Princess Mirror-Belle and the Party Hoppers

by Julia Donaldson

  “Don’t point, it’s rude,” she said, and stepped out of the mirror.

  “Mirror-Belle, it’s you!” said Ellen, and laughed again. “You’ve gone all funny and wobbly.”

  “Of course I’m wobbly, it’s Wobblesday today, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s Wednesday,” said Ellen.

  “Call it that if you like,” said Mirror-Belle, waddling out of the Mirror Hall on her short legs, “but where I come from it’s a Wobblesday, and everyone wobbles on Wobblesdays. It’s a rule my father the King made. Even the palace goes wobbly on Wobblesdays. A bit like that one,” she added, pointing to a bouncy castle on which some children were jumping about. The finger Mirror-Belle was pointing with looked like a wiggly knitting needle and Ellen laughed again. She found she was really glad to see Mirror-Belle after all. She hadn’t exactly been looking forward to going on the ghost train by herself.

  “Have you got any money?” Ellen asked. Mirror-Belle had three 50p and two 20p pieces.

  “Exactly the same as me,” said Ellen. “But all the writing is back to front on your coins.”

  “It’s yours that are the wrong way round, silly,” said Mirror-Belle.

  They each gave 50p to the man in charge of the ghost train, who was chewing gum and staring at nothing. He didn’t seem to notice Mirror-Belle’s strange appearance or the backwards writing.

  They got into a carriage of the ghost train behind a woman and a little boy.

  “It’ll be fun travelling on an ordinary train,” said Mirror-Belle. “I’ve only ever been on a royal one before.”

  “This one isn’t exactly ordinary—” Ellen warned, but was interrupted by an eerie voice:

  “This is your Guaaaaaard speaking,” the voice moaned. “Ride if you dare but prepare for a scare.”

  “What a silly guard!” said Mirror-Belle. “Why doesn’t he tell us what stations we’ll be going to and whether we can get tea and snacks on the train?”

  The train set off. Almost immediately it plunged into a tunnel. As they turned a corner a luminous monster popped out at them. The little boy in front screamed.

  “This is disgraceful, frightening innocent children!” said Mirror-Belle. As she spoke, a huge spider dangled down from the ceiling and the boy screamed again.

  “Don’t they ever sweep their tunnels?” said Mirror-Belle.

  She reached up and grabbed the spider with her long wiggly fingers.

  “Go and build your web somewhere else,” she said, throwing it over her shoulder. The people in the seats behind screamed.

  The train turned another corner, where a ghost loomed out of the darkness and went “Whooo!” at the little boy. He clutched his mother.

  “This is too bad,” said Mirror-Belle. She leaned out of the carriage and went “Whooo!” back at the ghost, only much louder. The little boy turned round, saw Mirror-Belle and screamed again. Ellen wasn’t surprised: with her gaping mouth and dangling chin Mirror-Belle probably looked like another ghost or monster to the little boy.

  A few skeletons, vampires and coffins later the train stopped, and the little boy stopped screaming. “Can we have another go?” he said to his mother.

  Mirror-Belle looked around her in disgust. “This is ridiculous,” she said. “We haven’t gone anywhere at all – we’re back where we started. I’m going to complain to the stationmaster.” She got out and headed towards the gum-chewing man, but Ellen managed to stop her.

  “Why don’t we have a go at the hoopla?” she said. “Look, we could win one of those giant teddies.”

  Ellen had never won a prize at hoopla. She could never manage to throw her hoop over a peg so that it landed flat, and this time was no different. But for Mirror-Belle it was easy. She just reached out one of her amazingly long arms and put the hoop over the peg. Soon she had won three teddies and a goldfish in a bowl. A little crowd had gathered around them.

  “Here, you take these,” said Mirror-Belle, thrusting the teddies and goldfish at Ellen and moving on to the coconut shy. The crowd followed.

  The man at the coconut shy looked pleased to see so many people. Ellen missed with her three balls but Mirror-Belle’s long arm reached almost to the stands holding the coconuts and she knocked them out with no trouble. The crowd grew bigger and some of the people started having goes. The coconut man didn’t seem to mind Mirror-Belle winning so often, and even gave her a sack to put the teddies and coconuts in.

  “I think you’d better stop before it gets too heavy to carry,” said Ellen. “Do you like candyfloss?”

  “Wobbably,” said Mirror-Belle.

  “Don’t you mean, ‘probably’?”

  “No, I mean wobbably. That means that if the candyfloss is wobbly I’ll like it. You seem to have forgotten that this is Wobblesday. On Wobblesdays we only eat wobbly food.”

  It took some time to reach the candyfloss stall, as Mirror-Belle could only take tiny steps with her short legs, while her long body wobbled about all over the place.

  Mirror-Belle asked for two wobbly candyflosses. The candyfloss seller gave her a funny look but she wiggled the sticks about a lot as she spun the pink stuff round them, and Mirror-Belle decided that would do. Her mouth was so huge that she ate hers in one mouthful and asked for five more. “I’ve got yards and yards of tummy to fill, you see,” she said, after she’d eaten all five at once.

  By now all their money was used up, and Ellen remembered she was supposed to be meeting Luke at the Mirror Hall. They went back there.

  Outside the Mirror Hall there was a sign saying, “Wobbly Mirror-Hall, 20p.”

  “Really!” said Mirror-Belle. “As if it’s not bad enough everything being in backwards writing, they can’t even spell my name.”

  She took a felt-tip pen out of her pocket, changed two of the letters and added one. The sign now said, “Wobbly Mirror-Belle, 20p”.

  “Now, Ellen,” she said, “you collect the money. Remember, it’s twenty pence a wobble.” She took up a position beside the notice, standing completely still, as if she was playing Musical Statues.

  Ellen shuffled from foot to foot, not sure what to do. A few people gathered round.

  “Twenty pence for what?” asked one.

  “To see her wobble,” said Ellen.

  “She can’t wobble, she’s just a statue,” said another.

  “Isn’t she that funny girl that was winning all the coconuts?” asked someone else.

  In the end a man handed Ellen 20p, saying he wanted it back if he wasn’t satisfied. As Ellen’s palm closed round the coin, Mirror-Belle’s body began to ripple, like a snake-charmer’s snake rearing out of its basket and writhing about. She kept it up for half a minute and then stopped abruptly.

  Immediately someone else gave Ellen 20p, and this time Mirror-Belle stretched out one of her long snaky arms. The crowd watched it wobble, curving and bending and eventually tying itself into a knot. Everyone clapped, except for one man who muttered, “It’s all done with mirrors,” in a knowing way.

  The third time, Mirror-Belle wobbled her ears. They bounced up and down like yo-yos, nearly hitting the ground and then springing back up again. By this time the crowd was quite big, and everybody seemed to be reaching into their pockets.

  Then Ellen noticed Luke strolling towards them from a ride called Jaws of Terror, his gelled hair glinting in the sunshine.

  “Here comes my brother!” she said to Mirror-Belle.

  With one last bounce of her ears Mirror-Belle turned and waddled, surprisingly quickly, into the Mirror Hall.

  “Hey, you haven’t paid!” the attendant called out.

  “I’ll pay for her,” said Ellen. She gave the attendant two of the three 20ps they had earned, and followed Mirror-Belle, but she was overtaken by several of the crowd, eager for more wobbly stunts. Ellen looked around for Mirror-Belle but couldn’t find her. Instead, she bumped into Luke.

  “There you are!” he said. “You don’t know what you’ve missed! That Space-Lurcher – it’s amazing the way
it stops and changes direction just when you’re upside down at the top. You really feel you’re going to fall out.” Then he noticed the goldfish bowl and the sack. He looked inside the sack and saw the teddies and coconuts.

  “Did you win all those?” he asked. Ellen could tell he was trying not to sound too impressed. She nearly said, “No, Mirror-Belle did,” but she knew Luke wouldn’t believe her. She guessed, too, that Mirror-Belle would by now have made her getaway into one of the wobbly mirrors. So instead she answered, “Yes – and I’ve still got twenty pence left!”

  Chapter Three

  Love-Potion Crisps

  It was the first day of term and Ellen was starting at her new school. Mum took her to the head teacher’s office, and the head teacher took her to her classroom.

  “This is Ellen, who is going to be joining your class,” she announced. All the other children stared at Ellen. She clutched her lunch box tightly and tried to smile.

  “Hello, Ellen,” said the teacher brightly. “Perhaps you’d like to hang your blazer up in the cloakroom next door? You’ll find a peg in there with your name on it.”

  Ellen found her peg and hung up her blazer. Underneath it she wore a tunic and blouse, and a tie with diagonal green and yellow stripes. Her old school didn’t have a uniform, so she had never worn a tie before. She checked in the cloakroom mirror to make sure it was straight.

  Yes, the tie looked fine but, oh dear, Ellen didn’t feel like going back into the classroom and being stared at again.

  She was just turning away from the mirror when a voice said, “You do look worried. Never fear, I’ll be there.”

  Ellen turned back in time to see Mirror-Belle stepping cheerfully out of the mirror. She carried a lunch box just like Ellen’s and was wearing the same uniform, except that the stripes in her tie sloped in the opposite direction.

  “Mirror-Belle! You can’t come to school with me!” said Ellen.

  “What do you mean, I can’t? I just have, haven’t I?” said Mirror-Belle. She skipped past Ellen out of the cloakroom and opened the classroom door.

  “Hello again, Ellen,” said the teacher, and then looked surprised as she saw the real Ellen behind Mirror-Belle.

  “I didn’t know you had a twin,” she said.

  “Well, never mind,” said Mirror-Belle. “You can’t know everything. I don’t suppose you know how many fairy godmothers I’ve got either.”

  “Now, Ellen, don’t be cheeky,” said the teacher.

  “That’s something else you don’t know,” said Mirror-Belle. “I’m not Ellen, I’m Mirror-Belle.”

  “Very well, Mirror-Belle, now come and sit down at this table. You and Ellen can be in Orange group.”

  “I’d rather be in Gold group or Silver group,” said Mirror-Belle.

  “We don’t have either of those, I’m afraid,” said the teacher firmly, “but I’m sure you’ll get on fine in Orange group if you behave yourself.”

  She gave out some exercise books and asked the children to write about what they had done in the holidays. Ellen wrote about moving house.

  The teacher wandered round the classroom. She came over to Orange group’s table and looked over Mirror-Belle’s shoulder.

  “Yours is a bit difficult to read, Mirror-Belle,” she said. “Your letters seem to be the wrong way round. It is easy to get muddled up, I know, especially between ‘b’s and ‘d’s.”

  “Oh, poor you,” said Mirror-Belle. “Do you really get as muddled up as all that? Don’t worry – I’m sure you’ll learn. Perhaps you’d better use a mirror to read my writing.”

  “That’s quite a good idea,” said the teacher, and took a mirror out of her handbag. “Yes, I can read it fine now. Mirror-Belle’s written a very interesting story,” she told the class. “Do you mind if I read it out, Mirror-Belle?”

  “Not at all,” said Mirror-Belle. “I expect you could do with a bit of reading practice.”

  The teacher read out Mirror-Belle’s story. It went like this:

  “I didn’t do very much in the holidays because I got turned into a golden statue. You see, my father the King was nice to an old man and so he was given the power to turn everything he touched to gold. By mistake he touched me. In the end I got turned back by being washed in a magic river.”

  The children all laughed at this story, and the teacher said, “That was good, Mirror-Belle, although I seem to have heard that story before somewhere. What I asked you to write about was what you really did in the holidays.”

  “But I told you, I didn’t do anything,” said Mirror-Belle. “You can’t when you’re a golden statue – you can’t move, or eat or brush your hair or anything. I had this awful tickle on my leg and I couldn’t even scratch it.”

  At this point the bell for morning play rang. A friendly girl called Katy took Ellen and Mirror-Belle into the playground where they joined in a game of tig. But two big boys kept bumping into Ellen. They pretended it was by accident but Ellen could tell it was on purpose.

  “That’s Bruce Baxter and Stephen Hodge,” said Katy. “They’re always like that.” Mirror-Belle said nothing but looked very thoughtful.

  After playtime the teacher gave out some maths books and asked the children to turn to a page which had a picture of a fruit shop.

  “Now,” she said, “if one apple costs ten pence and Susan gives the fruit-seller fifty pence, how much change will she get?”

  “Hold on a second,” said Mirror-Belle. “Look at those apples. Would you say they’re half red and half green?”

  “What about it, Mirror-Belle?”

  “I think Susan ought to watch out,” said Mirror-Belle. “How does she know the apple-selling lady hasn’t poisoned the apples? She’s probably a wicked queen in disguise, trying to get rid of anyone more beautiful than her.”

  “Mirror-Belle!” said the teacher angrily. “I’m not asking you to tell fairy stories. I asked how much change Susan would get from her fifty pence. How much do you think?”

  “None,” said Mirror-Belle. “If that queen’s as wicked as I think she is, she’ll run off with the fifty pence.”

  By the time the bell rang for lunch the teacher was looking quite exhausted.

  In the dinner hall Ellen and Mirror-Belle sat with Katy and the other children who had brought packed lunches. Unfortunately, these included Bruce Baxter and Stephen Hodge. When the dinner lady wasn’t looking Bruce grabbed Ellen’s bag of crisps. Then Stephen took Katy’s chocolate bar and Bruce snatched another child’s yogurt. They put all the things in a bag along with some other goodies they had stolen.

  “They always do that,” said Katy. “Then they eat them in the playground.”

  “But why don’t you tell the dinner lady?” asked Ellen.

  “If you do that they lie in wait on the way home from school and pounce on you.”

  Once again Mirror-Belle was being unusually quiet and thoughtful. She had managed to avoid having her lunch stolen, and she took an unopened packet of crisps out into the playground. They looked just like Ellen’s crisps except for the writing being back to front.

  Katy and her friends had a long skipping rope and they asked Ellen and Mirror-Belle to play with them. But Bruce Baxter and Stephen Hodge kept barging into the game and treading on the rope. Stephen was swinging the bag of stolen food. Just as they were interrupting the game for the fourth time, Mirror-Belle said loudly, “I see I’ve got love-potion-flavoured crisps today.”

  “What are they?” said Ellen.

  “They make you fall in love with the first person you see.”

  She popped one into her mouth, fixing her eyes on Bruce Baxter.

  “Oh, my hero!” she suddenly exclaimed. Then she ran up to him and hugged him. Bruce went red. All the girls laughed at him and so did Stephen.

  “Let me shower you with kisses!” said Mirror-Belle, aiming a kiss at Bruce’s nose. He turned away and the kiss landed on his ear.

  “You were so wonderful when you were spoiling the skipping game,�
� she said. “Please do it again and I’ll give you ten kisses!”

  “Leave me alone,” said Bruce.

  “Never!” cried Mirror-Belle. She bit into another crisp, at the same time staring at Stephen Hodge. “Oh, my darling!” she said. “My own true love!” She threw her arms around Stephen and this time it was his turn to go red.

  “You’re so clever to have taken all that food. You won’t give it back, will you?”

  “Come on, let’s go!” said Stephen to Bruce, looking very embarrassed.

  “Where you go I follow!” said Mirror-Belle. “The only way to break the spell is to give me a bag of food, but I’m sure you won’t want to do that, will you?”

  The boys dumped the bag at Mirror-Belle’s feet and ran off.

  After Mirror-Belle had given the food back to its owners the skipping game started up again, this time undisturbed.

  “Are those really magic crisps?” asked Katy.

  “Try one and see!” said Mirror-Belle.

  Katy ate a crisp and so did Ellen, but neither of them fell in love with anyone.

  “Perhaps it only works on princesses,” said Mirror-Belle.

  Back in the classroom the teacher got the paints out and told the children to roll up their sleeves and put aprons on.

  “We’re going to do a project on pets this term,” she said. “I’d like you all to paint a picture of a pet. It can either be your own pet or one belonging to a friend.”