“That doesn’t seem fair. That sounds like a big ol’ bully picking on a little kid.”
“It was a long time ago, a much longer time ago than the kidnapping.”
“Oh, that’s right, the kidnapping. Let’s get back to the kidnapping.”
Maxence said, “Monagasquay is right on the Mediterranean Sea, and we are a seagoing people. Boating and sailing are very important in our culture. One day, the little prince was out sailing his small sailboat when a larger motorboat pulled up alongside, snatched the little prince off his boat, and spirited him away to a tanker ship anchored farther off the coast.”
“Does the little prince have a name?” she asked.
Maybe Max should call the kid Augustine.
Too obvious.
Maxence said, “His name has been lost in history.”
She argued, “And yet, with motorboats and tanker ships, it doesn’t sound like this happened a long time ago.”
“I’m not that good of a writer. I’m just making stuff up as I go along. If there are historical anachronisms, I’ll try to do better next time.”
“Fine, fine. Tell me about the little prince whose name has been lost in ancient history who was kidnapped by guys on a motorboat.”
The boat which had sped up alongside him and then carried him away had been long and narrow, and the sparkling red hull had splashed through the wavelets as he’d fought.
Max said, “The tanker ship had been moored off the coast for weeks, as they had been looking for their chance to kidnap the prince.”
“What did the kidnappers want? Money? Publicity? For Monagasquay to have some other political prisoners released from some other country?”
“It appeared to be money at first, but they didn’t seem to know how much they wanted or where they wanted it deposited. This was all during a time of great upheaval in the history of Monagasquay, when an old sovereign prince was dying and an election was imminent in the Council of Nobles, which is also known as the Crown Council of Monagasquay.”
“But you said that a prince election was happening right now.”
“It happens every time a new sovereign prince needs to be crowned.”
“That seems to happen a lot in Monagasquay.”
“Or maybe I’m just a terrible writer, and you should find someone else to tell you stories to help you fall asleep at night.”
Maxence immediately regretted saying that in case she did.
Dree sighed. “Okay, I won’t quibble. Go on.”
“So, the little prince was missing for a week. The kidnappers kept trying to tell people they wanted to be paid a ransom, but nobody would talk to them because they didn’t know the prince was missing. Eventually, they realized they couldn’t find the little prince, and then the negotiations began in earnest.”
“Finally.”
“That’s what the little prince thought, too. On the tanker ship, the men who had kidnapped the little prince threw him in a squalid, unused storeroom. They only brought him water once during the first couple of days. They finally started feeding him after another few days, when it became apparent there would not be a quick resolution to the kidnapping.”
“That’s awful!” she said.
“Yes, it was.”
Within days, the empty storeroom with peeling, rusty walls reeked, and so did he. As a child, he’d never been overly fastidious about cleanliness, as little boys often aren’t.
That experience, however, had given him a new appreciation for hygiene. Out on these rustic charity missions, Maxence was careful to wash himself every day and sometimes two or three times a day, even if all he could muster was a sponge bath. Sweat and body odor drove him simply insane.
Maxence said, “Eventually, the kidnappers, who seemed to be pirates rather than professional kidnappers, began to berate the young prince for being so unimportant that the current sovereign prince, the heir apparent to the throne, and his own parents didn’t seem to care that he was missing. They terrorized him. They beat him. They asked why he was so unimportant. They asked why their demands were not being met.
“The little prince did not know.
