Ratpunzel

by Ursula Vernon

  Wilbur was silent for a minute. The quails shuffled their feet.

  “And Gothel’s not stupid,” said Harriet. “Suppose Ratpunzel falls out the window? Or just refuses to throw down her tail one day? How is she gonna get back inside?”

  “She could . . . uh . . . hmm . . .”

  “Unless she can fly, she has to have another way into the tower. I mean, a tower with no doors sounds cool, but I’ll bet you a nickel that there’s another way in.”

  She drummed her fingers on her quail’s saddle. “I can get us in,” she said. “I think. Probably. But I’m gonna need a few things . . .”

  “Why does this always end up with you handing me a shopping list?” asked Wilbur a few minutes later.

  “Oh, one other time,” said Harriet. “And that ended great! All those cans of paint in the mouse kingdom . . . ha! That was awesome.”

  Wilbur looked at the list glumly. “Are you sure you need all this stuff?”

  “Yep.”

  “The ax?”

  “The ax is critical.”

  “The chalk?”

  “The chalk is super-critical.”

  “The bungee cords?”

  “Bungee cords are the single most useful object in the universe, Wilbur. People may say it’s duct tape, but it’s actually bungee cords. All great heroes know this.”

  Wilbur shook his head and climbed onto Hyacinth’s back. They trotted away into the Forest of Misery.

  Harriet rubbed Mumfrey’s feathers. Her quail made a happy “Qwerk!” noise.

  “I mean,” said Harriet, “I can get into the tower. There’s always a way in. Sure, sometimes you need to use a sledgehammer, but you can still get in. And I can get the egg out, and getting Ratpunzel out is easy. But then we’re going to be saddled with three people and a really heavy egg, and only two quails.”

  “Qwerk!” said Mumfrey.

  “I know you can carry two riders,” said Harriet. “Or one rider and an egg. But Hyacinth can’t carry two. She’s not a battle quail. Did you see how fast she shlopped, though? Like a regular racing quail! If we put Ratpunzel on her, no way will Gothel be able to catch her.”

  She scratched Mumfrey’s topknot.

  Harriet knew perfectly well who that ought to be. She was Harriet the Formerly Invincible! She had fought the Fairy Ratshade and the Witch Molezelda! She had beaten Ogrecats and collapsed the mouse king’s castle!

  As heroes went, Harriet was a pretty big deal. She was very nearly famous. It was probably only a matter of time before someone showed up to license Harriet-branded adventuring equipment.

  The problem, as she would be the first to tell you, was that the bigger you are . . . the harder you fall.

  CHAPTER 13

  The sun was setting when Wilbur returned from the Kingdom of Sunshine, carrying a heavy sack of equipment. He handed it over, along with the change.

  “They were very nice at the hardware store,” said Wilbur.

  Harriet sniffed. She did not trust hardware stores where people were nice. The ideal hardware store, as far as she was concerned, had one ancient, surly rodent in the back who glared at you when you asked for anything. All the screws and rivets and washers were in tiny unmarked drawers or shoved in paper sacks thrown in a pile in the corner. The ancient rodent knew where everything was, and you had to ask and get glared at.

  If you could find anything on your own, they weren’t doing it right.

  Wilbur, who liked things to be clearly marked and didn’t feel the need to earn the respect of ancient surly hardware store owners, did not agree.

  Nevertheless, he’d done a good job. She had everything she’d asked for.

  “Could you not wave that ax around?” asked Wilbur. “It makes me nervous.”

  “I’m a professional,” said Harriet. “I took an Ax Safety Class.”

  Wilbur stared at her.

  “You got . . . graded . . . on . . . brandishing.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t want to wave an ax just any old way. Somebody might get hurt.”

  As soon as darkness fell, they crept toward the tower. Harriet led them in a wide circle, out of view of the window. Unfortunately, that meant that a sea of thorns stood between the heroes and the tower.

  “Stay here, Mumfrey,” she said. “You too, Hyacinth. When we yell, come running.”

  “Qwerk.”

  Under cover of darkness, Wilbur and Harriet approached the wall of thorns.

  “We don’t have to hack our way through this one, do we?” asked Wilbur. “Because I’ve still got blisters from that one time.”

  “Nah,” said Harriet. “Minimal hacking. Hacking Light. A few moments of hacking at most.”

  Wilbur sighed.

  Harriet selected a spot just to one side of the tower window. If Gothel had leaned out and looked down, she might have been able to see the hamsters, but there was no help for it. Hopefully she was sound asleep.

  The thorns were dense here, but thinned rapidly toward the base of the tower. Harriet was betting that if there was a door, it was in the clear spot under the window. You’d hate to use your escape route only to find yourself surrounded by impassable vegetation.

  She pulled the ax off her shoulder and started chopping.

  WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

  “It’s just like old times!” she said happily.

  “I can already feel the blisters . . .” said Wilbur gloomily.

  Despite Wilbur’s fears, it only took them a few minutes to chop a passage through the thorns. Many of the plants were dry and split apart at a single blow of the ax. Harriet hummed as she worked, then began to sing under her breath.

  “Oh, if I had an ax, I’d chop all over this land . . .”

  “Don’t sing,” said Wilbur, putting his hands over his ears. “You’re a great fighter and a pretty good princess and you’re one of the smartest people I know, but you really, really cannot sing.”

  Harriet laughed. It was nice of Wilbur to say that she was smart. She didn’t mind that she couldn’t sing. She didn’t want to be an opera singer anyway. Opera singers hardly ever got to slay dragons.

  When she reached the tower wall, she turned sideways and began chopping a path around the edge. The moonlight on the thorns cast sharp-edged shadows over the ground.

  Wilbur took over and hacked through the last few yards. Harriet glanced up nervously.

  The open window looked like an empty eye socket.

  Just don’t anybody come and look down . . .

  “Now, then,” said Harriet, “it’s chalk time . . .”

  She fished out the pack of chalk.

  Wilbur put his chin in his hand. “I’m still wondering how you’re going to open a door with chalk.”

  “Watch and learn,” said Harriet, and began to scribble on the side of the tower.

  CHAPTER 14

  The tower was gray. The chalk was white. The stones were smooth and fit together with hardly any cracks, and as far as Harriet was concerned, that was perfect.

  She used the side of the stick of chalk and ran it over the stone, leaving long white stripes.

  At first, she saw nothing. Just white stripes on gray rocks. Wilbur looked unimpressed.

  She worked her way across the front of the tower, starting to get worried. If what she was looking for wasn’t here, she was going to have to chop her way through the rest of the thorns.

  Her heart had just started to sink, and then the chalk suddenly revealed a thin, bright white line.

  Harriet had a strong urge to cheer. Yes!

  She worked the chalk vigorously along the line. The fine white dust filled up the narrow crack. It practically glowed in the moonlight.

  “There,” said Harriet, stepping back. “That’s the door.”

  The crack formed the outline of a square doorway. It woul
d have been completely invisible if not for the chalk.

  Wilbur let out a low whistle. “Okay,” he admitted. “That’s pretty cool. How did you guess?”

  “There’s a secret passage in my mom and dad’s castle,” said Harriet. “Only Dad is really absent-minded and he keeps forgetting where it is.” She dropped the chalk back in the bag. “So about twice a year we have to go over the wall in his study with chalk and find it again.”

  “So you’ve found it,” said Wilbur. “But how do we open it?”

  Harriet ran her hands over the door. “Good question. It has to open from this side, because otherwise she couldn’t get back into the tower . . .”

  Wilbur and Harriet took turns poking the stones. There were chips and fine cracks in the surface, but nothing that resembled a doorknob. If it hadn’t been for the chalk outline, there would have been nothing at all to indicate a door there.

  Eventually Harriet gave up in disgust. She leaned against the wall, sighing. “So close . . .”

  She rubbed her shoulder, which was a little sore from swinging the ax around. An unfamiliar weight in the sleeve surprised her.

  The vial glittered in the moonlight. Harriet read the label again. “Tears—August 29th, Year of the Croaking Frog.”

  “What’s that?” asked Wilbur.

  “I think it’s Ratpunzel’s tears,” said Harriet slowly. “Gothel was going on and on about the tears of a maiden pure and fair. I guess that’s Ratpunzel.”

  “It’s sure not you . . .” muttered Wilbur.

  “Hey! I’m always fair! Mostly!”

  “I don’t know if you’re purely anything, though. Except maybe pure Harriet.”

  Harriet considered this. There were much worse things to be than purely yourself. She tucked the vial back in her jacket. “Well, anyway, I don’t see how tears will help us much. Gothel said she can do magic with them, but that’s not getting this door open.” She scowled at the side of the tower. “And anyway, she said it to the egg.”

  “Do you think she was telling the truth?” asked Wilbur.

  “Who’d lie to an egg?”

  In the end, it was Wilbur who figured it out. One of the chips in the stone concealed a latch. He dug his fingers down into it and heard a click.

  The stone door swung open.

  “You’re the best, Wilbur,” said Harriet.

  There was a narrow open space, just large enough for the door to swing inward, and beyond it, a spiral staircase leading up into darkness.

  Harriet put a finger to her lips. The stone walls might muffle the sounds while they were outside, but they would probably bounce an echo upward and directly to the sleeping Gothel.

  “Come on,” she whispered to Wilbur. “Let’s go find that egg.”

  CHAPTER 15

  The two hamsters crept up the spiral staircase. It was dusty inside. Judging by the lack of footprints, no one had come this way for some time.

  Harriet glanced back behind them and saw their tracks marking each step.

  Well, it wasn’t like Gothel wouldn’t have been able to figure out that somebody’d been in the tower . . .

  “What do we do when we get there?” whispered Wilbur as they climbed. “Should I get Ratpunzel?”

  “Not yet,” said Harriet. “You gotta strap the egg to my back first. I’m pretty sure I can carry it, but I’ll fall down the stairs if I’m holding it in my arms.”

  “How are we going to get Gothel out of her bedroom?”

  Harriet sighed. “We just have to hope she’s a sound sleeper.”

  “What if she’s a light sleeper?!”

  They reached the top of the stairs.

  There was a door there, cut to follow the shape of the stones. Harriet reached for the doorknob.

  The door swung open. Harriet kept a paw on the doorknob, ready to stop it in case the hinges squeaked.

  But they did not squeak. Slowly, an inch at a time, she eased her way silently into the room.

  She had been hoping to come out in the kitchen, or at the base of the other staircase.

  Of course, if you want a secret way in and out of the tower, you’d want it to be where you could get to it easily, if something went wrong . . .

  Harriet had stepped into Gothel’s bedroom.

  She looked at the bed, ready to jump backward.

  She didn’t need to worry. Gothel wasn’t there.

  The blankets were smooth. Wherever Gothel was, she hadn’t gone to bed yet.

  Harriet was trying to figure out what to do next when she heard the witch’s voice echoing from overhead.

  “And then the sad little mouse saw the baby quail that she loved more than anything in the world get eaten by horrible weasel-wolves!”

  “Oh no!” cried Ratpunzel. “Oh, poor quail! Was there blood?”

  “Lots,” said Gothel. “Also guts. It was dreadful.”

  “Nooooo . . .”

  Wilbur came through the doorway and saw the egg. His face lit up and he ran to it. Harriet put a finger to her lips and pointed up at the ceiling, in the direction of the voices.

  “. . . so now the sad little mouse was all alone, with nobody to love her. Her parents had been killed by bandits and her brother had fallen into a pit full of spikes and her best friend died of extreme sunburn and her baby quail was eaten by weasel-wolves, and so the sad little mouse went sadly back home . . .

  “. . . but when she got home, she found that the house had been struck by lightning and it was on fire . . .”

  “Oh, sad mouse, no!”

  “. . . and no matter how much she cried, her tears couldn’t put out the flames.”

  “That is messed up,” said Harriet.

  “It’s Sad Story Time,” said Wilbur. “Just like Ratpunzel said.”

  “It’s Stupid Story Time,” muttered Harriet. “You can’t put out a fire by crying on it. Form a bucket brigade. And why didn’t she fight off the weasel-wolves?”

  She went over to the egg. It was brilliantly white, even in the dimness of the bedroom. “Okay. Let’s get this thing on my back while she’s distracted.”

  Wilbur patted the shell absently. “It’s okay, little egg. We’ll get you home . . .”

  It tapped at him.

  Harriet blinked.

  She poked the shell with her nail, making a tiny tick! noise.

  Tap! Tap! came from inside the shell.

  “Uh-oh,” said Wilbur.

  “. . . so then the sad little mouse’s house had burned down and all her toys were charred to ashes . . .”

  “Nooo!”

  Harriet gritted her teeth, but it was Wilbur who said it out loud.

  CHAPTER 16

  They stared at the egg. From overhead, Gothel was embarking on the next of the sad little mouse’s travails, where a kind hedgehog took her in and then promptly came down with fatal hedge pox.

  “What do you think?” asked Wilbur.

  “I think anybody that racks up a body count like that is probably secretly murdering them herself. I mean, how did her brother fall into the pit of spikes?”

  Wilbur stared at her. “About the egg,” he said.

  “Oh, right.” Harriet frowned down at the egg.

  “I guess all we can do is try to get it out of here and hope that it doesn’t hatch while I’m carrying it. . . .”

  She pulled out the bungee cords and looped them over her waist, harness-style. “Let’s do this.”

  Wilbur set to work.

  The egg was heavy. Really heavy. Harriet was sure now that Gothel had been using magic to carry it. Harriet had been swinging a sword for years and had the muscles to prove it, and the egg still threatened to flatten her.

  “And then the kind hedgehog’s burrow collapsed, trapping the sad little mouse’s foot in the rubble. She cried and cried, becau
se she was all alone in the world and her foot hurt and . . .”

  They could hear Ratpunzel sniffling overhead.

  Wilbur got the last of the bungee cords arranged and said, “Okay . . . try to stand up . . .”

  Harriet staggered to her feet.

  “Ooof . . .”

  She had to lean far forward to keep the egg from pulling her over backward. She could feel the baby hydra inside tapping, somewhere in the vicinity of her rib cage.

  Harriet made it to the hidden staircase and started down.

  “I think that’s enough for Sad Story Time tonight,” said Gothel.

  “But what about the poor mouse? Her foot was stuck!” said Ratpunzel. Her voice sounded all fluttery, as if she was crying.

  “Oh, right,” said Gothel. “Um, she was eaten by more weasel-wolves.”

  “The same ones who—sob—ate her baby quail?”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Gothel. “Have a nice night!”

  “Go faster!” whispered Wilbur. “I think she’s done!”

  “I can’t go any faster!” snapped Harriet. “I’m carrying a great big honking egg on my back! If I go any faster, I’m going to get squashed sunny-side up!”

  “Then what do we do?”

  “Hide under the bed! When she goes to sleep, go get Ratpunzel out! I’ll take care of the egg!”

  “Got it!” Wilbur scurried back up the stairs. Harriet heard the soft click of the door closing.

  It was almost a good plan.

  Harriet got another three steps down and thought, Wait a minute—she’s going to notice the egg is missing, isn’t she?

  The problem with improvising rescue plans is that in the heat of the moment, you can overlook very important things.

  She paused on the stairs, teetering back and forth. The baby hydra tapped her again.

  I could go put the egg back and wait and . . . No, that’s stupid . . . uh . . . uh . . . Okay, I could go put a fake egg back . . . Can I make a fake egg out of bungee cords?