Princess Fairness

By the warmth of the crackling fire in the old stone fireplace, with the lights down low except for the reading lamp over Old Gram’s shoulder, and the Christmas lights behind us, my cousins and I sipped on hot cocoa with marshmallows and candy canes. The wind howled just outside the window and snow powdered the hills and trees that we would conquer the next day. But that night, we were warm and safe with our sleeping bags ready.

Old Gram sat in her big easy chair with a blanket draped over her lap and that old black cat. Old Gram was my mother's grandma and was looking more fragile those days. Her white hair had thinned, and her eyes looked glazed beneath her glasses. She was smaller than I remembered, with petite spotted hands poking out of her thick pink robe.

As was tradition when she brought all of us great-grandchildren together for the night, she wrote us stories and let us stay up late to listen. She was a writer in her youth, publishing romance novels, but in her later years she just wrote short stories for us kids. She removed her glasses and replaced them with her reading glasses and began to read…

#

Once upon a time, in the Kingdom of Eagleton, King Rancid distributed wealth amongst the kingdom through a tournament he held yearly. The game was checkers, and everyone in the kingdom was required to play using their own checkers. The people of the kingdom inherited their checkers, accumulating them over generations. The lords had twelve checkers. The noblemen had eight. The peasants had four, and the beggars had none. The prizes for winning were land, gold, silver, and jewels. Every year the results were the same. The lords and noblemen received their wealth and lived comfortable, healthy lives. The peasants lost what little bit they had and struggled to live their lives. The beggars were unable to win anything, had nothing to lose, and were left to die.

One year, when Princess Fairness was observing the games, she noticed something not quite right and questioned her father, King Rancid. “Why is it that the richer a person is, father, the more checkers they get to play with?”

“That’s the way it has always been, my daughter.”

“But why not give all people the same number of checkers so that all people have a fair shot at a good, comfortable, healthy life?”

“It would not be fair to those who have checkers to give checkers to those who do not have checkers, foolish girl.”

“But father, it seems more unfair that people who do not have will never have a chance to have if the odds are stacked against them. Those who have certainly do not need more, and there is plenty to go around.”

“Child, there are just some people who are born better than others and it is our place to see to it that societal classes know their place. They serve their purposes. You will understand this when you are older.”

“I cannot accept this father. If a person wins, then a person wins, if a person loses, then a person loses, but the playing field should be fair,” and she stormed out of the throne room and left her father to his business.

The court jester, who was no more than a peasant, overheard their discussion, and word of Princess Fairness’s theory spread. The people in the market loved her, applauded her, and showered her with gifts. Meanwhile, in the shadows, the peasants and the beggars planned to dethrone the king and make the princess their queen.

One dark and moonless night, while the kingdom was sleeping, all the peasants and beggars gathered in the Field of Justice a mile away from the castle and marched. The jester was in the castle and lowered the drawbridge. With axes and shovels, pitchforks and knives, the peasants and beggars fought the king's knights, outnumbering them four to one. They broke into the king's chambers and carried him to the dungeon, locking him away, and put the queen in a tower where she could live out her days.

Princess Fairness ascended to the throne. Her first decree as queen was that checkers be made so that all inhabitants of the kingdom had twelve checkers and that the tournament be fair for all people. Beggars and peasants, noblemen and lords all lived comfortable healthy lives during the reign of Queen Fairness, and everyone lived happily ever after.

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“I feel very tired tonight, so I think we'll just do the one story. I’m going to let you all do something special instead. It looks like the snow has stopped and the moon is full. Every child should play in the snow at night at least once in their life. Throw on your clothes and have some fun,” Old Gram said with a weak crackling voice.

We put our mugs in the sink and ran upstairs to change. Bundling up, we put on our overalls, hats, coats, boots, and gloves. Going down the stairs, we sounded like a herd of buffalo, but Old Gram didn’t budge. She had taken off her glasses and closed her eyes. Eight energetic kids were a lot for a woman who was eighty-something.

The snow was around a foot deep. Mattie was four and it came up to his knees, but that didn’t stop him. I was eleven at the time, and the oldest out of all of us. I don’t know if I was the only one who took the time to appreciate the beauty of the night with the gentle light and the untouched snow, but I found it majestic. I was in awe until a snowball hit me in the chest. I remember the squeals of the younger kids who could barely make snowballs but were having the times of their lives.

I went to the old shed and grabbed a couple of five-gallon buckets and a few shovels to build an igloo. The five older kids were into that idea but the younger two wanted to build a snowman, so I helped them with that. We each rolled up a section of the body. I sent the little ones after sticks for the arms while I dug up some rocks for the eyes and mouth. I went inside and got a carrot for the nose and an old hat and scarf. The older five got halfway done with their igloo, but couldn’t figure out the roof, so they called it a fort and started a second one for the next day's snowball fight. The little ones started making snow angels while I went to shovel the sidewalk and driveway for Old Gram, wanting to surprise her.

Once I was done, I gathered everyone up to get Old Gram and show her all that we had done. We ran through the house tracking snow behind us. Everyone was talking at once, overly excited, pulling on her and nudging her, trying to wake her up. In our own turn, we started to realize that Old Gram wasn’t waking up. She wasn’t moving, not even breathing. The kids sat down at their sleeping bags, staring at her, trying to comprehend the moment. I went to the phone and called my mom. As soon as I heard her voice I burst into tears.

An ambulance arrived before my mother, who I guess called them, and they ordered us out of the way so they could get Old Gram on their gurney. All eight of us huddled together on the staircase and watched as they pushed things out of the way and moved her out of her favorite chair. They threw the pages of her story on the floor next to the fireplace. I hurried over to them and swept them up, keeping them, reading them over and over throughout the years, remembering Old Gram every time I did.

I was Katie Brinker back then, age eleven. I’m now Senator Kathryn Wright of Minnesota, age forty-two. I fight for fair wages, universal healthcare, urban development, and equal education. I still have the pages of that story. I keep them in my briefcase.