Princess Jasmine lived by the sea in India. India is a very big country with sea round a lot of it. Princess Jasmine lived in the south. She didn’t much like being an Indian princess, as she was nearly the youngest and no one paid any attention to her and she was only allowed out with 20 chaperones and ladies. The only thing they had to do was to look after Princess Jasmine and keep her safe.
Princess Jasmine thought that some of the chaperones were boring, and the rest were mostly not very nice. On top of this, they all told tales about her as this is what chaperones do: then the Maharani, who was the chief Queen, and married to the Maharajah, would lock her up all by herself in a horrid room with bats and spiders who were even worse than the chaperones.
One day there was a big feast. No, that’s wrong, for three days there was a big feast. Feasts were never longer, as people began to get fed up with them after that. The Feast was for the Maharajah, which is an Indian King, and he wanted to show all the rich people how grand he was, and all the poor people how generous he was, – they got all the leftovers. Princess Jasmine hated feasts: who wants to eat for 3 days?The third evening, in the moonlight, she slipped out of a side door all by herself, while all the chaperones were stuffing themselves or sleeping…. It was a bit scary.
Princess Jasmine went along the beach: it was very beautiful. There was a beautiful blue-black sea, with shimmering cool white sand under the moonlight. Little pools, with rocks to sit on, and the palace outlined against the sky…. Princess Jasmine was very glad she was on the beach and not inside the palace with her twenty chaperones! And she was very happy.
All of a sudden, she became aware that there was someone swimming to the beach. It was a girl, and Princess Jasmine was quite shocked: she wasn’t wearing any clothes! Then the girl wriggled ashore, and Princess Jasmine saw that it wasn’t a girl after all, it was a little mermaid!
“Hello,” said the mermaid, “do you like the sea?”
“Oh yes”, said Princess Jasmine. “I do. I don’t want to go back to the Palace at all. I wish I could swim like you and be a mermaid for ever….”
“That’s lovely,” said the mermaid. “You can be my sister, and we can play forever in the waves and under the sea. I would love to have a sister!”
“I’ve got lots of sisters and half-sisters” said Princess Jasmine, “but I don’t like all of them. I would much rather be your sister. Are there any bats and spiders under the sea?”
“Oh no,” said the little mermaid. “None at all.” She didn’t say anything about the sea serpents, the jelly fish, and the crabs that liked to pinch her tail, but mermaids never do tell the whole story. “Do come with me.”
“I can’t swim,” said Princess Jasmine. “That’s not a problem,“ said the little mermaid. She didn’t say that people who couldn’t swim into the sea couldn’t swim out of it. “Just hold my hand and come into the sea and in two moonbeams you’ll be a mermaid with me and you’ll be swimming like anything!”
Princess Jasmine held out her hand, walked into the sea, and was never seen again. The chaperones were all burnt for not doing their job properly.
So before you become a princess, or a chaperone, or before you make a wish if you are in a fairy tale, be very careful!
The audio is on the website here:
https://charlotteswonderfulstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/recording0031.wav
Charlotte's Wonderful Stories 