The Princess, the Puppet and the Car

by Sarah Bayen

 

When Princess was born she was given a body car, and she was happy. It took her a long time to get used to driving it; it took her a year to get it to walk, and even longer to learn how to make it talk. But she was happy.

Princess lived with her Mum and Dad, and her brother. Mum was another princess, but Dad and her brother were both other ones. Princess loved them all, and they loved her. She soon got very adept at driving her new body car, and was pleased with it. The only thing that seemed a little strange was that she wasn't allowed to decorate it in quite the same way as the other princesses. She couldn't understand why. Her body car looked very much like theirs. It had chubby little arms and legs, a head, and a round little body thing that held the rest together. But for some reason she couldn't do what the other princesses were allowed to do to make it look nice. She wasn't allowed to let its hair grow long, and certain clothes and colours were forbidden her. Her body car had its hair cut short, and wore plain and dull clothes. It also had a penis.

Princess didn't complain too much, or even ask for nicer decorations. It seemed to upset her mother for one thing, but overall she didn't complain because she was a good girl, and did what she was told. Her body car was healthy, and didn't break down very often. It could run and jump, and shout and sing, which she enjoyed. It seemed odd to her as she got older that the other princesses didn't want to play with her so much, and that if she did play with them, her Mum would get worried. Mum wanted her to play with the other ones, so, being good, Princess generally did.

Princess' brother's body car was not so healthy. It kept breaking down, and he was often in hospital. Princess was never allowed to visit him there, because she was too young. She was allowed to wave at him from the car park, and that was it. Then, one day, because his body car was so broken, God took her brother back, and the whole world changed.

She missed her brother, and was sad. She cried for a year. Mum cried even more. She cried so much that she had to go to hospital too, where they looked after people's minds and not their bodies. So while she was missing her brother so much, she had to miss her mother as well. She wasn't allowed to visit that hospital either; too young again! She didn't go out much, and Dad decided that they should move to another part of the country, so that they wouldn't be so sad. Princess thought that it wasn't really living in the same house where her brother had once lived that made them sad, but missing her brother and mother, but she wasn't allowed to talk about it.

Princess' old friends had known why she was crying so much. Once she and her Dad moved, her new friends had no idea, and told her that other ones shouldn't cry. Her Dad said it too. She shouldn't behave like a princess, she should behave like an other one. She tried, but it wasn't easy, and she didn't always succeed.

She wondered why her Dad wasn't missing her brother as much as she and her Mum were. She decided to look through the windows of his body car to see. What she saw surprised her. He was sitting in the back seat, crying as much as she was, if not more, but hiding from everyone else so that no one would see him. But who was driving the body car? She looked into the front seat and saw a puppet. Her Dad had made a puppet to drive his body car, so that no one would see that he was crying! He could control it from the back seat, and make it look as if the puppet was actually him, and was actually driving the car!

Then Princess had an idea. She could make a puppet too! She could make it drive her body car, and make it behave like an other one. Then people wouldn't find her so difficult to understand! People wouldn't even know she was there! It was a brilliant idea, and she set to work building the puppet, and refining it until it was perfect. She copied bits of her Dad, and bits of her brother, and even bits of her other one friends until the puppet looked perfect. She could make it behave exactly how she wanted, and of course, she was still driving the body car, except through the puppet.

Things got better for the Princess for a time after that. If she needed to cry, she could do so in the back seat, and no one ever knew! She missed the company of other princesses at first, but after a time, they began to talk to the puppet, and she could make it talk back to them. She still wanted to decorate her body car from time to time, and would occasionally drive it to her mother's closet, and put some nice stuff on it. She would stare at herself in the mirror, and smile.

What really made her happy was that some of the other ones began to let their hair grow longer, like princesses did. That was fantastic! She could have princess hair without anyone knowing she was a princess! She quickly let her body car's hair get longer, and, although her Dad occasionally made her cut it again, she managed to get it to look almost like a princess' hair.

Almost, but not quite. Princess began to notice that her body car didn't look quite so much like a princess' body car any more. Their cars were changing shape, as indeed was hers. But the changes were widening the gap, not narrowing it. The hair was just one thing. She had managed to let it grow long, without anyone really suspecting that she was a Princess, but it wasn't quite fine enough, or styled exactly right, to make the car look like a princess' car should. The car's feet weren't quite right either. They soon became too big to wear her mother's shoes, and wouldn't stop growing. The car's voice changed too. It didn't even sound like the voice of a princess' car any more.

She had to make the puppet seem pleased with this, and she managed quite well. But inside she was upset. She became withdrawn, and used the puppet more and more. Since she had built him, she had still occasionally pushed him to one side, and done some of the driving herself, when she was fairly sure no one would notice a princess was driving an other ones' car. Now, she only drove herself when she was decorating the car from her mother's wardrobe.

The other ones around her, and the other princesses, began to want to kiss each other. Princess was worried about this. She didn't want to kiss an other one. She didn't really like them much, not just to kiss, but even to be with. She pretended to, of course, or rather her puppet did, but deep inside, she didn't like them. Kissing princesses was difficult too. Her puppetry was good, but she worried whether it would be good enough to kiss a princess, without her realising that this car was being driven by a princess too. If you let people too close to your car, she knew, they would try and look through the windows.

One solace was the increasing willingness of the other princesses to talk to the puppet. They liked it. It was erudite and witty. They even liked the look of the body car, although the Princess did not. Some even noticed that the puppet seemed to know more about how princesses felt than most other ones. They liked that too. Princess knew that she had to be careful, but she smiled.

The other princesses would sometimes tease the puppet, and tell it that its car would look nice if it was decorated like a princess' car. Princess loved it when that happened. She would take over the driving, and lead the conversation on, all the while never admitting she was a princess herself. She learnt how to encourage the other princesses to tease the puppet like this. Sometimes there were parties, where it was okay for other ones to decorate their cars as if they were princess' cars. Princess liked those parties very much.

But most of the time Princess was sad. It seemed such a shame, and so unfair, that she wasn't allowed to let anyone know that she was there. She would have to live the rest of her life hiding in the back seat of the car, while her silly little puppet got all the praise for how it was driven.

Princess discovered alcohol. She was afraid of it at first. She thought that if she drunk too much of it, she would forget that the puppet was supposed to be driving, and reveal herself. It wasn't like that though. The puppet seemed impervious to the effects of drinking, while she, in the back seat sunk into its tender and analgesic embrace. She lived alone now, and had made the puppet drive to buy a few princessy things to decorate the car with when she was alone in her room. One day, coming out of days of analgesia, she went to the cupboard and discovered that the puppet had thrown away her princessy things. She was cross with it for that, and took a firmer hand in controlling its driving for a time.

Then came the special princess. She wanted the puppet to kiss her, and, the Princess knew that she would have to try. She was of an age now where the fact that her puppet didn't kiss princesses was attracting too much attention. She tried, nervous as she put the puppet through its motions, and, after a few hiccoughs, succeeded.

The special princess wanted to marry the puppet. Princess was in agony over this. It didn't seem fair to the special princess to let her marry the puppet, without letting her know that there was another princess in that body car. Very nervous, the Princess decided to reveal herself the other princess.

The special princess took the news much better than Princess had expected, and still wanted to get married. Princess was relieved, but a little bit worried that the special princess didn't really understand. She seemed to think that Princess was a puppet, and that the puppet was really the driver! But that seemed a small misunderstanding, and certainly not one worth rejecting a future at last.

Special princess didn't seem to mind Princess driving or decorating the car either, as long as she was careful Often, in the evenings, they would sit alone together, with both their cars decorated prettily, and kiss some more. They would go shopping, and, while Princess was careful that neighbours and shop keepers didn't know she was there, she was able to buy nice new decorations, and try them on in the evenings.

Not all was good however. Princess' car hadn't stopped changing. She saw a photograph of her car swimming one day, and noticed that its lovely, almost princess like hair, now had a hole in the back of it. The hole got bigger, as did the car. It looked less like a princess' car than it had ever done, with a huge broad chest, large arms, and body hair that increased in density and the area it covered every year. Even Princess noticed that using princessy decoration for her car didn't really make it look anything other than silly any more. She was sad.

When Princess was sad, she filled the car with alcohol. She did this a lot, as the hole in her hair grew and grew, until it looked less like a princess' hair, and more like a monk's.

Then the world changed again. The special princess told her that she didn't want her to decorate her car any more. She also said that the puppet should do all the driving. It was difficult, she said; it made her nervous of the neighbours, and made her feel less of a princess herself, if Princess was driving.

Princess felt so rejected. But Princess loved the special princess, and so she stopped decorating. This made her even more sad, and that made her drink even more alcohol. That made the special princess stop liking the puppet so much. Then the Princess bought a computer.

Gazing surreptitiously through the eyes of the puppet at the computer screen, and driving the fingers of the car, she learnt that she wasn't the only princess in the world who had been given the wrong car to drive. She read about other princesses like her, and how they had dealt with the problems it caused. Many of them had built puppets, and made them do things like other ones. Some had even let their puppets drive their cars to war!

Being not alone gave her hope and consolation, rare commodities in those dark days.

Then she decided. She would cut the puppet strings.

People were amazed at how quickly the puppet sunk to the floor once its strings were cut, and stared at her in amazement, now clearly driving the car. So taken in had they been by the elaborate and complex show the puppet had put on for them, that most of them had never realised that, behind the puppet, was the puppeteer, the Princess, hiding and hidden until then from their view.

  

  

  

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