by Joan Holub
“Hello?” said a voice. Rose looked over to see a girl with turquoise hair standing at the store entrance. It was Mermily, the girl she’d seen splashing around in the fifth-floor fountain that first night with Pea. The bottom half of the store’s door was closed now, so Rose couldn’t see below her waist. Unfortunately. Because she was dying to know if the girl still had a fishtail!
“Hi,” said Rose.
Mermily returned her greeting, not seeming to remember her. And maybe that was a good thing. If this mermaid-girl recognized her, would she start treating her stiffly like the other Grimm girls?
“Do you have any turquoise rubber boots?” asked Mermily. She stuck her head in the door to glance around. “Where’s Mother Hubbard?”
“She’s gone,” said Rose.
Mermily looked so disappointed that Rose added, “But I’ll see what I can find. Just a sec.” She dashed over and began checking doors big enough to possibly hold boots. But when she got there, each cupboard was bare. Weird!
“Um, I can’t seem to find any boots,” she told Mermily after a few minutes of searching. The girl looked really disappointed at this news, but what could Rose do?
“Okay, I’ll come back later,” said Mermily. As she headed off, Rose leaned out of the top half of the store door to watch. That answered that question. No tail. Of course, she had been asking for boots, and why would you need those if you didn’t have feet? She could obviously shape-shift between mermaid and not. Like Red had said, Wolfgang could shift between a four-legged wolf and a regular two-legged person.
Rose sighed, then looked at the dog. “I don’t suppose you could take care of yourself if I leave?” The dog raised his head from his basket, and sent her a sad look, as if he had understood what she’d said and didn’t want her to go.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “I’ll stay. But only till the end of second period.” If Mother Hubbard wasn’t back by then, she’d take the dog to the office and ask Ms. Jabberwocky to look after him, she decided.
Thump! Thump! The dog wagged his corkscrew tail. Then he leaped from his basket and dashed over to one of the cupboards Rose hadn’t yet tried. He pawed at it.
She raised a suspicious brow. “I hope that’s not another cat door.” When he started acting even more excited, she said, “Okay, then. If you promise me it’s not a cat door, I’ll open it.”
“Woof!” he replied, wagging his tail even faster.
Hoping for mirror polish, she went to the wall and opened the door. Instead, she found rubber boots in the cabinet. Cute, shiny turquoise ones like Mermily had wanted. But when Rose went and leaned out of the top half of the door to call her back, the hall was empty.
“Oh, how vexing!” she murmured. As she replaced the boots in the cabinet, she said to the dog, “Are you sure you don’t know where the mirror polish is?”
In response, the dog dashed over to a new wall door and began pawing at it. This one was as tall and wide as she was. Too tall and wide to hold just a bottle of mirror polish, she thought with disappointment. However, when she opened it, that was exactly what she found. There were five shelves, with a single bottle of mirror polish sitting on the topmost one.
“Good boy,” Rose praised. The dog wagged his tail and actually grinned.
She reached into the cupboard. However, when she tried to clutch the bottle, she caught only air. And when her fingers brushed the back wall of the cupboard … they went through it! She drew back, gasping in surprise. After a few stunned seconds, she looked down at the dog. “I don’t suppose you can explain that?”
Grinning mischievously now, he simply trotted over to his bed under the desk and curled up to nap again. Rose tried once more to grab the polish. This time, her hand and arm went through the rear of the cupboard up to her elbow! Quickly, she yanked her arm back, then stared at her hand. Instead of polish, she’d grabbed a fistful of green leaves. She stared uncertainly into the cupboard. Was there some kind of garden behind it? Or what?
Did she dare find out? She did! Before she could consider the dangers of what she was about to do, that daredevil side of her rose up to urge her on. This could be her only chance for one last amazing adventure before Friday.
Without another thought, she leaped through the back of the cupboard! For a few moments everything became a blur of fuzzy kaleidoscope colors as she was whisked away to wherever the cupboard had decided to take her.
Thump! On the other side, she fell through a green hedge and landed on her back upon soft grass.
Hearing loud, fierce grinding noises, she sat up and stared around warily. Before her, not ten feet ahead, stood a wall. An impossibly tall one that seemed to rise as high as the clouds. She looked left but couldn’t see where it ended in the far distance. She looked right. Same thing.
Her breath caught, and she scrambled backward on her bent elbows as she realized something. She must have magically arrived at the borders of the realm — at the very edge of Grimmlandia!
And this wasn’t just any old wall. It was the Wall. The one Mr. Hump-Dumpty warned everyone about in History class. The infamous one that surrounded the realm. The one no one had ever visited as far as she knew. It was thick and appeared to be made of slippery frosted glass.
When Rose leaped to her feet, she noticed something floating high overhead. It looked like a long, winding stream of black ants. It had come from the distance behind her and was moving out of Grimmlandia, over the Wall into the Nothingterror. As it did, the grinding, crunching, slurping, smacking sounds on the other side of the Wall grew briefly louder. She put her hands over her ears to muffle the horrible sounds.
A few seconds later, another string of ants rose from the Nothingterror side of the Wall and flew high overhead back toward the Academy! Who had sent them? The Barbarians and Dastardlies that legend said lurked beyond the Wall? Were they the ones making those awful noises? Well, just in case, Rose backed away. No one knew much about them except Mr. Hump-Dumpty, who had described them as dreadful, gruesome, disgusting, and mean. She did not want to meet such creatures, thank you very much.
Still, she did want to find out more about those ant streams. But before she could try to get close enough to examine them more closely, she suddenly noticed a tall rectangular shape on the hedge behind her. It was the shape of the cabinet door that had transported her here. As she watched, the rectangle began to waver slightly, as if threatening to disappear. If it did, she’d be stuck here.
“No, wait!” Rose got a running start and leaped through the rectangle. And just like that, she was whisked back to the Cupboard.
Once she was inside Mother Hubbard’s shop again, her knees began to wobble in reaction to what she’d just seen. She sank to the floor, feeling like she’d just been through a wind tunnel. Or some kind of a magic tunnel? Anyway, she was safely back! And so was Mother Hubbard. She was asleep at her desk and there was a hatbox on the floor by her feet labeled THE CANINE HATTERY.
Rose looked over at the cabinet she’d just traveled through. The door had shut behind her, and was already resizing itself into a small square. No way she’d ever fit back through it now. How disappointing!
Just then, she heard the grandfather clock over in the Great Hall bong twelve bongs. Lunchtime? Already? She slipped out of the Cupboard and made her way down the hall. Cupboard time must warp sort of like Library time did, she figured. Because while she’d been at the Wall, somehow she’d missed the rest of Scrying and third-period Calligraphy, too.
When she passed the Scrying room, she peeked in, but Ms. Wicked was gone. Would she be angry that Rose had missed the end of class and come back empty-handed? And what would she think if Rose told her what had happened? Spotting her handbook still on her desk, she went in and got it, then slipped soundlessly out into the hall again.
When Rose got to the Great Hall, she found herself standing in the lunch line behind Cinda and Rapunzel, who were still not being very friendly.
Several students ahead of them all, Pea leaned out of li
ne to look back at her. “Hey! There’s a twig in your hair. Are you copying my style?” she asked. Grinning, she patted her own viney green hair. Then she reached the serving area and spun around to order her lunch.
“Oh,” Rose reached up and felt the twig Pea had been talking about. It must’ve gotten caught in her hair when she fell through that hedge. She was glad Pea was still being nice. At least she had one friend left. But what would happen when Pea heard whatever rumors were going around about her?
She was dying to tell Cinda and Rapunzel about what she’d seen at the Wall. But since the door that had led there no longer did, she wouldn’t be able to back up her words with proof. And from the way they had been acting today, she had a feeling that just telling them what she’d seen wouldn’t convince them she was being truthful.
The two Grimm girls continued to ignore Rose as they all inched forward in line. Finally she confronted them. “What’s going on?” she blurted. “I feel like almost everyone here has turned against me suddenly, but I don’t know why.”
Cinda and Rapunzel traded glances. Then Cinda spoke, saying, “Well, truth is that all the students understand how evil characters are part of the fairy tales and have a right to be in Grimmlandia just as much as we do. But the E.V.I.L. Society has done a lot of harm, and so —” She stopped short as if unsure how to continue.
“And so even though we like you, we aren’t sure we should continue to hang out with you,” Rapunzel finished for her. Cinda nodded, gazing at Rose as if Rapunzel’s little speech explained everything.
“What are you talking about?” Rose asked them in confusion. At the same time a lump of sadness filled her throat. These girls were basically saying they didn’t want to be her friends anymore. Maybe no one at GA did! “Haven’t you read my tale? I’m not evil in it,” she insisted desperately.
Cinda and Rapunzel just stared at her. Then they began to describe her tale, telling a variation of it that sounded suspiciously similar to the one Ms. Queenharts had told in class. Only in their version Rose and her family came off even worse than they had in Ms. Queenharts’ retelling!
“… After twelve fairies gave you gifts at your christening, the thirteenth fairy arrived. The one your dad didn’t invite,” Rapunzel was saying.
“She was a sweet innocent fairy, but your dad refused her an invitation because your mom was jealous of her good nature and pretty wings,” Cinda went on matter-of-factly.
“And when fairy number thirteen showed up anyway, and fluttered over to coo at baby Rose — that is, at you — you spit up on her,” added Rapunzel. “On purpose.”
“Yeah, and then —” Cinda started to add.
But Rose had had enough. “Huh? No! That’s all wrong!” She felt herself flush with sadness and anger, too. She liked these girls, so their attitude really hurt. And it double-triple hurt that they would believe the truly dislikeable Ms. Queenharts over her.
Suddenly, she reached the front of the lunch line. A wrinkled old hand shot into her line of vision. Its fingers held out a small plate to her.
“Care for a bit of dessert with your lunch, dearie?” a scary voice inquired. “A slice of my Sweet Potato Cry Pie? You’ll start sobbing with joy the minute you take a bite. It’s that yummy.”
Rose wasn’t sure she needed pie to help her cry right now. She halfway felt like doing that already. She looked up into the eyes of Mistress Hagscorch, the cafeteria lady. Her white-gray hair was as wild and scraggly as the moss that grew at the edge of Neverwood Forest. She looked exactly like a storybook witch. And sounded like one, too.
When Rose didn’t reply, Hagscorch picked up two other plates instead, each with a different dessert. “No? Then perhaps some Poisonless Peanut-Butter Pretzels? Or Reeky Raisin Roll-Ups? Hmm? What’s it going to be?” she asked, waving the choices under Rose’s nose.
Despite their horrid names, the desserts did all smell delicious. Still, Rose shook her head, too upset to eat. “I’m sorry. I’m n-not hungry!” With that, she slipped out of line and took off, walking fast to the exit doors of the Great Hall.
Out in the hallway, she happened to pass the trunker Ms. Jabberwocky had assigned to her. Good, she could stow her handbook there. Forever. She didn’t want it. She wouldn’t be taking classes here any more because she was leaving Grimm Academy. Right now. Forever. No matter what. She wasn’t sure where she’d go, but she was not sticking around where she wasn’t wanted.
She poked the key dangling from the chain around her neck into the trunker’s lock, and quickly sang her code:
“Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.”
Her fingertip caught on the edge of her handbook as she went to place it inside the trunker. “Ow!” She’d gotten a paper cut.
Instantly, those sparkly, colored mists began to magically swirl in the air again. The fairies had arrived! She looked around to see if anyone else in the hall noticed them, but, as usual, no one seemed to. They were invisible to all but her.
“What happened to your finger?” the yellow fairy asked her worriedly.
“Paper cut, that’s all,” Rose muttered.
“Does it sting?” asked the purple fairy. She and the other fairies hovered near as Rose recited her locking code.
“Hush, you two. We’ve got more important things to discuss,” began the pink fairy. But the minute Rose’s face appeared in the small heart shape above her trunker’s keyhole, the pink fairy got distracted, saying, “Ooh! How cute!”
“Bug off, please,” Rose interrupted under her breath. “I’m not in the mood for your scoldings or advice, thank you all very not much. So just fly back where you came from. Or go bother someone who needs your help.”
“But won’t you please listen?” the purple fairy insisted.
The pink fairy nodded. “It’s really important.”
As the fairies kept trying to talk to her, Rose pressed her fingers to her ears. “Lalalalalalala,” she murmured, doing her best to drown them out. Finally, she spun around and ran, not caring who saw her. Any students who did would probably just think she was in a hurry because she was late for something, anyway.
Unfortunately, the fairies and their misty puffs were not so easily put off. They followed her as she left her trunker. In an attempt to lose them, she sped up and dashed out of the Academy. They trailed her outside, beating their little wings double-time to keep up with her. She ran faster and faster across the lawn, trying to escape them. After rounding a corner, she leaped to hide behind a haystack. She crouched low, waiting till the fairies flew past.
They hadn’t noticed she’d given them the slip. Good. After waiting for her breath to slow, Rose rocked forward on her knees and peeked out, watching all three fairies disappear into the distance. Then she rocked backward on her heels, preparing to stand.
“Ouch!” She’d lost her balance and fallen to one side, leaning up against the haystack. She must’ve leaned against a sharp piece of hay that had gotten stuck in her skirt and was poking her. She twisted her skirt around to check.
Sure enough, she spotted a sliver sticking out of the fabric. However, it wasn’t hay. The sliver glinted in the sunlight. It was straight, very thin, about two inches long, and silver. It was a sewing needle! In spite of her sadness, a half sob, half giggle escaped her. Because she’d literally just found a needle in a haystack.
“Well, at least you made me smile once today,” Rose told it. She looked around. “How did you get out here in the hay, anyway?” Of course, the needle didn’t reply.
Since she didn’t want anyone else to be so unlucky as to get stuck by it, she tucked the needle in her pocket to discard later. She peeked out from her hiding place again. Not seeing the fairies, she leaped to her feet. Then she stood there uncertainly. To her left was the Academy. To her right were the stables.
There wasn’t much time left till Friday if she really did plan to have one last
grand adventure, she realized. So right then and there, she decided that she and Starlight would ride for the Wall that very afternoon. She’d check out what was going on with those ant streams and hopefully discover whatever evil plot was causing changes to the fairy tales. Maybe she’d even discover how to save all of Grimmlandia!
Then everyone at the Academy would change their tune about her. She’d be a hero. Her parents might even decide she was brave enough to become a knight, in spite of the risks. Spirits lifting a little at this notion, she took off running for the stables. Because it was now or never!
After crossing the lawn, Rose topped a few gentle hills, and then found the stables not far from Pink Castle. They were built out of big brown stones and wood that had been painted white.
Once inside the stables, she zipped down the center aisle of the barn and checked each stall. She spotted a brown horse with spots. A black horse with a star. A roan. A piebald. There! A gleaming horn was poking out of one of the stalls. She dashed over to it but found to her disappointment that it was the horn of a pink unicorn, not Starlight.
Seeing the stable boy, she stopped. “The white unicorn that came here Monday night. Where is he?” she asked.
“He went back with the silver-and-black coach that same night, Princess,” the boy informed her. “Returned with his owners to a palace somewhere in southeastern Grimmlandia, I heard.”
Rose’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. Her parents had taken her unicorn back to the palace without even telling her? If she wrote and asked them why, she knew they’d say they’d done it to protect her from being pricked by his horn. And they’d been in a big hurry as they left with no time to let her know their decision. But still. Losing Starlight — her only friend from home — hurt worse than a toothache right now.