Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin

by Liesl Shurtliff

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2013 by Liesl Shurtliff

  Jacket art copyright © 2013 by Zdenko Basic

  Interior illustrations copyright © 2013 by the Florida Center for

  Instructional Technology

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon

  are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Shurtliff, Liesl.

  Rump : the true story of Rumpelstiltskin / Liesl Shurtliff. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Relates the tale of Rumpelstiltskin’s childhood and youth, explaining why his name is so important, how he is able to spin straw into gold, and why a first-born child is his reward for helping the miller’s daughter-turned-queen.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-97795-3

  [1. Fairy tales. 2. Names, Personal—Fiction. 3. Magic—Fiction.

  4. Gold—Fiction. 5. Humorous stories.] I. Title.

  PZ8.S34525Rum 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2012005093

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For Scott,

  my best friend in the whole world

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. Your Name Is Your Destiny

  2. Spinning Wheels and Pixie Thrills

  3. The Greedy Miller and His Daughter

  4. Red and Her Grandmother

  5. Fluff to Mouse, Mouse to Mice

  6. Gold! Gold! Gold!

  7. Gold Means Food

  8. Gold Means Secrets

  9. Gold Found, Treasure Lost

  10. Unfair Bargains

  11. King Barf

  12. The Miller’s Lie

  13. The Witch of The Woods

  14. Rump to the Rescue

  15. Straw, Straw, Straw

  16. One Bargain Too Many

  17. Martha’s Endless Tales

  18. In Search of a Stiltskin

  19. Trolls, Witches, and Poison Apples

  20. Trolls Smell, but They Also SMELL

  21. Yonder

  22. The Wool Witches

  23. Growing Crazy

  24. Where There’s a Will, There’s No Way

  25. Warnings from Red

  26. Destiny Calls

  27. The Miller and the Merchant

  28. Grasping at Straws

  29. Guessing Games for Finding Names

  30. The Stiltskin

  31. Third Day’s the Charm

  32. From Small Things

  Epilogue: Your Destiny Is Your Name

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER ONE

  Your Name Is Your Destiny

  My mother named me after a cow’s rear end. It’s the favorite village joke, and probably the only one, but it’s not really true. At least I don’t think it’s true, and neither does Gran. Really, my mother had another name for me, a wonderful name, but no one ever heard it. They only heard the first part. The worst part.

  Mother had been very ill when I was born. Gran said she was fevered and coughing and I came before I was supposed to. Still, my mother held me close and whispered my name in my ear. No one heard it but me.

  “His name?” Gran asked. “Tell me his name.”

  “His name is Rump … haaa-cough-cough-cough …” Gran gave Mother something warm to drink and pried me from her arms.

  “Tell me his name, Anna. All of it.”

  But Mother never did. She took a breath and then let out all the air and didn’t take any more in. Ever.

  Gran said that I cried then, but I never hear that in my imagination. All I hear is silence. Not a move or a breath. The fire doesn’t crack and even the pixies are still.

  Finally, Gran holds me up and says, “Rump. His name is Rump.”

  The next morning, the village bell chimed and gnomes ran all over The Mountain crying, “Rump! Rump! The new boy’s name is Rump!”

  My name couldn’t be changed or taken back, because in The Kingdom your name isn’t just what people call you. Your name is full of meaning and power. Your name is your destiny.

  My destiny really stinks.

  I stopped growing when I was eight and I was small to begin with. The midwife, Gertrude, says I’m small because I had only the milk of a weak goat instead of a strong mother, but I know that really it’s because of my name. You can’t grow all the way if you don’t have a whole name.

  I tried not to think about my destiny too much, but on my birthday I always did. On my twelfth birthday I thought of nothing else. I sat in the mine, swirling mud around in a pan, searching for gold. We needed gold, gold, gold, but all I saw was mud, mud, mud.

  The pickaxes beat out a rhythm that rang all over The Mountain. It filled the air with thumps and bumps. In my head The Mountain was chanting, Thump, thump, thump. Bump, bump, bump. Rump, Rump, Rump. At least it was a good rhyme.

  Thump, thump, thump

  Bump, bump, bump

  Rump, Rump, Rump

  “Butt! Hey, Butt!”

  I groaned as Frederick and his brother Bruno approached with menacing grins on their faces. Frederick and Bruno were the miller’s sons. They were close to my age, but so big, twice my size and ugly as trolls.

  “Happy birthday, Butt! We have a present just for you.” Frederick threw a clod of dirt at me. My stubby hands tried to block it, but it smashed right in my face and I gagged at the smell. The clod of dirt was not dirt.

  “Now that’s a gift worthy of your name!” said Bruno.

  Other children howled with laughter.

  “Leave him alone,” said a girl named Red. She glared at Frederick and Bruno, holding her shovel over her shoulder like a weapon. The other children stopped laughing.

  “Oh,” said Frederick. “Do you love Butt?”

  “That’s not his name,” growled Red.

  “Then what is it? Why doesn’t he tell us?”

  “Rump!” I said without thinking. “My name is Rump!” They burst out laughing. I had done just what they wanted. “But that’s not my real name!” I said desperately.

  “It isn’t?” asked Frederick.

  “What do you think his real name is?” asked Bruno.

  Frederick pretended to think very hard. “Something unusual. Something special … Cow Rump.”

  “Baby Rump,” said Bruno.

  “Rump Roast!”

  Everyone laughed. Frederick and Bruno fell over each other, holding their stomachs while tears streamed down their faces. They rolled in the dirt and squealed like pigs.

  Just for a moment I envied them. They looked like they were having such fun, rolling in the dirt and laughing. Why couldn’t I do that? Why couldn’t I join them?

  Then I remembered why they were laughing.

  Red swung her shovel down hard so it stuck in the ground right between the boys’ heads. Frederick and Bruno stopped laughing. “Go away,” she said.

  Bruno swallowed
, staring cross-eyed at the shovel that was just inches from his nose. Frederick stood and grinned at Red. “Sure. You two want to be alone.” The brothers walked away, snorting and falling over each other.

  I could feel Red looking at me, but I stared down at my pan. I picked out some of Frederick and Bruno’s present. I did not want to look at Red.

  “You’d better find some gold today, Rump,” said Red.

  I glared at her. “I know. I’m not stupid.”

  She raised her eyebrows. Some people did think I was stupid because of my name. And sometimes I thought they were probably right. Maybe if you have only half a name, you have only half a brain.

  I kept my eyes on my pan of mud, hoping Red would go away, but she stood over me with her shovel, like she was inspecting me.

  “The rations are tightening,” said Red. “The king—”

  “I know, Red.”

  Red glared at me. “Fine. Then good luck to you.” She stomped off, and I felt worse than when Frederick and Bruno threw poop in my face.

  Red wasn’t my friend exactly, but she was the closest I had to a friend. She never made fun of me. Sometimes she stood up for me, and I understood why. Her name wasn’t all that great, either. Just as people laugh at a name like Rump, they fear a name like Red. Red is not a name. It’s a color, an evil color. What kind of destiny does that bring?

  I swirled mud in my pan, searching for a glimmer. Our village lives off The Mountain’s gold—what little there is to find. The royal tax collector gathers it and takes it to the king. King Barf. If King Barf is pleased with our gold, he sends us extra food for rations. If he’s not pleased, we are extra hungry.

  King Barf isn’t actually named King Barf. His real name is King Bartholomew Archibald Reginald Fife, a fine, kingly name—a name with a great destiny, of course. But I don’t care how handsome or powerful that name makes you. It’s a mouthful. So for short I call him King Barf, though I’d never say it out loud.

  A pixie flew in my face, a blur of pink hair and translucent wings. I held still as she landed on my arm and explored. I tried to gently shake her off, but she only fluttered her wings and continued her search. She was looking for gold, just like me.

  Pixies are obsessed with gold. Once, they had been very helpful in the mines since they can sense large veins of gold from a mile away and deep in the earth. Whenever a swarm of pixies would hover around a particular spot of rock, the miners knew precisely where they should dig.

  But there hasn’t been much gold in The Mountain for many years. We find only small pebbles and specks. The pixies don’t dance and chirp the way they used to. Now they’re just pests, pesky thieves trying to steal what little gold we find. And they’ll bite you to get it. Pixies are no bigger than a finger and they look sweet and delicate and harmless with their sparkly wings and colorful hair, but their bites hurt worse than bee stings and squirrel bites and poison ivy combined—and I’ve had them all.

  The pixie on my arm finally decided I had no gold and flew away. I scooped more mud from the sluice and swirled it around in my pan. No gold. Only mud, mud, mud.

  Thump, thump, thump

  Bump, bump, bump

  Rump, Rump, Rump

  I didn’t find any gold. We worked until the sun was low and a gnome came running through the mines shouting, “The day is done! The day is done!” in a voice so bright and cheery I had the urge to kick the gnome and send it flying down The Mountain. But I was relieved. Now I could go home, and maybe Gran had cooked a chicken. Maybe she would tell me a story that would help me stop thinking about my birth and name and destiny.

  I set my tools aside and walked alone down The Mountain and through The Village. Red walked alone too, a little ahead of me. The rest of the villagers traveled in clusters, some children together, others with their parents. Some carried leather purses full of gold. Those who found good amounts of gold got extra rations. If they found a great deal, they could keep some to trade in the markets. I had never found enough gold even for extra rations.

  Pixies fluttered in front of my face and chirped in my ears, and I swatted at them. If only the pixies would show me a mound of gold in the earth, then maybe it wouldn’t matter that I was small. If I found lots of gold, then maybe no one would laugh at me or make fun of my name. Gold would make me worth something.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Spinning Wheels and Pixie Thrills

  Home is a place to get out of the rain

  It cradles the hurt and mends the pain

  And no one cares about your name

  Or the height of your head

  Or the size of your brain

  I made up that rhyme myself.

  Rhymes make me feel better when I’m down. The midwife, Gertrude, told me that rhymes are a waste of brain space, but I like the way they sound. When you say the words and the sounds match, it feels like everything in the world is in its place and whatever you say is powerful and true.

  My home is a tiny cottage. The roof is lopsided and leaks when it rains, but Gran is there and she doesn’t care about my name.

  When I stepped inside, I was greeted by a gust of warm air that smelled of bread and onions. Gran was sewing near the fire and didn’t stop her work when I entered, but greeted me with a smile and a rhyme.

  “Wash your hands, wipe your feet, give me a kiss, sit down and eat.”

  Gran’s rhyme made my insides warm. She didn’t mention my birthday, and I felt light again. I obeyed all of Gran’s instructions and sat on the woven rug by the fire. I ladled some onion soup into a bowl and sipped.

  “Tell me what your day was about,” said Gran.

  I wouldn’t tell her about Frederick and Bruno’s gift. It would either make her very sad or very mad, and I hated to see Gran upset. I decided to turn the subject to the least awful thing about the day.

  “I didn’t find any gold,” I said.

  “Humph,” said Gran. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Not much gold left in The Mountain. Eat your supper.”

  There were two thin slices of bread sitting on the hearth. I swallowed one in two gulps and eyed the other.

  “Eat it,” said Gran.

  “What about you?”

  “I already ate. Stuffed as gooseberry pie.” I looked at Gran’s frail and withered frame. Her hands were knobby and the blue veins were raised above her skin. She trembled as she tried to feed thread into a needle. I knew she wasn’t eating enough, that she was going hungry to give me more food. Me, a boy who hadn’t grown in years.

  “I’m not hungry,” I said.

  “Fine, then, take it to the chickens,” she said.

  I stared at the bread. I was so hungry. Not hungry enough to steal food from my gran, but hungry enough to steal food from the chickens. I took the bread and ate it, but it didn’t fill me.

  I was twelve now. Twelve was the age most boys were considered men and they started working in the tunnels with pickaxes, searching for big gold. I wasn’t even allowed to pick up a shovel. With my half of a name, I was half of a person.

  Sometimes I thought if I just focused hard enough, I could remember the name my mother had whispered to me before she died. Sometimes I could still hear that whisper in my ear. Rump … Rumpus, Rumpalini, Rumpalicious, Rumperdink, Rumpty-dumpty. I had spoken a hundred names aloud. It always tickled my brain like a feather, but my true name, if I really had one, never surfaced all the way.

  “Gran, what if I never find my name?”

  Gran’s needle paused in the air for a moment. “You mustn’t worry about it too much, dear.”

  That’s what she always said if I asked about my name or my destiny. I used to think she just wanted me to be patient and not worry. I thought she was reassuring me that all would work out well, that someday I would find my name and have a great destiny. But now I realized that maybe she said it because I might never find my real name.

  “Suppose I’m Rump until the day I die?” I said.

  “You’re young yet,” said Gran. “Rump might tur
n out to be a great destiny … in the end.” I saw her bite her cheeks to keep in a laugh.

  “It’s not funny, Gran,” I said, though I was stifling my own laughter. Life would be awfully grim and glum if I couldn’t laugh at myself.

  “Everyone is born and everyone dies,” said Gran. “And if you’re Rump until the day you die, I’ll love you just the same.”

  “But what about the in-between?” I said. “It’s all the things in the middle that make a person special. How can I live a special life without a special name?”

  “You can start by fetching me some firewood,” said Gran. This was her way of telling me to stop feeling sorry for myself. Life goes on. Get to work.

  I stepped out the back of our cottage and took a deep breath of crisp air. Summer was fading. The leaves on the trees were turning from green to yellow. Milk, our goat, stood tethered to a tree, chewing leaves off a shrub.

  “Hello, Milk,” I said. Milk bleated a greeting.

  Our donkey, Nothing, wasn’t tied up or penned in because he wouldn’t move unless his tail was on fire. “Hello, Nothing,” I said. Nothing said nothing.

  We don’t name animals. Names are special and saved for people, but I feel like I need to call them something, so I call our goat Milk, because that’s what she gives us, and I call our donkey Nothing, because that’s what he’s good for. He used to help my father in the mines, but I can’t get him to do a thing. So he’s Nothing, and his name makes me feel a little better about my own.

  I gathered wood in my arms, and the chickens pecked around my feet for the bugs that dropped from the logs. The woodpile was getting low. I was thinking how I would need to get more from the woodcutter soon when something caught my eye. An odd-shaped piece of wood was sticking above the pile. It was curved and smooth. I pushed some logs away and saw spokes and spindles. It was a spinning wheel. I paused, confused. Spinning wheels in The Mountain were rare. I only knew what one looked like because the miller’s daughter had a spinning wheel and she would spin people’s wool for some extra gold or some of their rations. Sometimes that was cheaper than trading for cloth and yarn in the markets. But I’d never seen anyone else with one. What was a spinning wheel doing in the woodpile?