So I bet all of y’all know the “Princess and the Pea” story when y’all were kids right? The one where the princess had trouble sleeping cuz of a pea under the mattresses and from that, she married the prince and lived happily ever after blah blah blah. Yeah, that story used the traditional “happily ever after” ending to make kids happy so that they wouldn’t have nightmares about reality. For those who ain’t old-schooled like me, y’all probably more familiar with the online version with the “happily ever after” ending but I was actually there when the whole “sleeping-on-a- pea-and-becoming-a-princess” thing all happened. My name is Wesley the Pea, but everyone calls me Wes, and I’m gonna tell y’all the true story of how I became famous. I know that a pea telling a story isn’t something that’ll strike anyone as amazing but I’ll see what I can do with what I know happened. So without further ado, here is the true story of the Princess and Me.

So there I was in the “Pea Jar” just chillin’ with my other pea friends. Everyone was squished together so that we were awkwardly pressed up against each other. We tried every way to get out but would have made the same progress without doing anything. One day, my friend, Jack said, “Yo Wes, why don’t we try and tilt around to make the jar fall?” I heard murmurs and nods of agreement and I didn’t have anything against it. I mean, what else are you supposed do when you’re bored over 9000?  All I wished for was to have room to roll around. Everyone tilted to one side and then the other and I couldn’t describe how stupid we looked even though we were making progress. When we were tilting around, I saw the Queen open the door and let a cloaked figure slip in from the raging storm outside. The stranger took off her hood and said, “I am a real princess.” The Queen gave her a nod and welcomed her in.

While the girl was being washed, I saw a dangerous glint in the Queen’s eyes, “We’ll see if you are a real princess or not.” She ordered some servants to get twenty mattresses and twenty featherbeds for the girl to sleep on. She then called the prince and told him, “You saw the fine lady who just came in right,” the prince nodded, “so what do you think of her?” After a brief moment, the prince simply answered, “I like her.” Everyone in the jar gasped when we heard this from the prince because he was extremely picky about his wife’s qualities that he can even point out the most pettiest ones. “Then, go into the kitchen and retrieve one pea, one single pea,” the Queen ordered him “and place it under all of the mattresses and featherbeds.” A quick note about the prince is that he is as clueless and he is picky so the Queen repeated, emphasized, and even wrote down the instructions on a piece of paper just so that he wouldn’t get lost in what he was doing. The Queen handed the prince the paper and he went straight to work. “I guess I just pick a pea from the jar,” the prince looked down at us “why a pea though?” His hand plunged into the jar and picked out some of us, “Hmm… which one?” Finally he narrowed it down to Jack and I “I guess I’ll choose this one,” and threw Jack back. Dude, this guy so petty. I thought to myself, At least I’m out.

I experienced the most miserable 24 seconds of my life with the prince complaining the whole way, “Why does Ma always treat me like I don’t know anything? Why, out of all things, a pea? What do I do with it again? Oh yeah, I have to put it under the stranger’s bed. Why is Ma doing this?” When we made it to the room, I saw an empty bed and the prince scratched his head, “Where are the mattresses and featherbeds? Do I put the pea on the bed or wait?” The prince walked around looking at the paper “I guess I’ll take a quick nap until they come in then,” he said as he laid down and before I knew it, my eyes were closing and I joined him.

I had the worst dream ever: I was surrounded by darkness and I felt something pushing me down. Everything was shaking as if I were in an earthquake and I heard groans all around me. Open eyes, come on! Open! But I couldn’t: I was already awake and I was under the twenty mattresses and featherbeds which was the bad news. The good news was that the earthquake from earlier was gone and I felt something cold. Suddenly, I heard a door open and the Queen asked the girl how she slept. “Terrible! I didn’t even get a wink of sleep last night, it was as if I were sleeping on a boulder!” The Queen squealed in joy and rushed out calling for the prince. After she rampaged around the castle, the Queen returned, “Did you happen to see the prince? I cannot find him anywhere!”

The next 13 minutes were absolute chaos with everyone flying around the house to find the prince. I don’t know about you guys but I actually began to respect the prince for being able to hide from everyone in a castle. I mean, it sounded like a battlefield outside with everyone bustling around. Luckily, it was a servant who was putting away the mattresses and featherbeds that found us. She screamed when she saw the prince on the bed, dead, with me in his left hand and everyone came over to mourn over the prince’s death. “How did it end like this? H-H-How–,” the Queen went down in tears as she held the prince in her arms. My guess was that the prince, being the “boss” that he is, slept the whole night and the servants didn’t see him and placed everything on top of him. Since the prince died, the Queen decided that the girl be the princess of the land even though it wasn’t clear if she felt me or the prince as the bump under her bed.

But the most important part of the story was that after the whole incident, I was the one who became famous. I was put on display at the museum on my very own stand with two guards protecting me. Everyone who saw me bowed down and began taking selfies with me which felt awesome considering that I did absolutely nothing and became famous in less than 24 hours. I wouldn’t complain about my status though because I didn’t have to stay packed with everyone in a little jar anymore, I had a whole museum to roll around in.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the true story of the Princess and Me.