The Tale of Despereaux Chapter 37 Summary

A Small Taste

  • Princess Pea is sleeping in her bed and dreaming of her mother, the queen, who's offering her a taste of soup.
  • In the dream, she asks her mother for more soup, but then her mother disappears.
  • The princess wakes up to the sound of someone else's voice. She sees Mig in the dark, standing over her bed with a knife in her hand.
  • Mig tells her that she must come with them down to the dungeons if she doesn't want to get hurt, but the princess is stubborn. She tells Mig and Roscuro that they can't threaten her; she's a princess, after all.
  • Then she asks Mig if she would really hurt her. After all, aren't they friends? Didn't they just have a nice conversation that day?
  • Roscuro pops out and Princess Pea recognizes him as the rat that fell into her mother's soup bowl. She pretends not to remember him.
  • He forces her to put on her prettiest gown—the one that she wore at the banquet where her mother died—and her crown.
  • As Princess Pea is led away from her bedroom, she whispers that she hasn't forgotten her mother or soup.