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The downside of turning into an insect is you never know how long the metamorphosis is going to last, but the upside is that you can just lie around the house for a bit, stridulating, an opportunity princesses get far too seldom.

However, there is one problem with this theory — yes, only one problem, I’m sure of it. The problem is that this is the wrong literature to look to. Franz Kafka was Czech; Kate Middleton is not. We must therefore look to British literature instead. Fortunately, it, too, is full of answers. Perhaps Catherine …

• Stepped into the wrong palace wardrobe by mistake and got stuck in a land where it is always winter but never Christmas. Although she appears to have been gone only for months in our earthly scale, it has been lifetimes for Catherine. She has seen epochs rise and fall, gone on adventures impossible to recount, and is living a whole existence in another kind of time. When she returns, she will barely recognize her surroundings and not remember how to use a cellphone, and might have to be removed from the zoo for yelling at the lions for being “too metaphorically heavy-handed.”
• Tripped and fell........
  

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