by Joan Holub
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
1 Fake
2 Prince Prince
3 The Pipe Swipe
4 Good Egg, Rotten Egg
5 Kicking It
6 Hunter
7 Midnight Madness
8 The Dungeon
9 Best and Brightest
10 The Crystal Room
11 Reflections
12 The Silver Blob
13 Happy Birthday?
14 Gifts
15 Dancing
Preview
About the Authors
Also Available
Copyright
It is written upon the wall of the Grimmstone Library:
Something E.V.I.L. this way comes.
To protect all that is born of fairy tale, folk tale, and nursery rhyme magic, we have created the realm of Grimmlandia. In the center of this realm, we have built two castles on opposite ends of a Great Hall, which straddles the Once Upon River. And this haven shall be forever known as Grimm Academy.
~ The brothers Grimm
Snow White’s Grimm Academy handbook slipped from her fingers and hit the hallway floor with a smack. “Oh, hobwoggle!” she exclaimed as she bent to pick it up. Stuffing the handbook into the sparkly blue school bag that hung over her shoulder, Snow shut the lid-door of her trunker — a fancy leather trunk that stood tallwise on its end and opened like a locker.
The trunker key that hung from Snow’s silver necklace clinked against a round crystal amulet as she pulled up on the chain that held them both. There was a four-leaf clover inside the amulet. Although it was the luckiest among her collection of good luck charms, its luck wasn’t working for her today. She had accidentally missed her first class!
And now Snow was running late for second period. All because she’d spent hours lying awake last night and worrying that some people were suspicious of her loyalty to the Academy. A little spear of hurt stabbed her as she glanced over at the trunker two down from hers. There was a small heart-shaped picture on it of a girl with red-streaked, curly black hair, wearing a hooded red cape. Her so-called BFF, Red Riding Hood. It was all her fault Snow had overslept today. Ever since Red had started hanging out with a boy named Wolfgang, she’d started acting funny around Snow, like Snow couldn’t be trusted. It was so not fair — especially since, in Snow’s opinion, Wolfgang didn’t seem very trustworthy himself!
Quickly, Snow poked her key into the trunker’s lock and chanted the locking part of her combination. “Nine, ten, a-big-fat-hen!”
Snick! As the lock snapped into place, an image of Snow’s face magically painted itself in the small heart-shaped inset on the trunk, right above the lock. Short, neat, ebony hair. Pale skin with rosy cheeks, and green eyes.
She slipped her key back out of the lock and dashed down the first floor hall of Pink Castle, where the girls of Grimm Academy lived and had most of their classes. There were hardly any students around the halls as Snow raced toward the grand staircase to get to Threads class. Most everyone else was already in class.
A mere dozen feet from the stairs she heard a familiar sound. Click. Click. Click. It was the sound of high heels on the marble steps.
“Oh, no!” she muttered, screeching to a dead stop. Snow’s stepmom, Ms. Wicked, was coming down the stairs. Her favorite handbag hung over her arm and she held a rolled up piece of vellum paper in her hand. She was probably heading for her classroom on the first floor, where she taught Scrying — the art of using crystal balls and other reflective surfaces to predict the future.
Hoping her stepmom wouldn’t look up and see her, Snow leaped to hide behind a tall stone column. Unfortunately, she tripped over one of her shoelaces mid-leap. Standing with her back against the column, she looked down to see that her lace had broken. Had her stepmom seen her stumble? Snow held her breath, staring at the lush scene of feasts and pageantry woven into the tapestry on the hall wall across the way. If only she could wish herself inside of it so she could really hide. But they wouldn’t learn how to do that kind of magic in Threads class till next year.
Click. Click. Click. The footsteps came closer. “Snow! Come here!”
Talk about unlucky! Her stepmom had spotted her after all. High overhead, carved gargoyles grinned down at Snow from the top of a column farther down by the trunkers. Although she would rather have faced a real, live gargoyle, Snow obediently stepped out from behind the column.
“Hi,” she said, giving her stepmom a weak grin.
Ms. Wicked frowned with disapproval. Typical. It was the expression she almost always wore whenever she looked at Snow. “I just spoke with Ms. Queenharts,” Ms. Wicked snapped in an accusing tone. “She told me you were absent from Comportment class this morning.”
Snow gulped. “Oh, yeah. I overslept,” she explained. Honestly, she hadn’t minded missing Comportment. Ms. Queenharts was terrible at teaching manners!
Her stepmom’s dark eyes narrowed. “If you’re trying to get more beauty sleep, it’s not working, sweetie.” She looked Snow up and down and pointed the end of the vellum roll she held toward Snow’s ankles. “Also, the hem on that gown is way too short. Your ankles are showing and they aren’t exactly your best feature.”
Just then, Prince Hunter and Prince Awesome walked by on their way to class. Had they heard her stepmom’s criticisms? How grimmbarrassing! Snow felt a rosy flush creep up from her neck and spread over her entire face.
But Ms. Wicked sent the passing students a beautifully sweet smile. Why is she nice to everyone but me? Snow wondered. It made her feel so … inadequate. She could never figure out which part of Ms. Wicked’s personality was the real one. The smiling, beautiful one? Or the mean, critical one?
Bong. Bong. Bong. The Hickory Dickory Dock clock over in the Great Hall echoed throughout the school, signaling the hour and the start of second period as well.
Snow started sidling toward the grand staircase. “I … um … I guess I’d better head off, then.” She reached with one hand to tug at the hem of her gown, though it wasn’t all that short. In fact, if it were any longer she’d be tripping over it. Speaking of tripping, she did just that — again. Drat that broken shoelace!
“Oh, dear. You’re a mess this morning, aren’t you?” Her stepmom gave Snow another of her patented disapproving looks. Then, she tucked the roll of vellum under one arm and reached into her stylish handbag.
After rummaging around in it for a few seconds, Ms. Wicked pulled out a brand-new pair of shoelaces. Pretty blue ones that matched Snow’s dress, no less. It was amazing what she could conjure from that bag! Although it was a normal-size bag, she was always pulling out just the thing you needed from it. Even things that were way too big to fit inside.
Ms. Wicked sent Snow a dazzling smile as she handed her the laces. “Here. Use these. They’ll work like magic.”
“Thanks,” said Snow. Instances of kindness like this had always made it impossible for her to truly dislike her stepmother. Still, she felt a bit wary as she accepted the shoelaces. Her stepmom’s gifts didn’t always work out. Like the earrings she’d given Snow on her tenth birthday. They’d made Snow’s ears grow twice as big as normal when she wore them. And then there was the time her stepmom had given her a music box that had made Snow dance for hours, until Red had happened to come along and rescue her by shutting it.
As Ms. Wicked closed her handbag, the vellum roll she’d been holding fell to the floor and unrolled. Snow knelt and picked it up, her gaze taking in the drawing of the crystal ball on it and some of the words written below:
The Crystal Maptracker is capable of locating secret treasure maps …
Snow rose slowly, a feeling of dread creeping over
her as she realized what she held. It was an order form. For a map-finding crystal ball. There was only one secret treasure map Snow had ever seen personally. It was a mapestry, a magical map in the form of a stitched tapestry that showed all of Grimmlandia, including the Academy. And Snow and her friends, Red, Cinderella, and Rapunzel, had it!
They’d secretly discovered it at Prince Awesome’s ball a few weeks ago. They hoped it would lead to a legendary treasure so enormously rich that it might save the school from a terrible, secret society called E.V.I.L. — as in Exceptional Villains In Literature. It was a society her stepmom belonged to. And it looked like she must be trying to find the treasure, too!
“I’ll take that,” Ms. Wicked informed Snow, snatching the vellum sheet and tucking it under her arm once more. Then she stepped aside and flicked her red-polished fingertips toward the stairs. “Run along now, sweetie. Wouldn’t want you to get detention for missing your first class and being tardy to your second.” Heels clicking, she swept down the hallway.
Yikes! I’m going to be really late now! Snow realized. Which was partly her stepmom’s fault. Putting the order form out of her mind, Snow stuffed the new laces into her schoolbag and raced up the stairs. As she pushed through the door to the second floor hallway, she tried to shake off the familiar feelings of uncertainty and embarrassment that settled over her after every such encounter with her stepmom.
Those feelings had colored her entire childhood. No matter how small the offense, her stepmom still had the power to make Snow feel like a misbehaving three year old. But, hello? She was twelve now. She shouldn’t let her stepmom’s put-downs get to her. Yet she did.
Snow slid through the classroom door as the last bong of the school clock died away. She hardly noticed when her fingers rose to clasp her lucky amulet. It was something she automatically did when she felt the need for a little extra luck.
“Sorry I’m late,” she murmured to her Threads teachers, Ms. Muffet and Ms. Spider. She started toward her seat.
Ms. Muffet’s knitting needles kept on clacking as she smiled at Snow from the yellow satin-covered tuffet she was sitting on at the front of the room. “Don’t worry. You’re fine,” she said.
“Phew! Close call,” Snow muttered under her breath. Her fingers slid from the amulet. If only her stepmom were as easygoing as Ms. Muffet!
Spotting one of her BFFs, Rapunzel, at the back of the room, Snow skirted a loom where a girl named Goldilocks sat sorting through a basket of yarn for a difficult project she was weaving. “This thread is too thin, but this other one is too thick,” Goldilocks said in a frustrated tone. “And this is too blue, and that’s too purple. None of it is quite right.”
But then along came Ms. Spider, who sat down beside her to help. The teacher quickly sorted through the basket, selecting some cobwebby threads. As Goldilocks watched, Ms. Spider began to weave them over and under the warp so deftly that it would seem to anyone as if she must have at least eight hands rather than the usual two.
Rapunzel, a goth-looking girl with dark brown eyes and long, glossy, blue-streaked black hair, smiled at Snow as she sat down next to her. Her hair was woven in loose, thick braids that almost touched the floor.
“Didn’t see you at breakfast,” Rapunzel said. “What hap —”
“Overslept,” Snow explained before Rapunzel could finish asking.
Rapunzel simply nodded, not making it into a big deal. Then her dark-red-glossed lips curved up on one side and she looked at Snow uncertainly. “So what do you think?” she asked, holding up the black stocking she was knitting.
“Nice,” said Snow, studying it as she pulled her sampler out of her school bag. It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest that Rapunzel add some color to the stocking, like a zig-zag row of pink or some sparkly silver, for example. But she didn’t. Rapunzel liked black, and that was fine for simple stockings. No way did Snow want to be critical like her stepmom.
Rapunzel paused her knitting needles and peered at Snow’s sampler in surprise. It featured cross-stitched alphabet letters bordered by red and pink hearts and roses. “You finished your project already? You’re so fast.”
Snow shrugged. “Thanks.” She’d finished it last night while worrying over possible reasons for Red’s recent unfriendliness. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Rapunzel if she knew why Red had been acting suspicious and standoffish. But maybe she’d only make things worse by asking. Or Rapunzel might just say she was imagining it. Even worse, Rapunzel might agree that Red didn’t like her anymore!
Should she at least tell her about the map-finding crystal ball her stepmom was ordering? It was something all of Snow’s BFFs would want to know about. They’d be as worried as she was that Ms. Wicked might use it to get their mapestry, which she’d then use to try to locate the treasure. But what if telling her friends about the order form made them wonder if Snow had let something slip that had given her stepmom the idea of finding the treasure to begin with? She didn’t want to make Red even more suspicious of her ability to keep mum. Maybe she would wait a bit. In the meantime, she’d try to find a way to stop her stepmom’s plans by herself.
“How do you make your stitches so even?” Rapunzel asked, giving Snow’s sampler an admiring glance. “It can’t just be because you’ve taken Threads every year since first grade. Because I have, too, and I still stink at it.”
Snow grinned. “I inherited my talent from my mom. She was good at embroidery, too. Just before I was born she told my dad she hoped they’d have a daughter with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as her ebony sewing frame.”
“Her wish came true,” said Rapunzel, sending Snow a fond smile.
Snow nodded as she rose and went to turn in her completed sampler to Ms. Spider for grading. Next, she stopped by the supply closet and cut a square piece from the long roll of open mesh canvas. She also grabbed a box of assorted needlepoint twist thread at random. She wished her mom had been around when she was growing up to teach her sewing. And other stuff.
Instead her mom had died when Snow was less than a year old, and that’s when her dad had married Ms. Wicked. Then, when Snow was only six, her dad had died, too. Afterward she and Ms. Wicked had been booted out of the castle by a distant male heir. Her stepmom had had to take a job teaching at the Academy to get by. Thing was, she could have put Snow in an orphanage. But to her credit she didn’t. Was it a (mostly hidden) streak of kindness that had made her keep Snow with her? Or did Ms. Wicked just like having her around to criticize? Snow had never really figured it out.
Snow took her seat again and glanced over at Ms. Muffet, who was patiently helping a girl named Polly unsnarl a huge pile of red yarn. “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if one of the other teachers at the Academy were my stepmom,” she confessed to Rapunzel.
“Yeah, like Ms. Muffet or Ms. Spider,” agreed Rapunzel. “Think of all the great clothes they’d sew for you!”
Snow’s emerald-green eyes sparkled as she threaded her blunt needle with blue twist. “Or how about Ms. Goose? She’s so much fun and knows the most awesome stories. And she can make up rhymes about anything in half a second.” Ms. Goose was the school librarian, and she also composed most of the locking code rhymes for the trunkers.
“Hey, and maybe she’d teach you to fly around the library on her goose,” said Rapunzel.
Snow grinned and began pulling her blue-threaded needle through the mesh cloth from back to front. She didn’t really have a design planned out, but she often worked by instinct. Once a design began to form, she would simply go with it.
“Of course, my stepmom’s not so bad,” she added after a minute, feeling a little guilty. “I mean, she can be kind of critical, but that’s only because she wants what’s best for me.”
Rapunzel’s eyebrows rose, but she said nothing. Clack, clack went her needles. As the stocking she was knitting grew, so did her hair. The tips of her braids were touching the floor now, Snow noticed. Rapunzel had to cut her fa
st-growing hair almost every day.
Snow’s blunt silver needle flashed in and out of the cloth. The area of blue stitches grew wider on her needlepoint design.
“How come you decided to use invisible thread?” asked Rapunzel after some time had passed.
“Huh?” Snow looked down at her needlepoint. She’d already sewn a big blue patch. Couldn’t Rapunzel see it? Then she noticed something intriguing. Her fingers had sewn the blue in the winding shape of the Once Upon River, which the Academy building straddled. Without thinking about it, she had begun to sew a map. But not just any map. Unconsciously, she’d started to copy the magical treasure mapestry they’d found!
Hmm. What if she could make it convincing enough to fool even her stepmom into believing it was the real mapestry? She smiled inwardly. It was a brilliant idea. One that might just save the whole school!
Snow glanced down at the box of needlepoint twist she’d gotten from the supply cupboard. Its label read:
Invisible Twill Thread. Making a gift to surprise a friend? Only the one who uses these spools (or magical helpers in his or her employ) may see what the final project will be … until the last stitch is sewn.
“I picked up a case of invisible thread by accident!” Snow told Rapunzel. Only now she was glad she had. Because no one but her would know what she was making until it was finished.
Luckily, the clock began to bong, distracting Rapunzel from the needlepoint. Good thing, since Snow wasn’t quite ready to reveal her plan for it. She stuffed it into her bag as the girls said farewell, and headed off in different directions to third-period class.
Snow pulled up on the silver chain around her neck as she started down the steps to the first floor again. At the bottom, she paused behind an enormous column and waited until the final warning bongs were about to sound. Then she gave her clover amulet a kiss for extra good luck, and sprinted down the hall. Up ahead, she saw Red’s friend Wolfgang dart out of her History class and into her stepmom’s classroom next door. She was pretty sure he had Drama this period with Red up on the third floor. So what was he doing down here going into Scrying? Acting suspicious, that’s what! Why would he be visiting Ms. Wicked?