Tales From the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird

by Vivian Vande Velde

  "Wait," he called, catching sight of her leaving the garden.

  But she didn't.

  By the time he made it out of the garden, across the courtyard, and into the castle, the princess was sitting down to dinner with her family.

  Sidney kicked on the dining-room door. "Hey," he yelled. "Hey, princess!"

  He heard the king ask, "What's that noise?"

  "Nothing," the princess answered.

  "Princess!" Sidney yelled. "It's me, the frog prince. You accidentally left me behind."

  The king's voice said, "He says he's a frog prince. What does he mean, you left him behind?"

  "I don't know," the princess said.

  "You promised you'd help me." Sidney wasn't used to yelling, and his throat was getting sore.

  "You promised you'd help him?" the king asked.

  "No," the princess said.

  There was no other way. Sidney called out, "In return for getting back your father's golden ball paperweight that you were playing with and dropped into the pool in the garden."

  "The golden paperweight that left a wet spot on my papers this afternoon?" the king asked.

  "I don't know anything about it," the princess said.

  The king must have brought his fist down on the table. Sidney could hear the dishes rattle. "A promise," the king said, "is a promise. Let the frog in."

  Servants came and opened the big golden doors.

  Sidney hopped into the dining room, which was decorated with mirrors and crystal chandeliers and hundreds of flickering candles. He hopped until he came to the princess's chair.

  "What, exactly," the king asked his daughter, "did you promise him?"

  "I can't remember," the princess said.

  "That I could eat from your plate," Sidney reminded her. "That I could sleep on your pillow. I promised not to eat too much and to use only the corner of the pillow."

  "A promise is a promise," the king repeated.

  The princess lifted Sidney, not very gently, and plunked him down on the white linen tablecloth beside her china dish.

  Sidney nibbled on a piece of lettuce that was hanging off the edge of the dish.

  The princess put her napkin up to her mouth and made gagging sounds. "I'm all finished," she announced, shoving the plate away.

  "Then you may leave the table," the king said. "Don't forget your little friend."

  The princess scooped up Sidney and brought him up the stairs to her bedroom, stamping her feet all the way.

  "Thank you," Sidney yelled back down the stairs to the king.

  "You horrid beast," the princess growled at Sidney. "You told him about the paperweight. Now I'm going to be in trouble."

  "It was your own fault for walking away so fast that I couldn't keep up," Sidney said. "Are you going to put me on your pillow now?"

  "I'll put you on my pillow!" the princess shouted. "But I'll put you on my wall first."

  She flung Sidney with all her might against the wall.

  "Ow!" Sidney cried, landing in a heap on the floor.

  "Now here's the pillow," the princess said, throwing that on top of him.

  But as soon as the pillow touched Sidney's head, he instantly regained his normal shape.

  "Oh my!" the princess gasped. She was going to be in serious trouble with her father now, she thought. Here she had a man in her room and her father was never going to believe that this was the same person who had come into her room as a frog. Even now she could hear her father coming up the stairs, demanding, "What's all the commotion?"

  But the prince—he was obviously a prince—who stood before her was incredibly handsome, and she was falling in love already, which surely would balance out the trouble she'd be in with her father.

  "Oh," she said, clapping her hands together. "I'm so sorry. But my father will make it worth your while. We can get married, and he'll give you half the kingdom and—"

  "Are you out of your mind?" Sidney said. "First you break your promise to me, then you lie about it until your father forces you to keep it, then you try to kill me. No, thank you, princess." He strode out of the door, out of the castle, out of the kingdom, returning home, where he eventually married the goose girl.

  And the princess was right: her father didn't believe her story.

  THREE

  All Points Bulletin

  All officers in the vicinity:

  Be on the lookout for suspect

  wanted for breaking and entry.

  Stole the victims' food,

  vandalized their furniture

  from room to room.

  May be armed;

  may be dangerous.

  Last known alias: Goldilocks.

  FOUR

  The Granddaughter

  Once upon a time in a land and time when animals could speak and people could understand them, there lived an old woman whose best friend was a wolf. Because they were best friends, they told each other everything, and one of the things that Granny told the wolf was that she dreaded visits from her granddaughter, Lucinda.

  "I'm afraid my son and his wife have spoiled her," Granny said to the wolf as they shared tea in the parlor of the little cottage Granny had in the woods.

  "Children will be children," the wolf said graciously. He had no children of his own and could afford to be gracious. "I'm sure she can't be all that bad."

  "You'll see," Granny told him. "You haven't seen Lucinda since she was a tiny baby who couldn't even talk, but now she's old enough that her mother has said she can come through the woods on her own to visit me."

  "Lucky you," the wolf said with a smile.

  "Lucky me," Granny said, but she didn't smile.

  The wolf didn't visit Granny for nearly a week, being busy with wolf business in another section of the forest where he was advising three porcine brothers on home construction. After he came back, though, he was walking near the path leading from the meadow to Granny's house when he saw a little girl with a picnic basket. He recognized her right away from the picture Granny kept on her mantel.

  "Hello," he said, loping up to the child. "You must be Lucinda."

  "Don't call me that," the girl snapped. She stopped to glare at him. "I'm Little Red Riding Hood."

  The wolf paused to consider. "A little red riding hood is what you're wearing," he said. "It's not a name."

  "It's my stage name," the girl said. She swirled her red cape dramatically. "I'm going to be a famous actress one day, and I'm going to travel all around the world, and when I do, all my clothes will be red velvet. It'll be my trademark."

  The wolf nodded and opened his mouth, but before he could get a word out, Little Red continued: "Madame Yvette—she's my acting instructor—Madame Yvette says every great actor or actress needs a trademark. Mine will be red velvet because Madame Yvette says I look stunning in red velvet. Not everybody can carry off such a dramatic color, you know, but I have the coloring and the flair for it."

  The wolf nodded and opened his mouth, but before he could get a sound out, Little Red continued: "I played Mary in our church's Easter pageant, and my performance was so touching everyone in the congregation wept—they actually wept. Even the priest had tears in his eyes, and you've got to believe he's seen an Easter pageant or two in his time, so you know I must have been stunning, even though they told me Mary had to wear white linen and not red velvet."

  The wolf nodded, but before he could get his mouth open, Little Red continued: "When I go on tour, I'm going to demand that all the theaters I perform in must have red velvet seats, and I'll travel in a coach with red velvet cushions, and kings and queens and emperors and popes will stand in lines by the roads, waiting for hours for a chance to catch a glimpse of me."

  Little Red paused for a breath.

  The wolf was pretty sure there was only one pope, and that—since there was only the one—he probably wasn't permitted to stand on roadsides, waiting for actresses to pass by. But he didn't want to waste his opportunity to speak and decided he'd bett
er say something important. He said: "Well, probably I should introduce myself—"

  "Oh, I know who you are," Little Red interrupted. "You're that wolf who's my grandmother's friend. Yes, I noticed the scratch marks your claws left on her hardwood floors. I told her, I said, 'I don't know how you put up with it. I mean, having a nonhuman friend is one thing,' I told her, 'but scratches and dings on the floors and furniture, which just make the whole house look shabby, is another. After all, I have an image to maintain for my fans.'"

  Little Red leaned forward to lay her hand on the wolfs shoulder. She didn't seem to notice that his eyes were beginning to glaze over. She said, "I know I can speak frankly with you because you've been a friend of the family, so to speak, for ages, so you've got to know I'm only telling you this for your own good, but you really should consider meeting my grandmother outside in the garden. She could sit in a nice comfy lawn chair, and then you wouldn't have to worry about scratch marks or shedding or fleas or anything like that."

  Fleas? the wolf thought. Fleas!

  But Little Red continued on. "'And meanwhile,' I told Granny, 'have you ever tried Professor Patterson's Wood-Replenishing Cream? Madame Yvette uses it to polish the stage. It's great for bringing out the natural shine of wood.' Granny had never heard of it—which, of course, I'd already guessed by the state her furniture was in—but I told her I was sure my mother would be willing to spare a jar of hers, since Granny's floors were in such obviously desperate need."

  Little Red stopped for another breath, but by then the wolf's head was spinning. He was just opening his mouth to protest that he did not have fleas, but he wasn't fast enough. Little Red started telling him about other products that her mother used around the home, and once she started, he wasn't able to get a word in edgewise.

  After a few minutes that felt like an hour or two, the wolf was thinking that he was in serious danger of being bored to death.

  The next time Little Red paused to inhale, he pointed at the sun overhead and exclaimed, all in one rush so Little Red couldn't interrupt, "My goodness, look at the time, I had no idea it was so late, I'm late for an appointment, it was real nice meeting you, good-bye!"

  He also had the sense to start moving as soon as he started talking.

  Which was a good thing, because Little Red started telling him, even as he left, about the clock her father had bought, which had been made in Switzerland, and it had a dial to show the phases of the moon and you could set it to any one of three different kinds of chimes, and it was carved with something-or-other—• but by then the wolf had speeded up and was out of earshot.

  He felt ready to collapse with exhaustion. The only thing that kept him going was the thought of poor Granny, and the knowledge that she had to be warned.

  Luckily, he knew a shortcut.

  Racing ahead, he got to Granny's house and pounded on the door.

  Though it was midmorning, Granny came to the door wearing her nightie and slippers, with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

  Before she could get a word out, the wolf said: "I met her, I know what you mean, she's on her way—quick, get dressed, there's still time to escape out the back door."

  Granny sneezed. Twice. Three times. The wolf thought Little Red would probably blame him for giving her grandmother allergies, but Granny said, "She gave me her cold, and now I'm too sick to leave. I hoped her mother wouldn't let her come again today. What am I going to do? I'm not up to one of her visits."

  "Tell her she can't come in," the wolf suggested.

  "You can't say that to family," Granny said. She blew her nose in her hankie. "I can't face her. She'll tell me it isn't a cold and that I'm sneezing because of all the dust in my house. Can you believe she told me my house is one huge dust trap and that her mother wouldn't stand for it?"

  "Yes," the wolf said, "I believe it." Looking out the window, he added, "Here she comes up the walk."

  "She's sure to have all sorts of remedies and advice," Granny said. "Well, I'm hiding in the closet. Call me when it's safe to come out again."

  She stepped into the closet and pulled the door closed behind her.

  Something had to be done about that Little girl, the wolf thought, or she'll never leave. He grabbed a spare nightie and nightcap out of the chest at the foot of the bed and leapt into Granny's bed, pulling the covers up to his chin just as Little Red walked in without knocking or waiting for an invitation.

  "I got the most beautiful azaleas out of our garden for you to cheer you up," Little Red said, reaching into her basket, "along with the regular cakes and bread and jams and other goodies my mother usually packs for you. I'll bet you thought it was too early in the year for azaleas, but we have the very first ones, because what we do is we force them by putting burlap bags on the ground to..."

  Little Red stopped talking, and it was the first time the wolf had heard such a thing.

  "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

  "Why, dear," the wolf said, trying to sound like Granny, "I'm your grandmother. I live here."

  "You're not Granny," Little Red said. "You're that rude wolf."

  Rude! the wolf thought. "No, dear," he insisted in a high, shaky voice, "I'm Granny. I'm feeling much better today, but veiy contagious. Why don't you leave the basket of goodies on the night table and go back home?"

  Little Red put the basket down on the floor, but she picked up a wooden spoon with which Granny had been eating a bowl of oatmeal, and she approached the bed. "If you're Granny," she said, and jabbed the wolFs front leg with the spoon, "why do you have such big, hairy arms?"

  The wolf winced but ignored the oatmeal, which stuck to his fur. He forced himself to speak gently and lovingly. "The better to hug you with, my dear," he said.

  "And if you're Granny, why do you have such big, hairy ears?" She poked him on the side of the head with the spoon, leaving behind another glob of oatmeal.

  "Ouch! The better to hear you with, my dear." He forced himself to smile.

  "And if you're Granny, why do you have such big, sharp teeth?" She smacked him on the muzzle with the spoon—which hurt a lot.

  The wolf lost his temper. "The better to eat you with!" he yelled. He didn't mean it, of course. He was angry, but not angry enough to eat his best friend's granddaughter.

  But as he jumped out of bed, intending only to frighten Little Red a bit, his back leg caught on the blankets and he half fell on her.

  Landing heavily on the floor, she began to scream.

  Loudly.

  Very loudly.

  Extemely loudly.

  She scrambled backward, knocking Granny's chair over, and continued screaming, all the while whacking away at the wolf with the wooden spoon.

  The wolf, still caught in the bed linens, flailed about, shredding the sheets with his claws, and began to howl.

  Granny, hearing all the commotion, tried to open the closet door, but the tipped chair was in the way. She was sure an intruder had come into the house and was killing both her best friend and her granddaughter. "Help!" she began to scream, knowing that there were woodcutters working nearby. "Help!"

  And one of the woodcutters, a neighbor man named Bob, heard her.

  Bob shifted his ax to his left hand and swept up his hunting musket as he took off running across Granny's yard.

  Throwing open the front door, he saw the snarling wolf dressed in Granny's clothes, and he saw Little Red, still on the floor, screaming. He assumed the worst and fired the musket...

  ...just as he stepped into Little Red's basket of goodies.

  The bullet missed the wolf and shattered the bowl of oatmeal on the night table.

  "What idiot's shooting guns off in my house?" Granny yelled, but nobody could hear her because of Little Red's screaming.

  Bob dropped the musket, which was only good for one shot before it needed to be reloaded, and switched the ax back to his right hand, all the while trying to shake the basket off his foot at the same time he was approaching the bed. Dragging Li
ttle Red out of the way, he swung his ax at the wolf...

  ...just as Granny heaved herself against the closet door, scraping the fallen chair across the floor.

  The ax embedded itself in the edge of the door.

  Granny looked from the ax head, three inches away from her nose, to Bob.

  There was a moment of stunned silence. The wolf stopped struggling against the tangled bed-sheets. Even Little Red stopped screaming.

  "What in the world did you do that for?" Granny demanded.

  "I thought the wolf ate you," Bob said. "I was trying to rescue your granddaughter."

  Too shocked for words, the wolf shook his head to indicate he'd never eat Granny.

  "Well!" Little Red said. "Some rescue! First you barge in here, tracking your muddy boots all over the floor"—Bob opened his mouth to apologize, but Little Red continued—"which I know wasn't in very good shape to begin with, Granny being the indifferent housekeeper she is—I know she doesn't mind my saying that because I only mention it for her own good, and believe me, when I'm a famous actress I'll hire a maid to give her a hand, because, heaven knows, she isn't getting any younger." The wolf saw that Bob's eyes were beginning to bulge as his hand slipped from the handle of his ax, but Little Red continued: "But even leaving Granny's messy habits out of it, you come in here trailing big globs of mud and grass, shoot a hole through the bowl, which my family bought Granny for Christmas last year, gouge a perfectly fine door with your ax, not to mention pulling my hair, and look at this— look at this!" Everybody looked. "You are stepping in the goodies my mother made and which I brought here for my sick granny, never mind that I had to walk for hours to get here and that I'm even now missing a class with Madame Yvette to be here, inhaling wolf dander and catching a chill from sitting on this floor, which no doubt will ruin my stunning speaking voice. And you call this a rescue?"

  Bob shook the basket off his foot.

  The wolf saw that the azaleas were crunched, but the food was surprisingly undamaged. He straightened the nightcap, which had fallen to cover one eye. He, Granny, and Bob looked at one another. They looked at the basket of goodies. They looked at Little Red.