by Joan Holub
Caught off guard, Red giggled against her will.
“Listen. There’s stuff you’re better off not knowing,” he went on. “Yes, I followed you into the forest. Your story about picking flowers sounded kind of phony and I had to know what you and your friends were up to.”
So Wolfgang had been afraid to trust her and her friends just as much as they’d been afraid to trust him! But was he a part of E.V.I.L.? That was the big question she wanted answered.
“Phew!” she said, huffing a breath that blew her bangs upward. “I’m P for Pooped. Let’s stop pushing. The section’s big enough that we won’t be bonking into each other.”
“Okay,” Wolfgang agreed. As he sat again, his head flopped forward and he let out a long sigh. “One thing I can tell you is that the enchantress is my great-great-grandmother, though,” he announced.
“What?” Red’s hand flew to her chest and she slid to the floor, sitting cross-legged. “But that can’t be tr —” She bit off the end of her sentence as she recalled the enchantress’s gray eyes, so like Wolfgang’s own.
“Can’t be true?” Wolfgang finished for her. “Why not? Because you and your friends have me pegged as a bad guy?”
“You did steal my basket and leave me lost in the forest,” Red countered.
Wolfgang winced. “I had to get to my grandtress before you did,” he told her, using what she figured must be a family nickname for Grandmother Enchantress. “To warn her you were on your way. You seemed so determined and secretive, and nobody ventures into that forbidding forest for a simple stroll to pick flowers and look at a cottage. As for why I took your basket? You might have tried to use it to magically fetch whatever you were really after!”
The whatever you were really after had been the treasure, of course, but they’d actually returned with a crystal ball. However, since Wolfgang didn’t mention either the treasure or the crystal ball Red decided not to, either. Instead, she shook her head. “We weren’t planning to steal anything, if that’s what you mean. The mapestry directed us to her cottage.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know that when I took the basket,” said Wolfgang. Stretching out his legs, he crossed one over the other. “And anyway, I was only trying to delay you when I took off, not lose you. Do you think those tracks I left were by accident?”
“Muddy tracks to follow. Gee, thanks,” Red said sarcastically. She set the basket in her lap and drummed the tips of her fingers impatiently on its lid. “And what about the mapestry? You took that, too, didn’t you? When we got it back, there was a paw print on it.”
“Sure, I took it,” he admitted. “It’s not safe for you girls to have it.” A dark look crossed his face. “It could fall into the wrong hands.”
Red glowered at him. “And you could keep it safer? Maybe you just want to find the treasure so you can keep it for yourself!” The enchantress thought she and her friends could guard it. She’d told them, too! But she wasn’t ready to let him know she’d met the enchantress quite yet.
“No!” said Wolfgang. “I wouldn’t … I mean, I couldn’t …” His voice petered off.
“Look,” Red said gently, “I believe what you said about Grandmother Enchantress being your great-great-grandmother. She must trust you. I’m just not sure why.”
Squeezing his hands into fists, Wolfgang looked down at his lap. “Because she knows my family history.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Red asked.
Suddenly, Wolfgang jumped up, looking around as if he needed to move. “Let’s perambulate.”
“What?” Red got up, too.
“Sorry,” he shoved his hands in his back pockets. “I think the Ps are getting to me. I just meant let’s walk around and talk instead of sitting.”
Looping her basket’s handles over one arm, Red gestured ahead. “Well, there’s not really enough room to —”
Whipping around, Wolfgang set both arms against a wall of books and gave a mighty push. Creeeak! The wall moved and he went with it, pushing it out at least a dozen more feet. Then he did the same on the opposite wall.
When he was finished, he dusted his hands looking P for Pleased with himself.
“Good work.” Red smiled at him and he smiled back. Then she took a step down one of the P aisles, and he joined her. “So what were you saying about your family?”
He shrugged. “Just that there were some pretty bad dudes in my family’s past. And in the present, too. One of my uncles is even in jail for breaking and entering houses. Only he didn’t exactly break into them. The way he tells it, he huffed and puffed and they fell right over.”
“So the enchantress trusts you because there are bad guys in your family?” Red said. “That’s P for Puzzling.”
He grimaced. “No. She trusts me because she knows that becoming evil is my biggest fear. I’ll do anything to avoid that fate!”
Wolfgang feared becoming evil? Seeing his pained expression, Red’s heart melted for him. Suddenly, she wanted to P for Protect him from such a horrible worry.
“But you’re not evil,” she said earnestly as they turned a corner and started down another P aisle with shelves of portraits, peeping parakeets, and numerous boxes labeled ‘Pithy Problems.’ “I mean, you did take my basket and try to steal the mapestry, but only to help Grandmother Enchantress and keep the mapestry away from the E.V.I.L. Society, right?” Now was his chance to admit he’d tried to steal her basket to give to Mrs. Wicked.
Instead, he raised his brows. “You know about E.V.I.L.?”
She nodded. “I also know that if you were evil you wouldn’t be helping Grandmother Enchantress. And you wouldn’t have helped me when I fainted at the auditions, either.”
Wolfgang seemed to be listening hard to what she was saying, as if willing it to be true.
She gave him a moment to let her words sink in. “So about the E.V.I.L. Society,” she began. “Or maybe I should call it the Exceptional Villains In Literature Society?”
Wolfgang cringed. “Ugh! I hate that word villain. We’re all fairy-tale and nursery-rhyme characters. We can’t help the roles we were assigned. I’m trying to break free from that label.”
“Then I’m sure you will!” she blurted. In truth, Red had never really thought about labels before. She’d figured all fairy-tale characters were okay with whatever role they’d been given by the author who wrote about them.
Wolfgang looked her in the eye. “Maybe you should have that same kind of faith in yourself,” he said gently.
Belief in her ability to act onstage, he meant. She didn’t want to talk about that P for Prickly subject right now. To avoid it, she propped her basket on the edge of a shelf and reached under the lid to pull out two cookies from the bundle she’d brought.
“Here,” she said, handing him one. “I’m Snackmaker in my dorm, and these are my specialty. Double-chocolate chocolate-chip.”
He chuckled a little as he noticed the cookies were wolf heads. “Thanks. Nice shape,” he said, taking one and biting into it. “Mmm.” While they munched their cookies, he asked what she knew or suspected about E.V.I.L.
“I can’t say,” she replied swinging her basket by its handles between them as they walked on.
“Still not sure if you can trust me?” he asked shooting her a look. “That’s okay. When it comes to E.V.I.L., it’s hard to know who to trust. Even seemingly good characters can be recruited.”
Red nodded. “Cinda’s stepsisters tried to recruit Prince Awesome. Cinda overheard them at the ball the night she found the mapestry.”
“Exactly!” Wolfgang exclaimed. “So like I said, you can’t trust just anyone.” He paused. “Even certain teachers.”
“Like Ms. Wicked?” said Red. As they turned at the end of an aisle that dead-ended, she reached into her basket for more cookies. “I heard you talking to her yesterday,” she admitted. “I was worried — I mean, I thought that meant you were part of E.V.I.L., too.”
“Easy mistake,” Wolfgang said wryly, noddi
ng his thanks as he bit into the cookie she handed him. “I’ve been pretending to her that I’m interested in joining the Society, but just to get more information about it. She hasn’t invited me to any meetings of the group yet, though.”
“Meetings?” Red echoed as they turned another corner. But inside she was jumping for joy. He’d only been pretending to be interested in joining E.V.I.L.!
He hesitated. “Listen, I know you’re friends with Snow, but she’s Ms. Wicked’s stepdaughter, so you should be careful what you say around —”
Red blinked in dismay. “Huh? Snow is not like her stepmom. There’s no way she’d have anything to do with E.V.I.L. And she would never betray our secrets to Ms. Wicked.”
“Can you really be sure of that?” Wolfgang asked. “Ms. Wicked can be pretty persuasive. And even if she didn’t intend to, Snow might accidentally spill a secret.”
“She wouldn’t,” Red insisted stubbornly. But even as she defended her friend, she could feel a seed of doubt take root in her mind.
Wolfgang shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt to be careful, right?” He finished off his second cookie and then brushed the crumbs from his jacket.
They turned a corner and walked down another aisle whose shelves contained pots and pans, plates and platters, potato peelers, and pastry brushes. “It wasn’t very nice of you to fool me by P for Pretending to be the enchantress,” said Red.
Wolfgang rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. Sorry about that. But I figured it was the only way to get you to tell me some stuff I needed to know.” Suddenly, a red flush spread across his face.
Red wondered if he’d just remembered that one of the things he’d “needed to know” back at the cottage was if there was a special boy she liked at school.
“It was my accursed tail that gave me away, wasn’t it?” he said quickly. “When I’m in Neverwood, it has a mind of its own.”
Red laughed. She was dying to tell him that she’d found the ball in her basket, and that she and her friends had met the enchantress. But still she held back. Wolfgang was right. She wasn’t quite ready to trust him.
“So why do you think Ms. Wicked hasn’t invited you to any meetings yet?” she asked as they turned down yet another aisle.
Wolfgang frowned. “To become a member, I have to P for Prove my loyalty first.”
“How?” asked Red, fearing she knew the answer.
He gave her a sidelong glance. “By stealing a magical charm or artifact and bringing it to her.”
Even though she’d expected his answer, it still came as a shock. She stopped walking and took a step back from him. “You can’t have my basket!” No way would she even mention the crystal ball now, much less give it to him! Surely Grandmother Enchantress wouldn’t want her to. What if he rashly handed the ball over to E.V.I.L. in place of her basket?
Pressing her charm to her chest, she folded her arms around it as if to guard it. Keeping a wary eye on him, she walked away, looking for the door out of the library.
“Wait! Listen, I had a plan, okay?” he said, following her. “Only the owner of a charm can make it work. So E.V.I.L. couldn’t have used your basket to steal any magical objects or artifacts. Besides, you could’ve called it back or it would’ve come back to you on its own eventually.”
“Humpf,” she replied. She was still mad, but she slowed her footsteps, then stopped. Mulling over what he’d said, she stared aimlessly at an empty spot on the shelf across from her. “Well …”
Then she noticed that the empty spot on the shelf was labeled ‘J & J’s Pail.’ “Hey!” she exclaimed. “Jack and Jill’s pail is missing! Its tag isn’t here, either.”
There was a tag attached to everything that could be checked out of the library. You just signed your name on the tag, then left the tag on the shelf when you borrowed the item.
Quickly, Red recounted her conversation with Gretel to Wolfgang. “So after Jack’s accident, Jill returned the pail here to the library,” she finished. “They aren’t allowed to check it out for a whole week.”
Wolfgang frowned. “Which means someone else must have taken it.”
“And they didn’t leave the tag because they —” Red began.
“Stole the pail!” she and Wolfgang said at the same time.
“Wait till I tell Snow, Rapunzel, and Cinda!” said Red, slipping the basket’s handles over her arm once more. But as she ran for the door with Wolfgang right on her heels, the library abruptly began to expand crazily in all directions, with shelves, aisles, chandeliers, and rooms popping up everywhere. The door was suddenly much farther away. It was almost like they were running toward it in slow motion!
As they came upon the L section, Red heard the sound of wings. FLAP! FLAP! FLAP! A dark shadow loomed overhead. Red looked up and heaved a sigh of relief when she saw it was only the librarian riding on the back of a gigantic snowy-white goose that was as big as a horse.
“Hello, goslings!” Ms. Goose called down to them. “Need help finding anything? I was just powering up the library. Didn’t realize anyone was in here!” She wore a frilly white cap and spectacles, and a crisp white apron with a curlicue L embroidered on its front bib. L for Librarian, of course.
“We came in while the library was small,” Red said, waving to her, “to talk. And we just now noticed … ow!”
When Wolfgang nudged her, Red broke off and looked over at him. “You don’t want me to tell her about the missing pail?” she whispered to him as Ms. Goose circled.
“No,” Wolfgang whispered back. “Not yet, anyway. Let’s not take any chances.”
Ms. Goose peered down at them, zooming closer. Straightaway her eyes went to the basket on Red’s arm. “What’s that?” she asked, her eyes lighting with interest.
“Um, my new charm?”
Ms. Goose swooped low to get a better look. Red gulped, as a new worry struck. Oh, no! Was Ms. Goose going to announce that her basket was actually a library artifact? She was the expert on such things, being the librarian and all. How disappointing it would be to find out that the basket wasn’t a charm after all, and that it belonged here in the library collection. Seeming to sense what Red was thinking, the basket nestled tight to her side.
“How delightful! It is a charm!” Ms. Goose said after a quick inspection as she whooshed by. “And it seems to like you very much.”
The basket rocked back and forth in Red’s arms now, as if nodding.
“That settles it, then!” Red said happily bouncing a little on the toes of her ankle boots. “It’s my charm for absolutely truly definitely sure! Thanks, Ms. Goose!”
“Let’s go,” Wolfgang said, pulling Red’s hand as the librarian waved farewell and flew on overhead.
“Why couldn’t we tell about the pail? Surely you don’t suspect Ms. Goose of having anything to do with E.V.I.L.? She’s so nice!” she murmured as they rushed for the door again.
Wolfgang frowned. “For now, everyone is a suspect. Including Ms. Goose. Who’s better placed than her to spirit artifacts out of the library?”
Red could see his point, but really … Ms. Goose? It just didn’t seem possible!
Unfortunately, the minute they stepped out of the library, Ms. Wicked came out of her office into the fourth-floor hallway, too. Her eyes went straight to Red’s basket. From the sour look she shot Wolfgang, it was clear Snow’s stepmom wasn’t pleased with him. Maybe because Red was clearly still in possession of the basket Ms. Wicked wanted him to steal?
Wolfgang nodded to the teacher. “Hi, Ms. Wicked. Red and I were just practicing in the library for the play auditions on Monday.”
“Is that so?” said Ms. Wicked, a calculating look on her face. “Well, I’ll look forward to your performances. Mr. Thumb has asked me to help judge the auditions.”
Red froze, her eyes flicking from the teacher to Wolfgang. His eyes seemed to plead with her. She wanted to deny that she was going to try out, but if she did, Ms. Wicked would know that he was lying. And that could blow his chances of gett
ing into E.V.I.L. to spy on the group.
Do I trust him or don’t I? Red asked herself. And am I willing to face my fears and get up on that stage again? The questions spun in her head, around and around. In a flash, the answers came to her and she spoke up.
“Grimmtastic!” said Red, looking Ms. Wicked straight in the eye. “I’ll be trying out for the lead. The part of Red Robin Hood.”
“Oh. How exciting,” said Ms. Wicked, seeming a little taken aback by her confident tone. “Good luck to you on Monday, then.” With that, she headed past them down the hall. Click, click, click.
Wolfgang grinned at Red. “So you’re going to audition after all? Or was that little speech just now purely good acting?”
“A little of both?” she replied, grinning back. To tell the truth, she was kind of glad the decision had been taken out of her hands. Since she felt that way, it must mean that her dream wasn’t quite as dead as she’d thought!
And she’d decided to trust him, right? Quickly, before she could change her mind, she handed him her basket. “I’m giving you the rest of the cookies,” she said. Then she lowered her voice and hinted, “There’s something else in there you’ll like, too. Something a certain enchantress trusts you to guard.”
His eyes searched hers, then he smiled and nodded. “Your meaning is crystal clear.”
“You knew we’d spoken to her, didn’t you?” Red guessed. “And that I had … it … in here?”
“I suspected,” he told her. “My grandtress can move from one place to another in ways that others can’t. And also, I’d put … it … in your basket. But then I closed the lid. Big mistake. Couldn’t get it open again. That’s how I figured out that the magic must only work for you.”
“Oops! That reminds me,” said Red. Looking at her charm, she chanted, “A tisket, a tasket. Let Wolfgang open you once, basket.”
Wolfgang smiled. “Thanks for deciding to trust me, Fuschia. You won’t regret it. Call your basket back in fifteen minutes.”
He walked off humming a tune before she could scold him for yet another nickname. Not that she would have, she thought as she watched him go. For some reason, she was starting to like those nicknames!