by Joan Holub
“And, mmm,” said Snow, rubbing her stomach. “I can tell you that Red makes the best cookies in Grimmlandia!”
“Well, I just hope Ms. Jabberwocky and her tower-task givers know what they’re frabjous snicker-snack doing, giving me this particular task.” The other two girls laughed at her creative use of some of Ms. Jabberwocky’s favorite words.
Before they left the G section completely, Red and Snow stopped off at a bookshelf filled with Grimm fairy-tale books.
“Just a sec. Snow and I need to check on something,” Red explained. Then the two girls each pulled a different book from the shelf and opened them to begin skimming a few pages. The books they held looked very old, and were bound with fine leather covers stamped with fancy gold lettering and old-fashioned swirly gold decorations.
“Mine’s okay,” said Snow after a couple of minutes.
“Mine, too,” said Red with obvious relief. “But we should ask Cinda and Rapunzel, too. They were going to check their fairy tales earlier this morning.”
Rose tilted her head. “I don’t get it. What were you looking for?”
The other two Grimm girls shot each other looks as they replaced their books. Then, as if deciding they could trust her, Snow said, “There’s been trouble here at GA. A certain evil society —”
“One that calls itself Exceptional Villains In Literature — E.V.I.L., for short — has hinted that they hope to change the fairy tales around,” Red continued. “You know, make the evil characters more important. Stuff like that. So we were checking our tales to make sure there’d been no changes to them.”
Rose gasped. “Wow! Who has that kind of magical power?” Her mind boggled. Then, before the girls could reply, she thought of something. “Hey, you know that room I woke up in this morning? It was weirdly magical, with all kinds of stuff that sailed through the air. Including a book of Grimm fairy tales that flew off the shelf, and opened itself to the Rumpelstiltskin tale.”
Both girls’ eyes went wide, and Snow put a finger to her lips. “Shh! Never say his name!” she whispered.
“Oops, sorry,” Rose replied, whispering as well. “That’s what the pen said, er, wrote, too.”
“What pen?” asked Red.
Before Rose could reply, Snow said, “That room you were in. Did it have a big desk and lots of portraits hanging on the wall?”
Rose nodded.
Looking somewhat alarmed, Red said to Snow, “That sounds like the Grimm brothers’ room. Maybe we’d better go over there and see what’s up.”
“Yeah! Quick, though,” said Snow. “Or else we’ll miss breakfast.” With that, all three girls headed back to where Rose had awakened that morning.
Once back inside the magical room, Rose saw that the Grimm brothers’ book that had flown off the shelf earlier was now in place again, instead of lying on the floor where she’d last seen it. And the magic pen now lay unmoving in its box. All was calm.
“That book was on the floor, I promise!” said Rose. “And all sorts of stuff in here was acting up.”
“We believe you,” said Red. “Things move around in here. Happens all the time.”
Snow pulled out the book containing the principal’s fairy tale and set it on the desk. “Yeah. This room is the most magical place in the whole Academy,” she told Rose. “Lots of strange things happen here. In fact, Cinda once saw a nose and eyeball poke, er, peek out of that heraldry shield above the desk. And another time, she and Rapunzel saw an arm reach out!” She shivered and pointed to the spot.
Red had been leafing through the book Snow had set on the desk. Now she began to read the Rumpelstiltskin tale aloud. Even though she added an impressive amount of extra drama to her voice, the tale sounded somehow boring and … wrong. Not at all how Rose remembered it.
“So Principal R tried and tried to spin the straw into gold, but the foolish little man failed because he was no good at it” — Red read with a frown — “and then many others tried to spin the straw into gold. Including the illustrious and beautiful-beyond-compare Ms. Wicked.” The next couple of pages were blank, so she skipped over them to read the three words on the tale’s final page, “To be continued.”
“Oh, no!” Snow breathed, as she and Rose stepped closer to gaze at the open book. “That’s not how the story goes.”
“Yeah, it’s all different, and what’s up with these blank pages?” Rose wondered.
“E.V.I.L.” Red and Snow said at the same time, sounding horrified and maybe also a little scared.
“Somehow, they’ve done this,” said Red. She looked at Snow. “I have a feeling that whether or not your stepmom succeeds at spinning the straw, the E.V.I.L. Society will write that she did. They seem to want her to star in this fairy tale, not Principal R.”
Snow’s eyes widened in horror. “If this new, wrong version of the tale somehow gets into all the fairy-tale books, over time everyone might forget that it’s totally wrong!”
“Your stepmom’s named Ms. Wicked?” asked Rose. She had a bunch of questions swirling in her head about what these girls had said, but that was the first one that popped out.
Snow nodded. “She teaches Scrying here at the Academy.”
“But I don’t get it. The straw in the fairy tale is supposed to get spun into gold by Rumpelstiltskin, right?” said Rose.
All the objects in the room grew restless at the mention of his name. The toy train began chugging around the room again, a ball and some jacks began playing a game together, and a tiny ballerina began to dance to the tinkling music inside its open jewelry box.
“Shh! You really have to stop saying the principal’s name,” cautioned Red. “Rule 37 in the handbook. Just use a nickname instead.”
“That’s what we do,” said Snow. “Like Stiltsky or His Principalship. Cinda calls him Grumpystiltskin.”
“And Wolfgang calls him the Rumpster,” added Red.
In spite of their troubles, Rose couldn’t help giggling. “Okay, okay. Guess I better read up on the Academy rules.” She hoped there wasn’t one about not walking and leaping across library shelves. Or one that forbade sleepwalking.
Scrunching her nose in puzzlement, she gazed over Red’s shoulder again at the Rumpelstiltskin story, which was now a mere page long. “Here’s something I don’t get. Whoever rewrote this tale stuck Snow’s stepmom into the story with no explanation at all for how she got there. And the plot — what little there is of it — jumps all around. Also, the end doesn’t explain anything. It just drifts off. Why is it so badly written?”
Red and Snow exchanged glances and Rose had a feeling they were holding something back from her.
Choo! Choo! She did a little hop up over the train that was still whizzing around as it came toward her. “C’mon. What do you know that I don’t?” she asked the other two girls.
Red hesitated slightly before pointing to one of the portraits on the wall. “See that guy? He’s a Grimm brother, too. Jacob and Wilhelm banished him from Grimmlandia long ago, and now he’s pretty much the head of E.V.I.L. His name is Ludwig.”
She paused as the objects in the room began rustling again. Apparently they didn’t like anyone saying his name or Rumpelstiltskin’s name aloud. This time, however, their movements sounded different, more scared than upset. A jack-in-the-box began popping in and out of its box, a glass fell over and shattered, a toy turtle pulled its head and feet into its shell, and a plant suddenly withered. Then the whole room went wild, with things flying and bouncing around.
“Let’s get out of here!” yelled Snow, dodging several books that had flown off a shelf while also trying to be heard over the din. She didn’t have to suggest it twice. The girls raced from the room, out of the library, and down the school stairs.
As they ran, Snow and Red explained to Rose how artifacts had been stolen from the library a short time ago. And that they’d somehow been used to make loopholes in the tales, which now allowed stories to be rewritten.
“We only got the artifacts back a f
ew weeks ago after foiling the witch from Rapunzel’s tale,” said Snow.
“Just in the nick of time, too,” added Red. “Getting them back stopped Ludwig from worming his way into Grimmlandia … for now.”
When they finally reached the first-floor hallway, they heard a clock bonging the half hour.
“Oh, good. At least something’s going right this morning,” said Snow, sounding breathless from their rushed escape. “It’s only seven-thirty. Which means we were only in the library for five minutes, library time. It’s still breakfast.”
“Five minutes? But how can that be? Surely we were in there way longer than that,” said Rose.
“Time can go faster or slower inside the library than time outside it,” Red explained. “C’mon. Let’s get over to the Great Hall and eat.”
Minutes later, Rose was gazing around in awe at the long, long room they’d just entered. The Great Hall was magnificent! Easily ten times the size of the dining hall back home. There was a balcony at each end, rows of windows with beautiful diamond-shaped glass panes, and colorful banners draped on the walls. Some of the windows were propped open, and birds flew in and out, crossing in from one side and zooming back out the other. Running the length of the Hall on either side were long linen-draped tables with benches. Students eating breakfast filled most of the spaces along them but there were a few empty spots left.
Red and Snow’s two friends from yesterday morning waved them over. They had saved seats for Red and Snow, and now also made room for Rose next to Cinda, the candle-flame-yellow-haired girl.
“Hi, I’m Cinda,” Cinda told Rose.
“And I’m Rapunzel,” said the goth girl Rose had seen out on the lawn with the other three girls.
Rose nodded, having already figured that out. “Nice to meet you.”
“But everyone’s been wondering who you are,” Cinda went on. “I mean, we know your name is Briar Rose, since it was announced yesterday that you’d be coming. But we don’t know your fairy tale.”
“Please. Call me Rose.” It surprised her that none of them seemed to have made the connection that Briar Rose was the same person as Sleeping Beauty. Did that mean no one here at the school knew that she was Sleeping Beauty yet? Perhaps not even the principal? Well, if that was the case, she wasn’t about to spread the news. Because if she did, everyone might start worrying about her overly much, like people back home at the palace did. And she could live without that!
So she simply fluttered her hand in a casual gesture. “Oh, my tale’s a minor one and not very well known,” she fibbed. “Hardly worth the telling, really.”
“I’m starving,” Red announced right then, thankfully changing the subject. She reached toward one of the many identical platters placed at intervals along the center of their long table. Each platter was piled with tiny, one-inch square waffles. Small, clean silver plates were stacked beside the platters. A sign on the waffle platter nearest them said TAKE ONE.
One teeny waffle? That’s all we get for breakfast? wondered Rose. Like Red, she was starving!
“Ooh! Never-ending waffles. Grimmyummy!” exclaimed Snow from across the table. She and Red each took a small plate, forked up one tiny waffle apiece, and dropped the waffles onto their plates.
Copying them, Rose did the same. After setting her plate before her, she poured syrup over her miniature waffle and ate it in one bite. Well, that was a nice snack, she thought. But she was still hungry. Luckily, when she looked back down at her plate, there was another tiny waffle sitting there. So she ate that one, too. Then yet another one appeared on her silver plate. No matter how many of the tasty, little squares she ate, more appeared.
She grinned to herself. Duh. Now she got it. That’s why these waffles were called “never-ending.”
After she’d eaten a few of the waffle squares, too, Red flourished her cape dramatically and looked around, as if to make sure no enemy was watching. “There’s trouble in the library. In the Grimm brothers’ room,” she announced to Cinda and Rapunzel.
Snow leaned over and whispered in Rose’s ear. “Red’s in drama class. She was the lead in the last school play.”
Rose whispered back, “Why am I not surprised?” She and Snow shared a grin.
Then the girls all leaned their heads close together over the table so that Red and Snow could explain how the Rumpelstiltskin tale had been changed.
“You say the book with his altered tale was in the Grimm brothers’ room?” Cinda asked when they finished the telling. Red, Snow, and Rose all nodded.
“But not even Ludwig himself has been able to get into that room!” Rapunzel exclaimed.
“Yes, but I saw him trying to on my first day at the Academy, remember?” said Cinda. “Even though that room repels evil, he managed to poke his nose in through the shield over the desk.”
“But that was as far as he got,” said Rapunzel. “So if he can’t get in, how did a tale inside the room get changed? Unless maybe it got changed while it was out in the main part of the library, and the book was put in the room later?”
“All I know is, if changes can happen there, they can happen anywhere,” said Snow.
Just then Pea came up to the table and sat down in the empty space on Rose’s other side. “Hey, you left your handbook in our room,” she said, passing Rose the book Ms. Jabberwocky had given her the day before.
“Oh, thanks. I forgot all about it,” said Rose.
“Where’d you go so early this morning, anyway?” Pea went on. She took a silver plate and a tiny waffle for herself, and began eating.
“The library,” Rose replied truthfully. She was saved from having to explain further when trumpets suddenly blared. Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tum!
She jumped at the sound. Along with everyone else, she glanced up to see that two musicians had appeared on the second-floor balcony at the far west end of the two-story Great Hall. Having gotten everyone’s attention, the musicians lowered their long, thin, golden trumpets.
A wide wooden shelf hung high on the stone wall behind them, she noticed. And a row of five knights’ helmets forged of shiny iron sat upon it. Each had a different-colored decorative feather sticking up from its top. As she watched, their visors suddenly began moving, making faint creaking and clanking sounds.
“Attention, scholars!” they chorused in formal-sounding voices. “All rise for today’s announcements from the great and goodly principal of Grimm Academy!”
Rose’s jaw dropped. Those helmet-heads were speaking! The students all rose dutifully and turned toward the balcony. So she did likewise.
Stomp! Stomp! First the top of the principal’s tall hat appeared above the balcony railing. Then more hat. Then a face with a long nose and a long chin below it. Finally, his head and shoulders appeared. He was a gnome! Three feet tall at most.
The principal began announcements. She recognized his voice from her visit to the office this morning. Though he was small, his voice wasn’t. It carried the full length of the Hall. “We have three orders of business this morning,” he began. “Firstly, a reminder that the Grimmstone Library Games are this Saturday.”
Pea leaned over and whispered to Rose, “Happens every year in the library. There’ll be strength contests like hefting stacks of books. And dust-the-shelf relay races. Jousting in Section J. That kind of stuff. It’s basically a way to get the library cleaned up once a year. But it’s pretty fun.”
Rose’s ears had perked up at the jousting part. “Cool, thanks,” she whispered back.
Because she’d been talking with Pea, she missed some of what the principal had said. But she caught the last part.
“… Briar Rose, please move to the center of the Hall and introduce yourself!”
Setting her handbook on the floor by her chair, Rose stood and confidently marched to the center of the Hall. There, she smiled at everyone, and told them her name in a clear, calm voice, just as her elocution tutor had taught her to do back home. “How do you do. I’m Briar Rose of Thorn Palace
in the southeastern part of the realm of Grimmlandia. Please, do call me Rose.”
Ping! Ping! Ping! Suddenly, those three puffs of magical mist appeared, one on either side of her head and one in front of her face. Oh no! Not now!
From within the puffs, three small fairy voices began making suggestions that only she could hear. Unwanted suggestions, as usual.
“Curtsey again to show off your adorable gown,” advised the fairy from the pink mist on her left side.
“No! She might trip. And hit her head on one of these sharp stone-floor tiles,” the fairy in the chicken-yellow mist cautioned. It was on her right side.
“Hey, who’s that cute boy over there?” asked the purple one. Rose glanced over to see the brown-haired boy from the library. Jousting Boy is what she’d named him in her head. And now she murmured the nickname.
“Huh? What kind of name is that?” the purple-mist fairy asked.
“Just go back to your seat where it’s safe!” the yellow fairy urged.
Rose’s head turned left, then straight ahead, then right, then left, then right. She was getting dizzy. Argh!
“Scram, you guys!” she hissed at the fairies. She waved her arms, batting at the sparkly mist until they disappeared. Then she noticed that a silence had fallen over the Hall.
She grinned weakly at the watching crowd, realizing she must have looked pretty odd, batting at invisible things. Quickly, she scurried back to stand at her place.
Cinda, Snow, Rapunzel, Red, and Pea all gazed at her with concern. “You okay?” asked Cinda.
Avoiding the girls’ eyes, Rose mumbled, “Sure. Fine.” But really she wanted to dissolve into a puddle under the table. Luckily, the knight-heads called out again, and the announcements continued.
“Attention, students!” they chorused. “There’s a second order of business this morning. Your principal needs volunteers to try spinning the legendary treasure — that is, the magical piece of straw that was discovered several weeks ago — into gold. Due to the fact that he has failed miserably at the task himself —”
The principal interrupted them, pounding a fist on the railing. “Dagnabbit! I was going to ask for volunteers myself. And you didn’t need to add that last part!”