The Secret Hiding Spots
a Tiny Kingdom story about a princess who liked to disappear under things
, August 2026
From the first days after Princess Guusje arrived in the Tiny Kingdom, she had a particular fondness for disappearing under things.
She would squeeze herself beneath chairs, cabinets and the couch, sometimes leaving only a white nose or the tip of a wagging tail visible. It seemed to suit her perfectly. She could watch everything from her hidden place and come out again whenever she was ready.
The Queen bought her soft beds and placed them in sensible spots around the castle, but Guusje usually preferred the cool floor under a piece of furniture.
For a while, the Queen simply accepted that this was one of her little princess’s habits.
Then Guusje began to grow.
Not enough to stop her from wriggling into the same spaces, but enough for the Queen to start thinking ahead. One day, she realised that Guusje might crawl under the couch exactly as she always had and discover that getting back out had suddenly become much harder. Or even impossible.
That thought stayed with her.
“What if she gets stuck under there one day?” she asked the King.
The King looked at the couch, then crouched down and peered underneath it.
Guusje was already there, looking back at him, entirely unconcerned.
“I’ll fix it,” he said.
The Queen knew that tone, just as she knew her inventive King.
Some time later, tools appeared and the King began working on a small mechanism hidden beneath the furniture. When he was finished, the heavy couch could be lifted easily if necessary, giving them enough room to reach Guusje should one of her favourite hiding places ever become a little too small.
He demonstrated it to the Queen while Guusje watched from underneath.
She appeared satisfied with the arrangement and saw no reason to change her habits.
So the secret hiding spots remained hers. The Queen worried less about the day her growing princess might misjudge one of them, and the King had quietly added another useful invention to the castle.
Guusje, meanwhile, continued to disappear under the couch whenever it suited her.