Page 44 of The Love Interest

“No.”

“Okay… Once upon a time there was a baseball player named Hank.”

“Nooooo.”

“A baseball player named Frank?”

“No baseball! Prince and princess. A kissing story.”

“Ah. What if the prince and princess aren’t allowed to kiss?”

“Why? Because of a curse?”

“Kind of.”

“Ooooh yes! Tell that one!”

“What if the prince is rude?”

“Like Beast?”

“Yeah, kind of. Except he wasn’t always like that.”

“Is he sad inside?”

“Yeah. And frustrated. Really, really frustrated.”

“How come?”

“Because he wants something he can’t have. That’s why people get frustrated.”

“But why can’t he have it?”

“Because the people who make the rules in the village won’t let him talk to the princess. Not in the way he wants to talk to her, anyway.”

“He can’t talk to her in secret? Like in the forest at night?”

“I mean. Probably not. If anyone found out about it, they’d both get in trouble.”

“What about letters?”

“What about them?”

“They can write magic secret letters! With magic pens! Like with invisible ink that they hide in the hole of a tree, and then they cover the hole with a rock!”

“Interesting.”

“And then after they’ve read the letter from the other person, they blow on it and it magically disappears!”

“Cool.”

“Or! Or! Or! The paper turns into butterflies! And the butterfly wings have the words they wrote on them!”

“I love that. That’s a really great idea, Bettina. Did you make that up just now?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I think we might have another writer in the family.”