Red Riding Hood Gets Lost

by Joan Holub

  “What do you want to look up?” she asked Snow.

  “Try biographies of famous Grimmlandiers,” Snow replied. “In our history text.”

  All of their school subjects were contained in one GA Handbook, but not all at once. You had to ask your book for whatever subject you wanted before opening it. And since handbooks only worked properly for their owners, Red pressed the oval on the cover of hers. “The Grimm History of Barbarians and Dastardlies,” she instructed. Then she handed the book to Snow.

  Snow thumbed through the contents page. “Here it is.” She pressed her fingertip over a chapter heading. After the book magically flipped open to the chapter she’d chosen, she skimmed through to find what she was looking for.

  “Aha!” she said after a minute. Then she read aloud from a page: “Grandmother Enchantress is the most ancient and powerful enchantress in all of Grimmlandia.”

  “So?” asked Cinda. “That’s not exactly news. Grandmother Enchantress is legendary!”

  Red shot Snow a puzzled look. “Yeah, I don’t get what she has to do with the mapestry.”

  “Wait,” said Snow, resting the book on the windowsill. With an eager look on her face, she ran a fingertip over the words “Grandmother Enchantress.” Instantly, a small, transparent bubble rose to hover a few inches above the page. Inside it were further choices: Early Childhood, School Years, Achievements.

  Snow studied the choices, then poked her finger at the words Early Childhood. Pop! The bubble popped, disappearing the second she’d made her choice.

  As Snow skimmed the Early Childhood page that appeared, a triumphant look came into her green eyes. “Listen to this!” she said to Cinda and Red. “Grandmother Enchantress still resides where she was born — in a cottage at the center of Neverwood Forest.”

  Closing the Handbook with a satisfied snap, she gave it back to Red. “I remember Mr. Hump-Dumpty saying she was born in Neverwood. Get it? Her cottage must be the one embroidered on the mapestry! By the X where the mapestry wants us to go!”

  “You think Grandmother Enchantress has the treasure?” Cinda asked. “And that she’ll let us have it to help the Academy?”

  “I don’t know,” said Snow. “I just have a feeling that the mapestry is directing us to her cottage!”

  “Wish we knew for sure that there really is a treasure. And what it is exactly,” said Red.

  “Gold and jewels,” insisted Snow, who adored sparkly things. “What else would it be?”

  “Nothing in the old legend mentions gold or jewels or anything else, though,” Red noted as she went over to set her book on her desk. Seeing the vellum note lying in her basket, she took it out and slipped it inside her handbook for safekeeping.

  “No need to,” said Snow. “Everyone knows the equation.”

  “Equation?” Red asked blankly.

  Snow grinned. “Gold plus jewels equals treasure, of course!”

  The three Grimm girls laughed.

  “I hope you’re right,” said Cinda.

  “Me, too,” said Red. “Anyway, we’ll find out soon enough. Maybe even tomorrow!”

  That night Red was jerked from sleep by another of Gretel’s middle-of-the-night screams. “Gretel, wake up!” she called across the room. She heard murmurs from the rooms on either side of theirs and realized she wasn’t the only one Gretel had woken.

  “Huh? Wha —” Gretel said groggily. “Did I scream? Sorry.”

  Red sat up in bed. “It was another nightmare, wasn’t it? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Sorry I woke you.” Though Red couldn’t see much in the dark room, she could hear her roomie turning over in bed. “Let’s go back to sleep,” Gretel said with a yawn.

  “Okay,” Red agreed. But just like the night before, it took her a while to fall asleep again. Now that she was awake, her brain just wouldn’t turn off! Her mind kept replaying yesterday’s embarrassing audition. And she was still worrying that she’d hurt Wolfgang’s feelings when she turned down his offer to run lines with her. So it was no surprise that once she finally did doze off again, she overslept Saturday morning.

  When she woke, Gretel was peacefully snoozing away. But Red was supposed to meet the other Grimm girls in a few minutes for today’s treasure hunt!

  Moving quietly so as not to disturb Gretel, who probably hadn’t gotten enough rest either, Red dressed hurriedly in blue tights, a white tunic, and a blue-patterned skirt. After throwing on her red cloak, she grabbed a cookie from the common room to munch. Then she raced down five flights of stairs before pushing open the heavy wooden door that led across the castle drawbridge. Once she was outside, she ran around the side of Pink Castle to the Bouquet Garden, where Snow, Cinda, and Rapunzel were all waiting for her.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Red said breathlessly. A bouquet of deep red roses, white lilies, pink carnations, and green ferns growing on a nearby bush caught her eye and she stooped to inhale the bouquet’s heavenly fragrance.

  An extraordinary variety of flowers grew in the Bouquet Garden — roses, tulips, lilies, daisies, carnations, orchids, and dozens more. Unlike most flowers, the ones here actually bloomed together in attractive combinations all on one bush. So with a single flick of your wrist you could pick a beautifully arranged ready-made bouquet that contained many kinds of flowers!

  “S’okay,” Cinda told Red. “Rapunzel just got here, too.”

  “I had to, um, fix my hair,” Rapunzel explained.

  Which meant she’d cut it, of course. They could all see that it was way shorter than it had been last night, only reaching to the waist of the goth-style black gown she wore. However, as usual, not one of the three other Grimm girls commented on this. For some reason the fact that her hair grew an inch or so longer every hour was a touchy subject with Rapunzel. Since nobody wanted to risk offending her or making her uncomfortable, hair and fear of heights were topics they all avoided.

  Just then, bonging sounds floated out of the windows of the Great Hall. The Hickory Dickory Dock clock was announcing that it was eleven o’clock.

  “We’d better go,” said Cinda.

  Snow nodded anxiously. “Yeah. No telling how long this’ll take, and we don’t want to be caught in Neverwood Forest after the sun goes down.” Her pale fingers toyed with the crystal amulet she wore on a silver chain around her neck. Inside the amulet was a four-leaf clover. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s haunted, you know.”

  Rapunzel rolled her eyes. “That’s just superstition.”

  Red wished she hadn’t said that. Snow was a big believer in superstition. Although she didn’t yet have her real one-and-only charm like Cinda’s slippers or Red’s basket, Snow collected all kinds of good-luck charms, including her clover necklace.

  Besides, in this case, Red feared Snow could be right. Even Gretel, who took more risks than she should out hiking around with her brother, Hansel, rarely ventured into Neverwood Forest. But Red kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to fuel Snow’s nervousness.

  “Fingers crossed we find the treasure,” she said instead, as they trooped across the Academy grounds toward the forest.

  “Yeah,” said Cinda. “Just think what heroes we’d be.”

  “Can you imagine how excited Principal R would get if we brought him a pile of gold and jewels?” asked Snow.

  “The Academy would be saved, which means he might even stop his alchemy experiments!” Red added.

  “Too bad our school can’t just sell off a couple of gold statues or tapestries or a few silver trays or something,” Cinda put in. According to the Grimm Academy Handbook, the sale of Academy artifacts and property was strictly forbidden.

  “About the treasure,” Rapunzel said. “I hate to burst everyone’s bubble, but maybe we should come up with a Plan B? Just in case we don’t find any after all? Or in case Grandmother Enchantress can’t or won’t help us? Or in case the treasure isn’t what we hope it will be?”

  She has a point, thought Red as they came to the edge of the forest
. “If we need to, maybe we could raise money for the school,” she suggested.

  “By doing what?” asked Cinda. Without a moment’s hesitation, she plunged ahead into the forest, leaving the other girls little choice but to follow.

  “We could have a bake sale!” Red exclaimed. Then she glanced around. The trees grew so close together inside the forest that their branches blocked most of the sun, making it quite chilly. And a little creepy. She pulled her cape more tightly around her.

  “I’m horrible at cooking,” said Cinda. “How about a Sports Day competition instead? We could sell tickets to the villagers throughout Grimmlandia. They could come watch students compete.” Cinda was great at sports, especially a game called masketball where players wore masks and shot balls at hoops on magical goals that moved around the court on their own.

  Suddenly, Cinda halted. The path they were following had come to a T. “Hold on a minute. Where’s the map?”

  Snow had taken the mapestry last night to her room. She had a keen interest in embroidery and had wanted to study some of the stitches in the mapestry more closely so she could learn to copy them. Now she pulled the mapestry from the bag she carried and handed it over. Seeing it suddenly reminded Red of something.

  “My basket! Oh, no, I meant to bring it!” Wolfgang had warned her to keep a close eye on it. And she’d intended to, especially since she feared he might try to steal it! But after oversleeping, she’d been in a hurry this morning and had accidentally gone off without it. “Maybe I should go back and get it.”

  “You can’t go alone,” Rapunzel insisted.

  “Yeah, you’ll get lost,” said Snow.

  “But if you really need it, we’ll turn around,” said Cinda.

  “Well, I guess I don’t really need it,” Red said reluctantly. Boys weren’t allowed in the girls’ dorm and vice versa, so surely it would be safe in her room. “I do wish I had it, though.”

  Red did her best to forget about the basket as she and the other three girls huddled around the mapestry. Once more they studied the row of golden stitches on it that led halfway through the embroidered forest to the tiny embroidered cottage labeled with a big cross-stitch X. The cottage they all suspected must belong to Grandmother Enchantress. The place where they hoped to find the lost Treasure of Grimmlandia!

  “Looks like we go right,” said Cinda.

  “Agreed,” said Snow, and Rapunzel nodded.

  “Okay,” Red added, though she really had no clue if right was the right way to go. She was glad Cinda knew how to interpret the stitches. Because if Red was guiding them instead, they’d wind up lost for sure, map or no map. Besides having a crummy sense of direction, she also couldn’t read a map to save her life!

  “I thought of another way we could raise money if we don’t find treasure,” Rapunzel said as the girls started off again. “We could have a pet show with a pet talent contest and prizes.”

  Rapunzel was a real animal lover. She especially loved cats, and even kept some in her room in the dungeon. “We could charge everyone a fee for each pet they entered,” she went on.

  “If you entered all of your cats, you’d go bankrupt,” Cinda teased her.

  Rapunzel grinned. “True, but they’re so beautiful and talented they’d win all the prizes.” This made the others laugh.

  “Or maybe we could set up a beauty salon,” suggested Snow. “We could earn money cutting and styling hair.”

  “All good ideas, but they wouldn’t really raise enough money to help the school, would they?” said Red. “Besides, nobody would want me to cut their hair,” she added. “Last time I tried trimming my bangs I almost gave myself a bald patch!” The girls all laughed again at that.

  As they continued along, the trees grew even thicker together. Very little light filtered through their branches so it was easy to stumble over the roots that snaked across the dirt path. The girls went single file with Red at the back of the line, no longer talking so they could concentrate on where they placed their feet.

  Woot-woo! Woot-woo! a bird called out.

  The mournful sound startled Red and made her heart pound. Seconds later, a low shadowy form ran in front of her. She gave a little yelp of surprise as it disappeared up a tree. “Was that a squirrel? It didn’t quite look like one.”

  “I don’t know. I’m getting scared,” Snow replied. “We’ve never been this far into the forest before. It’s really dark and spooky.”

  Red was glad she wasn’t the only one who felt afraid. Mr. Hump-Dumpty was always warning them against venturing into this forest, and now his words kept running through her head. More bird sounds echoed from the trees. They seemed to say, Keep owt! Keep owt!

  “Maybe we should all hold hands,” Cinda called back. “So we won’t get separated.”

  Was that the only reason Cinda was suggesting the idea? Red wondered. Or was she scared, too? At the front of the line, Cinda and Rapunzel caught hands.

  Snow was ahead of her, so Red reached out to her. Instead of catching hold of Snow’s fingers, though, she touched something hard and wooden. Red screamed and snatched back her hand. “Aghhh!” This made the other girls scream, too. They whirled around to look at her with big eyes.

  “What’s going on?” asked Cinda. “You scared us half to death!”

  “I almost had a heart attack!” added Rapunzel.

  “So did I,” said Snow.

  Red pointed to the ground by her feet. “Look! It’s my basket!” she exclaimed. “It must have come all the way from my room on its own to find me!” The basket bounced and twirled around with excitement when it heard her voice. When she reached out, the basket hopped up as it had a moment ago, when she reached for Snow’s hand. Its double handles slid over her arm so it could nestle close at her side.

  As the girls grabbed hands and began to walk again, Rapunzel said to Red, “Remember a minute ago when you wished you had it?”

  “Yeah,” said Red.

  “I wonder if it came to find you in answer to your wish,” said Rapunzel.

  Red considered that as she stepped over a fallen tree branch.

  “Try wishing for something else,” suggested Snow.

  “Like what?” asked Red.

  “Snacks!” Snow and Cinda said at the same time.

  “Good idea,” said Rapunzel. “I wish we’d thought to bring some. I’m starving.”

  “Me, too,” said Red. That cookie she’d munched as she’d hurried down to the Bouquet Garden had been no substitute for breakfast. She dropped Snow’s hand and paused in a small clearing where the ground was covered with lush green vines. “I wish you’d fill with snacks,” she told the basket.

  After she spoke, she raised the basket’s lid to peek inside. The others stopped, waiting to see what would happen.

  “It’s empty. No snacks,” she told them, shaking her head. Then she remembered the note that had been in the basket. Even though none of the rhymes they’d tried had worked, she decided to give it one more shot. There had been six blanks, so she would use six words to make her request.

  “A tisket, a tasket. Please fill yourself with snacks, basket,” she commanded. No sooner did the words leave her lips than her basket suddenly got a lot heavier. So heavy it pulled her arm downward.

  “Whoa!” she exclaimed. She raised the lid again. “Hey, you guys, I think I just discovered one of the basket’s powers!” She tilted it so they could see it was now filled with several kinds of fruit, nuts, and chips.

  “Grimmtastic,” said Snow. “I think that pretty much proves it. That basket has got to be your magical charm for sure!”

  “No doubt about it,” said Rapunzel, and Cinda nodded.

  Red smiled, a warm, happy feeling filling her. For it seemed the basket really, truly must be her charm, since it had granted her wish. She set it on top of a tree stump with its lid open, and the girls took a snack break.

  “Those grapes look yummy,” said Rapunzel. She broke off a small bunch. “Look, I’m Ms. Jabberwocky.
” After tossing a grape up in the air, she caught it in her open mouth just the way the office assistant caught hot peppers. Everyone laughed.

  “Ha! Good catch,” said Cinda. As the girls gathered to stand around the stump, she took a banana.

  “Mmm, that fruit looks so scrumptious,” said Snow. “Too bad I’m allergic to it.” She chose some walnuts instead.

  “What happens if you eat fruit?” Cinda asked as she peeled an orange.

  Snow made a face. “Depends. Some kinds give me an itchy, blotchy rash; others make me throw up. Blueberries make me feel sad and, well, blue. Bananas make me go bananas, as in, get all hyper. I haven’t had a single bite of fruit since I was two years old and my dad figured out I was allergic. Sometimes I wonder if I even still am.” She sighed, gazing longingly at the fruit in the basket. “But I’d better not risk it.”

  The girls were almost finished snacking when Red felt something tickle her ankle. She tried to wiggle her foot but couldn’t. “Something’s got hold of my ankle!” she exclaimed.

  “Aghh! Mine, too!” cried Cinda.

  “It’s the vines! They’re creeping around our feet, trying to wrap us up like mummies!” said Rapunzel. The girls began kicking and ripping at the vines. As soon as they managed to free themselves, Red snatched up her basket and they ran down the forest path to get away from the vicious vines.

  Snap! Just as they finally slowed, Red heard a twig crack somewhere behind her. She heard the same sound a few seconds later. Was someone or something following them?

  Snap! There it was a third time. “Did you hear that?” she called to Snow in a loud whisper.

  “Hear what?”

  “A snapping sound.”

  Halting, Snow dropped hold of Red’s and Rapunzel’s hands and cupped her own hands behind her ears. “I don’t hear anything,” she said after a few seconds.

  “It stopped. Maybe I just imagined it,” Red said doubtfully. “Maybe this creepy Neverwood Forest is turning me into a basket case.”

  “Hey, you two,” Cinda yelled back to them. “Step it up!”

  As Red and Snow hurried along the path, a loud, piercing howl came from somewhere close by. “Great grimmsters!” yelled Red, practically jumping out of her skin. On her arm, her basket gave a little jump, too.