I'll Call You Pascal

Before I was old enough to understand what a routine was, Mother made a list of chores for me to complete every day. Things from sweeping the floor to making candles, with weekly duties to be completed once every seven days. I didn't mind any of this. For a five year old girl with no door, anything to keep me occupied was a gift.

Mother would watch intently at first. She'd be standing over my shoulder as I swept, leaning against the wall as I scrubbed the dishes, and sometimes, she'd even help me reach the tallest shelves while polishing and dusting. I loved spending this time with my mother, because it was one of those moments that felt right in a girl's life.

When I turned eight, Mother began leaving the tower during the day. I didn't know where she went or why she would want to leave. My whole world was centered on the tower and to me, it was a perfect place. Those bedtime stories Mother told me made me terrified of what lie beyond my walls and it confused me whenever Mother left. Why would she want to face those horrors?

With Mother gone most days, I was bored, even with my chores to keep me busy. As I got older, I became more efficient completing the list, even adding my own chores just to occupy myself. I was running out of things to do, and it was awfully lonely without anyone to talk to. I mean, I talked to myself just for noise, and sometimes, I sang my healing song just to watch my hair glow in the mirror.

Yeah, I was that bored.

But that was my life. Very controlled and very uninteresting. By the time I was thirteen, Mother would sometimes disappear for a day or two, always returning with the same "surprise" as the last. Hazelnut soup. She didn't know that I secretly had an intense dislike for the food. I'd made the mistake of slurping it up for the sake of just getting it over with, which led Mother to believe I absolutely adored the soup. I never did that again.

In the middle of my fourteenth winter, Mother returned at dusk, her cheeks bright red from the cold.

"Welcome home, Mother!" I said enthusiastically as she climbed in through the window. Once her feet were firmly on the ground, I quickly reeled my hair back into the tower, shuddering at the small snowflakes that were embezzled into it.

"Oh, Rapunzel," she replied in a voice as warm as the fire I'd stoked into the fireplace. "It's good to see you again, darling." She cupped my face and kissed me on the forehead with a smile on her face. "I've got a surprise for you!"

Let me guess. . . . "Oh, Mother, you didn't have to."

She pulled a cover off of her arm basket and revealed the ingredients needed for: "Hazelnut soup!" she cried, unclipping the clasp at her neck. Her cloak slid to the ground and I bent over to pick it up while she walked towards the kitchenette area and placed the basket on a table.

"That sounds wonderful," I told her, trying to be sincere. After all, it was the thought that counted, right? I read that in some book before, but I think Mother threw it away when she found out. She said that it was full of lies, and I could only believe her.

Mother laughs. "Oh, dear, I knew you'd love it. I'm just thoughtful that way; we'll have it for lunch tomorrow." She wandered towards the mirror and motioned for me to come stand by her. "Rapunzel, do you know what I see when I look in this mirror? I see a strong, beautiful young lady. . . .oh look! You're here, too!"

Huh. Like I hadn't heard that before. "Mother," I said, "what were you doing this time?"
She looked at me in the reflection. "Darling, I'm feeling a little exhausted from my walk. Will you sing for me?"

Her walk. She was gone for four days and she was calling it a walk. "Won't you answer me?" I asked pleadingly. She had never been gone so long before, and I was so desperate for any sort of company. I never wanted to be so alone ever again.

Mother eyed me almost wearily before she smiled. "Sing for me, flower. Then we'll talk."
I lightened up immediately. "Oh! Alright, Mother!" I took her hand and yanked her over to her chair by the fireplace and pushed her into it. She sat down with a huff.

"Rapunzel!" she exclaimed.

I gathered my hair quickly and pooled it into her lap, handing her the golden trimmed brush off of the fireplace mantel. She took it as I plopped on the ground and began to sing my healing song. The sooner I was done helping Mother, the sooner she would tell me what I wanted to hear. It had been four days since I had any interaction with anything other than a dustpan and my own reflection. I needed an intervention.

Mother brushed my hair as I sang, and when I was finished, she sighed contentedly, placing the brush on the floor next to my knee. I turned around instantly and smiled at her, taking fistfuls of my hair from either side to steady my busy hands.

"So, Mother, how was your walk? Where did you go?" I asked excitedly.

She frowned at me. "Why would you want to hear about that, darling? You wouldn't know what I was talking about if I told you."

"But it was so quiet with you gone," I told her, losing my enthusiasm. "Are you going to be gone for that long very often?"

Mother stood up, with a shocked expression and walked towards the staircase. "I can't believe how selfish you're being, Rapunzel."

"But, Mother, it's just so lonely and –."

"Did you ever once think about how much I endure going out into the world everyday? All of those horrors I face? Do you even know what I go through to make sure that you have everything you want?"

This wasn't going the way I wanted it to, and the conversation was feeling very one-sided. I felt guilty for asking Mother these questions, and when I thought about it later, that guilt didn't make any sense. Why should I be sorry for feeling alone?

"I'm sorry, Mother," I told her, truly apologetic. I hadn't meant to offend her.

She smiled softly and opened her arms to me. "Come here, darling." I stood and went to her, melting into her arms as she embraced me. It felt good to have contact with another person after that long stretch of loneliness. I wrapped my arms around her waist and hugged her back. "I forgive you," she told me gently.

I pulled away and she touched my nose with her fingertip.

"I'm feeling terribly tired, dear. I'm going to retire for the night," she said.

I nodded, yawning. "Me too, Mother."

"I will be leaving very early tomorrow morning, but I'll be back before lunch, alright, my flower? I love you very much." She kissed my forehead again.

I sighed. Another day without Mother. "I love you more," I replied.

"I love you most." She brushed my hair from my face with one last smile and then disappeared into her room, closing the door behind her.

"Goodnight, Mother," I said to the door before sighing again and turning away from it. Dejectedly, I walked to the fireplace and doused a bucket of waiting water on it to put out the flames. Wind whistled against the wooden shutters of the window and I went to them and put the lock into place to prevent them from flying open.

Once I was sure everything was secure, I trudged up my staircase into my room, throwing my pillows on the floor with a huff before collapsing face first onto my bed and groaning.

Ugghhhh.

Morning came quickly and when I woke up, I heard the all-too familiar sound of nothing. No sounds of movement from downstairs. Nothing. Throwing back my covers, I shed my nightgown and threw on a green dress I made the other day. It took time to lace up the corset in the back, but I did it slowly just to absorb more time in my day.

After that, I went downstairs and scrounged up some breakfast. A slice of bread and a handful of cherries. "Seven a.m. the usual morning line-up," I sang to myself as I scrubbed my hands in the wash basin. The room was too quiet, too big to have just me in it. I began to feel a little abandoned, despite Mother's promise of being home before lunch and my failed attempts to cheer myself up.

Holding in tears, I ran to the window and threw the shutters open, drawing in the crisp, cold air that flooded in. I needed to clear my head, forget about what was bothering me. There were chores to be done. . .but I'd already done them so many times over the past days that there was hardly any doing to be done. It was terribly upsetting.

I put my elbows on the window sill and dropped my head into my hands. A few tears leaked out of my eyes from the silence pressing all around me and a sob broke out of my chest.
The chilly air nipped at my skin, biting and freezing me, but I couldn't bring myself to move inside and shield myself from the cold. What did it matter? There was more company in the wind than there was in the tower. For the first time, I began to feel like maybe I didn't have the perfect life. Like maybe I was missing something. Surely there was some sort of good out there in the world. Friendship, in the very least. It was the one thing I truly lacked in my lifestyle.

When I picked up my head to wipe away the tears, I heard a clicking noise from my right. Startled by the unusual sound, I glanced over to see an odd looking green creature, huddled in a space between a snow-covered flower pot and the tower walls. It's large eyes were peering at me with sympathy and sadness.

"Hey, little guy," I said, sniffing as I wiped my face. "How did you get up here?"

He made another series of clicking, followed by a sad little sigh of his tiny body. My heart instantly went out to the thing and I pushed the flower pot away from him and scooped him into my hands. He shivered as I lifted him up, and I immediately sandwiched him between my hands.

"You poor thing!" I exclaimed, drawing him in closer to my body. He was so cold. "Here; let's get you somewhere warmer."

I was afraid that he would die while I built a fire in the fireplace, but he held on strong, and by the time I had a nice big blaze going, he was no longer shaking like a leaf. I sprawled out in front of the fireplace, ignoring my now-mental list of chores in favor of talking to the creature.

"You know, I think I read about you once in my book of animals," I told him, as he looked at me questioningly. "Mother got rid of that book last year, but you're a. . . chameleon, right? Yeah. That's what I thought."

He smiled at me and I couldn't help but laugh and smile back. The wind howled against the closed shutters and the chameleon jumped at the sudden sound.

"Don't worry," I told him. "I won't make you go back out there. You can stay here until it gets warmer. I'm sure Mother won't mind."

When he looked at me, he looked happy. He was a little thing, probably just a baby yet, and it was a miracle that he was even alive at all in this weather. I don't know how he got up on my window ledge, but I was thankful.

I turned so that I was sitting instead of lying on my stomach and picked him up off the floor in my hands. "If you're going to be sticking around, I'm going to have to give you a name. I can't be calling you just chameleon all the time, that's no fun. How about. . . .Bob?"

His eyelids drooped and for a chameleon, he was surprisingly good at the "you've got to be kidding me" look.

"No? Alright; how about Larry?"

He sniffed.

"John? Edward? Max?"

A negative sounding click.

I sighed. "I'm running out of ideas. I don't necessarily have a good basis for names."
He sat on my hands as I stared at him.

"This is harder than it should be," I said.

The chameleon shrugged and climbed down my arm until he was on the floor. I watched in amusement as he scuttled across the ground, investigating his new home. A smile split on my face because I was no longer alone, and I wouldn't be anticipating with overt eagerness Mother's return. I had other company to keep my occupied.

I was almost too busy caught up in smiling to notice when the chameleon climbed into an open box and I gasped, crawling over to him.

"No! Not my pastels!" I exclaimed. They were the only things I had to hold dear to myself, and Mother only bought them for me on special occasions. I had to spare them and my paint wisely, or I'd seriously have nothing to do. But when I saw the chameleon in my paint box, covered in colorful smudges as he looked up at me innocently, I giggled.

"Look at you, all covered in pastels," I said, lifting him out of my box, getting my hands dirty. My thoughts stopped for a moment. "Pastels. Pascal." I grinned at him and laughed again. "I'll call you Pascal!"

The chameleon clicked in approval and nodded his head, obviously pleased with my choice.
"Hm," I sighed, taking him towards the kitchenette. "Let's get you cleaned up."

We spent the rest of the morning painting. Pascal was an instant friend, communicating with me in a way I didn't know that chameleons could. We played chess (which he beat me at) and tried out a new puzzle that Mother got for me last month before we both gave up on it and went back to the paint box. The staircase was my new project for the day, and Pascal made affirmative noises when I chose colors and designs for the wood. When I was finished with the handrail, I stepped back to admire my handwork.

"Well, Pascal," I said. "Whaddya think?"

He nodded from where he was perched on my shoulder and I giggled.

"It's not the best, I guess, but it was fun! Thanks for helping out!"

"Rapunzel!"

I gasped and a huge smile broke out across my face as I responded to Mother's voice and ran to the window.

"Darling!" she cried. "Let down your hair!"

"I'm coming, Mother!" I yelled back, hitching my hair around a hook and tossing my hair out the window. Pascal crouched nervously on my shoulder, but I was excited to tell Mother about him. My first friend. Surely she wouldn't mind. It's not like he wanted to take my hair for himself.

I pulled Mother up into the tower and grinned at her as she stepped in through the window, saying the same thing I always said. "Hi. Welcome home, Mother."

"Hello, dear, I told you I'd be back before—" She broke off, staring at my shoulder. Pascal huddled further into my hair. "Rapunzel, what on earth is that?"

After tugging my hair back into the tower I reached across my body to pat my chameleon on his head. "Oh, this? This is Pascal, Mother. I rescued him today from the window ledge this morning. He was going to die, so I brought him in and he's got nowhere to go, so I thought he could stay with me."

"Absolutely not," Mother replied with mild disgust. "I hate frogs. Put it back outside, Rapunzel."

I frowned and held my hand up to protect him. "But, Mother—."

She looked at me sharply as she undid her cloak and let it drop to the floor. "I said no. We're done talking about this."

This couldn't be happening. "Oh, come on—."

"We're not keeping a frog, Rapunzel!" she yelled, knocking my hand aside. I cried out as she grabbed Pascal off my shoulder and marched back to the window, tossing him out into the cold.

"No!" I cried, reaching out.

Mother locked the shutters and came back to me, patting my head. "Oh, Rapunzel, you're so naïve, dear. Those frogs are poisonous." She walked towards the kitchenette, humming to herself as she started on the awful hazelnut soup that she promised.

Stubbornly, with tears in my eyes, I muttered under my breath. "He's a chameleon."
The day seemed to pass too slowly. I was dying to throw open the shutters and see if Pascal was still outside, but Mother was with me the whole day, cooking the horrid soup and making me sing for her in front of the fire. She even insisted on tucking me in bed, which she hadn't done since I was five. To be honest, I think she was just afraid of me retrieving Pascal, but she underestimated me if she thought I was just going to go to sleep.

"Goodnight, my flower," Mother said lovingly, stroking my face as she pulled the covers in tight around me. "I love you very much."

I smiled at her. "I love you more."

"And I love you most." She kissed my forehead. "Sleep well, dear."

About an hour after she left, I peeked through my curtains into the main room of the tower. The fire in the fireplace was out and I could hear the distinct sounds of Mother's heavy breathing from underneath the staircase.

As quietly as I could, I crept down the stairs and hurried to the shutters, casting them open. The wind gusted into the room and I was afraid that it would wake Mother up. I had to be fast.

"Pascal!" I whisper-shouted into the wind. "Pascal?"

I stood there for almost a full minute without hearing anything. Tears flooded my eyes as I reached for the shutter knobs and began closing them, when a sudden clicking noise caught my attention from behind another flower pot.

"Pascal?" I asked.

He crawled out from his hiding spot onto the ledge and nodded, smiling at me.

"Oh, Pascal!" I shouted. Mother's snores disturbed for a moment and I bit my lip with wide eyes, suddenly sure that I woke her up, but they went back to normal pattern. "Oh, Pascal!" I repeated in a much quieter voice, giggling.

I took him back to my room, whispering to him the whole way. "I'm so sorry about that, Pascal, but I didn't know Mother would react like that! I'm so glad you're okay. We won't tell Mother that you're staying, okay? It'll be our secret."

He clicked at me as I tucked myself back into bed, and he curled up on a plush spot on my pillow. Exhaustion drew my eyelids down and I yawned.

"You know, Pascal," I said, yawning again. "I've never had a friend before, but now I have you. You're my best friend. I'm really glad I found you."

He made a contended sound and cuddled in closer to the hair that covered my pillow.
I smiled as my eyes slid closed. "We better get some sleep. We've got a lot of chores to do tomorrow. Starting at seven."