Ratpunzel

by Ursula Vernon

  They halted every few minutes to listen. Unfortunately, it’s hard to hear a gerbil walking down a path hundreds of yards away when you are crashing through the trees with a pair of quails. Harriet settled for just trying to go in the right direction.

  After a few more minutes, the woods suddenly opened up. Light poured in from overhead.

  They had reached a clearing. Off to their left, Tiddlywinks Lane ran forward, zigzagging back and forth, and finally ended at the base of a tower.

  “Oh, look,” said Harriet. “An enchanted tower covered in thorns. Not again!”

  Princesses and towers go together. Everybody knows this. Even people who have never seen a tower or met a princess will instinctively feel that if you’ve got one, you have to have the other.

  This has something to do with the sorts of books that people read, but also something to do with witches and wizards and fairies. Most magical folk like that are great traditionalists. If they are going to imprison a princess, they will automatically reach for a tower, instead of, say, a hole in the ground lined with spikes.

  Harriet had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, she herself had once had a tower, which had been overgrown with thorn bushes. She was not terribly keen on them as a result. After the incident, she’d moved down into the main body of the castle, and the tower was now a guest bedroom.

  On the other hand, a hole in the ground lined with spikes rarely has much of a view.

  It wasn’t a bad tower. It went straight up and had a little round roof and two large windows. The base was wrapped in gigantic thorns, except for one tiny clear patch directly under the window.

  There were no doors that Harriet could see, but there was a mailbox.

  It had a pattern of leaves on it and read, in cheerful letters, “Deadly Tower.”

  “This is weird, right?” said Wilbur. “It’s not just me.”

  “It’s a little odd,” said Harriet. “In fact, I could go so far as peculiar.”

  “And it was less than a mile away.”

  Harriet nodded.

  “Maybe we should—”

  “Hsst!” Harriet held up a hand. “Someone’s coming!”

  It’s fairly easy to hide a hamster in the woods, but much more difficult to hide a pair of riding quails. Mumfrey and Hyacinth hurried deeper into the woods together, while Harriet and Wilbur squeezed behind trees.

  Gothel came hurrying down the path, into the clearing. She was bent nearly double . . . because she was carrying an enormous egg in a rope harness on her back. Harriet realized the cloak must have somehow been hiding the egg before.

  “That’s—!” Wilbur began, outraged.

  Harriet slapped her paw over his mouth.

  “—mmmf!”

  “I know,” whispered the hamster warrior, “but keep quiet! We don’t want her to know we’re here!”

  “Go get her!” hissed Wilbur in her ear, when she let him talk. “Get it back! That belongs to Heady!”

  “Yes, it does,” Harriet whispered back. “But she’s a witch!”

  Wilbur paused. “How do you know?”

  “Look at the size of that egg! Do you think an ordinary old woman is carrying an egg bigger than she is? And how did we not see it in the bushes earlier? She’s done some kind of magic to it!”

  “All right, fine, she’s a witch! But you’ve fought witches! Go fight this one!”

  Harriet shook her head. There was nothing inherently wrong with being a witch. (Harriet would have quite liked to be one herself, but she didn’t seem to have the knack for it.) Some witches were good, some were bad. All of them were powerful.

  The problem was that you generally wanted to know what sort of powers they had before you started waving a sword around. It was one thing to challenge a witch who could tell the future, and quite another to challenge a witch whose hobby was turning people into earwigs.

  Harriet was getting a particularly bad feeling about those carvings.

  “Just wait,” she whispered to Wilbur. “We know where the egg is and where she lives. If I rush in now, there’s a chance the egg will get broken.”

  Wilbur blinked, but subsided. Harriet could feel him vibrating with outrage next to her.

  She couldn’t blame him. It was Heady’s egg, after all, and Wilbur loved Heady. Harriet was very fond of Heady too, but she was a warrior, and good warriors knew when to rush in with swords and when to wait and get a feel for the lay of the land. She hadn’t saved the mouse princesses by charging in and smacking everyone in the palace with her blade, even if she’d been pretty tempted at the time.

  The old gerbil looked around suspiciously. Her eyes moved over the trees. Harriet shoved Wilbur out of sight and held perfectly still.

  After a minute, Gothel seemed to relax. She walked across the clearing, to the base of the tower.

  Someone appeared at the window. Harriet was too far away to make out many details, but something like a rope dropped down the side of the tower.

  Gothel hitched up the egg, grabbed the rope, and began to climb.

  That’s weird, Harriet thought. Ropes aren’t usually pink.

  Harriet watched until she vanished over the windowsill. The odd rope was pulled back up.

  She leaned back against the tree trunk and let out a long sigh.

  “What’s happening?” whispered Wilbur. “Is the egg okay?!”

  “The egg’s fine,” said Harriet. “But things just got very weird.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Wilbur and Harriet retreated into the forest. Mumfrey qwerked at them, and led them to a small, protected clearing, out of sight of the tower.

  There was a weirdly carved tree there, but only one and it wasn’t looking at them. It looked like a handsome rat prince, holding a shield and a sword.

  “Good armor,” said Harriet, tapping one of the rat’s shoulder guards. “High-quality . . . um . . . bark.”

  “Well, it’s only a carving,” said Wilbur.

  “Sure,” said Harriet. “Let’s just keep pretending that for now, shall we?”

  Wilbur winced. “Are you sure they couldn’t . . . just . . . ?” He gesture aimlessly at the forest, and the rather terrifying number of people-like trees.

  Harriet sighed.

  “Whereas I’ve met like three sculptors in my entire life,” Harriet continued, “and none of them were evil. I mean, one of them couldn’t remember if he was wearing pants most days, but not evil.” She held up her paws. “So that means we’ve got one-tenth of magicky people being bad, versus zero out of three, which is no-thirds, because if you’ve got a zero on top of a fraction . . .”

  “I get it!” yelled Wilbur. “I’m trying to stay in denial here, okay?!”

  Harriet patted his shoulder. “It’s all right,” she said. “The important thing is that the egg is safe for now.”

  “How do you know that!?” asked Wilbur.

  “Most people don’t travel for days carrying a giant egg so they can make an omelet,” said Harriet. “I mean, you have to really want that omelet.”

  “Most people don’t live in the Deadly Tower in the Forest of Misery either!”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” said Harriet soothingly. “For now, let’s set up a camp here, and then go spy on the tower. I want to try something when Gothel leaves.”

  Wilbur sighed. He couldn’t very well go and storm the tower by himself. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll do it your way.”

  They left the quails settled in the clearing and crept back toward the tower.

  They didn’t have to wait for long. Well . . . long by the standards of a hamster warrior patiently stalking her prey. By Wilbur’s standards, it was more than long enough.

  “My foot’s asleep!”

  “Hush! You want her to hear us?”

  “I think my tail’s asleep too!”


  “Just wiggle your toes,” whispered Harriet. “And—shhh! Here she comes!”

  The odd pink rope fell back out of the window. Gothel, no longer carrying the egg, climbed down it. Whoever was at the top pulled the rope back up as soon as she reached the bottom.

  She did not look around this time, but hurried down the path and into the forest.

  “Where’s she going?” whispered Wilbur.

  “No idea,” said Harriet. “But there’s not a lot to do in the forest, so hopefully she’s at least going outside it. This is our chance!”

  She darted out of the woods toward the tower.

  Wilbur followed, looking over his shoulder. “Do you know how to get into the tower?”

  Harriet took a deep breath. “We’ll find out . . .” she muttered.

  She made her way carefully through the break in the thorns, to the clear patch at the base of the tower. Wilbur followed her.

  The tower looked very solid. There was no trace of a door in the wall facing them, and no handholds.

  Just under the window, there was an odd little bar.

  Harriet cleared her throat and called, “Ratpunzel, Ratpunzel! Let down your tail!”

  Wilbur stared at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  “What was that supposed to be?” he asked, and then something fell out of the sky and whacked him over the head.

  CHAPTER 7

  It was a tail.

  In fact, it was a rat tail, although it was about fifty times longer than any tail that Harriet had ever seen on a rat. It was long and pink and resembled a rather rugged earthworm.

  “Ow!” said Wilbur, rubbing his head.

  The owner of the tail had looped it around the bar under the window and was looking down. From this distance, Harriet couldn’t see much, except that she appeared to be a rather young rat.

  “Hello?” called the rat. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Harriet Hamsterbone,” said Harriet. “May I come up?”

  “Sure!”

  Harriet rubbed her hands together and began hauling herself up the freakishly long tail.

  It was a long climb, but Harriet had the sort of muscles you get from swinging a sword and hitting ogres over the head. Wilbur came up behind her. He had the sort of muscles you get from being a paperboy, which were less impressive, but since he also shoveled a lot of stables, he wasn’t a weakling.

  When Harriet reached the window, the young rat maiden helped her over the windowsill.

  They both hauled Wilbur into the tower. Harriet looked around.

  The tower had a large central room, with a small ladder leading up to a loft and a set of stairs leading down. There was a brightly colored rug on the floor, and the walls were painted a cheerful yellow.

  Heady’s egg was nowhere in sight.

  “Did . . . um . . . a gerbil come here earlier?” asked Harriet. “With an egg?”

  “Mother Gothel, yes,” said Ratpunzel. She twisted her tail in her hands. “Such a big egg! She took it downstairs.”

  “To the kitchen?” asked Wilbur faintly.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Ratpunzel. “It’s not an eating egg. Although I bet I could make an amazing frittata out of it. With bell peppers and trout flakes!”

  “Nobody’s making frittatas out of that egg!” cried Wilbur.

  Ratpunzel blinked. “It’s all right,” she said hurriedly, patting his arm. “I won’t. It’s obviously a very special egg. Even I can see that, and I’ve never been out of this tower.”

  “What, never?” asked Harriet, startled.

  “Mother Gothel says it’s very dangerous out there. Full of monsters.” She looked at Harriet thoughtfully. “Are you a monster?”

  “I’m not a monster,” said Harriet. “Monsters are afraid of me.”

  “You do look very fierce,” said Ratpunzel. “I can see why monsters don’t bother you.” She looked at Wilbur. “You don’t look quite so fierce . . .”

  “I’m not,” said Wilbur. “I’m a paperboy.”

  “Oh. That sounds interesting!”

  “Um . . .” Wilbur threw Harriet a pleading look. “Not that interesting . . .”

  “I’m sure it’s fascinating!” said Ratpunzel. “Do you get to go outside?”

  “Lots,” said Wilbur. “All over.”

  Ratpunzel clasped her hands together. “What’s it like outside?”

  “Oh, you know . . .” said Harriet. “Lots of stuff . . . like . . . um . . . the entire world . . .” She was drawing a bit of a blank. How did you explain the world to someone who’d spent their whole life in a tower?

  “I’ve seen a lot out the window,” said Ratpunzel. “I wish there was another window on the other side, though. I only ever see the sun set. I’ve never seen it rise.”

  “It’s pretty much the same, only backward,” said Harriet. “Less reddish, more . . . um . . . grayish bluish.”

  “I wish I could see it,” said Ratpunzel wistfully.

  “So why don’t you?” asked Harriet. “Can’t you get out of the tower?”

  Ratpunzel finished pulling her tail up and wrapped it around her arm like a coil of rope. “Well . . . I mean, I could probably climb down my own tail . . .”

  “Doesn’t that hurt?” asked Wilbur. “I mean, when people climb up your tail?” He poked his own small stub of a tail. “There’s little tiny bones in it, aren’t there?”

  She thumped her tail with her hand. “Actually, I can hardly feel anything on it. And it’s super-sturdy.”

  Her tail wiggled a bit, as if it appreciated the praise. She patted it. It was cute, and just slightly creepy.

  “Maybe you got a lot of extra bones and no extra nerves,” said Wilbur.

  “So why don’t you leave?” asked Harriet.

  “Mother Gothel told me not to,” said Ratpunzel. “And if I climb down, I can’t get back up, and neither can she. We’d be stuck. There aren’t any doors. My tail is the only way into the tower.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Well, Harriet thought that night as she curled up under Mumfrey’s wing. Well.

  That had certainly been . . . interesting.

  Ratpunzel had been very excited to talk about the outside world. She was particularly interested in what they ate. Wilbur told Ratpunzel all about what they’d had for breakfast while Harriet poked around the tower.

  She hadn’t gone into Gothel’s bedroom. Ratpunzel had said “I’m not allowed in there,” and it had seemed rude to simply open the door in front of her. But she’d inspected the kitchen (which was a perfectly ordinary kitchen, with a well-stocked pantry) and the main room, and Ratpunzel’s bedroom upstairs.

  Ratpunzel passed the time by cooking. She had a mountain of cookbooks nearly six feet high.

  “I’ve cooked every recipe in the books!” she said happily. “Mother Gothel keeps bringing me ingredients. She says she’s hoping I’ll get a good one, but

  I think the key is improvisation! A great chef knows how to make any dish her own!”

  She flung her arms wide. “Someday I shall have a restaurant in the tower and people will come from miles around to sample my fish-flake ice cream!”

  “Fish-flake ice cream . . . ?”

  “I haven’t worked all the kinks out yet. You need peppercorns. And squid ink. Mother Gothel won’t bring me any more squid ink. She says fish ice cream is an abomination.”

  Wilbur looked as if he might have just found something in common with Mother Gothel.

  Harriet, meanwhile, had been staring at the sheer size of the pile and thinking about how long it would take and how Ratpunzel must have been cooking recipes all day, every day, for years and years . . .

  “We’ve got to get you out of this tower,” she blurted.

  “Oh, I’d like that,” said Ratpunzel. “But I don’t expect it. I m
ean, the prince said he could do that, and . . . well . . .”

  “Prince?” said Wilbur. “What prince?”

  “Mother Gothel didn’t like it when she found him here,” she added. “But then she carved a tree to look like him, so I wouldn’t be sad. So I guess she forgave him!”

  Wilbur and Harriet turned their heads very slowly and looked at each other.

  There are times when two friends can communicate entirely without talking, and what they said to each other was, Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

  Oh yeah.

  That’s not a carving.

  Nope.

  This is awful.

  Yep.

  Wilbur had to pause, because Harriet was doing a thing with her eyebrow that was either Let’s just burn everything down or I could really go for a churro about now, and neither one seemed quite right.

  “Well,” he said, in a rather horrible trying-to-be-cheerful voice, “I’m sure that’s . . . very nice . . .”

  “All my friends go away,” said Ratpunzel sadly. “I have lots of them, but Mother Gothel doesn’t like them. She always forgives me, though.”

  “We’ll come back,” said Wilbur.

  “But you probably shouldn’t tell Mother Gothel that we were here,” added Harriet hurriedly. “Wilbur’s . . . uh . . . the son of one of her friends, and . . .”

  “It’s a surprise!” said Wilbur.

  “Yes!” said Harriet. “A cake would be perfect! A big one! But don’t tell her what it’s for, or that we’re here, or it’ll ruin the surprise!”

  “Wonderful!” Ratpunzel began to root through the cookbooks. “Oh, I have a great recipe and I’m almost sure I know what went wrong last time!”

  She paused, her arms full of books. “But you’ll come back? You promise? Mother Gothel leaves for days at a time to get supplies, and I have no one to cook for but me.”