by Joan Holub
The girls let go of both sides of the lid, which then flopped down. The basket hopped toward Snow and patted her arm with one of its handles as if to say sorry.
“That’s okay. I know you tried,” Snow told it.
Red was counting on her fingers and frowning. “I don’t understand why that didn’t work. I used six words to make my request.”
Rapunzel’s forehead wrinkled. “Maybe the necklace is someplace where the basket’s magic is blocked.”
“Like where?” asked Cinda. “Oh, wait! My stepsisters hid Peter Peter’s pumpkin in my trunker to keep the library’s magic from automatically returning the pumpkin to the library, remember?”
“So maybe my basket’s magic can’t fetch things under certain conditions,” Red mused. Magical charms didn’t come with a full set of instructions. You had to discover what they could do.
“Wait!” Snow said as a happy thought came to her. “Maybe someone already found my necklace and took it to the Lost and Found box in Ms. Jabberwocky’s office. Your basket’s magic probably couldn’t fetch it from the box if that’s where it is. I’ll go check at lunch.” She didn’t dare be late to her classes this morning after being late yesterday.
“Don’t forget that we’re meeting after school in the library to examine the D-Book,” Red reminded everyone in code before they split up to go to their classes.
During her second-period Threads class, Snow whipped through more of her fake mapestry, stitching an image of Gray Castle and part of Maze Island. She was surprised that her first two classes went as well as they did, especially since she’d been so upset about her missing necklace that she’d forgotten to throw salt over her shoulder to protect herself from bad luck that morning.
Nor had she remembered to take one of her other lucky charms with her. There wasn’t enough time between classes to run back up to her dorm room to fetch one. Too bad she hadn’t thought at breakfast to ask Red to see if her basket could fetch the lucky agate she’d lost from her pocket last night. She could ask at lunch, but that wouldn’t help her right now.
Without her usual protections, Snow wasn’t sure she’d be able to avoid her stepmom out in the hallway before her third-period History class. But somehow she did.
Mr. Hump-Dumpty was busily rummaging through the drawers of his desk at the front of the room as Snow took her seat. Is he searching for the diary? she wondered. Maybe he’d been looking for it all morning in the minutes between classes. She felt kind of bad about that, but it couldn’t be helped. He didn’t seem mad at her about the pipe, but maybe he had bigger things on his mind at the moment. Like the missing diary! At least he was still here. Principal R hadn’t fired or fried him. Not yet, anyway.
But what story would her stepmom have told the principal by now? Had she pinned the blame for the stolen musical pipe on her? Or on Wolfgang? Her three BFFs all seemed to believe Wolfgang’s innocence in all this. However, Snow wasn’t so sure. She was just as suspicious of him as Red seemed to be of her!
“Hey,” Prince said as he sat down next to her. “Mr. Hump-Dumpty sure seems sunny side down. Must be because of all that stuff that happened in the Great Hall yesterday, huh?”
Snow nodded. “Eggsactly.” She would’ve liked to tell him about last night. To fill him in on E.V.I.L., the mapestry, and the discovery of the diary. But the girls had sworn to keep all that secret from everyone for now.
Before she could come up with something she could say, Mr. Hump-Dumpty rose from his desk. “Please get out your handbooks and set them for History class,” he said. Then he reached out with his walking stick and tapped at the reading assignment written on the board on the wall behind his desk. “You may have the whole period for reading chapter thirteen — Bad Luck Bringers of Olden Times and Nursery Rhymes.”
After that announcement, he slumped in his desk chair. Snow and Prince gazed at each other in horror. They both knew that number thirteen was the unluckiest of all numbers. That was all she needed today, thought Snow. More bad luck!
Snow reached into her bag. As before, the very thing she wanted — in this case, her handbook — seemed to leap into her hand. With a sigh, she opened her book and dutifully began to read the assigned chapter.
Mr. Hump-Dumpty spent the rest of the period gazing dejectedly around the room without really focusing on anyone or anything. Once in a while he glanced nervously at the classroom door as if expecting someone he’d rather avoid to burst in at any moment. Like Principal R, maybe? Or her stepmom?
Meanwhile, Snow grew more and more tense as she read of cracked mirrors resulting in seven long years of bad luck. Of people who found treasure only to have it stolen. Of partners forever separated because of unlucky wishes they’d made. There were many such stories in Grimmlandia’s history.
When the school clock bonged at the end of the period, Snow and Prince both slammed their books shut in relief and leaped up. “Phew! Glad that’s over,” said Prince. He fell into step with her as they exited the room, flipping his lucky coin in the air and catching it as it fell. He didn’t seem to notice that she wasn’t wearing her lucky clover amulet. She could really use it right about now to make herself feel better. She was about to mention the lost amulet when Prince brought up Saturday’s ball.
“Foulsmell told me everyone’s calling it the ‘Prince Prance,’” he said, sounding more relaxed and amused now. “Did you know?”
Snow nodded, smiling slightly. “Yeah, I heard. Cute nickname, huh?” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her stepmom walk out of her classroom next door. Ms. Wicked’s gaze snagged hers, and like a fly caught in a spider’s web, Snow knew there was no escape. Without any lucky charms, her luck had run out! Resigned, she hurriedly smoothed her skirt and straightened the bow on her blouse as her stepmom approached.
Ms. Wicked’s hard eyes flicked from Snow to Prince and back again. “Good morning, Prince,” she said warmly.
Snow braced herself. But to her surprise, Ms. Wicked actually beamed at her and slung an affectionate arm around Snow’s shoulders in a quick hug. “I see you’ve met Snow. She’s one of the best and brightest students at the Academy. I’m so lucky to have such a charming, sweet daughter.”
Huh? thought Snow, stepping away from the hug as soon as she could. Daughter, not stepdaughter? Best and brightest? Why was Ms. Wicked suddenly competing for Stepmother of the Year?
“Anyone would be lucky to have her as a … special friend,” Ms. Wicked went on, giving the prince a wink.
Aghhh! Snow wanted to sink right through the floor! Or run and hide. Or turn back time and put a spell on her stepmom’s lips to stop her from saying that. How grimmiliating! Why did she have to pick now to gush like this and be so obvious about wanting Prince to be Snow’s boyfriend? And why did her stepmom want that anyway?
“Uh, thank you,” Prince replied politely.
Snow had always hoped to hear kind motherly — though less embarrassing — words come out of Ms. Wicked’s mouth. Still, she didn’t trust that her stepmom had really meant them. Could she be scheming to get on Prince’s good side for some reason? Maybe she was planning to try and recruit him for E.V.I.L. just like she’d (unsuccessfully) tried to do with Prince Awesome not long ago.
It had taken years of life with Ms. Wicked to make Snow so wary. And what she’d overheard last night had multiplied that wariness. She knew that believing her stepmother’s honeyed words now would only lead to disappointment in the future. But, oh, how it hurt to admit that!
Sure enough, just as Snow and Prince were turning to go, Snow’s stepmom showed her true colors. “So how are those new shoelaces working out for you, sweetie?” she asked with pretended innocence.
“Fine,” Snow lied, not willing to give her the satisfaction of knowing the laces had caused her to trip up yesterday. “Only I decided to wear a different pair of shoes today.”
“So I noticed,” said her stepmom, eyeing Snow’s slip-on blue slippers. Then her gaze rose to Snow’s hair, and she frowned. “Lucky
for you, I have another gift for you,” she added. After sliding her large bag from her shoulder, she reached inside it and pulled out a beautiful opal-backed brush. Glancing at Snow’s hair again, she said in a super sugary voice, “I figured you must have lost your old brush.”
Snow flinched and instantly ran a hand over her hair to smooth it. Did it really look that bad? The opal brush was pretty, but as her stepmom held it out to her, Snow hesitated to take it, remembering the laces and other previous gifts that had turned out badly.
“What’s wrong?” her stepmom asked in an anxious tone of voice. “Don’t you like it?” Ms. Wicked looked at Prince and shrugged, as if to say, See how Snow snubs me even though I try to be a good mother to her?
After talking her up before, was her stepmom now trying to make her look bad in his eyes? Snow wondered. Whatever! Snow wouldn’t let her get away with that. Not this time! She sent Ms. Wicked a fake-sweet smile. “It’s beautiful. I love it,” she said, taking the brush and dropping it into her sparkly blue bag.
Just then, Prince Awesome called Prince Prince away from her side.
“You’re welcome,” Ms. Wicked told Snow, once he was gone. “Use it in good health.” Whirling around in a satisfied swish of black and purple robes, she returned to her classroom.
Use it in good health? What was that supposed to mean?
Snow frowned down at the contents of the Lost and Found box. As it turned out, she hadn’t made it to the office till after school. Classes were over for the day now, and she’d come straight here with fingers crossed.
“No luck?” asked Ms. Jabberwocky, peering into the box from where she sat at her desk.
Snow shook her head. Red’s basket had retrieved her agate at lunch, but even having that lucky charm back hadn’t brought her enough luck to break the clover necklace free of whatever imprisoned it. Giving up, she pushed the box back onto its shelf. “Nuh-uh. That clover necklace was my luckiest charm, too. I can’t believe it’s gone.” Her disappointment must have shown.
“Cheer up!” Ms. Jabberwocky said, giving Snow one of her big, scary-tooth smiles. “I bet it’ll turn up snicker-snack. I’ll keep a manxsome eye out for it and let you know if it gets turned in. In the meantime …” Ms. Jabberwocky handed Snow a replacement key, so she’d be able to get into her trunker.
“Thanks,” said Snow, dropping it into her bag. “I’ll be in the library. In case my necklace turns up, I mean.” After leaving the office, she climbed up and down stairs all over the Academy searching for the Grimmstone Library.
“Aha!” Her green eyes lit up as she finally spied what she was looking for on the third floor of Gray Castle. A plain brass knob poking from the wall between two classrooms. It was the library doorknob. The only one in the whole school without the Academy logo. It was always tricky to locate since it moved around the school as it pleased.
Snow reached out. The doorknob morphed into the shape of a goose’s head as soon as her fingers touched it.
Honk! went the gooseknob. “Ready to riddle?” it asked.
She nodded. Until you answered a riddle, the library door wouldn’t appear around the knob.
“Thirty white horses upon a red hill,” said the gooseknob. “Now they tramp, now they champ, now they stand still.”
“Teeth,” said Cinda, who had just come up behind Snow. “The white horses are teeth. It’s from a nursery rhyme.”
Oh! thought Snow, who hadn’t heard the rhyme before. Then that must mean that the red hill represented a tongue. The colors white and red were important clues. “Don’t people have thirty-two teeth, though?” she asked.
“Never quibble with a nursery rhyme!” quipped the gooseknob.
Snick! Without another word, it magically turned back into a round brass knob. Immediately, a huge rectangular door drew itself on the wall around the knob. It was several feet taller than Snow and Cinda, about four feet wide, and decorated with carvings of nursery-rhyme characters like Little Bo-Peep with her sheep and Little Boy Blue under a haystack.
As she turned the doorknob, Snow smiled over her shoulder at Cinda. “Good job!” Then the two girls stepped through the doorway. The library could change its size as it pleased, and often did. Right now it was big. Bigger than the Great Hall. Bigger than the entire Academy and the grounds that surrounded it! Yet it magically fit wherever it wanted.
“I see Red and Rapunzel,” said Cinda. She and Snow waved to the pair of Grimm girls just beyond the tall desk in the entrance. On the desk were a bell, a gooseneck lamp, and a woven basket full of goose-feather quill pens. Behind the desk stood Ms. Goose, the librarian. She glanced up at the girls as she busily checked in returned books and artifacts, which she pulled one by one from a book drop.
“Good day, goslings!” Ms. Goose greeted them. She was dressed as usual in a frilly white cap and a crisp white apron with a curlicue L embroidered on its front bib. L for librarian, of course!
Beyond her were rows and rows of shelves and little rooms that stretched far into the distance. They were filled with books and items from A to Z.
“Do let me know if you need anything,” Ms. Goose called after them as they passed her and joined their friends. “Or if you see anything unusual, such as an artifact trying to V for vacate the premises with another stolen artifact.”
After promising they would, the four girls took off through the A section with Red in the lead. There were no windows in the library. Instead, chandeliers hung from its high ceiling, each one lit with dozens of candles. Snow peered at a snow-white goose zooming by high overhead. Flap! Flap! Another goose swooped around it and shot off in another direction. Then another swooped in from the right. A net bag dangled from each goose’s bright orange beak. Some of the bags held books. Others held objects.
On various shelves in the A section, they spotted avocados, apricots, and … apples. These weren’t items to be checked out, but snacks for hungry library users! Her BFFs each grabbed something to munch. But Snow didn’t. Because she was A for allergic to fruit, as they all knew. Especially apples!
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Section C,” Red replied. “For some C for conversation. We’re almost there. Don’t be mad, but I invited Wolfgang.”
“But —” Snow began in dismay.
Red rushed on, interrupting her. “I think you’ll want to hear what he told me between rehearsals in Drama class today. And maybe we can clear some things up between us all.”
Snow swallowed the rest of her protest. Her friends already knew she distrusted Wolfgang. She could at least wait until she heard what he had to say for himself before issuing any more warnings about him. He certainly had some explaining to do, though, in her opinion.
Bubbles floated around them in the B aisles, as the four girls passed boxes and bags, which held bunches of bagpipes and bundles of buns. Ding dong! Ding dong! Merry ringing sounds rang out as they passed a room filled with bells. Seconds later, a voice drifted out from another room: “Oh, yeah? Well, I can stand on one foot while juggling eight balls, eating a piece of cake, and painting a picture.” It was a room full of boasts.
As they entered section C, Cinda quipped, “I feel so at home here!” Because her name started with C, she meant.
“I get it,” said Snow. She and the others grinned. Soon they were passing shelves filled with cabbages and calendars, and caps of all colors, shapes, and sizes.
“Here we are,” said Red as they reached a sparkly glass door. “The Crystal Room.”
Rapunzel paused in the doorway, and then stepped back. “I think I’ll go check the D section and see if there are any shelves missing a diary.”
“Okay, C you back here in a few,” Cinda joked. She drew an invisible C in the air with a fingertip as she spoke, making them all smile again.
As Rapunzel headed off, Red pulled the door open and held it for Snow and Cinda to go first. Snow blinked in wonder at the astonishingly bright room she entered. A circle of large candles, each in a crystal holde
r, hovered just below its domed glass ceiling, which arched high over their heads. Candlelight bounced off the glass walls and the hundreds of crystal objects that rested on glass tables and shelves, scattering little rainbows all over the room. There were paperweights, miniature crystal unicorns and other fanciful animals, fancy goblets, and dozens and dozens of crystal balls of every shape and color.
Some of the tables and shelves were stationary. Others floated around the room in mid-air. Wolfgang was already in the room waiting for them, sitting at a glass table covered with crystal balls. He’d taken off his wolf-skin jacket and draped it over the back of his chair.
He looked up as the girls joined him, flashing Red a quick grin. Before she could fill him in on their latest news, he piped up with an admission. “I took the Pied Piper’s pipe from the library. I gave it to Ms. Wicked hoping she’d finally let me into E.V.I.L. so I can spy on the group.”
It was exactly the story Snow had expected from him after what Red had told the girls. But, was it true?
“You didn’t plant the pipe on Mr. Hump-Dumpty, though, right?” Red said, glancing around at the other girls.
Studying Snow, Wolfgang shook his head. Had Red told him Snow doubted him?
“Where’s the pipe now?” Cinda asked. When Wolfgang shrugged to indicate he didn’t know, she plopped down in a chair and started toying with a glass giraffe.
“Probably just escaped on its own,” said Red. Ducking a roving shelf of crystal snowflakes, she sat at the table across from Cinda.
Snow sat across from Wolfgang and looked him right in the eye. “Any clue who ‘Ell’ could be? It’s someone my stepmom said she’d be willing to sacrifice you to for the sake of E.V.I.L.”
His gray eyes went wide with worry. “No idea. Ell as in Ellen, maybe? Or Eleanor, or …”
“Or maybe Ms. Wicked meant the initial L,” Cinda suggested.
“Oh,” said Snow. She hadn’t thought of that. But now she snapped her fingers. “L could stand for Leader!”
