Cinderella Stays Late

by Joan Holub

  The other girls didn’t answer, which Cinda took to be a bad sign. Wasn’t anyone ever called to the principal’s office for a happy reason?

  When they entered the office, Ms. Jabberwocky — the dragon-lady assistant — was at her desk. Cinda had been in this part of the office to get her supplies and trunker code yesterday. But beyond Ms. Jabberwocky’s desk stood a door marked: PRINCIPAL R’S OFFICE.

  Ms. Jabberwocky rose and smiled at the girls, showing enormous, sharp dragon teeth. Using two fingers, she picked up a jalapeño pepper from a plate on her desk. Then she tilted her head back and opened her jaws wide.

  She tossed the pepper up into the air and it dropped into her mouth. After munching it, Ms. Jabberwocky washed the pepper down with a big glug from a bottle of hot sauce.

  “O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! We’ve been expecting you,” she told the girls. When she pronounced the letter p, a bit of fire sputtered out of her nostrils. Probably the reason the office smelled faintly of smoke.

  Ka-boom! Suddenly, there was a small explosion from behind the principal’s door.

  “Bandersnatch!” Ms. Jabberwocky shouted in alarm. “Follow me, Grimmble girls!” She dashed into the principal’s office.

  “Does she always talk nonsensically like that?” Cinda whispered to Red as the girls reluctantly followed the dragon lady.

  Red nodded. “You get used to it. After a while, it even starts to make sense!”

  Principal R’s office was full of equipment and stuff. So full, the girls had to go single file at first. The shelves on either side of them held strangely shaped dark lumps that Cinda decided might be really bad art sculptures. There were also jars of gold-colored flakes, a tank of swimming goldfish, a vase of goldenrods, and a picture of a golden retriever.

  Red pointed to one of the darkened lump things. “Gold-making experiments gone wrong,” she whispered to Cinda.

  So that’s what the lumps were! Now that she thought about it, they did look sort of toasted. Which made sense, with Ms. Jabberwocky being Principal R’s assistant and all.

  As the girls moved past the shelves, they saw the principal’s desk. Sitting empty behind the desk was a large throne with the GA logo carved into its high back.

  Clang! Clang! Cinda looked over and saw the principal banging a hammer against what looked to be a large lump of coal. He was standing at a heavy-duty metal worktable and wore an outfit like the blacksmith’s back in her old village — a big square iron mask, sturdy gloves, and a black apron.

  All around him, there were more lumps. Some burnt-looking and some not. One of them was as big as Cinda. Was it a student? Had Principal R gotten mad at some poor girl or boy and turned her or him into almost-gold?

  Ignoring the girls, he went on hammering. Even Ms. Jabberwocky seemed to have temporarily forgotten them. Suddenly, Principal R shouted, “Now, Ms. Jabberwocky!” On command, she took a quick swig of hot sauce from a bottle nearby and snorted out a long stream of fire at the coal lump.

  When Ms. Jabberwocky was through, the principal picked up the charred thing in his gloves and turned to the girl nearest him. Which, unfortunately, happened to be Cinda.

  “Does this look like gold to you?” he demanded.

  She gulped, but said truthfully, “Not really. It looks more like coal with some metal stuck to it.”

  Behind him, Ms. Jabberwocky had been waving her hands and shaking her head, trying to get Cinda to be more encouraging. To say that maybe it did look like gold. But Cinda hadn’t noticed the signals until it was too late.

  “Dagnabbit! I was afraid of that,” said the principal. He tossed away the blackened lump and stomped over to his throne. There were stairs on one side of it, leading up to the seat. He went up them. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Then he hopped over the arm of the throne and sat, looking mighty grumpy. But at least he didn’t seem to be mad at her, Cinda thought. Phew.

  “Have a wabe, girls,” Ms. Jabberwocky told them. She smiled as if nothing were amiss. Since the other girls immediately sat on three of the four chairs facing the desk, Cinda figured wabe must mean “seat” in Jabberwocky-speak. So she sat, too.

  The shelf behind the throne held dozens of books about alchemy. Cinda saw titles like You Can Strike It Rich and Treasure Can Be Yours.

  Yet the throne itself looked as if it were made of real solid gold! And the school was full of expensive things like silver and tapestries. So why in Grimmlandia would the principal care about striking it rich? Cinda wondered. She didn’t dare ask, though. He might tell Ms. Jabberwocky to breathe fire and turn her into a lump of almost-girl, almost-gold!

  “Let’s get down to business,” Principal R said now. “Where is it?”

  “Where’s what?” Rapunzel asked after a few seconds of no one saying anything.

  “Peter Peter Pumpkineater’s pumpkin, of course. A little goose told me you girls were in the library yesterday in the P section. You must have stolen it. I want it back.”

  “We didn’t steal it!” Cinda exclaimed. At the same time she was thinking, The geese can talk? The other girls protested along with her.

  Principal R raised an eyebrow. “So it just grew legs and ran off on its own?” He hopped from his throne onto the top of his desk and began pacing back and forth, glaring at each of them in turn as he passed by their chairs. “Come on, which of you is the pumpkin rustler? We cannot have unauthorized thieves in this school.”

  Did that mean that authorized thieves were okay? Cinda wondered. Weird!

  Hic! Hic! Snow looked really nervous. So nervous she had started to hiccup.

  The principal stopped in his tracks. “Those are guilty-sounding hiccups, scholar. You stole the pumpkin, didn’t you?” He pointed an accusing finger at her.

  “No, hic, no, I did, hic, not!” protested Snow. “I’m allergic to fruit!”

  A pumpkin is a fruit? thought Cinda. She’d thought it was a vegetable.

  Principal R rounded on Snow. “Then who did? I —”

  “Wait!” said Cinda.

  The principal whipped around and stared hard at her. “You’re that new girl. The one who dared speak my name. Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Cinda took a breath for courage, then more words spilled from her lips. “I saw a pumpkin in my trunker yesterday. It was little, though. Far too small to fit a wife in.”

  The other three girls looked at her in surprise.

  “It was there when I first opened the trunker before lunch,” she blabbered on. “But when I opened it again after lunch, the pumpkin was gone and I haven’t seen it since.”

  “Aha!” the principal hollered gleefully. “I knew it! I knew you were hiding something. Peter Peter Pumpkineater’s pumpkin is magic and can become any size or shape. Certainly small enough to fit in a trunker.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know that,” murmured Cinda. “I guess that means the one in my trunker could have been his. But I didn’t steal it. And I’m sure Snow didn’t, either! Honest.”

  Surprisingly, Principal R didn’t seem all that mad at her. In fact, he seemed happier now. Happy that he’d guessed correctly? Was that all that mattered to him? Guessing right when others couldn’t? (Or when they dared not!)

  Still, she wished she’d gotten around to saying something about that pumpkin sooner. At least to the other Grimm girls. Because she hadn’t, she knew she sounded guilty now. Would she be punished? Maybe even banished? Sent home to a house with an evil stepmother who treated her like a maid? Expecting the worst, she awaited the principal’s next words.

  But he only continued pacing back and forth across the desktop, muttering to himself and seeming to forget the girls for a moment. “Appearing and disappearing without rhyme or reason. Hmm.” He paused, looking very worried, and then went on. “This comes at a bad time. A very bad time. Peter Peter Pumpkineater’s pumpkin contains the Seeds of Prosperity. Which means the school will fail to prosper. Unless we find that pumpkin again, we’ll have to tighten our belts.”

  He stop
ped and glanced at the girls as if he’d just remembered they were there. He gave them all a big fake-looking smile. “Never mind all that. I don’t want you Grimm girls worrying unnecessarily. I’ll take care of things. I’ve got a secret plan to set things right.”

  “Does it involve making gold?” Cinda couldn’t help asking.

  The principal’s eyebrows rammed together. “How did you guess?” he demanded. He began twirling around his desk in circles, suddenly hopping mad. Coming too close to the edge, he accidentally whirled right off the desk onto the floor. Thonk!

  While he was still down there, unharmed but red in the face, Ms. Jabberwocky called out quickly, “Visit is over, girls!” She ushered them out of his office in a hurry.

  “Never ever try to guess his secrets!” Rapunzel whispered to Cinda as they approached Ms. Jabberwocky’s desk again.

  “It puts him in a bad mood,” added Red.

  “He’s always grumpy, but I’ve never seen him this bad,” said Snow.

  However, it seemed to Cinda that a bad mood was his usual mood. In fact, she decided that her own private nickname for him would be Grumpystiltskin!

  “Mmm. Well, I’d better get back in there,” Ms. Jabberwocky told the girls. “I know he seems mimsy crabby, but it’s with tulgey good reason.”

  “The missing pumpkin?” asked Cinda. She hoped everyone believed her when she said she hadn’t stolen it.

  “That’s the least of his slithy tove worries,” said Ms. Jabberwocky. “He’s up against a manxome foe.” She clapped a hand to her scaly forehead. “Pay no attention. I’ve said more than I should. Run along.” Waving them off, she shooed them out into the hall.

  Once the office door had slammed behind them, Cinda turned to the others. “Even if I were a thief and I wanted to steal something, I wouldn’t steal a pumpkin. Why would anyone bother with a pumpkin when there are riches everywhere you look in the Academy?”

  She gestured along the walls of the hallway to marble and gold statues, crystal chandeliers, and jade ornaments. “And why is Principal Grum … I mean, Principal R working so hard to make gold anyway? Can’t he just sell a few things off if the Academy really needs money?”

  “Not allowed,” said Snow. “Rule 8 in the handbook.”

  “Cinda’s right, though,” said Red as they headed down the hall. “Something weird is going on.”

  “Ms. Jabberwocky mentioned a foe,” said Rapunzel.

  “Who could it be?” Cinda wondered aloud.

  Nobody had an answer.

  But Snow looked at Cinda and said, “Thanks for standing up for me in there.”

  “Yeah, it was really sweet of you,” added Red.

  Rapunzel nodded.

  Their approval meant a lot to Cinda. She was glad her new friends seemed to accept that she had nothing to do with the pumpkin’s disappearance. Like her, they just wanted to figure out what was going on!

  As they reached the stairs, the Hickory Dickory Dock clock bonged. Time for second period.

  A voice called her name. “Yoo-hoo! Cinda!”

  Cinda looked over her shoulder and saw the Steps coming down the hall toward them. Malorette was waving at her, and Odette was right behind her.

  “I’ll see you guys later,” Cinda told the other Grimm girls. After Red and the others left, the Steps caught up to Cinda.

  “So. Have you made any progress?” Odette asked.

  “With the prince,” added Malorette.

  “I have!” Cinda said truthfully. “Turns out that Prince Awesome is in my History class. And I did mention you to him.”

  “How exciting!” said Odette, bouncing on the toes of her slippers.

  “Tell us exactly what you both said,” said Malorette. “Every word.” She gave Cinda a nudge and they all began to move down the winding stairs together.

  Cinda tried to remember. “Well, I told him you were in the Great Hall yesterday when he and I were introduced to the Academy.”

  “Did he notice us?” Malorette asked breathlessly. “Did he say we stood out like no others?”

  “Um, he wasn’t sure,” Cinda hedged. “But I described how you looked. Blue dresses and black hair. I mentioned that you were both good dancers. And that since he was probably good, too, he might want to ask you to dance.”

  “Excellent use of flattery. Boys like that,” advised Odette.

  “But don’t pour on the flattery too much. He might fall in like with you instead of us,” said Malorette. Then she looked at Odette and they both burst out laughing, as if the very idea of his liking Cinda was a hilarious joke.

  Cinda’s cheeks grew warm. So what if she didn’t dress as well as they did or have perfect princess manners? That didn’t mean she wasn’t as worthy of a boy’s attention as they were. Besides, even if she did say so herself, she’d looked pretty in that yellow dress yesterday. Anyone could look nice if they could afford to. Or if they had access to magic!

  Suddenly, she’d had enough. She came to a screeching halt halfway down the stairs to the next floor. “You know what? If you want to flatter the prince, you can just do it yourself because I —”

  Malorette paused and turned to eye her. “Interesting about that missing pumpkin. I wonder what Principal Stiltsky would think if we mentioned we saw it in your trunker yesterday?”

  Cinda gasped. “I already told him about that. But how did you know —? I mean I wasn’t sure I’d — wait! Are you the ones who stole it?”

  “How dare you accuse us!” huffed Odette. “We saw that pumpkin in there when you opened your trunker. You’re lucky we didn’t rat you out, thief.”

  “Thief? No! I wasn’t the one who put it there.” She and the Steps started to move again as other students came up behind them on the stairs. “I’d only just arrived at the Academy,” Cinda insisted.

  “Uh-huh. So you say.” Malorette looked bored and pretended to study her nails, which were painted a bright green to match her dress.

  When they reached the landing, they pushed through the door to enter the circular hall. “It would be a shame if we had to report to our dad that you were called to the principal’s office for theft!” said Odette.

  They’d been doing sneaky things like this ever since Cinda’s dad married their mom. Things to gain her dad’s favor and turn him against her. It made her so mad that they were calling him their dad. He was her dad first! She would have been glad to share him. But they were trying to take him away from her. And now they were trying to frame her for theft!

  “If I talk you up to the prince, will that be enough? Will you unsteal the pumpkin? Return it to the library? And promise not to tell my dad about my visit to the principal’s office?”

  “Stop blathering on about that pumpkin,” said Malorette as they started down the hall.

  “Besides, if we had stolen it, you can be sure it would be for a good reason,” said Odette. Malorette shot her a frown, shushing her.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Cinda.

  “Just make sure Awesome dances with us at the ball,” said Malorette. “Do that, and your secret is safe with us. Ta.”

  With fluttery waves of their fingers, the two girls took off toward their classes. They’d made it sound like Cinda actually was the thief and they were covering for her! Ooh! They made her so mad!

  It took Cinda a minute to realize she’d followed the Steps too far and was on the first floor, instead of the second, which was where her second-period Comportment class was, so now she turned around and went back up one floor.

  She was a few seconds late by the time she found the right classroom. From the doorway, she could see the teacher sitting behind a desk draped with a pink linen tablecloth. There was an elaborate place setting on it, and the teacher was talking about it. Was today’s lesson something about dishes and silverware?

  The teacher’s name was written across the board at the front of the room: Ms. Queenharts of Wonderland. Fittingly, her dress was covered with white, pink, and red hearts, and she wor
e a small red crown.

  Stepping inside the classroom, Cinda shut the door quietly behind her. She tried to edge her way to a seat without drawing the teacher’s attention. But naturally she didn’t succeed.

  Ms. Queenharts aimed her laser-beam eyes in Cinda’s direction at once. “You’re late, young lady!” she announced in a dramatic voice. “Off with your head! Off with your head!”

  With her left hand, Ms. Queenharts picked up a heart-shaped muffin from the table. In her right, she held a silver butter knife. Whack! She sliced off the frosted top of the muffin. Cinda’s eyes widened in shock.

  “Take a seat! Take a seat!” yelled Ms. Queenharts.

  Cinda scurried to a chair. It looked like Ms. Queenharts’s temper was almost as bad as Principal Grumpystiltskin’s!

  Although she survived the class without actually losing her head, Cinda still thought Ms. Queenharts was weird.

  Next period — Sieges, Catapults, and Jousts — turned out to be way more fun. It was held on the lawn outside Gray Castle, where they practiced lobbing hay bales with catapults. Cinda’s made it all the way from shore to the dead center of Maze Island, which was in the middle of Once Upon River!

  The rest of the day flew by, and then it was time for the most dreaded class of all — Balls. Unfortunately, there was no escape this time.

  Her class was made up of ten girls and ten boys, and was held in the middle of the Great Hall. Ms. Twelve, the youngest of the Dancing Princesses, was their teacher today. Her specialty was flamenco, a Spanish dance that involved lots of clapping and stomping. It was beautiful when she did it, and most of the students grasped it quickly. Especially Prince Awesome.

  Unfortunately, Cinda couldn’t catch on to the beat. Every few minutes, the students changed partners. Soon, she’d stomped on the feet of almost every boy in the class. Most were now eyeing her warily.

  “Just think of it like a masketball game,” Awesome suggested to Cinda when it was their turn to be paired together. “You’re dancing your way to the goal.”

  He did a little example of what he meant, acting as if he were flamenco-stomping his way to make a shot. Cinda laughed, her tension fading a bit. But then they all changed partners again, and she was paired with someone else. As Awesome danced off with another girl, he called back to her, “Relax. The object is to have fun.”