The Ordinary, Normal, Unexceptional Tale of the Princess Smudge Knee

The Ordinary, Normal, Unexceptional Tale of the Smudge Knee Princess

Illustrated by Giselle Restrepo

Her only distinguishing features were her dirty kneecaps, a result of crawling around in the dirt and through the underbrush. Other than that she looked average and normal. During her play, she scampered on her knees over and through mud, skunk cabbage, blackberry bramble, ferns, and jack in the pulpits. Despite wearing a heavy, mud colored, canvas jump suit when she went to play, the muck and plant material seeped through the thick fabric onto her skin. When she changed from her play clothes, she always discovered: a mark that resembled a bent potato on her right knee and on her left an unmistakable diamond shape; albeit a smudged one.

A good scrubbing with soap and water would temporarily remove them, but they'd return as soon as she crawled in or out of her burrow. She adored playing in the mud, like a little piggy. Her world was truly puddle luscious. Mud was her life. Knee deep in oozing slime she was in her glory, forming liquid dirt into objects, animals, and imaginary playmates. As she patted the wet earth to life, she whispered softly to the dirt. The sound of the shifting mud seemed like a muffled reply. Listening closely, she imagined the mud was asking her questions. Smudge Knee would snap a twig off a nearby hazelnut tree and scratch the questions into a patch of drier ground.

Before bed she’d enter the question into her tiny sky blue notebook. Princess Smudge Knee's list of questions:

1. Do people in China and India think about digging a tunnel to the other side of the world, too?

2. Where would you pile the dirt from the hole through the earth?

3. What would happen if you could fold a piece of paper in half a ninth time?

4. When I walk away from something does it vanish only to reappear when I return?

5. How does the thing I walked away from manage to reform itself the same way before I return?

Isn't it nice that Princess Smudge Knee asks the same questions we all ask? How ordinary and unexceptional she is. More of Princess Smudge Knee's questions:

6. If there is someone in charge of the whole world, what if he or she has a real day job and I am just his or her hobby?

7. What if there was and he or she had lost interest, hobby or not?

8. Why are invisible things so invisible?

9. Are invisible things real?

10. Is a blackberry that you have eaten no longer real?

11. Which is better what you have or what you haven't?

Princess Smudge Knee asked her parents, King Grey and Queen Red, her questions and they gave her standard parental answers. No, not the “Don’t bother me with your silly question!” answers. More like, “I love you and I’ll give you an answer to the best of my limited knowledge.” Face it, parents only seem to know everything.

But when you are a princess of a certain age the usual answers don't satisfy as easily as they once did. Her mother and father knew that one day the answers they “gave” their daughter wouldn't be sufficient and that Princess Smudge Knee would have to explore, discover, and experience her own answers. Observations and insights become more valued if they don’t come gift wrapped. Her mother and father knew she needed to discover fresh questions and answers in the widening world outside the marsh.

Wise and regal parents, they had quietly anticipated this day and had long ago made preparations with a transcendental being.

Truth is, Smudge Knee's father wasn't a real life king. He only took the name after a week long stint on a children s’ television program. The regular actor who played a make-believe King was suffering from laryngitis, and Smudge Knee’s father was the only available stand in. It had been her father’s only acting role and consisted of mainly saying "ahem" and "so be it" and other royal sayings. And while the job didn't last long he kept the name anyway. His actual name was Amos Grey, but he preferred to be addressed as King Grey or your highness, which made him feel more important. Most people preferred to ignore his pretensions and called him Blue. His eyes were an intense cobalt blue, so it was a more obvious nick name.

Smudge Knee's mother's maiden name was Victoria Tress and no one but Blue called her Red. While her hair had been red colored when he met her, it was not so red anymore. His eyes remained as blue as ever. She was his Red. He was her Blue.

Victoria and Amos hired a transcendental being sometimes known as Bud, to act as a sidekick for Princess Smudge Knee in her upcoming, coming of age, adventures. They didn't let Smudge Knee know of the contractual relationship, they just introduced Bud as Smudge Knee's hitherto sometimes invisible guardian. Actually, Bud had been watching over the princess since her birth, completely unseen, or at least unnoticed. After all these years, Bud became visible to the king and queen’s daughter. Because she was going out into the world, far from their watchful eyes and protection, her parents knew that Bud would guard her, at very least, from loneliness. When her parents introduced Bud to Smudge Knee they mentioned that Bud had the ability to become invisible, to disappear.

As expected, Smudge Knee was skeptical of Bud’s special invisibility skills. A minor demonstration was needed to convince her. “How do you become invisible?”, she wanted to know. It didn’t seem to surprise the princess that Bud could talk. At first she thought he said all she had to do was close her eyes and he'd vanish. “Ha ha! Sure”, she said suspiciously,
“and when I open them you'll miraculously become visible again”.

Bud replied, “Sure, it's sort of like that, except you keep your eyes open and I close mine”. He shut his eyes and vanished. It was like flipping a light switch and having the bulb not just stop glowing, but completely disappears.

Smudge Knee couldn't believe what she'd just witnessed, or rather couldn’t see. She started swinging her arms about wildly to try to locate Bud. “Ouch! Be careful!” He rematerialized holding his suddenly bloody nose.

"I'm so sorry," said Smudge Knee, "I was just trying to find you. Why didn't you just duck instead of letting me hit you in the nose?"

"That's the part of the problem with the trick; to stay invisible I have to keep my eyes completely shut."

"Well, that’s still a great trick!" said Smudge Knee.

He had another “trick” which he decided not to reveal to her just yet: he could also fly. He’d actually discovered it by accident while he was invisible. Once, when his eyes were closed, something startled him and he jumped into the air. He stayed suspended in the air longer than he expected. By experimentation he learned he could fly if he jumped into the air while moving his arms and legs like he was treading water. Naturally the key element was keeping his eyes tightly shut. The flying and invisibility stopped working if he peeked, even a tiny little squint. If he carefully planned his egress before he closed his eyes, he had a good chance of being unseen and uninjured. Temporary blindness seemed a fair trade for the feats of disappearing and overcoming the effects of gravity.

It will not surprise you that transcendental beings are not often recognized as such and that, depending upon who is looking, they might be perceived as a low glimmer of light, a very thin person, a tiny animal, or a potted plant. Most humans thought Bud was a cat named Lulubelle. Bud was, pretty much, a guardian in the form of a cat who called herself Lulubelle.

Lulubelle had been instructed by the king and queen to delicately, discreetly and wisely; observe, protect, and advise her charge. The princess thought her new companion was a rare talking cat who would follow her everywhere. She asked her new friend if he or she had a name.

“What do I look like to you?” responded Bud.

“You’re a cat, so you look like a cat”, said the princess, completely perplexed by the strange question.

“Then you may address me as Lulubelle.” Had Smudge Knee seen a thin person, instead of a cat, she would refer to him as Bud. But if she saw either a glimmer of light or the potted plant, I have no idea what Smudge Knee would have called those manifestations. I’m glad she saw Lulubelle, the cat.

In the tradition of Candide, Gulliver, Luke Skywalker, Arthur Dent, and Frodo Baggins, Princess Smudge Knee was about to start a journey. Unlike the famous seekers, her adventures would go unchronicled and witnessed only by, according to your perspective, what appeared to be a mere cat, a potted plant, a very thin person, or a glimmering light.

As she and her parents prepared to part and promises were made about staying in touch and exchanging letters, post cards, and photographs; new questions were already forming in Smudge Knee’s brain. How would she survive in the wide world without her parents she asked them?

"Not to worry," they said, "our love and thoughts will always be with you. And you will find, if you listen to your own heart, that you can usually get what you need."

Princess Smudge Knee nodded her head as if she understood what that meant. But, this being so early in the tale, she didn’t fully understand. The meaning revealed itself by and by. Her initial interpretation of the statement was that her dreams and desires would be granted. She was to learn that even dreams and desires come with consequences. King Midas taught us by example long ago, but we need to be reminded now and again.

The king and queen let Princess Smudge Knee know that she would find financial resources if she simply looked for them in the right places. This she found to be true, almost immediately. Exactly one hundred miles away from her hole in the swamp she discovered she had no money and she and Lulubelle were hungry. Lulubelle grinned, ran to an alley and came back with a couple of dead mice. Lulubelle offered her one.

“Yuck! No thank you very much!” responded the princess. A few moments later she asked; "Did you have to become invisible to catch them?"

"No, but they never saw me coming anyway. I'm just a skilled mouser, or so I’ve been told. I enjoy a good chase."

"Well, I'm not and I don't. I like building things out of mud, not killing mice."

"Too bad, they are quite tasty, except for the tails."

Lulubelle was satisfied, but the princess had now lost her appetite.

One hundred miles and one block later they found themselves in yet another alley, looking for more mice, this time behind a very fancy restaurant. A man was sitting on the back steps crying. He was dressed in a navy blue suit, and his tears were making darker drip marks on the lapels of his jacket. Lulubelle nudged the princess toward the crying man.

"Why are you crying, well dressed man?" she asked. He looked through his tears at the girl and continued to cry. She asked again.

"How would you feel if you were about to cause a disaster?" answered the man in the suit.

"I guess I'd try to stop the disaster," said Princess Smudge Knee.

"Well, I am the Maitre d' of this restaurant and the owner is having a very special event tonight and I promised something that is impossible to deliver."

"Oh, I'm sorry”, she said. And then in a whisper to Lulubelle, “I guess we should leave him alone”.

She started to walk away, but Lulubelle didn’t follow. Turning, she saw her cat walk over to the man and brush against his leg. He stopped sobbing and smiled for a second. Princess Smudge Knee then said she would like to help him.

"Thanks for the offer little girl, but the sculptor who I hired to build a castle from a one ton pile of chocolate flavored mashed potatoes just quit, leaving an unfinished centerpiece sitting on the restaurant floor. In two hours from now, the owner of the restaurant and his party are due to arrive! I’d try to finish the job myself, but I don't even know what a castle is supposed to look like! I'm doomed!"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake," said Smudge Knee, picking up a stick and quickly converting a nearby pile of dirt into a 3 D sketch of her home. A smile blossomed on Lulubelle’s face. She purred and rubbed against Smudge Knee’s right leg. Lulubelle thought she could smell a freshly peeled potato.

Princess Smudge Knee saved the day and had such a good time while doing it that the restaurant owner offered her a regular job. She learned the art and trade of the food world while continuing to develop her mud digging expertise. Lulubelle grew fat not on scraps, but on fine cuisine. Lulubelle also came to recognize something very strange. Each time she was near Smudge Knee’s right leg the smell of potato filled her sensitive nose. Oh, the “bent Potato!” This made her curious about Smudge Knee’s left leg. Did it also smell of potato? “Did you know that your right knee smells of potato?”, she asked Smudge Knee. “I’ll bet it does!”, replied Smudge Knee, “My left one, too!”

“No”, said her furry friend, “as a matter of fact your left knee doesn’t smell like a potato”.

“Then It probably has the mysterious aroma of a diamond, whatever a diamond might smell like.”

“The scent is more like a ripe, squashed blackberry”, purred Lulubelle. “Besides, from where I’m standing, which is eye level to your knee, what you call a diamond shape looks more berrylike to me”. It dawned on Smudge Knee that the benefit of perspective should not be discounted. A new or unexpected truth might reveal itself when something is looked at in another way.

Eventually it was time to move on, to continue her Journey, and learn more about life than food preparation and presentation. Each path the two travelers took led to another path and no path was the only path. Each stop on their Journey made the next all the more relevant. It was architecture that she would explore at the next bend in the road, which would lead in turn to engineering and later archeology; all following the path of building something out of nothing and learning from others who had already been down the road. The two companions would linger in each new location for a long sweet taste of whatever was being offered, before again hitting the road. Some visits were just visits; others involved life experiences, or the more popular term: ADVENTURES.

From time to time Lulubelle and the princess engages in outright classic adventures. They battled ogres. Some ogres were big and others were bigger. The largest of the ogres required the combined talents of the princess and her sidekick to subdue. The big news of the monster world was that a princess and transcendental being were being sought for questioning in the disappearance of several well respected trolls and ogres. The report told of tricks by vanishing potted plants and a girl who escapes by flying with seemingly no effort.

Actually, the princess and Lulubelle had long ago figured out that Smudge Knee could grab hold of any part of Lulubelle's manifestation just as she closed her eyes and be carried aloft. When Lulubelle’s eyes were shut, she could always tell where Smudge Knee was positioned, just by sniffing for potatoes or blackberries. Smudge Knee, being correctly oriented to Lulubelle’s body became Lulubelle’s eyes, compensating for a major flaw in this talent. Lulubelle and Smudge Knee recognized they should not flaunt this symbiotic skill.

Lulubelle had said earlier, she lived for the hunt and, although inedible, an ogre is more formidable quarry than mice. The princess was usually the bait in the trap, but from time to time Lulubelle would play that role. Most often, the twosome would rid a town of a monster, and move on. Occasionally they stuck around to enjoy the glory that comes to those who rid a town of an ogre. If they stayed long enough, they might see the aftereffects.

Unfortunately, ridding a town of an ogre usually unleashed a compensating evil, often more wicked than the previous. This hero business was tricky. Princess Smudge Knee learned the wise balancing act required of subduing evil without unleashing something worse. Until that point she had thought good and evil easy to sort out. Now she saw that maybe there was a little gray in black and a little gray in white. She also realized that to look for only pure good or pure evil was not a strength, but a blindness. The princess was astounded to learn that many wiser people believe that the two sides of the same coin don't represent good and evil. They just have a face and reverse of the same value.

Princess Smudge Knee discovered an old Irish saying that seemed appropriate. A more sage tactic was to identify enemies. The Irish Prayer said something like:

"May those who love us love us.
And those that don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts;
And if he can’t turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles
so I will know my enemies by their limping."

Better to know your enemy, or at least be aware of them. Best to not destroy them, lest a more disagreeable enemy take the first’s place. The newer is usually worse.

Princess Smudge Knee was growing wise beyond her years in this regard. But, you ask, what good is it to have a journey, be capable of flying, and have a friend who can be invisible if you don't kill ogres and monsters? The princess discovered that the most valuable part of the journey wasn't a destination, but the experience of the journey.

The best part about flying wasn't escaping enemies, but the exhilaration of flight and the change of perspective, while having a friend who disappears when his/her eyes are closed isn't so different from any friend you enjoy while they are with you and miss when they aren't. She also had her own answer to at least one of her very old questions. With a thin and large enough sheet of paper one can fold a sheet of paper nine times. Folding it the ninth time doesn’t destroy the space-time continuum. The final folds are not so crisp. So, while the details of the recounting of the tale have not been filled in, the tale of Princess Smudge Knee has been retold.

Her parents can be proud. In a recent letter from them, her mother wrote, “Your father and I were delighted to receive your packet of photographs in the mail. We really enjoyed seeing how you have grown in so many ways. Your father got out his magnifying glass and looked at one photo in particular. He said that in the photo where you are standing next to a potted plant, he thought he could make out the shape of a raspberry, or something on your left knee.”

Her transcendent being friend will always be her friend, and if you were concerned about the shifting names, manifestations and genders, don't worry; transcendent beings don't really have genders. The princess will always keep Lulubelle in her heart, though many, many seasons have come and gone and Lulubelle has closed her eyes.