it’s spelled as She is normally spelled.’

‘And, and how is that?’ The girl looked a little scared.

‘Well, to be quite honest,’ the Princess said, ‘it could be spelled “she” but that’s probably not how it’s spelled. To be quite honest, I’ve never thought of it. I think I’d like it if you’d spell it, S-h-e-e. Notice the doubled e.’

‘Oh, right,’ the girl said, ‘Of course. And — what does an “e” look like?’

The Princess took the ruffled purse that the girl handed her and opened it up. In it she found the most beautiful notepad, with lovely marbled silk outside, and if you lifted the silk off there was beautiful Chinese paper, embroidered. ‘Do you like it?’

‘Oh yes,’ the girl said.

The princess wrote down a lovely ‘e’—the kind of ‘e’ that only princesses would learn how to write. It was a gorgeous letter. ‘That’s how I write it. But you know some people write it this way.’ She gripped her pen; it was a lovely quill pen, too — a blue one to match her outfit — and wrote a smaller ‘e,’ not as fancy.

It seemed ordinary to the girl. ‘Yes, yes, that’s the one I’d be able to write,’ she said.

‘Right,’ the princess nodded. ‘That’s the one that most people write. But impress people with this one,’ she said, pointing to the one that she’d drawn first. ‘It’s really fun. It makes you seem so royal,’ she said. ‘What would you like me to call you?’

‘Well, um, well, I think my last name is …’

‘Oh, come on, don’t tease me,’ the princess said laughing, with a whiff of her hand. ‘You have to have a name.’

Well, I, er, don’t,’ she said. ‘You see, I’m, um, er, call me, urn, Sorsumpon …’ She tried to make up a name. ‘That’s what you should call me.’

‘Where does that name come from?’ the princess asked.

‘Um — my brain,’ the girl said nodding. ‘I don’t have a name. I’m a servant, I’m a peasant girl, an orphan,’ she said. ‘And, well, I don’t have a name at all. I wish I did, though. If you’d like, I’ll tell you what I’d like to be — actually, I think what I’d like is, call me Sally. It’s a nice name, I like it. It’s the only one I know,’ she confessed.

Then she talked the grownup way, the way she loved to talk, the way that she didn’t talk when she was scared. The more mature way, not the scared, childish way, but the grownup way — she spoke: ‘Now would you care to have some fresh conkers cooked in the heat of the sun?’ she asked.

‘Oh,’ said the princess nodding. ‘I, I’d love to. But I must return to the castle. Please come with me. Oh, but wait, I can’t go in the dining room with my hair like this.’ She touched one of her beautiful curls. ‘I just can’t, I can’t go in with my hair curled. Oh, why can’t mine be straight like yours?’

‘I was just thinking why can’t mine be curly like yours?’ the girl said.

‘Oh, you wouldn’t want curly hair,’ the princess said. ‘You’d be too embarrassed to go into a dining room with it.’

‘I’ll switch hairstyles with you,’ said the girl. ‘I’ll tell you how I keep it down — because I used to have somewhat frilly hair — and you tell me how you keep it up.’

‘All right,’ said the princes. ‘I just tie it up every day with silk bows. Oh, but you wouldn’t have any, would you?’ And she handed the girl five silk bows, one blue, one red, and one TO BE CONTINUED.

The very next day two unusually wonderful things happened. First, Nory was the lucky getter of a letter. The mail in Threll was delivered by men on bicycles with big red packs strapped to their handlebars, and it came early in the morning, before breakfast-time. Littleguy brought the envelopes into the kitchen, saying ‘Mail livery! Mail livery!’ Nory’s father stopped singing to the microwave and said, ‘Something for you, Nory.’ She read it:

Dear Eleanor,

How are you? Ive been making lots of strange things with FIMO latley, including tarts pies and cakes. I miss you too. I wish I could pay a visit but that’s not even a possibilility. So when are you coming back? Ms. Beryl is moving away so Ms. Fisker is coming back, maybe!!! I won second place in the soccer turnemint. Love from your friend, Deborah.

‘Aw, that’s so nice,’ Nory said, folding the letter to herself. It made her suddenly strongly love Debbie and miss her, and made her think, ‘How could I be letting such a good friend trickle away from my thinking just because there’s so much going on here in England?’ She hummed Ji Gong, the song about the crazy monk, on the way to school, looking down at her feet and remembering every detail about Debbie and her panda collection, and she thought about going back to school at the International Chinese Montessori School, and of how fun it was to know Chinese and to be able to point out to her parents some Chinese characters on the sidewalk in Chinatown that said something like ‘Warning, telephone here’ in orange paint.

Then, Wonderful Event Number Two, at school: towards the end of the day, Mrs. Thirm came up to Nory outside and said, ‘I’d like to give you this.’ It was a small piece of paper with a seal on it and a signature.

‘Thank you,’ said Nory, not by any means grasping what it was all about.

‘It’s a Good Result for being kind to Pamela,’ Mrs. Thirm said.

Nory’s face got a totally flabbledigastered look of complete amazement on it. She said, ‘Wow, you’re kidding, thank you, thank you!’

Nory only knew a little bit about Good Results. A Good Result was one of the best possible things you could ever get at the Junior School, higher than getting an Excellent, and if you got five of them in a row, you got a gift certificate to buy a special book of your choice. Good Results weren’t too unusual, though, since quite a few of the girls had gotten them for different things, like for music or science projects or maths or handwriting. But still, Nory had never even come close to getting one, and she never knew that it was possible to get one for something like being nice to Pamela. She was standing in some mud in a dazzle-and-a-half of pure delight, when Mr. Pears came up to her and pointed to the piece of paper and sort of gave her a wink and said, ‘That’s my favorite kind of Good Result, for kindness.’

‘Thank you,’ Nory said. She was in a state of triumph, pleased out of her gourd, and she hopped up and down and told everyone who was nearby her, ‘I got my first Good Result, I got my first Good Result!’

‘Really?’ said Shelly Quettner. ‘What for?’

‘For being kind to Pamela,’ Nory said. But then she thought, ‘Oops,’ because it didn’t feel quite right to tell. On the other hand, she wanted to tell everyone, because it proved without a doubt that if you went against the bad things that kids were doing a good thing could unexpectedly happen to you when you least expect it. She ran over to Kira.

‘Kira, I got a Good Result for being nice to Pamela!’ she said.

‘You didn’t,’ said Kira.

‘Yes, I did,’ said Nory. ‘If you don’t believe me, look at this.’

Kira looked at the paper and got angry and said, ‘It’s not as good a Good Result as if you’d got one for a particular subject. Many people get those.’

‘No,’ said Nory. ‘Mr. Pears said that this was his favorite kind of Good Result. He seemed to think it was somewhat unusual. You’re jealous.’

‘I am not!’ said Kira.

‘You most certainly are!’ said Nory.

‘I most certainly am not!’ said Kira.

‘Okay, I’ll take your word for it, Kira,’ said Nory. ‘You’re not jealous.’