by Joan Holub
“Wait. I’ll go with you,” Red called to Rapunzel. “We can stop by the kitchen and ask Mistress Hagscorch for some leftovers. You can take some, and I’ll bring some up to the tower for Cinda, Snow, and me.”
“Okay.” Rapunzel paused on the stairs until Red joined her, then they went down together.
Watching the two girls go, Cinda looked at Snow with a question in her eyes.
“Rapunzel sleeps in the dungeon,” Snow explained matter-of-factly.
“But why?” Cinda asked as the two of them took the stairs upward. Then she remembered how mad the principal could get. “Is she being punished?”
Snow shrugged. “No, nothing like that. It’s just that heights make her dizzy. And nervous. Or going up the stairs does, anyway. She’s okay going down stairs. But getting her up to our dorm is a challenge. After all, it’s in the highest part of Grimm Academy. So that’s a lot of stairs to go up!”
“Oh. Poor Rapunzel. Do you know why she’s so afraid?” asked Cinda.
“Nuh-uh.” Snow’s ebony hair bounced as she shook her head. “She can be a little touchy about the subject, so we pretty much leave it alone.”
Fearing heights when you lived in a towering castle had to be hard, Cinda thought. There was no way to avoid stairs. Fortunately, she felt totally different from Rapunzel about going up. It didn’t bother her at all — in fact, excitement filled her as she followed Snow higher and higher.
Eventually, the stairs dead-ended at two doors on the sixth-floor landing. One was emerald green and one was pearly white. Snow opened the white one. It led to an outdoor stone walkway that ran between the towers.
“You’re over in Pearl with Red and me.” Snow spoke in a quiet voice since it was getting late and some girls might be sleeping with their windows open. “The Pearl Tower dorm, I mean. I saw your name on one of the sleeping alcoves in there this morning.”
Outside, the night was cool and the sky was a dark, velvety blue. Cinda heard splashing and looked over the side wall of the walkway. Below them in a courtyard between the fifth-floor dorm towers stood a tall, three-tiered fountain. Far, far below that, starlight danced like diamonds on the Once Upon River.
Above their heads, the pointy top of Pearl Tower gleamed a pale, frosty white. The top of the tower they’d just left was a sparkly green, the other a dazzling red.
“All the towers have jewel nicknames,” Snow went on. “The ones on our side of the Academy are Pearl, Ruby, and Emerald.”
“What are the boys’ towers called?” asked Cinda.
“Onyx, Topaz, and Zircon. Your stepsisters are in Ruby Tower,” Snow added. “You could probably trade with someone there if you want to be closer to them.”
“No, that’s okay,” Cinda said quickly. No way did she want to be near the Steps. In fact, hearing that the Steps weren’t assigned to her tower made Cinda want to do a jig. Almost. If she hadn’t despised dancing.
At the far end of the outdoor walkway, they came to another pearly white door. They went through it and entered the sixth-floor Pearl Tower dorm.
Inside, the circular dorm was ringed with what Cinda realized must be little bedrooms. Each one had a decorative curtain as an entrance, but no actual door.
In the center of Pearl Tower was a common area, where girls could gather. It had space with a fireplace hearth that was so tall she could’ve stepped inside it without hitting her head. Surrounding the hearth were a dozen or so comfy chairs, a few tables, and a bunch of throw cushions on the floor. One table had a game board set up on it.
“You’re over here,” said Snow. She showed Cinda to one of the curtained alcoves. There was a tasseled silk sign pinned to the curtain with two names embroidered on it in swirly black calligraphy letters. The first name was Mermily. The second was Cinderella.
“Go on in and get settled. I’ll get some dishes out for when Red brings food. Come to the common area when you’re ready,” Snow told her.
“Okay, thanks,” said Cinda. She pushed back the curtain and peeked into her alcove. Not seeing her roommate, she stepped inside. It was a cozy room with a cute oval-shaped rug lying in the center of the floor. Directly beyond the rug on the far wall was a big window.
On either side of the window and rug were two beds. They were canopy beds with swooping swags of pretty see-through fabric draped across their tops. But Cinda had to really crane her neck to see the canopies because both beds were raised about six feet off the floor on tall bedposts!
At the end of each bed stood an armoire with mirrored doors. Cinda opened the one closest to her. There were dresses hanging inside it already, so she quickly shut the armoire door. The girl named Mermily must have already claimed this side of the room.
Mermily’s bed had a coverlet decorated with wavy turquoise lines that made Cinda think of the sea. But where was that girl, anyway? She was out late for a school night!
As Cinda crossed to the other side of the room, she noticed that someone had made up her bed, too, with a pale yellow coverlet. There was a desk beneath each bed, and she was relieved to see her small trunk from home sitting under her desk. A coachman had stowed the trunk in the carriage with the Steps’ luggage that morning. And an academy servant must have brought it up here.
Her little trunk contained her only other two dresses, clean underthings, and her hairbrush. And something else even more precious. She kneeled beside the trunk and opened it. At the top she found what she wanted. A flat, square bundle. She carefully unwrapped it and pulled out the small, framed picture of her mother.
“I’m here, Mom. At Grimm Academy! Can you believe it?” Cinda whispered. She gave the picture a quick kiss, then set it on top of the desk. Her stepmom had forbidden her to bring the only picture she had of her dad. Instead, the cruel woman had given that picture to the Steps to put in their dorm room.
Not wanting to dwell on her stepmom, Cinda wandered over to the armoire at the end of her bed and peeked inside. A pale yellow nightgown and robe were hanging on hooks. And a pair of fuzzy matching house slippers had been neatly placed at the bottom of the armoire. Courtesy of the Academy, she concluded. How nice! These things were far finer than any of the clothes she’d brought.
Just then, she heard the stairwell door open and shut. A few minutes later, she heard the clinking of dishes and smelled the delicious aroma of food. Mmm!
Cinda parted her room’s curtain and followed her nose. As she, Red, and Snow ate the snacks Red had brought, a few of the other girls who lived in the dorm came and went. Cinda met one named Goldie, and another named Pea. And others whose names she didn’t quite catch, but which she was sure she’d learn soon.
The three Grimm girls were all hungry, so they wolfed everything down in no time. Soon they wished each other good night and went to their alcoves to go to bed.
Back in her room again, Cinda yanked off her dress and tossed it in the bottom of the armoire. She’d wash it when she got the chance.
There was a ladder at the end of each girl’s bed since the beds were so high up. Cinda quickly climbed her ladder, and then flung herself onto the mattress. Ooh! It was unbelievably comfy. Before her dad had made his fortune, her mattress at home had been made of prickly straw. And in the summer, there were sometimes fleas.
But this bed was as soft as a cloud. Its sheets smelled of a spring meadow. Practically purring, Cinda snuggled in. So far, things hadn’t gone half bad. She was making new friends and it was only her first day at the Academy! She just hoped the Steps would stop pestering her about Prince Awesome and quit trying to ruin things for her.
She was too tired to worry about them for long, though. So tired that she fell right to sleep in her petticoat!
Cinda woke the next morning to the sound of voices. She rubbed her eyes, yawned, and stared up at the ceiling. Her shared alcove was open to the top of the tower. Through her bed’s gossamer canopy, she could see the shimmering pearly white of the inside of the ceiling, which rose to a point high in the center above the common room.
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The voices came again. They were speaking in harmony. Loud harmony. It was those School Board knights. They were making an announcement that was somehow being channeled through the whole school. She listened as they repeated it a second time.
“Will Jack and Jill please bring a pail of water to the front office? There’s a small fire. Nothing to be concerned about. Carry on, students.”
“Fire?” Cinda echoed to herself. She frowned and sniffed the air, a little worried. Accidental fires were common in her village, where most homes were made of wood and mudstraw.
But Grimm Academy was built of stone. Fires seemed unlikely. There was some wood, she supposed, remembering the dining tables and the shelf the five helmet-heads of the School Board sat upon. And she did smell smoke. Alarmed, she sat up.
Just then, the Hickory Dickory Dock clock rang out the rhyme time. It was seven o’clock.
On the last stroke of seven, the turquoise-haired girl from her Grimm History class walked into the bedroom. Cinda hadn’t heard her come in last night but knew it must’ve been late.
Yet she was already up, earlier than Cinda, and she must have showered, since she was dripping wet. The girl was dressed in a turquoise robe that had the GA letters embroidered on its breast like a logo. She smiled at Cinda.
“Hi. I’m Mermily,” she said in that bubbly voice Cinda remembered from class. She started towel-drying her hair, which reached to her waist. “You’re Cinderella, from my History class.”
“Mm-hmm, but call me Cinda.”
As Mermily nodded, Cinda pushed up on one elbow, looking down at the girl from her high bed. Her long, tangled yellow hair fell forward into her face. “So there’s a fire somewhere?”
“Sounds like it,” said Mermily. “Smells like it, too.”
Cinda flipped her hair back over one shoulder. “Aren’t you worried?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we, like, leave or something? I mean, if the castle might burn down?” She scooted to the foot of her bed, toward the ladder.
“It’s no big deal. Principal Rumsy dabbles in alchemy, you know. And Ms. Jabberwocky breathes fire to heat things when she helps him with his experiments. Sometimes things go a little awry.”
If Mermily expected that information to somehow calm Cinda’s worries about the school burning down, it didn’t! Mermily didn’t seem upset, though. She began digging around in her armoire for something to wear. She pulled out one of the dresses Cinda had seen in there last night.
Cinda glanced at the other bed in the alcove. It was already made up again, its coverlet neat and tidy. “Wow! You must get up early. I usually do, too. But I was tired last night. Yesterday was a looong day.”
Mermily grinned and rolled her eyes. “I totally understand. First days usually are. Still, you’d better get moving if you want to get breakfast in the Great Hall before class. Washroom’s four alcoves down. Look for a door instead of a curtain. Everything you need is there. Towels, soap, shampoo.”
“Thanks.” Cinda climbed down the ladder and took the robe from the hook inside her armoire. She put on the fuzzy slippers and stepped through the alcove curtain. She sniffed the air again. The smell of smoke was fading, so the fire must be under control. Good thing!
She headed for the washroom. Inside, it was divided into private shower compartments. Everything was so luxurious. Marble walls and floors. Gold faucets. Grimmazing, thought Cinda, feeling dazzled. Back home, she’d bathed and washed her clothes in the stream!
By the time she returned to her room, Mermily had left for breakfast. Cinda pulled out one of the two clean dresses she’d brought in her small trunk and put it on. She wished she’d thought to hang it in the armoire last night. Oh, well. Nothing she could do about the wrinkles now.
When she stepped into the common area again, Red and Snow were just exiting alcoves that were several curtained doors apart. Cinda had assumed the two were roommates, but obviously she’d assumed wrong.
“C’mon,” Red called to Cinda. “We’re meeting Rapunzel in exactly two and a half minutes.”
Together, the three girls scurried down five flights of stairs and over to the Great Hall. Once there, they went through the breakfast line.
The very second they sat down at one of the long tables, it began snowing! No, wait. It wasn’t snow, Cinda realized. Instead, little pieces of paper were fluttering down from overhead, appearing out of nowhere to land on the tables.
One of them dropped onto Cinda’s silver tray, barely missing her saucer of pears. She picked up the slip and read it aloud. “Hearthkeeper.” She looked at the others. “I don’t get it. What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s your tower-task assignment,” Red told her.
Cinda’s heart sank, just a little. Back home, her stepmom had made her a servant. Cleaning the hearth had been her least favorite job. And now she would have to do it at the school?
“Can we trade assignments?” she asked quickly.
Everyone within earshot looked startled at the very idea.
“No!” said Snow. “The slips choose us at the start of every year. They know who is best suited to a task.”
When a slip of paper landed in front of Red, she picked it up eagerly. “Yes!” she exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air. “I got Snackmaker!”
Snow grinned at her. “You always get that.” She looked at Cinda and confided, “Lucky for all of us in Pearl Tower — because Red makes the best cookies ever!”
Just then, Snow and Rapunzel got their chore assignments, too.
“Tidy-upper,” said Snow. She smiled, appearing pleased. She did seem like the kind of person who’d be good at keeping things tidy, Cinda thought, remembering how Snow had brushed up the bread crumbs and fed them to the birds.
“I got Fountainkeeper!” Cinda heard her new roommate, Mermily, say from a couple of benches away.
Rapunzel looked at her slip and tucked it into her pocket without saying anything.
Wondering what Rapunzel’s assignment could possibly be since she didn’t actually live in the dorm tower, Cinda read her own slip again. Cleaning a hearth was dirty work. She was disappointed that the slips considered such a job right for her, but she would do her best.
After they’d all finished breakfast, the two musicians blared their horns again and the principal came to the balcony to make morning announcements.
“Students of Grimm Academy!” he began. “I have disturbing news. There’s been a theft from the library!” At this, a gasp sounded from everyone in the Hall.
“A roundish, orange object has been taken. An object owned by Peter Peter Pumpkineater. It’s the size of a very, very small house. One that a wife could fit inside. It also inspired a nursery rhyme penned by Ms. Goose herself. Can you guess what it is?”
The answer is obvious, thought Cinda. A pumpkin. But since no one else was volunteering the answer, she didn’t, either. No way she wanted to chance scullery duty by speaking when she shouldn’t and getting on the principal’s wrong side again.
The Rumpster looked rather pleased when no one shouted out the answer. “It’s a pumpkin!” he exclaimed. “If anyone has any information about this theft that could help us find the culprit, please make haste to the front office!” Having finished what he’d come to say, he stomped back down his stairs.
As the students left the Great Hall and headed for their first-period classes, everyone was buzzing about the principal’s news. “Wow! So that’s why that space in the P section was empty yesterday,” said Snow.
“I bet Ms. Goose is honking mad about it,” said Red, as the four Grimm girls walked together toward their classes.
Listening to the other girls discuss the theft, Cinda wasn’t quite sure what to do. Should she tell them she’d seen a pumpkin in her trunker yesterday? Or thought she had seen it, anyway? Until it disappeared? That sounded dumb even to her.
They already seemed to think she was imagining things, like that eyeball in the Grimmstone Library yesterday. Would the principal think the sa
me thing if she told him? He’d said he didn’t want any trouble out of her.
Red and Snow were talking about lunch plans now. Cinda opened her trunker. Still no pumpkin inside. Even if she had actually seen it in here yesterday, it had been way too small to house a wife. So it couldn’t possibly be the one belonging to Peter Peter Pumpkineater, right? Must be just a coincidence. Feeling relieved, she grabbed her vellum book and went on her way.
It turned out that Red was in her first-period Threads class, too. There were two teachers, Ms. Muffet and her helper, Ms. Spider. Exactly as Cinda had feared, they were going to be doing projects in spinning, weaving, and embroidery, plus sewing and needlepoint.
When she poked her finger with the blunt needle for the third time, she sighed. “I don’t really get the point of needlepoint,” she told Red. Which earned her a look of shock from Ms. Muffet and Ms. Spider. Stuff like needlepoint was probably their life!
Ms. Spider came to sit beside her. Her eyelashes were long and black and her dress was overlaid with fine cobwebby-looking lace. “Let me see if I can help,” she told Cinda kindly.
But before Ms. Spider could give her any helpful hints, the School Board began to blare out an announcement. “Attention, students! Will Red, Rapunzel, Snow, and Cinderella please report to the front office?”
As everyone in class turned to look at Red and Cinda, they traded a look of confusion and, well, panic.
“Uh-oh,” said Red. “This can’t be good.”
As Cinda and Red headed for the principal’s office on the fourth floor, they met Snow and Rapunzel.
“What do you suppose we’ve done wrong?” asked Red as they climbed the stairs.
“No idea,” said Snow.
“Don’t look at me,” said Rapunzel. She gripped the stair railing tightly and took careful steps as she went upward.
“Me, either,” said Cinda. “Maybe we weren’t called in because we’re in trouble. Maybe we’ve won an award or something.” She knew it was wishful thinking. After all, what award could she possibly qualify for after only one day at school?
