by Joan Holub
Ms. Wicked reshaped the hat with her perfectly manicured fingers so that it was no longer crumpled. “Unfortunately for you,” she said to Goldie, “with the hat in my possession, you have no proof of anything. And this hat will be of great use to me, for it has its own sort of magic, which I will learn to control. But yes, your former principal was a guest here for a few days.”
“Where is he now?” Goldie repeated. If only the bears weren’t between her and the door, she might be able to escape and … and then what? She wasn’t at all sure she could outrun them.
“According to the tracker message marble I hid in his boot heel, he’s right where we put him. Someplace safe, where busybodies like you are unlikely to discover him,” Ms. Wicked replied. Her hard eyes regarded Goldie. “The question now is, what shall we do about you, hmm?”
“Me?” Goldie croaked. Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to her that Ms. Wicked might do something really awful to her. Such as take her prisoner and hide her away like poor Principal R. No! She wouldn’t let that happen! Thinking fast, she let herself go limp. Baby Bear stumbled under her weight and she twisted away. Startled, the other two bears also let go of her. She grabbed the principal’s hat right out of Ms. Wicked’s hands and took off running!
Ms. Wicked gasped with outrage. “Stop her, you dimwits!” she yelled. The bears leaped to do her bidding and were soon hot on Goldie’s trail. In mere seconds, they had her surrounded in the yard outside.
“Hand over the hat,” Ms. Wicked commanded, coming to join them.
“No!” yelled Goldie, cramming it back into the pocket of her cloak instead. At the same time, she felt something long and thin and solid still inside that very pocket. The wand Prince Foulsmell had given her! With so much going on, she’d forgotten she still had it.
Eyes blazing, Ms. Wicked advanced on her, reaching out. The bears hung back, making way. Just before Ms. Wicked could snatch at the hat, Goldie’s hairpin slid from her hair, flew through the air, and pricked Ms. Wicked’s hand, shocking her again. Zzzpt!
“Ow!” screeched the teacher, drawing back. “Why, you little brat! You and your magic charm will pay for that!”
“Not if I can help it,” Goldie shouted. As her hairpin slid itself back in her hair again, she quickly pulled the wand from her pocket and cast a protective bubble around herself. Leaning forward, she rolled and bounced off through the grove.
The last thing she saw as she left the clearing was Ms. Wicked cradling her hurt hand while yelling at the bears. “Get her, you fools! Do you expect me to run in these high heels?”
After a moment’s confusion, the bears took off after Goldie. Now and then, they caught up to her and pounced on the bubble, but each time, they bounced off it again and were flung away. Oof! Oof! Oof! Eventually, all three wound up flat on their backs on the ground, breathing hard and watching her and her bubble roll off toward the river.
Goldie bounced onward, all the way across Heart Island, going far faster than she could ever have run. As she got closer to the river, she saw Foulsmell arrive and pull his boat up to the dock again. He must have gotten worried and returned for her.
Her momentum propelled her straight toward him. But she couldn’t stop! They hadn’t learned how to put on the brakes! She saw his surprised face as her bubble hit the side of his boat and bounced high into the air. “Sorry!” she yelled.
Splash! Her bubble hit the water, and she found herself being gently rocked and rolled across the river, all the way back to the Academy. At last, Goldie’s bouncing bubble came to a halt on top of GA’s dock. She tapped the tip of her wand to the ceiling of her bubble to make it disappear. When it did, she tumbled to the dock.
Glancing back over her shoulder, she could just make out the figures of Ms. Wicked and the three bear guards standing on the other side of the river on Heart Island’s shore. They were shaking their fists (and paws) in the air. And for some reason, they were all spinning. No, that was just her dizziness, from all the bouncing. It wasn’t long before everything righted, though.
Staring across the river again, she saw that Ms. Wicked’s boat was gone. Foulsmell had taken it! Already, he was halfway across the river, paddling toward her and the Academy with Ms. Wicked’s boat in tow behind his own.
Jumping to her feet, Goldie pulled the treacherous message marble tracker from her pocket and tossed it as far as she could into the river. “There. Let’s see you track me now!” she yelled at Ms. Wicked, even though she probably couldn’t hear.
“Look! She’s back! And safe!” she heard Polly shout. Goldie turned to see a group of girls that included Rapunzel, Red, Snow, Cinda, Polly, and Briar Rose running toward her from the Pink Castle drawbridge.
Pulling Principal R’s hat from her pocket, she waved it in the air. “I found Principal R’s hat! The E.V.I.L. Society was hiding him on Heart Island!” she shouted to them.
There were murmurs of shock and anger from the group as they gathered around her. Polly gave her a hug. “I’m so glad you’re back. We’ve been worried about you. Especially when you didn’t show up at dinner.”
“Foulsmell told us you guys practiced the bubble protection spell —” Rapunzel said to Goldie.
“And it looked like you mastered it,” Red interrupted, grinning.
“Good thing,” Goldie told her, “or I might not have escaped Ms. Wicked’s evil clutches.” Then she explained to the other girls all that had happened after Foulsmell had left the island and she’d gone back to retrieve her cloak.
“I can’t believe you did something so dangerous,” Briar Rose said in a slightly scolding tone after Goldie had finished.
“Are you kidding?” teased Goldie. She laughed. “I can’t believe you’re saying that. You’re the one with the reputation as a daredevil.” Oops! Had she just fallen back into her old ways of speaking without thinking? Immediately, she worried she’d offended Rose.
But Rose just shrugged. “True, but knight training has tempered my daredevil nature with some much-needed caution.”
She looked kind of proud of this fact, Goldie noticed. Was it possible she could somehow temper her own blurt-outs simply by using a little more caution?
Quickly, she explained about the message marble tracker and how Ms. Wicked had said there were more of them around the school. Then she added ruefully, “I only wish I’d found Principal R and not just his hat in the bear guards’ cottage. Ms. Wicked admitted they’d been keeping him there. Only, now they’ve moved him somewhere else!”
“Yeah, but this is a first big step toward finding him,” said Snow.
“But I won’t be able to spy on the group,” Goldie said, frowning. “I’ve blown my cover completely to bits! And who knows what Ms. Wicked will do to me once she finally gets off the island. At the very least, I’ll probably get expelled and have to go back home to live with my aunt.” It didn’t seem fair, especially now that she was finally starting to make some friends. Not the evil kind, either. She didn’t want to leave!
Cinda gave her a hug. “We won’t let that happen.”
“Yeah, we’re all in this together,” Polly chimed in.
Rapunzel smiled at Goldie. “When we show Principal R’s hat to the School Board and tell them where you found it and what Ms. Wicked said, her goose will be cooked!”
“I hope you’re right,” said Goldie. But she wasn’t so sure. Ms. Wicked was a crafty enemy. And she probably told much better lies than any of them ever could, too. What if she was able to convince the helmet-head School Board that she was innocent? Maybe she’d even try to pin the blame for Principal R’s disappearance on Goldie somehow. Just thinking about it made her shudder.
“Hey!” called a voice. They looked around to see that Foulsmell had pulled up in his boat.
Once inside the entrance to Pink Castle, Goldie and the other students hurriedly agreed among themselves that Rapunzel, Polly, and Foulsmell would accompany Goldie to the Great Hall. The four of them would show Principal R’s hat to the five shiny
iron helmet-heads that comprised the School Board, and explain what had happened out on Heart Island.
“And you’ll report back on the School Board’s response right away?” Red asked after everyone had wished Goldie and her companions good luck.
“We will,” Goldie promised. As the other students started upstairs to the dorms, she, Foulsmell, Rapunzel, and Polly raced down the first-floor hall together, heading for the Great Hall. The School Board needed to hear their story before Ms. Wicked and the three bears could find a way off the island and catch up to them! “Hey. Where are all the guards?” Goldie asked along the way. “I haven’t seen a single one since I got here.”
Foulsmell grinned at her. “Forgot to tell you. Word is that there was a disagreement during that meeting with Ms. Wicked this afternoon. Apparently the animals got tired of her yelling at them and telling them what lousy guards they were. Plus, I heard she hadn’t paid them, either.”
Rapunzel nodded. “And so after the meeting, they all walked off the job. All except the bears, I guess.”
“Yeah, too bad they didn’t quit, too,” said Goldie. “I might have been spared that whole scene on Heart Island!”
Polly and the others chuckled.
Remembering how Ms. Wicked had called the three bears dimwits and fools and worse, Goldie didn’t doubt that the first rumor was true. And since the legendary Straw of Gold had yet to produce a fortune, and all attempts to spin it had stopped, Ms. Wicked probably didn’t have money to pay the guards.
“I wonder where they all went? The guards, I mean,” Goldie mused.
“Into Neverwood Forest,” Polly replied. “Cinda saw the zebras and foxes and all the rest heading that way.”
By now, they’d reached the enormous, ornate doors to the Great Hall. Foulsmell looked over at Goldie. “Ready?” he asked.
A ripple of nervousness ran down her spine, but she squared her shoulders and stood straighter. “Ready,” she said.
But before they could make a move to go in, the doors were flung open toward them from the inside. Goldie froze in horror as Ms. Wicked came barreling out. She smirked when their eyes met. “Why so surprised? Didn’t expect me to show up so soon?” she hissed. “Well, never underestimate me. I have other ways to travel that don’t involve boats.”
“By broomstick, you mean?” Goldie joked.
“Or by mirror?” Rapunzel put in. Goldie remembered that the long-haired goth girl had been locked in a tower with Ms. Wicked and other E.V.I.L. Society members not long ago and had later reported that members were able to go from place to place by popping in and out of mirrors. Maybe that’s how she’d really gotten off the island.
Ms. Wicked wasn’t telling, though.
“Where are those bear guards, hmm? Did they quit perhaps? Like the rest of your guards?” asked Foulsmell.
He must have guessed correctly since Ms. Wicked grimaced. Ignoring his questions, she cocked her head toward the far end of the Great Hall, where the School Board sat on their shelf above the east balcony. “Tell them whatever you want,” she said with a smirk. “It won’t do any of you a bit of good.”
Then her eyes narrowed and she took a step toward Goldie, whispering, “Mark my words, Goldilocks, your days here are numbered!”
But Ms. Wicked jumped back in alarm when Goldie’s pearl-flower hairpin slid from her hair to hover directly in front of the would-be principal. It buzzed there in midair like some kind of pretty, but dangerous, stinging wasp. Dangerous to some people, anyway. The evil kind.
A flicker of fear passed over the teacher’s face. Then, without another word, she scurried on down the hall. Click! Click! Click!
Its job done for the time being, the hairpin slid back into Goldie’s hair. “Magic charm,” she explained when the other three students looked at her in astonishment. “Ms. Wicked told me so back on Heart Island. Apparently, part of its magic is that it sticks up for me.”
“Come forward, scholars!” the five helmet-heads chorused now. Goldie gulped. Whatever she told them, it would be her word against Ms. Wicked’s. And since Ms. Wicked was a teacher, the acting principal, and a persuasive liar, what chance was there that the School Board would believe what she, a mere student, had to say?
With a sinking heart, she took a step toward the end of the Hall. She was glad, at least, for the company of her friends. Rapunzel and Polly linked arms with her for support, and Foulsmell, who was right behind them, murmured words of encouragement. “Don’t worry. We have your back.”
Before Goldie could reply, the four of them came to a stop below the balcony shelf. The middle head, which had a red feather sticking up from the top of its helmet, spoke to them first. “We have just heard from Ms. Wicked about the disturbing events of this evening. Which one of you is Goldilocks?” it asked, its visor clacking open and shut as it spoke.
Goldie’s throat seized up. For a moment, she couldn’t speak, but then Rapunzel and Polly gave her hands gentle squeezes, which helped to calm her. “Me. I am,” she admitted.
“You stand accused of breaking and entering a cottage with intent to steal, acts of vandalism, and falsely planting evidence to destroy a teacher’s reputation,” said the helmet-head to the left of the middle one. It had a yellow feather sticking out of the top of its helmet. “Do you wish to respond to these accusations?”
“What! That’s preposterous. Um, I mean yes, I do want to respond. It’s true that I did break into the bear guards’ cottage,” she confessed. “But only because I was trying to find Principal R, not because I intended to steal.”
“And what made you think he would be there?” asked another of the helmet-heads. This one had a blue feather sticking out the top of its helmet.
She considered the question. “Rumors and a gut feeling, I guess,” she replied at last.
“Rumors? Gut feeling?” repeated the yellow-feathered helmet-head. Its tone of voice made it sound like those were very weak reasons for breaking into the cottage. Especially the gut feeling part, she realized. After all, these helmets didn’t even have guts to get feelings in!
“Maybe those seem like kind of lame reasons to you, but if I hadn’t acted on them, I wouldn’t have found this.” With a feeling of excitement, she whipped out Principal R’s hat to show them. Seeing it caused a ripple of clanking and murmurs among the five School Board members.
“Oh, so you did steal something!” exclaimed the helmet-head farthest to her right. It had a green feather on its helmet.
“No! I mean yes, I did take it,” she said, feeling flustered. “But only as evidence that Principal R had been in the cottage! After I found it under one of the beds there, Ms. Wicked pretty much admitted that she and her bear guards had imprisoned him on Heart Island, then moved him somewhere else.”
Goldie also remembered that the teacher had very nearly called the principal’s hat a magic charm. Could grown-ups even have a magic charm? If Principal R was good of heart (which Goldie was convinced he was) despite his tantrums, why not?
“Hmm,” said the yellow-feathered helmet-head. “But how do we know that’s really Principal R’s hat?”
“Know anyone else here at the Academy who wears a hat like that?” Foulsmell blurted from behind Goldie. He sounded exasperated.
At his outburst, the School Board murmured among themselves for a few moments, their visors softly creaking.
“It looks like his hat,” the middle, red-feathered helmet-head conceded at last. He seemed to be the one in charge, so Goldie wondered if maybe he was the head helmet-head. “But how do we know you didn’t find the hat somewhere else and plant it in the cottage to incriminate Ms. Wicked?”
“Is that what she told you?” Rapunzel exclaimed, her dark eyes flashing. “Ms. Wicked would say that. She and E.V.I.L. want to take control of the Academy!”
“Yeah,” Polly chimed in. “And since you’ve all made her the acting principal, she’s halfway to her goal!”
That last might have been a slight exaggeration, but Goldie apprecia
ted her friends’ spirited defense of her. Now there was even more murmuring and clacking of visors among the School Board members.
“Thank you for coming,” the red-feathered helmet-head said at last. “We’ve heard all we need to hear for now.”
Goldie couldn’t believe she and her friends were being dismissed already. “What? So that’s it?” she blurted. Heat rose in her cheeks. “What happens next? Is anyone going to go looking for Principal R?”
She took a step forward and craned her neck to look up at the helmet-heads. “And what are you going to do about Ms. Wicked?” she asked, her voice rising. “She told me my days here are numbered. Is she allowed to threaten me like that? Expel me, even?”
“Calm yourself, scholar!” rebuked the middle helmet-head. “Principal R’s disappearance is being investigated. As will your accusations against Principal Wicked.”
Goldie opened her mouth again to protest, but Rapunzel beat her to it. “But Ms. Wicked is evil! You can’t let her —”
“Silence!” shouted the red-feathered helmet-head. Then in a quieter voice, it added, “No one will be expelled. Now please go. Return to your rooms. Study. Academy life will go on.”
As Goldie and her friends turned to trudge back the way they’d come, the yellow-feathered helmet-head called after them, “Don’t forget. The brothers Grimm intended Grimmlandia to be a safe haven for all fairy-tale and nursery rhyme characters, regardless of their literary roles. No one can be banished merely for being evil. No more than they can for being good.”
Yes, thought Goldie. But even so, surely the brothers Grimm wouldn’t have tolerated Ms. Wicked’s and E.V.I.L.’s actions. Because those actions threatened not just individual students like her, and not just GA, but the entire realm of Grimmlandia.
“Investigation, inschmestigation,” Foulsmell grumbled with uncharacteristic derision as the four of them made their way from the Hall. He cocked a thumb back toward the School Board. “I wouldn’t trust those bucket heads to know how to conduct an investigation as far as I could catapult them! For one thing, they’re all stuck to a board!”
