by Shannon Hale
Cedar whirled. “You’re okay!”
Kitty coughed. “Relatively.” Her eyes were half-lidded and her ear was bleeding a little. “Vanishing, moving, vanishing… it takes a lot out of you. Especially when you carry stuff.”
The Jabberwock was picking through the broken standard bits with its claws and mouth, searching. “Swoooord,” it howled.
“You do the honors, princess,” Kitty said, holding up the sword. “Forget this monster. Use the sword to open a door home.”
“No!” said Cedar. “What about Ever After? You can’t just leave the Jabberwock here!”
“I could go home,” Lizzie mused. “Raise an army, come back, take over—”
“What?” Cedar said. “Like the Evil Queen, but in reverse?”
Lizzie’s eyes cleared from whatever daydream she was in. “Of course not.”
The creature in question had given up searching the rubble for the sword. Cedar heard its claws clicking on the hardwood, coming back toward them.
“Give me the sword, Kitty,” Lizzie said. “Quick!”
“Only if you promise to take us home,” said Kitty, taking a step back.
“Cat Thing!” came a terrible screech from above.
With great flaps of its bat wings, the Jabberwock leaped and descended upon them in a crash. Everyone went flying, but especially Kitty. Cedar saw her spinning almost to the ceiling. The sword flew out of her hand, singeing the air with a narrow rip. The sword struck the wall, careened back, and began to descend into the tear it had made. Midair, Kitty reached for it.
They would both plunge back into Wonderland. It was over, Cedar thought. The sword would be gone.
Kitty popped out of thin air, dropping the vorpal sword at Lizzie’s feet.
“She caught it,” Cedar said. “Before it fell into Wonderland.”
“And came back to us before she did,” Maddie said.
“Off with its head, Your Highness,” Kitty said, her eyes closing. She curled into a ball. “Just going to take a little catnap…”
Lizzie patted Kitty’s head and picked up the sword. Her beautiful crown hung in broken golden icicles. The painted heart around her left eye was smeared. Her skirt was ripped; her tights bore ragged holes in the knees. But her eyes were clear and her mouth was set.
She raised the sword. “Now, Shuffle!”
The Jabberwock opened its mouth as if to eat Lizzie, but Lizzie’s pet, still stuck between the monster’s eyes, tossed the golden icicle into the creature’s throat.
“Hurrg!” gagged the Jabberwock.
“I’m glad you’re on our side, Princess of Hearts,” said Cedar.
“Callooh callay,” said Lizzie. “It’s about to become a frabjous day.”
LIZZIE SWUNG THE SWORD, MISSING WILDLY. A huge scaly paw swatted her for the trouble, and she went skidding to the ground.
She leaped up, irritated. It was not supposed to be like this. It was her destiny to bring Wonderland to heel, but her Grove was destroyed and everyone was hurt. Lizzie probed her swollen lip. She was hurt, for queen’s sake! The only one hurt was supposed to be the Jabberwock, and apart from the smiling hedgehog wedged between its eyes, the beast was suffering from nothing more than a golden icicle stuck in its gullet.
“Hork,” gagged the Jabberwock, holding up a claw to Lizzie as if it were in the middle of a speech and just needed her to wait a moment.
“Get him, Lizzie!” Maddie shouted, almost back to her usual happy self.
“Is your dad okay, then?” Lizzie asked. Empathy filled her, but instead of causing indigestion, she actually felt amazing. Maybe her mother was wrong about a few things. What a terrifying thought! Lizzie ordered it to the back of her head to inspect later. “Never mind. He’s off the head, so I’m killing it now!”
Lizzie charged the Jabberwock and swung, just managing to take off the tip of a horn before being kicked away. Oh, spades take it. Maybe all this empathy was throwing off her aim.
“Hurk,” said the Jabberwock, still working on expelling the hedgehog-flung icicle from its insides.
Maddie took off her shoe, shouted “Hatworm is go!” and threw it at the Jabberwock.
“I don’t need any help!” Lizzie shouted. “I’m trying to fulfill my destiny, and you’re messing me up!”
“Hurglaaa!”
The Jabberwock finally coughed out the icicle, the force expelling it straight at Lizzie. Fast.
“Shrunk” was the sound that Lizzie heard as the golden icicle struck her.
How curious, Lizzie thought, even as the pain blossomed, that the sound of a coughed-up golden icicle glancing across one’s forehead would sound like an actual word that has nothing to do with icicles, gold, or foreheads. Her legs weakened, and she dropped to one knee. I shall have to tell Maddie about it. Also, apologize for being so curt.
“Lizzie!” Maddie was leaning over her. Lizzie couldn’t think of the last time anyone had been so close to her. Besides her hedgehog, Shuffle, of course. But she didn’t really count as an anyone because of all the spiky fur. Lizzie preferred pets that weren’t too soft.
“I wanted to tell you… something,” Lizzie slurred.
“I know,” Maddie said, grabbing her arm. “I already narrated it.”
“Rrraaaagggh!” roared the Jabberwock. It had Cedar trapped against a wall. A torrent of its transforming breath blasted her. The pages of Cedar’s paper dress yellowed and curled at the edges.
“If the playsqueal meat will not tweak into something yummier,” the Jabberwock skrittled, “ ’twill be simpler just to eat as is!”
“Absolutely not!” Lizzie yelled, wobbling to her feet. “That girl is under the protection of the Court of Wonderland. Any action against her will be considered high treason!”
The Jabberwock lifted one feathery eyebrow. “Hee! I see no Wonderland! We stand on Else. My Else. The Heartspawn is a ruler of nothing.”
“Wherever I am, there is Wonderland,” said Lizzie, sure of it now. “A queen carries her kingdom always.”
The fiend chuckled, flapping its claws around in a gesture meant to take in everything. “The Wonder here was wrought by Jabberwock. Seemings that where ere I am, there is the Land of Wonder.”
“This is not Wonderland!” Lizzie said. “This is an abomination. A corruption. A poison. Your eyes are no longer fiery, which means you used up all the energy you stole from the Mad Hatter. You are getting weaker, and I wield the vorpal sword.”
“The sword sings strong,” the Jabberwock gurgled. “But a shoddy conductor are thee. You swipeswipeswipe and murder only air. Little missmissmiss could nary hope to sever this greatness of neck. And alas and alack, as the poem smacks, ’tis the only way to defeat me. But to finish off tiny girlings, my Wonder-less paws are terror enough.”
It launched itself at Lizzie, clawed paws out.
Lizzie, with muscles hardened by years of swinging flamingos and hurling hedgehogs, swung the sword with all the might, rage, and sovereign right she could muster, and parted the Jabberwock from an entire paw. A ripple in the air opened, and the paw dropped through. The hole snapped closed.
The great beast roared, and Lizzie smiled. Now it was hurt. It skittered away, pulling its wounded arm close.
Lizzie pulled on the hilt, but her colossal blow had buried the tip of the sword several inches into the floor.
Maddie rushed forward to help Lizzie free the sword. The Jabberwock whirled, still cradling its arm, but a tiny pink replacement paw was already sprouting from the wound.
“Hey, Jabberwocky!” Cedar yelled. She raced around, picking up odd balls and loose floorboards, throwing them at the beast, trying to distract it from Lizzie and Maddie. “That sword opens doors to Wonderland. Don’t you want to go home, where there are real, tasty bandersnatches?”
A bit of longing passed through the Jabberwock’s eyes. But it lowered its wet gray eyelids and scowled. “In Wonderland I am endgame of the Galumphing Hunt. It is destiny rhyme-declared. But here the election is mine.
Here I will be king! Once vorpal is mine.”
The Jabberwock glared at Lizzie and Maddie, who were tugging desperately on the sword. It pulled its tail back for a mighty blow.
“Hold on,” Maddie said.
“I will,” Lizzie said, and kicked Maddie away from the tail whipping toward them. “Keep telling the sto—”
And then, pain. Lizzie didn’t think she had ever felt so ouchy. The impact lifted her off her feet even as it knocked the sword free from the floor. She was sliding sideways and half upside down, spinning past the Jabberwock, but she managed to keep hold of the hilt. The sword trailed dark lines through the air. She saw her fingers loosen on the grip and commanded them to stop, to tighten, to hold firm, to keep tearing an opening in the air. It would have to be enough.
At last the sword fell from her numb fingers and dropped into the hole it had made.
Lizzie struck the far wall and slid to the floor, the breath knocked out of her. The doorway the sword had torn was huge, tracing the entire path from where Lizzie had been struck to where she landed.
A scaly paw dipped into the divide and caught the sword.
“There, then, and now,” the Jabberwock said with a bucktoothed, scaly smile. “My paws belong around such as this.”
The hutling crashed into the Grimmnasium, front door/mouth open, coughing its student contents out. A raven dropped an apple on the monster’s head, caught it, and flew away. The Jabberwock stumbled back, its rear paws slipping on a golden lock and a brass egg. It attempted to steady itself with the clawed hand that did not hold the sword, and managed to cut that paw on an ax held up by a tree.
The Jabberwock roared as it tripped and tipped into the shrinking portal to Wonderland. Lizzie was certain the opening would snap shut on the beast and banish its top half back to its home world. But the Jabberwock brought the sword up, the flat of the blade sparking against the edge of the opening, forcing it slowly back open. The monster wasn’t falling. The hole wasn’t closing. The rip was like an open wound between worlds, the Jabberwock the infection keeping it from healing.
“You can’t stay here,” Lizzie shouted at it. “Ever After is home to the kind, and the friendly, and the brave, and you are none of those things!”
“Are you?” the Jabberwock scrissed.
It wrapped its tail around her ankle, and its eyes began to pulse a bright unsettling white. Lizzie felt energy sap out of her with each pulse, the Wonder draining from her bones. Shuffle, the last hedgehog remaining affixed to the Jabberwock, dropped off the creature and scuttled to Lizzie’s side, nuzzling her with her spikes.
“This world is mine!” the Jabberwock skreamled.
Lizzie couldn’t seem to sit up. She could barely catch her breath, but she managed to whisper, “Hatworm is go.…”
Okay, Lizzie. Okay. I will finish this. Somehow.
THE JABBERWOCK HAD THE SWORD. LIZZIE was lying, hurt, on the floor. The Narrator was new at this, but she was certain an Ever After story should not end with the monster victorious. But she’d taken an oath to never, ever, ever interfere. It was an impossible thing.
Then again, she wasn’t only the Narrator. She was also Madeline Hatter. And Maddie imagined six impossible things before breakfast.
“You should go home,” Maddie said.
The Jabberwock still held the rip between two worlds open with the sword, as if deciding which one to conquer first.
“Pardon beg?” it asked.
“There’s no pardon for what you’ve done here,” said Maddie. “The best I can do is send you home.”
“You,” bellowed the Jabberwock, “send me home? Are you a girl-prince? Nay. A sword-swinger? Nay. Hatted thing stands around, letting other meatlings play while you watch. You are a sillypants of terrible degree.”
“Thank you,” Maddie said. She could see ripples of color and light through the tear. Wonderland was sick, but it was still beautiful. Scents rolled out—the sparkling zest of Tumtum trees, the cool crackle of broken water, the sharp oyster tang of the air. “You should be fizz-bobbled and glee-sprinkled to go to Wonderland. I would be.”
The Jabberwock began its horrible, chittering laugh. Laugh? At Wonderland? Maddie clenched her teeth and decided to break some rules.
“The Jabberwock pushed against the edge of the tear, and it widened,” Maddie said.
And it happened, just as she’d narrated.
The Jabberwock goggled the widening tear.
“What magic is this?” it bellowed.
“Storytelling,” Maddie said.
The Jabberwock gnashed its teeth. “No puppet am I. Especially of a Tiny. Hatted. Girl.”
“Hey!” said Maddie. “I count a puppet as a heart-twinned friend. You should be so lucky.”
It pulled out the sword and advanced on Maddie.
The tear began to close behind it.
“Until it didn’t,” Maddie said quickly. “Until the tear between worlds stopped closing, waiting for one more important thing to pass through.”
At her words, the closing of the tear did slow down, but it did not stop completely.
The Jabberwock’s eyes pulsed white. “The Nothing in you echoes. I will claim your leftover Wonder. The Hat Girl is an empty shell.”
Maddie sagged. She did feel empty and tired.
The Jabberwock towered over Maddie, the stink of its breath ruffling her hair.
“Whatever telling-story spark you have stolen is not enough. My will is strongest. My power law. You serve me now.”
“That’s it,” Maddie whispered, smiling. “I made an oath to serve the story and the reader and no other, be it king or queen or baker or candlestick maker. Or Jabberwock.”
“Mufflewords.” The Jabberwock rumbled above her, saliva dripping from its lips. “Clearspeak now. Loudly.”
Maddie straightened. “You’re right. My power is not enough. But their power is.”
The Jabberwock snaked its head around, scanning the destruction it had wrought in the Grimmnasium, and found nothing it considered a threat. “Whose power?”
“Theirs,” Maddie said, pointing at you. Yes, you. The ones reading this book. “I’m only half the storyteller. The Readers are the other half. After all, they take the words and make the pictures in their minds—make the story real. Isn’t that right, Readers?”
Feel free to nod, say yes or darn tootin’ or absotively, or whatever feels just right.
The Jabberwock took a step back. “Brainfraught babbletalk! You are mad!”
Maddie smiled. “Why, yes, I believe I am! And you want to know a secret, little Wocking Jay?” Her voice dropped to a hush, and she leaned closer to the monster. “Madness is life.”
Okay, Readers, help me. Think the words aloud. Or say them aloud. Narrate it to be true.
“Go home, Jabberwock,” said Maddie.
Go home, Jabberwock. A chorus of unseen voices repeated her words from across time, space, and the wiggly bits in between.
Three times more, Readers!
Go home.
Go home!
GO HOME!
The great fiend that is the Jabberwock, terror of two worlds and bane of bandersnatches, stumbled backward, pushed by voices it heard suddenly, powerfully, shouting in its own mind.
“NO!” it roared.
The tear widened, a monstrous mouth tall and wide, shimmering around the edges, brilliant with the light of Wonderland. The Jabberwock thrashed, but its head dipped into the hole.
“Yes,” Maddie said.
“Impossible!” it screeched, its body tumbling through.
Maddie laughed. “Nothing is impossible, silly beastie!”
The Jabberwock, now completely in Wonderland, twitched and struggled, its muscles bunching and contracting as it fought against the inevitable.
Maddie’s smile dropped and her eyes narrowed. “No one hurts my dad,” she said, and the tear between worlds closed.
PUDDING MAKES A TERRIBLE HAT! SNOOF PIDDLE DEE-HEllo? Hello, testing, testing. Am I s
peaking reasonable words? No nonsense, no “crunchy lunches” and “utmost roast beef”? Yes! I am making sense again! The Narrator is back and doing a victory dance! Look out! Check my moves—I found them and I’m going to keep them. Oh yeah, doot doot doot—
“Narrator, you’re back!” Maddie squeaked. “Yippee-potomus!”
Yes! I’m back, Maddie! That was horrible. I could think, but my words were nonsense and I was helpless to do anything but watch the chaos and… wait, I’m the Narrator. And I’m a professional. So no more victory dancing. Back to work.
Ahem. Yes, it was a glorious day in Ever After. Even the Narrator felt glorious! The Jabberwock had returned to Wonderland, and all over the Grimmnasium, things changed by its magic were un-magicking, untangling, and unbecoming into what they used to be.
A rosebush scrunched into a tight ball like a piece of paper crumpled up in your palm. The mass of pink blooms and brown thorny branches shaped into a tall, brown-skinned, and pink-dressed girl of distinguished height and fashion sense. She immediately ran, her high heels clacking on the Grimmnasium’s hardwood floor, and barreled toward Lizzie.
“Whoa, girl, you Rockabye-Baby rock!” Briar lifted her fist.
Lizzie was still lying against the wall, but she straightened and lifted her fist. She’d watched Briar performing her signature fist bumps with her friends and so knew what to do—she knocked her knuckles against Briar’s, opened her hand, and then rained wiggling fingers down in a representation of a glitter bomb. She couldn’t quite suppress a pleased giggle.
“That thing was going to eat me,” said Briar. “Actually going to gobble up my roses, but you wielded some seriously hextreme moves with that sword. I never knew you were so royally fablelous!”
“And I never knew that I’d bother to save your life.” Lizzie cleared her throat. “I do not regret it.”
“This is so wicked cool,” said Briar. “Friends?”
Lizzie blinked. She looked at Briar, then at Cedar, Maddie, and Kitty.
Friends are one R away from fiends.
Avoid friends at all costs!
