by Shannon Hale
“Me neither,” Kitty said.
The three girls looked at Cedar expectantly.
“Um… no?” she said. “I didn’t even know stealing doors was an option.”
And then the wall sort of blinked and the door they had come through was also gone.
“Aha!” Lizzie said. “Unless one of you is lying, Cedar, the school itself is stealing doors.”
“The school must want us to go that way,” Maddie said.
“Forward! Into the purple fur hole!” Lizzie said, then added, “So there!” because shouting did make her fluttery-tummy and noodley-knees feel a tiny bit stronger.
Tendrils of long purple carpet tickled Lizzie’s face and whispered against her arms as she scampered through the opening. But despite the grape-ish furriness, the tunnel felt welcoming, exhaling a cool, fresh breeze.
“It’s too easy,” Lizzie said.
Cedar looked around nervously. “It’s also quiet, maybe too quiet. You think something is waiting to surprise us, or eat us, or something?”
“I hope so,” Lizzie said, patting the sword. She tightened her lips and lifted her chin to look braver.
The purple-carpeted tunnel ended, spilling them onto the polished wooden planks of the Grimmnasium. At the far end of the huge room sprawled the lumpy, scaled shape of a beast. The school had brought them directly to the Jabberwock.
“Thanks, Ever After High,” Maddie whispered, petting the wall.
The Jabberwock was using its clawed, three-toed paws to attach something to its head, but the Narrator couldn’t bear to describe it.
“It’s Maddie’s dad!” Lizzie whisper-shouted. “The thing is tying the Mad Hatter to its head with vines and sealing wax! It’s making the Mad Hatter into a hat—a Wonder-powered hat at that.”
Maddie felt trembly. “We need to save him.”
The Jabberwock made a jerky movement, and the girls pressed themselves back into the shag-carpeted walls. Lizzie hid the vorpal sword behind her back.
“Just as soon as I cut off its head,” she whispered.
She was certainly mad enough to do it, but just how did one go about slaying a beast that big?
The creature began to wiggle its hindquarters back and forth, patting its head as if showing off its Mad Hatter hat to an imaginary crowd of admirers.
“We have to save Maddie’s dad first!” Cedar whispered.
The beast picked something long and stringy from between its two enormous front teeth.
“This is my destiny,” said Lizzie. “This foul beast is of Wonderland. Wonderland out of order. And my story is a story of order. I will march right up to the beast and sever its wretched head from its shoulders with one swift swing of the vorpal sword! Maybe two.”
“What if you miss?” Maddie asked in a quiet voice. “What if your swing is off or if the Jabberwock moves? What if you hit my dad?”
“I won’t miss,” Lizzie said, and Maddie’s gaze dropped. Cedar looked nervous. Kitty was trembling so hard she looked a little blurry. Hardly the enthusiasm she’d expect in the middle of her rousing battle speech.
“Imagine something,” Cedar said. “Imagine that’s your dad up there.”
Lizzie imagined. Her wonderlandiful dad. A tiny man in a huge crown and an impractical grin. Stuck on a monster’s head. And someone else swinging a sword about. And Lizzie understood.
Beware Empathy! Empathy forces you to
Understand how others are feeling and to Care!
Danger! Danger!
But it was too late. Lizzie had Imagined. Lizzie had Empathized. And now Lizzie Cared.
“Of course we’ll free him first,” said Lizzie. “By the jack of spades we will. After all, we are the Wonder Worms.”
Maddie smiled at her. Lizzie smiled back and wondered if empathy wasn’t quite as bad as her mother believed.
LET’S GET ON WITH THE DAD-SAVING, THEN, so I can slay this beast,” said Lizzie.
“Wait,” said Cedar. “What happens when the Jabberwock dies?”
“Its magic will be undone,” said Maddie. “Hopefully.”
“All its magic?”
Cedar pressed a hand to her chest and felt that violent beating of her heart that meant she was scared. But also alive.
Wait, Cedar wanted to say again, but she knew they couldn’t wait. She could still save herself, outrun the Jabberwock and its magic and the changing-back, go home, and stay real forever after.…
“I’m guessing we’ve got about twenty seconds before the Jabberwock notices us,” Kitty said. She stood the farthest back of all of them, pressed into the purple shag. “If you can manage to get all your fretting and questioning out before then…”
Cedar took a deep breath, air filling her up. She was no longer “cursed” with kindness. So this is who Cedar really was. The kind of girl who did not run away. Who faced the monster. Who said, “How dare you hurt my friends? Prepare to feel the wrath of the puppet.”
A hand squeezed hers, and Cedar squeezed back. There was a lot of comfort in knowing that the Narrator was on her side.
The Narrator, meanwhile, was avoiding describing the Jabberwock and the sad parody of a hat upon its brow. The Narrator did not comment on how this made her feel, as that is not something Narrators do. But Maddie put a hand over her trembling chin and tried very hard not to fall apart.
The Jabberwock was sniffing the rosebush that used to be Briar. The roses bent and tugged by its inhale, and the entire bush began to quiver. The Jabberwock opened its huge maw as if to take a bite.
“No,” Cedar whispered.
“Beast!” Lizzie ran into the Grimmnasium. “Step away from the irritating bush! You’ve destroyed enough plants today!”
The Jabberwock swung its head around, its white-blind eyes fiery now, looking right at them.
Kitty went semitransparent.
“Thoughtful—” the Jabberwock skurbled.
“Yes, I am,” Lizzie interrupted. “Now, remove your hat and present your neck for chopping, or it will go badly for you.”
The Jabberwock dropped to its stomach and used its legs to slide itself forward, and continued, “—to trawl me up a Wonderling three-batch for squeezing.”
Its voice was low and raspy, and shrieked into Cedar’s ears the way fingernails scratching chalkboards do. Surely it hadn’t yet recognized the sword in Lizzie’s hands, as it seemed unworried, playful, spinning itself around on its stomach.
“Why is it doing that creepy walk?” Kitty whispered from the purple tunnel. “I don’t like it, I don’t like it.…”
The Mad Hatter had slumped over on its head, visibly breathing but limp with exhaustion, and the Jabberwock pulsed with a pale sickly light. Strengthened and fearless, it was leaching the Hatter’s Wonder.
“Kitty, transport yourself onto it, untie Maddie’s dad, and then vanish yourselves away,” Lizzie whispered back at them.
Kitty turned fully invisible. “I’m not good with knots,” she peeped.
“Wee-wee meaty food-legs, food-legs, food-legs,” the Jabberwock sang, slithering closer. It was nearly upon them.
“Kitty…”
“I can’t I can’t I can’t…” Kitty whispered from the air.
“Fine, scaredy-cat,” Lizzie said. “I will distract it, and Cedar will save the Mad Hatter.”
“Me?” Cedar was supposed to be the girl who was quiet and friendly and painted pictures. In the stories, Pinocchio never slew a dragon.
“Prepare to face the wrath of the puppet,” she whispered, trying to give herself courage.
“I said your neck, slivy creature!” Lizzie was shouting.
“Neck?” it grinkled, backing toward her. “All is inside out. Upside down. Leftways right. Frontwards back. Here is my neck.” It batted its tail sassily.
“That’s just too disturbing,” Kitty whispered.
The Jabberwock poked Lizzie in the belly with the tip of its tail. She swung the sword and missed. Its tail continued to poke, pat her head, slap her che
ek, nudge her in the ribs.
“Stop it!” Lizzie shouted, awkwardly swiping the sword, touching nothing but air.
The beast began chittering like a giant chorus of drowning crickets.
“There is no laughing at your future monarch!” Lizzie hollered.
“Go,” whispered Kitty, giving Cedar a nudge. “Now’s your chance. I’ll… er… keep a lookout.”
Cedar crept forward, achingly aware that she was no longer made of nice, safe, painless wood.
The frightened and confused thoughts spilling out of Cedar helped distract the Narrator from what was truly terrifying: her father, strapped to a monster’s head. The Narrator had to stay focused. If she stopped narrating, the story would stop, and her father would never escape.
“Please help him,” Maddie whispered.
“If I have to work my way back-end forward, so be it!” said Lizzie.
She swung the sword recklessly at the tail in her face and managed to snip off an inch.
The creature roared. It spun around with startling speed. Cedar scrabbled out of its way. But Lizzie just stood and stared at a small opening in the air the sword had left behind, as if the air was just fabric, and the vorpal sword had sliced it open. Lizzie’s eyes widened, peering through the slice till it snapped shut.
The Jabberwock turned around completely and slammed down a taloned paw. Lizzie only just managed to dodge it, rolling across the floor with the force and slamming into Cedar.
The monster began to do a cheeky dance, making that horrible, fingernails-on-chalkboard kind of raspy chuckle.
“I don’t know how to save Maddie’s dad,” Cedar said, splayed on the floor beside Lizzie.
“Saving things. This is not normally my specialty,” Lizzie said, crawling to her feet.
A toddler-sized furball in a fetching white jacket burst through the double doors at the opposite end of the Grimmnasium.
“Grra-ha!” Daring-beastie announced. It charged the Jabberwock and was swatted unceremoniously aside by the beast’s tail.
“That’s Daring!” said Cedar. “And saving things is his specialty.”
“Good,” Lizzie said. “I will keep distracting.” She yelled as she ran at the Jabberwock, who kept dancing away, whiffling and burbling as if enjoying itself tremendously.
Cedar and Maddie helped Daring-beastie to his feet. Earl Grey popped out of Maddie’s hat and squeaked emphatically, pointing at the Jabberwock with a hat pin. Earl Grey was a mouse, but he had no problem imagining himself as a hero.
You spent your entire life imagining emotions, smells, textures, Cedar thought. Imagine yourself a hero now.
Daring-beastie searched around frantically. “Groooard,” he howled, asking for a sword.
From across the room Lizzie threw something that clanged to the floor at Daring-beastie’s feet. It was an ornate butter knife with a beautifully engraved heart on the handle.
Daring-beastie brandished the butter knife.
“Squeak?” Earl Grey asked.
“Squeak!” Daring said, pointing at Maddie’s dad.
Cedar squared her shoulders. She imagined herself: fearless, bold, powerful. Successful.
“Let’s do this,” Cedar said. “With fuzzy help.”
“Groar!” said Daring.
Cedar and her furry friends tried to climb up the monster’s leg, but it was moving around too fast in its odd sideways crawl. Staying in the Jabberwock’s blind spot, she gestured at Lizzie, trying to tell her they needed help.
Lizzie was swinging the vorpal sword, taunting, “I’ll chop you up like salad! Like a really big, nasty salad no one wants to eat! Not even vegetarians! Or… especially not vegetarians! Ah-ha!”
“A walking joke is thee, me wee heartspawn.” The Jabberwock hissed, breathing magic on her so powerful her crown melted into golden icicles. “Hee-hee-saw.”
“My crown!” Lizzie hollered. “I had hoped to spare my little friends this, but you deserve it.” She raised her sword. “Hedgehogs! To your princess!”
A chittering roink heralded the sound of a hedgehog moving at an incredible speed. It darted across the Grimmnasium floor and stopped solidly in front of Lizzie.
Lizzie held the sword like a croquet mallet and swung, striking the hedgehog hard with the flat of the sword. The hedgehog flew, straight and true, directly into the snout of the approaching beast, quills burying themselves in its soft nose. The Jabberwock froze as if stunned.
Cedar took advantage of the Jabberwock’s momentary stillness and boosted Daring-beastie up, climbing after him and Earl Grey. She was expecting skin like a snake’s or a lizard’s, but the Jabberwock’s hide was slick as jelly and left pads of stickiness on her fingertips.
Thunk! A hedgehog struck the Jabberwock’s shoulder and stuck. The little beast smiled at Cedar as she tiptoed up the monster’s ridged back.
I’m light as a leaf, Cedar thought, trying to imagine it to be true. I’m as bendable as a branch. I fly like a seedpod. I tear my way through problems like an oak’s deepest root through rock. I am a hero.
From her art tools pouch in her pocket, she pulled her pencil-sharpening knife. It was the very one that had sliced her newly real fingertip. Did that only happen a few hours ago? It felt like years. She joined Earl Grey and Daring-beastie, slicing at the vines.
Finally free, the Mad Hatter slumped into her arms, snoring softly. He was sometimes a small man, but it looked like he’d been playing with the grow potions again and was tall and thin. Cedar could barely hold him. How to get down?
“I got him,” a mouth said in front of her, expanding into all of Kitty Cheshire. She took the Mad Hatter in her shaking arms and quickly disappeared with the unconscious man, reappearing to lay him down near Maddie and the purple tunnel. Daring-beastie and Earl Grey leaped away.
“Maneuver C,” Lizzie said from below. She broke a golden icicle from her melted crown and tossed it on the floor.
Shuffle, the last hedgehog left in Lizzie’s armory, picked up the icicle with her tiny pink hands, nodded, and curled up into a ball. Swift and strong, Lizzie slapped the hedgehog with the flat of the blade, and the little beast stuck right between the Jabberwock’s eyes.
Shuffle poked it in the eye with the icicle, the Jabberwock roared, and Cedar was violently bucked off.
Light as a leaf, Cedar thought, and fell, landing on her back.
Ouch. There was pain but not as much as she’d feared. She sat up and realized why. Daring-beastie had leaped to her rescue, attempting to catch her but mostly just breaking her fall. He gave her a fuzzy thumbs-up.
Cedar had only just gotten to her knees when the Jabberwock noticed her. Its head swung around on a giant snakelike neck, fiery eyes inches from her face. Its huge nose snuffled her. If not for the cheerful icicle-waving hedgehog affixed between the creature’s eyes, Cedar was sure she would have starting crying, or screaming, or both. The enormous mouth opened and exhaled over her. Its breath was hot and cold at once and stunk of wet dog and burned turnips. The breath magic was so strong it rustled Cedar’s clothes and changed them into paper, her dress now made of stitched-together pages ripped out of a book about Pinocchio.
“The game’s score is Wonderling naught,” the Jabberwock gargled. “Why does the bitsy playsqueal not change?”
Daring-beastie was punching the Jabberwock in the neck, but the Jabberwock didn’t budge.
“Why?” it insisted, its bucktoothed mouth leering over her. “Wordspew! Tell my greatness why you normal stay and change not!”
Lie, Cedar thought. She could say she was magic, beyond its power, poisonous to eat, destined to slay a Jabberwock, anything to scare it and make it leave her alone.
But Cedar chose to tell the truth. “I am changed,” she said, her voice quavering. “But it’s wrong, like all your changes. Right now, I’m supposed to be made of wood. I’ve got little brass pegs on my joints, and I don’t feel pain or breathe, and I can only tell the truth. One day the Blue-Haired Fairy might turn me into a real
girl forever after. But it’s not my time yet.”
“A lie,” the beast said, pointing one claw at her. “A most ridiculish lie.”
Lizzie had crept up to its neck, and now she swung. The vorpal sword went snickersnack.
Hearing for the first time the telltale noise of the vorpal sword, the Jabberwock jerked away just before the sword reached its neck. It reared its head, knocking Lizzie. The sword flew out of her hands, and she landed several feet away.
“Lizzie!” Cedar said, running to her.
“Where is the sword?” Lizzie whispered.
The Jabberwock was staring at the shimmering trail the sword had cut in the air.
“Vorpal!” sloared the Jabberwock. “Vorpaaaal!”
“Grrrr… ha!” Daring-beastie growled, reaching the sword first. He lifted it up, struggling with the weight.
All sassiness and patience melted from the Jabberwock. It charged Daring-beastie, who suddenly vanished. The Jabberwock skidded to a halt, sniffing the air, smelling the lemony trail of Kitty’s disappearance. Several feet away, the Daring-beastie reappeared, the sword floating beside him as if it had a life of its own. And then the sword vanished.
“Vorpal!” scrackled the Jabberwock, mad with rage.
A snickersnack sounded from the far end of the Grimmnasium. Kitty was perched atop the basketball standard.
“So much moving around,” she said, swinging the sword. “It’s really draining to carry oth—”
Whatever Kitty was going to say was lost as she stared at the hole in the air her swing had cut. She smiled, baring each of her Cheshire teeth.
“Guys!” she said, her voice actually bubbly. “This sword can get us home! That’s Wonderland in there.” She pointed at the hole as it snapped shut. “Who cares if it’s infected or something. So is Ever After currently. Let’s just—”
The Jabberwock clawed a wooden board from the floor and threw it across the length of the basketball court, impaling the backboard and sending the whole standard crashing to the floor.
“Kitty!” Cedar yelled.
The Jabberwock galloped to the mess, screaming, “Vorpaaaal!”
“We could… ugh… use that beast on the Ever After High basketball team,” Kitty whispered from behind Cedar.
