But before she had a chance to settle on a feeling, the witch was pushed onto the stage by the production team, who were worried Rapunzel might bolt.
The witch marched to her seat. She had clearly dressed to type – Rapunzel had never seen her looking so witchy. Throughout her childhood she’d worn dungarees and hand-knitted cardigans. Now she was resplendent in a full-length, deep purple frock and a flowing cape emblazoned with a tiny, embroidered gold figure. Rapunzel screwed up her eyes to see: it looked like the small figure of a girl, with long hair! The witch’s face was pale and makeup free, but she’d painted her lips scarlet red (was she taking notes from Hello, Witchcraft! and Hot Magic? Rapunzel wondered). Not to mention the hair, which she’d clearly frizzed up deliberately. What a cliché!
@Eddie21
Now that’s what I call turning up for the show! She is nailing nasty! #wickedwitch #NationalTV #FairytaleFamilies
@TheGingerbreadMan
What did I tell you? She should have #runrun out of that studio! #gingerbread4ever #FairytaleFamilies
Jack waited for a few minutes for the booing to quieten down, then continued. ‘Let’s make our guest feel welcome, please,’ he chastised. ‘Everyone deserves a chance to tell their side of the story. So perhaps you could start by explaining what led you to strike such a terrible deal on that fateful morning with Peter Halverson?’
‘He was stealing from me!’ the witch retorted angrily. ‘He brazenly came onto my land and stole my plants. From that moment, he relinquished his rights. Hasn’t he heard of Ocado!?’
A few titters erupted from the audience and the witch allowed herself a small smile.
Peter was gazing steadfastly at the floor, flooded with shame.
‘Besides,’ the witch added, spite spiking her words, ‘I took good care of her. Raised her to have better values than her father would have done. Everything I did, I did for her.’
Rapunzel was confused. Was the witch insinuating that she took her away from her own parents out of concern for her?! She dared herself to finally make eye contact with her. The witch’s face instantly softened in response. Could it be that the witch actually had real feelings for her? Rapunzel cast her mind back to all those years together, before the tower. The witch had painstakingly taught her about each and every plant in the forest – which were poisonous and which she could eat. She’d tucked her in every night when she thought Rapunzel was asleep, kissing each cheek in turn. Rapunzel remembered how cold her lips had felt and the comfort that icy touch had once given her.
‘But what about the tower?’ Pandora butted in sharply. ‘You locked a young girl, who believed she was your daughter, in a tower. A tower with no way out. Then abandoned her for dead in a forest when she had committed no crime other than to fall in love!’
‘Fall in love? With that creep?’ the witch spat. ‘She can do a lot better than him. Look, I only locked her up to protect her from all the evils of the world! I’d rather have kept her with me, of course I would. But I didn’t want her to be exposed to the sadness and sins of our world. I wanted her to only know the fantasy and beauty of the forest. All I ever wanted was to keep her safe.’
‘In a tower,’ Pandora interjected.
‘Well, maybe it was a bit extreme, I guess,’ the witch admitted drily.
Rapunzel couldn’t wait any longer. ‘A bit extreme?!’ she snorted incredulously. ‘You betrayed me! I trusted you completely. I followed you willingly to that tower. I climbed those stairs, skipping and singing all the way. And then you locked me up and left me there!’ Her eyes were stinging with tears, but she didn’t want to let the witch see her cry.
‘Believe me, I didn’t want to,’ the witch replied, her voice soft. ‘But I couldn’t stay – I had to earn a living. I had no one else to rely on. I wanted you to have everything you ever needed.’
‘But I didn’t need anything else. I only needed you!’ Rapunzel said with feeling. ‘You were all I had ever known.’
The witch physically shrank away from the words as if they were poisonous needles. ‘I did my best.’ She shrugged quietly. ‘I’m sorry it wasn’t enough.’
@Girl_Power
Single mother, trying her hardest. I don’t condone her actions, but I can understand her motivations. #empathy #equality
@Little_RedThis is hard to watch. I want to give Rapunzel a hug. #FairytaleFamilies #Hereforyoubabe
@JailTheWitches47
Take responsibility for what you did! You’re pure evil! #JailTheWitches
‘Well, what an explosive episode of Fairytale Families!’ Jack concluded. ‘I’m very sorry to say that we’ve run out of time today, although we’d love to have had longer –’
‘Just one last thing,’ the witch interrupted,‘before we go. This is my way of saying sorry, of trying to make things right.’ She pulled out a small silver wand from her cape with a flourish, closed her eyes and began muttering a spell under her breath.
In an instant, Rapunzel’s hair began to grow. And grow. And grow. It fell first to her chest, then her tummy, then down to her knees, and didn’t stop until it reached the first row of the audience. It was beautiful, lustrous, blonde hair that glittered under the studio lights.
The audience gasped in awe and clamoured to touch it.
‘So I guess we can finally say, Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,’ Jack quipped.
He turned to Pandora to share the endlessly giving gift of his sharp wit, but she was looking at him in horror. It wasn’t that bad a joke, he thought bitterly, when he suddenly became aware of something on his face. Thinking a fly had landed on his nose, he tried to swat it away, but instead his fingers tapped something hard and pointy. Where his nose had once been was a long, yellow beak.
‘A BEAK?!’ he screamed. Or at least, he tried to. What actually came out of his mouth was: ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!’
Meanwhile, Pandora was stepping backwards away from the audience, tip-tapping one tiny step at a time. Her designer dress had split open at the back to accommodate a long, brown mouse’s tail and she was doing all she could to avoid the cameras spotting it. She clung onto her dazzling smile, despite a sudden insatiable urge to gnaw on the set props.
The audience were clapping and cheering, thoroughly enjoying what they thought was just another twist in the programme. Several people were almost completely entangled in Rapunzel’s hair by now, furiously snapping selfies.
Even Kieran was uncharacteristically speechless – his brain seemed to have been put on pause as he gaped at the scene on the screens in front of him.
Rapunzel tried to tug her hair away from the strangers who were rolling around in it as if it were a bale of hay and looked to Alex for help. But he wasn’t in his chair.
‘Um, where’s Alex? Has anyone seen Alex?’ she asked, with a feeling of dread. She pulled a long lock of hair away from a young girl who had started trying to plait it, and managed to stand up. But as she did so, she spotted a tiny frog sitting in Alex’s seat. He was croaking furiously and appeared to have unusually white teeth.
His face momentarily lit up in pure ecstasy, the man in the round glasses yelled, ‘Cut!’
Vanished
Frances Stickley
The Ever So Lovely Princess and the Stupid Frog Prince
A princess went a pond dipping and fell in with a frog;
Her father rather fancied she should kiss its slimy gob.
But the princess felt so angry when it hopped into her chambers
That she bellowed out – quite rightly, ‘I don’t pucker up for strangers.’
It pouted and the princess shouted, ‘Right, you’ve got one minute,
Then if you’re still on my pillowcase, I’ll suffocate you in it.’
The frog just laughed. ‘Oh, don’t be daft. You couldn’t hurt a fly.’
She sighed. ‘That’s what the last guy said, before I made him cry.’
‘That’s no good,’ the author said. ‘She’s not supposed to kill him.
She�
��s meant to be a princess, not a fairy story villain.’
The princess frowned and, looking round, said, ‘Just you listen here …’
But the scribbling and the scratching meant the author couldn’t hear.
*
‘Vanished!’ cried the princess. ‘Am I banished from my book?’
Scribbled out of favour, she was storyless and stuck.
‘But if I’m not in the story, who’ll end this melodrama?
That frog won’t get within a mile of me in my pyjamas!
My dad’s a fool! His royal rules have got me in this mess,
When I only ever wanted to be heard,’ said the princess.
*
Jack and the Beanstalk Enormous Bed
A giant so big he overshot a scale of one to wowsers,
So huge there was a village in the pocket of his trousers,
For centuries enjoyed the peace his altitude enabled,
Until the day a scallywag sneaked underneath his table.
Every night, he woke the giant with toddler-like persistence,
And sleep-deprived, the giant soon grew tired of his existence.
‘Take the harp. Take the hen. Take my wife,’ he said.
‘I couldn’t give a fee-fi-fum, but LET ME STAY IN BED … ZZZZZ …’
‘He’s nodded off!’ the author scoffed. ‘Oh dear, that can’t be right.
This sleepyhead will put the zeds in every line I write.’
The snoring giant woke and said, ‘Now just you listen here …’
But the scribbling and the scratching meant the author couldn’t hear.
*
‘Vanished!’ cried the giant. ‘I’ve been banished in my prime!’
The words began to tremble as he stomped out of the rhyme.
‘But if I’m not in the story, then who’ll be on lookout duty?
I’ve never been so jealous of that lucky Sleeping Beauty.
And I’ll never find a bed that big again,’ the giant cried.
‘I only ever wanted to be left to sleep,’ he sighed.
*
Cinderella and the Stepmother Who Tried Her Very Best
Long ago, when girls were only table decorations,
There lived a steely stepmother with quite a reputation.
She sold her pearls to save her girls from grasping princely bores;
Taught self-respect and job prospects through daily household chores.
But Cinderella had an aunt of fairy-folk descent,
Who told her gold and glad rags were the way to snag a gent.
‘Oh, Cindy,’ said the stepmother, ‘I thought you’d learnt your lesson.
You’re beautiful, and that was true before you had that dress on.’
‘That’s not right,’ the author sighed. ‘This stepmother’s misfiring.
She’s meant to be a wicked witch, not totally inspiring.’
The stepmother stepped in and said, ‘Now just you listen here …’
But the scribbling and the scratching meant the author couldn’t hear.
*
‘Vanished?’ cried the stepmother. ‘Just … banished by the writer.’
Beyond the page, her words were waltzing far away without her.
‘But if I’m not in the story,’ the jilted mother thundered,
‘Who’ll hold her hand and take a stand against the sixteen hundreds?
She’ll be dressing up and dumbing down until the day she dies.
I only ever wanted her to trust in me,’ she sighed.
*
The Enchanting Tale of the Pea …
and the Princess. Whatever
There was once a pea so glorious, so gorgeous and petite
That he lived amongst the kings and queens and snuggled in their sheets.
But the pushy queen was rather keen the prince should find romance.
‘You’re forty-five,’ his mother cried, ‘and I still wash your pants!’
So they slipped the pea between the sheets to see which girl could feel it.
‘This law’s not fair!’ the pea declared. ‘Your majesty, repeal it!
It’s beastly! It’s beneath me! It’s just busy work, you see?
All a bit too easy measy for a special pea like me.’
‘Stubborn pea,’ the author said. ‘This job’s gone to his head.
I’ll replace him with a character who knows his place instead.’
The disappearing pea protested, ‘Just you listen here …’
But the scribbling and the scratching meant the author couldn’t hear.
*
‘Vanished!’ cried the pea. ‘Forever banished from the stage!’
He bowed then made his exit in the left wing of the page.
‘But if I’m not in the story, who’ll be the royal regent?
The farcical debacle of my life from pod to pea-sant
Will be fodder for the jesters and the butt of every joke.
Oh, I only ever wanted them to notice me,’ he choked.
*
Little Red Riding Hood or the Trial of the Underdog
A wolf in court, accused of being big or bad or both,
Put one paw on the book and cooked up this lot under oath:
‘When I saw Gran on Thursday she was leaving town for Christmas.
I said I’d do the house-sitting and take care of her business.’
His alibi was followed by a ripe and rumbling belch
That smelt of meat and lavender. His tummy squeezed and squelched.
‘Well, fancy that,’ the rank wolf spat. ‘It seems she’s been digested.
She must have sneaked inside my mouth before I got arrested.’
‘That’s rubbish!’ said the author. ‘This is going to take a while.
I can never write this story with a wolf so in denial.’
The wolf puffed out his chest and said, ‘Now just you listen here …’
But the scribbling and the scratching meant the author couldn’t hear.
*
‘Vanished!’ howled the wolf aloud. And ‘Banished!’ he protested.
(And ‘Vanished!’ cried a voice within the wolf’s lower intestine.)
‘But if I’m not in the story then who’ll eat the over-forties?
I’ve never had a cuddle, or I wouldn’t be so naughty.
Oh, I never could resist the smell of fairytale maids
But I only ever wanted to be loved,’ the wolf complained.
*
Far beyond the stories, the characters were lost
In a world of whirling chaos filled with ominous full stops.
A scrapheap of forgotten words, an unread epitaph
To characters who fell before they reached the final draft.
Beyond a sea of poetry, just where the land begins,
Lay the lost and washed-up characters like stranded mannequins.
‘It’s real,’ the giant whispered. ‘There is life after book.
I heard tales as a little ’un. I thought they were made up.’
‘Were we not good enough?’ asked Pea, but no one met his eye.
‘I’ll change,’ Wolf pleaded. ‘All I need is one more chance to try!’
‘Perhaps,’ the princess said, ‘this is an opportunity.
After all, if we don’t have a writer, then we’re free.’
A hush descended as the splendid realisation hit.
‘Free to dream?’ The giant beamed. ‘I like the sound of it.’
The wolf pulled out a toothpick. ‘So we’ll just do what we like!’
He slunk towards the princess. She sidestepped to the right.
‘Look at me!’ said Pea with glee. ‘My writing’s gone dead posh!’
‘I’m massive,’ said the giant.
‘Run away or you’ll get squashed!’
‘Nofingerspacesanymore!’ said Princess in delight.
‘And I think this time I’d like tohave my writing on the right.’
The stepmother, wit
h hands on hips, just muttered, ‘Rules are rules.’
The wolf sat down, looked around and said, ‘I could get used to this.’
‘Pardon?’ said the princess.
‘What?’ said the wolf. ‘I’m not rhyming if I don’t have to.
I’m on my holidays.’
‘Yes, all of this is very “cool” for now,’ said the stepmother.
‘But have any of you stopped to take a look at one another?’
The characters were fading into sketchy pencil lines.
‘My voice is going,’ croaked the wolf.
‘I’m shrinking!’ Giant whined.
‘My skeleton is showing!’ cried the princess through her tears.
‘We must move fast,’ said Pea, aghast, ‘before we disappear.’
‘But the thought of going back …’ said the giant with a shudder.
‘I can’t!’ said the pea.
‘What if we swapped?’ said the stepmother.
‘See, it doesn’t matter where we go or who we choose to be,
If we’re back between the covers – well, that’s immortality.’
The pea peeled back the corner of the next page in the book.
The verses seemed familiar. He took a second look.
‘The Princess and the Pea,’ he sighed. ‘But who would be a pea?
A life of sky-high slumbering is not the life for me.’
The giant opened up one eye. ‘I’ll do it,’ he replied.
‘If I tuck my tummy in then – look! We’re nearly the same size!’
He pushed the floor. It opened like a door into the rhyme.
‘And so to bed,’ the giant said, and slipped between the lines.
*
The girl on fifty mattresses was counting cloudy sheep.
‘Peace at last,’ the giant laughed and settled down to sleep.
But so forceful was the giant’s snore that – as the story goes –
He accidentally sucked the poor girl up his massive nose.
Once Upon A Fairytale Page 2