Ratpunzel

by Ursula Vernon

  And then she heard the bedroom door open and a scream of fury echoed down the stairs.

  “Where is my egg?!”

  Harriet began to run.

  CHAPTER 17

  Running down stairs with a giant egg tied to your back is a nerve-racking experience. Harriet bounced off the walls like a pinball, swinging the egg to avoid striking it on the stones. There was just enough slack to the cords that when she hit a wall, the egg would slam into her back.

  The baby hydra began hammering on her ribs. She hoped it wasn’t scared.

  “It’ll be okay!” she told the egg. “I promise! I think!”

  Overhead, the door to the stairs slammed open.

  She lumbered down the stairs, trying desperately to protect the egg.

  “I’ll use your guts for fertilizer!” screamed Gothel.

  Harriet could hear footsteps on the stairs as Gothel chased her.

  The gerbil was a lot faster, given that she wasn’t carrying a massive egg on her back. On the other hand, Harriet had a head start.

  This is the worst race ever, she thought, bouncing off another wall. Her shoulder was going to be black-and-blue tomorrow.

  “Who are you?” Gothel shouted. “Where did you come from?”

  It occurred to Harriet that as soon as Gothel got a good look at her, she’d realize Harriet was the same hamster she’d met on the road . . . and would realize that Wilbur had to be around somewhere as well.

  I have to keep her distracted! Uh—uh—“I’m an egg collector!” shouted Harriet. “I saw you carrying yours and decided to steal it! By myself!”

  Gothel sounded much closer than Harriet was comfortable with.

  “How did you get in? Did that idiot Ratpunzel let you in?”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  She staggered around the final turn and saw the open doorway. Moonlight streamed in and cast a long white arc across the floor.

  Harriet leaped through the door, spun around, and slammed it shut.

  Gothel hit the door a moment later.

  “Open this door at once!” shouted Gothel, hammering on it.

  “Oh, sure,” said Harriet. “I am absolutely going to open the door that I am holding closed, just because you ordered me to. Why does anyone ever think that will work?”

  There was a brief pause from the other side of the door. “That’s not a bad question,” Gothel admitted.

  “I know, right?”

  The gerbil smacked the door again. Harriet leaned against it. The weight of the egg helped pin the door closed.

  “Please open this door?”

  “Sorry,” said Harriet. “I appreciate that you said please, but no.”

  “Then it appears we are at an impasse,” said Gothel.

  Harriet, who had always quite liked the word impasse, wished that she’d been the one to say that.

  Something odd was happening to the egg. Harriet turned her head and saw a tiny chip of eggshell fall away.

  Her first thought was that she had broken the egg in her headlong flight down the steps.

  Her second thought was that the egg was hatching right now, this minute, and this was going to be a real problem.

  Her third thought was “Ow!” because at that moment, Ratpunzel’s tail fell from the sky and hit her across the face.

  CHAPTER 18

  Wilbur came sliding down the tail and landed next to Harriet. “What’s happening? Where’s Gothel?”

  “How do you know my name?” yelled Gothel through the door. “And why does your voice sound familiar?”

  “Oh, I see,” said Wilbur.

  “Hey!” Gothel sounded surprised. “I know that voice! You’re Hazel’s boy! And that must be your fat little hamster friend!”

  “That was uncalled for,” said Harriet. “I am sturdy, I’ll have you know. This is pure muscle.”

  “I am going to write your mother a very stern letter!”

  Wilbur winced.

  Harriet looked up. Ratpunzel was doing something complicated with her tail and the bar outside the window. “Are you ready?” she called.

  “Ready!” said Wilbur.

  “Ratpunzel?” demanded Gothel. “What are you doing? Stay away from this egg thief!”

  Ratpunzel came sliding down her own tail. Wilbur held out his arms and caught the young rat as she landed.

  Ratpunzel hopped down. Her tail was still hanging in the air. She gave a hard yank, and suddenly it was falling around them in long pink loops.

  “How’d you do that?” asked Harriet.

  “Slipknot,” said Ratpunzel. She stood on tiptoes and touched the egg. “Oh! There’s a wee little snaky face in there!”

  “You better not be hurting that egg!” shouted Gothel.

  “We’re trying not to!” Harriet looked around. “Somebody find me something to brace this door with, will you? Other than myself?”

  “Mother Gothel!” said Ratpunzel. “What are you doing there?”

  “You know that the world is full of monsters! They’re going to eat you!”

  Ratpunzel looked at Harriet.

  Wilbur found the ax and began trying to jam the blade into the doorframe to wedge it shut.

  The egg trembled. Another chip fell out.

  “You told me there wasn’t a door!” said Ratpunzel.

  “. . . uh,” said Gothel. “Ah. The door. Um. I can explain?”

  “So explain!”

  “. . . give me a minute.”

  “I can’t believe you lied about the door!” shouted Ratpunzel. “I could have gone out with you!”

  “Monsters,” said Gothel. “Lots of monsters!”

  “They never ate you! I was going to bake you a cake!” cried Ratpunzel. “A cake with sprinkles and three kinds of filling and smoked salmon on top!”

  “I think that’ll hold,” said Wilbur. “At least for a little bit . . .”

  Harriet nodded. She stepped away from the door, hefted the egg up, and began stumbling toward the woods.

  Another chip of eggshell fell.

  Gothel apparently realized that the others were leaving and redoubled her attack on the door. The ax handle bounced as she slammed against the door.

  Harriet tried to move faster. The egg seemed to get heavier with every step. Her back was killing her.

  Wilbur and Ratpunzel caught up easily. “Ah . . . can you move any faster?” asked Wilbur, glancing back at the door. “I don’t think that’s going to hold her for very long . . .”

  “No,” said Harriet shortly. “Unless you want to help.”

  Wilbur got behind her and tried to help lift up the egg.

  “This weighs a ton!” gasped Wilbur.

  “No kidding!”

  They staggered forward.

  Harriet could see the trees and Mumfrey waiting. She was starting to think that she might actually make it.

  Two loud sounds echoed through the clearing.

  The first was the sound of the hydra egg cracking. Something wet oozed down the back of Harriet’s neck. It felt nasty.

  “It’s hatching!” cried Wilbur, alarmed. “I mean—I mean—it’s coming out!”

  “Hello, little friend!” cooed Ratpunzel.

  “It looks just like Heady!” said Wilbur, sounding both terrified and delighted. “Only tiny!”

  The second sound was much more ominous.

  It was the sound of the ax falling out of the crack in the doorjamb.

  The tower door slammed open.

  CHAPTER 19

  Harriet turned.

  Gothel ran toward them. Her ears were flat back and her long tail lashed from side to side like an angry Ogrecat’s.

  “Right,” said Harriet. “Wilbur, get this egg off me.”

  She shrugged ou
t of the bungee cord harness. Wilbur took the weight of the baby hydra and staggered.

  Harriet didn’t take her eyes off Gothel. “Move! I’ll hold her off!”

  “I won’t leave you!” said Ratpunzel, who had read a lot of stories about heroic last stands (which, given Sad Story Time, had always ended badly).

  “Or you could, y’know, do what she says,” said Wilbur, who knew Harriet quite well. A heroic last stand might end badly, but disobeying Harriet’s orders would end like the apocalypse, only with more screaming.

  “But what if you die?” cried Ratpunzel. “Like the sad little mouse—”

  Wilbur, with his arms full of shell, said, “Uh, Ratpunzel, can you help me? The hydra’s getting squirmy . . .”

  “Oh!” She hurried to the hamster’s side. “Who’s a good little hydra, then?”

  Harriet breathed a sigh of relief as Wilbur led Ratpunzel back toward the trees.

  Gothel halted, just out of arm’s reach. She glared at Harriet and rolled up her sleeves. “Out of my way, hamster! You won’t keep that hydra!”

  “It belongs with its mother,” said Harriet.

  “I’ll take better care of it!”

  “Like you have Ratpunzel?”

  “You lied to her about the outside world! You turned the people who came to see her into trees!”

  “Being a tree is completely painless!”

  She tried to dart past Harriet.

  Harriet had a healthy respect for magic, for people who did magic, and for the strength of unlikely-looking people.

  On the other hand, sometimes you really only had one option.

  She pounced on Gothel.

  They rolled over and over through the clearing. Gothel kicked and bit and snarled, sounding more like a wild animal than a gerbil. Harriet tried to keep from getting her eyes scratched out and hoped that Wilbur was getting the egg and Ratpunzel well away from the clearing.

  Gothel whipped her tail around and began trying to choke Harriet with it.

  “Urrrghg . . .” said Harriet, somewhat frightened but mostly annoyed. She wished she were still invincible.

  There was a small chance that Gothel might actually murder her, and that would be really embarrassing.

  She drove her elbow into Gothel’s stomach. The gerbil went “Oof!” and relaxed her grip.

  Harriet took a step forward, gasping for air. Gothel was still clutching her jacket sleeve.

  Something small and brightly colored fell out of the sleeve.

  Harriet snatched for it, but Gothel was faster.

  “Oh . . .” said Gothel, in a soft, satisfied voice. “Oh, you little fool. I can’t believe you were stupid enough to carry this with you . . .”

  “Uh,” said Harriet. “I . . . uh.” At the moment, she couldn’t believe it either. She knew Gothel did magic with those vials of tears. Why had she been carrying one around?

  Well, it was a bit late to wallow in regret now.

  Gothel twisted the top off the vial.

  Harriet decided that now would be an excellent time to run away.

  CHAPTER 20

  Contrary to popular opinion, heroes run away a lot. The ones who don’t run away in the face of overwhelming odds don’t usually live long enough to be recognized as heroes. When you have been turned into a damp splatter underneath a dragon’s foot, nobody says, “Wow, look how brave she was!” Usually they just sigh heavily and go get a mop.

  Having spent much of her life being invincible, Harriet hadn’t run away to save herself very often, but she frequently retreated from battles that looked like they would be dangerous for Mumfrey. It is very rude to be invincible if you get your friends hurt doing it.

  Harriet ran.

  She didn’t run as fast as she wanted to, because her throat still hurt from where Gothel had tried to throttle her, and her lower back was throbbing from carrying a gigantic hydra egg down a tower.

  She was also unpleasantly aware that gerbils run faster than hamsters.

  (The ancestors of gerbils come from arid deserts and have long legs for leaping. The ancestors of hamsters also come from deserts, but they prefer to loaf around in burrows. Even at her fastest, Harriet moved at a kind of high-speed waddle. There was a reason she rode Mumfrey everywhere.)

  The trees were very close. Harriet ran for them, hoping to lose Gothel in the forest.

  “Harriet!” cried Ratpunzel. “Oh, Harriet, run!”

  Harriet gritted her teeth. Ratpunzel was supposed to be running, not yelling and giving away her position!

  She looked over her shoulder and, sure enough, Gothel was veering away, going after Ratpunzel instead of her.

  “No you don’t!” gasped Harriet, and changed course toward Ratpunzel.

  The forest loomed up before them. Ratpunzel stood on the edge, wringing her hands.

  “Don’t just stand there!” yelled Harriet. “Do something useful!”

  Ratpunzel looked blank.

  It’s not her fault, thought Harriet grimly. She’s been locked in a tower all her life and nobody’s let her do anything except cry and cook. She’s really done very well, all things considered.

  Still, she wished they’d broken into a tower with a fair maiden who did martial arts and first aid instead.

  Gothel reached the trees.

  Actually, she reached one particular tree, the one that Harriet had noticed earlier. It didn’t seem to have any creatures trapped in it, but the trunk gaped open like a lipless mouth.

  She stopped there, beside it, facing Ratpunzel.

  “Give me the hydra,” said Gothel, holding out her hand. “Give me the hydra, Ratpunzel, and go back in the tower, and we’ll just forget this happened.”

  Ratpunzel looked over her shoulder at Wilbur and the quails. Wilbur was frantically trying to strap the baby hydra to Mumfrey’s saddle.

  “But it’s somebody else’s baby,” quavered Ratpunzel. “Wilbur told me. It belongs to a hydra named Heady.”

  Gothel scowled. “We’ll talk about it inside.”

  From her angle, Harriet could see Gothel holding the vial behind her back.

  “It’s a trap!” she yelled, and barreled full tilt into the gerbil.

  Ratpunzel squeaked and jumped backward, clutching her tail. Gothel flailed at Harriet, but all of Harriet’s energy was devoted to pinning the hand with the vial to the gerbil’s side.

  “Don’t let her break the vial!” she shouted. “Ratpunzel, get out of here!”

  Gothel rammed her shoulder into Harriet and drove her back against the tree.

  Ratpunzel ran. Not away, as Harriet would have liked, but around the tree trunk, trying to put it between her and Gothel.

  Gothel lunged after the rat.

  Harriet, still clutching Gothel’s wrist, stumbled after her.

  The hamster made three steps, got Gothel’s shoulder, spun the gerbil around, and was just starting to think that things were looking up . . . when she tripped over Ratpunzel’s tail.

  Harriet fell down hard. She skinned both knees and the palm of her hand. She had a feeling that would hurt later.

  Gothel stood over her and raised the vial.

  “Now,” said Gothel. “Now, thief, I’m going to deal with you!”

  She splashed the tears out in a long liquid arc. Harriet threw her hand over her face.

  Something heavy knocked her aside.

  Harriet heard a sploosh! a thud! and a very loud SNAP!

  “Nooooo!” cried Ratpunzel.

  The hamster rolled sideways, and looked up.

  The open tree trunk had slammed closed.

  CHAPTER 21

  Harriet stared at the tree that had swallowed her friend.

  It was unmistakably Wilbur. It looked like a perfect wooden carving, down to the individual strands of hair and the nails on
his hands and his alarmed expression.

  “Blast!” said Gothel. She turned the vial over, but it was empty. “I meant to get you, not him! Now, where’s my egg?”

  Harriet sat up.

  “Wilbur!” she said. “I should never have brought you! You were always too nice to be a warrior!”

  She grabbed his bark-covered hand. It was wood, definitely wood, not fur and bone. She was afraid that if she pulled on it too hard, it might snap off.

  “Don’t worry, Wilbur! I’ll get you out of there! Just—err—sit tight—”

  “No, you won’t,” said Gothel. “Not unless you give me back that egg!”

  Harriet looked around. Mumfrey was nowhere to be seen.

  Thank goodness! At least somebody around here follows orders!

  “Well, I’m the only one who knows how to liberate your friend!” shouted Gothel.

  Harriet thought fast. If she went after Mumfrey, Gothel would have time to get more tears out of the tower. Who knew what she’d be able to do? She didn’t dare leave the gerbil alone with Wilbur—but short of chopping down Wilbur’s tree and dragging it with them, what could she do?

  “The egg’s not here,” she said, stalling for time. “I’d have to go and get it back from my quail . . .”

  Gothel’s whiskers twisted as she scowled. “Then you’ve got nothing I want, hamster!”

  She lifted her hands in front of her. The tips of her claws began to glow.

  “What are you doing?” said Harriet.

  “Uh,” said Harriet. “I thought you had to work with tears and trees and stuff . . .”

  “Mostly,” admitted Gothel. “Plants are the only things I can magic up myself. And I don’t even like plants very much. They’re so limited. You’ve got your wall of thorns and your vine ropes, and then what do you do?”