Snow White Lucks Out

by Joan Holub

  Cinda and Rapunzel gathered around, and Rapunzel picked up the mirror. “It’s an old one!” Cinda exclaimed.

  “Let me see,” said Red. Unable to resist, she’d left her post and come to join them. Rapunzel handed the mirror to her. “It’s pretty,” Red commented. The silver-backed mirror had an ornate, curlicued edge around it, which was repeated on its handle. The back was etched with silver roses.

  “Doesn’t look like something Mr. Hump-Dumpty would use, though,” Snow put in.

  “Maybe it’s not his,” said Red. “Maybe he doesn’t even know it’s in here.” She held it out to Snow.

  But Snow shook her head. “I’m not touching it again,” she said, backing away from the others. “You know mirrors weird me out.”

  Cinda took it instead. “Do you suppose it’s magic?” she asked. As Cinda flipped the hand mirror around, Snow saw her reflection in it briefly and quickly looked away.

  “Of course I’m magic,” said a sharp, smooth voice, drawing everyone’s attention.

  Oh, no, thought Snow as a ghostly, shiny, silvery face appeared on the surface of the mirror. Not another talking mirror!

  The face in the mirror peered at the girls. “Ooh-ee! It’s nice to be out of that drawer. I’ve been cooped up in there for an eternity. And I’m much too gorgeous to be hidden away. I mean, have you seen my silver backside?”

  “Huh?” said Snow. This mirror belonged back in the library’s B for boastful section!

  “So, what does your magic do, if you don’t mind my asking?” said Cinda.

  The ghostly image’s eyebrows rose. “I can show you reflections of the truth anytime you’re uncertain what to believe,” it said.

  Rapunzel frowned at the mirror. “Reflections of the truth?” she repeated. “Just what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

  But before the mirror could reply, the girls heard a door slam somewhere out in the hallway. “We’d better get out of here before we’re discovered,” Rapunzel warned the others in a low voice. “So, do we take the mirror or what?”

  “Don’t put me back in that drawer,” the mirror begged. “I belong to the one who found me. If she doesn’t take me with her, I’ll crack up.”

  Everyone, including the mirror, looked at Snow.

  “You know I hate mirrors,” Snow said quickly, but then she immediately wished she could take back the words. She hoped she hadn’t hurt the hand mirror’s feelings. If it had any.

  “Yeah, we know,” said Rapunzel. “I’ve always wondered why.”

  “Because my stepmom loves them,” Snow admitted.

  “They are useful,” said Cinda. “For trying out gowns and makeup.”

  “But how many mirrors do you need? My stepmom has about a hundred,” Snow continued. “And I feel like they’re always watching me.”

  The other girls stared at her.

  “A hundred?” Red echoed.

  “Watching you?” said Rapunzel.

  Snow nodded, a little embarrassed at their stares. “There were mirrors in every room of the castle when I was little. And you know the full-length one that’s turned sideways in the Scrying classroom? The one my stepmom writes assignments on in red lipstick instead of using a whiteboard like normal teachers? Well, it used to be in the castle where we lived. And she talked to it. A lot. It was like her best bud or something. It kind of gave me the willies.”

  “Well, boo-hoo. Get over it,” the mirror admonished her lightly. “Like I said, because you found me, I belong to you. Mirror rules.”

  “Are you her magic charm?” asked Cinda.

  Rapunzel elbowed her gently. “Magic charms can’t talk, remember?”

  “Nope, not a charm. Lucky for you, though, that I can talk,” the mirror told Snow. “Because I’ve got secrets I can tell. Secrets you’ll want to know,” it coaxed in a sing-song voice.

  While it was gabbing away, Red had opened her basket and taken out the mapestry. Now she held it out to the others. “The X is gone!” she exclaimed. “But I don’t see a new trail of stitches yet.”

  “Still, it must mean that this mirror is what we were meant to find,” said Rapunzel.

  Right then, they heard another noise somewhere down the hall. Closer this time.

  “Someone’s coming!” hissed Cinda.

  “Quick! Hide the mirror and let’s scram,” said Red.

  The mirror jumped into Snow’s blue bag before anyone could act. In a panic to go before they were all caught, she grabbed the bag and headed for the door. As the girls scurried down the hall, she heard the mirror’s muffled voice from inside her bag.

  “Oh, hi. I like handbooks and pens, and lip gloss is okay. But I don’t really get along with scarves. And there are seven of you? Oh, well. I guess a mirror must make do.”

  Scarves? thought Snow. She didn’t have any scarves in her bag. No, she must’ve misheard. Although she couldn’t think of another word that even came close.

  “Stop!” Rapunzel half-ordered, half-pleaded when the four friends reached the grand staircase. “I can’t go up to the tower right now. I’m sorry, okay? Let’s go somewhere else.”

  Honestly! thought Snow. Rapunzel’s fear of heights was a real problem sometimes. Like now, when they were in a hurry. “Okay,” she said. “So where can we go instead? We need someplace close.”

  Before they could decide anything, they heard the noise they’d heard before. Step. Thump. Step.

  “That sounds like Mr. Hump-Dumpty coming!” exclaimed Cinda. “Yikes!”

  The Grimm girls did an about-face back down the first floor hall.

  “In here,” said Rapunzel. She opened the nearest door and they all dashed in. It turned out to be a supply closet right across the hall from Ms. Wicked’s classroom. Inside, there were unused teacher and student desks, a flowered couch with a hole in its fabric, a couple of tables, as well as lamps and bookcases. The wooden arms of the couch were singed black. Perhaps it had once sat in Ms. Jabberwocky’s office, thought Snow.

  Suddenly, everything turned pitch-black inside the closet as Rapunzel shut the door to the hall. All four girls put their ears to the door. Step. Thump. Step. They heard whistling, then the sound of a broom being pushed. Soon, the sounds began fading away.

  “It was only Mr. Winkie,” said Rapunzel, sounding relieved. “I think he went upstairs. So why don’t we just talk in here? Seems safe enough.”

  Snick! After fumbling around, Cinda managed to locate and turn on one of the oil lamps stored in the room. Right away, Red pulled the mapestry out of her basket. “Let’s see if there’s a new trail of golden stitches yet,” she explained as the others watched her unroll it.

  “Yes!” the girls cried in unison. For a new golden thread-path now snaked from Pink Castle to the grounds outside it. The new path followed along the Once Upon River before ending in a new X cross-stitch atop a heart-shaped island downstream from Maze Island.

  Cinda tapped at the X with a finger. “That’s Heart Island, right? I haven’t been to it yet. Maybe we’ll find the treasure there. Since we didn’t find it in Mr. Hump-Dumpty’s room.”

  All at once, Snow glimpsed something tiny and grayish moving across the surface of the mapestry. She whisked her hand across it, thinking that a bug had landed on the mapestry. But a second glance told her that this was no bug. A tiny embroidered silver blob was gliding across the stitched representation of Pink Castle. “Look!” she said, pointing to the blob.

  “Is that the hand mirror?” Red asked, confused. The mapestry had traced the movements of Peter Peter’s pumpkin (showing it as a tiny embroidered orange blob) when it changed into a stagecoach and disappeared into Neverwood Forest.

  “Quick,” Rapunzel said to Snow. “See if you still have it!”

  As soon as Snow opened her bag, the mirror sailed out of it. Almost like it had been thrown out of the bag, instead of leaping out on its own. “Whoa! Careful! I can break, you know! Do you really want seven years of bad luck?” it shouted at the bag.

  That mirr
or is getting odder by the minute, Snow thought. She caught it by its handle before it could fall. Not wanting to look at her own reflection, she held it so it faced the mapestry and her friends, not her. But when her friends’ eyes fell on the mirror’s shiny surface, they gasped.

  “What?” asked Snow. When she moved her head to see what they saw in the mirror, she gasped, too. Because its reflection of the mapestry clearly showed that the silver blob was actually a tiny embroidered silver pail. All at once, what the mirror had said came back to her: I can show you reflections of the truth anytime you’re uncertain what to believe.

  “That silver blob is Jack and Jill’s missing pail!” Snow exclaimed. They all watched the mirror in fascinated horror as the pail-shaped silver blob glided over the castle drawbridge, then disappeared around the side of Pink Castle.

  Moments later, the blob reappeared on the mapestry, moving between the green-stitched trees of Neverwood Forest. And then, just like what had happened with Peter Peter’s pumpkin, the embroidered pail hit the stitched wall that surrounded Grimmlandia and vanished off the edge of the mapestry altogether!

  The Grimm girls had feared before now that the pail might have already met the same fate as Peter Peter’s pumpkin, but still they stared at the mapestry in stunned disbelief. “Well, that’s that, then,” Rapunzel said glumly. “The pail’s gone.”

  “Sorry,” the mirror told them. “I can only reflect truth.”

  Dismayed, Snow bit her lip. “We understand.” How much weaker would the protective spells keeping Grimmlandia safe become, now that one more magical object has gone over the wall? she wondered. Was the end of Grimmlandia in sight? Would they all be swallowed up in the Nothingterror? How many more artifacts would have to disappear to completely sever the boundaries between the two worlds? Three? Two? Only one? She shivered as she slid the now-silent hand mirror back inside her bag.

  At the same time, Red rolled up the mapestry and stuck it back in her basket. Her shoulders slumped. “If only we could have stopped it from happening!” Hearing that, her basket slung itself onto her arm and nestled close to Red’s side as if trying to comfort her.

  Suddenly, they heard more footsteps, lighter than Mr. Winkie’s, out in the hall. Someone knocked. The girls clung to one another and stared at the closet door with wide eyes, sure they were about to be discovered. Who was out there? How would they explain their presence here? They couldn’t! But then they heard another door somewhere out in the hall open up instead. It had only sounded like the knocking was on the supply closet door.

  Still huddled together, they heard Malorette’s shrill voice cry out, “We did it, Ms. Wicked!”

  Huh? Snow gave a start. In the dim closet, the four girls gazed at each other with wide, surprised eyes.

  “Jack and Jill’s pail has gone over the wall!” Odette’s voice crowed.

  Cinda’s lip curled. “My stepsisters,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “Figures they’d have a hand in this catastrophe.”

  Red put a finger to her lips to shush her.

  “They must be standing outside Ms. Wicked’s classroom,” Rapunzel whispered.

  It had been empty earlier. My stepmom must have sneaked in while we were busy in Mr. Hump-Dumpty’s room, thought Snow. Good thing she hadn’t caught them!

  And now Ms. Wicked spoke up, sounding excited. “Excellent news! Our leader will be well pleased with us. But such things should not be discussed here in the open. I’ll inform him myself since we meet to discuss another matter tonight.”

  “Grimmtastic!” said Malorette’s voice.

  “Nuh-uh. That’s about as far from grimmtastic as you can get!” Snow murmured. Her BFFs nodded.

  Then the door shut and the sound of the two girls’ footsteps and their soft, excited conversation faded down the hall. After a few more minutes of quiet, Rapunzel slowly opened the closet door and peeked out. “All clear,” she murmured. “Let’s head to dinner. I’ve had enough drama for tonight.”

  “I have, too, for once,” said Red.

  The girls slipped out. Still a little spooked by all that had happened, they ran down the hall in the direction of the Great Hall.

  Snow was the last one out of the closet. As she passed the door to her stepmom’s classroom, she stopped dead, staring. The brass door knob with the GA logo on it was changing. Was the library in the process of moving there? It was a shift she’d never seen in action before. However, the logo did not disappear. Instead, the knob went misty and foggy. Then it turned almost transparent.

  A long nose poked out from it, startling Snow. It wasn’t a goose beak like the library knob usually had, but a person’s nose. As if the nose wasn’t creepy enough, it quickly withdrew and a brown eye peered out at her through the mist in its place. She stumbled back, pressing a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream.

  She didn’t wait around for a mouth to appear on the knob. Who knew what it might say to her! Heart pounding, she raced after her friends, hardly daring to breathe until she caught up with them in the Great Hall. After grabbing a tray and some silverware with shaking hands, she joined the line right behind the other three girls.

  “Guess what I just saw!” she whispered to Cinda, who was closest. Hearing the excitement and fear in her voice, Red and Rapunzel dropped back. The four of them bunched together as they slowly moved along the line toward the food up ahead.

  As Snow quickly described what she’d seen, Cinda paled. “That sounds like the same nose and eyeball I saw in the Grimm brothers room of the library on my first day at the Academy.”

  “But how could it have moved from there to my stepmom’s classroom door?” asked Snow. “And who do the nose and eyeball belong to?”

  Red’s forehead wrinkled in thought as they all pushed their trays along. After glancing around to make sure no one was listening in, she said in a low voice, “Maybe to L. I mean, to E.V.I.L.’s Leader, that is.”

  Rapunzel shuddered, causing her long hair to sway back and forth. “Paying a visit to Ms. Wicked, perhaps? To talk about the pail poaching? And Wolfgang’s interest in joining the Society?”

  “Makes sense,” Cinda agreed.

  “Know what I think?” Snow said as a horrible new thought entered her mind. “Grandmother Enchantress once told us that someone outside the wall was probably helping E.V.I.L., right? Maybe that someone is the Leader of the Society, who is actually outside of Grimmlandia looking in through weak spots in the school that have already lost their protection due to artifacts escaping!”

  The next morning, Snow left her blue bag in her trunker, taking only her handbook before going off to her Friday classes. The magic hand mirror would be safe there, locked inside her trunker. And far away from her. She was pretty annoyed at that mirror. It had kept her awake last night, making muffled sounds inside her bag as if it were arguing with itself about something. Weird!

  Six classes and one Great Hall dinner later, she was back at her trunker again. Grabbing her blue bag, she stashed her handbook in it, in case she actually had time to do homework later on. She thought about taking the hand mirror out of her bag and leaving it inside her trunker. But although she still didn’t like mirrors, the magic mirror might come in handy when she caught up with Cinda, Red, and Rapunzel in the Grimmstone Library. They were all four meeting there to choose ball gowns for the Prince Prance. And since the mirror could show you reflections of the truth when you weren’t sure what to believe, maybe it could help her decide if her friends were just being kind when they told her a gown looked grimmazing on her, or if the gown really did look grimmazing. Her stepmom’s criticisms lately had made her unsure about her fashion choices.

  But when Snow reached inside her blue bag for the mirror she also found something inside it that she wasn’t expecting. The mapestry! The real one or the fake one? She looked up and down the hall to be sure no one was watching, then opened her bag wider to check. It was the fake. She could tell because its canvas backing was a lighter color than the backing on the real mapes
try. Besides, she knew Red still had the real one. But why had Grandmother Enchantress magicked this thing to her, instead of to Wolfgang? Wasn’t he supposed to give it to E.V.I.L.?

  As she unrolled the mapestry further, a crystal marble the size of a cherry fell out of it and rolled onto the floor. Snow picked it up and held it in her palm. It was a message-marble! Slowly, it grew into a ball of gray mist as big as her hand. Black letters formed in the mist, unfurling across it in a long line. Quickly, she read them before they could disappear for good:

  Dear Snow,

  Change of plans. The Society is suspicious of Wolfgang and watching him. They checked under the floor tile in the Hall. What they wanted was missing of course. Improvise as best you can to get this into your stepmom’s hands. Good luck! Signed, Lotte G (Grandmother Enchantress)

  Poof! When Snow finished reading, the mist disappeared and only the crystal marble remained. What am I supposed to do now? she wondered in dismay. She was no good at improvising. Red was the drama queen, not her! She tossed the marble into her trunker and finished unrolling the fake mapestry. She saw at once that it had been completed. Neverwood Forest, the wall around it, Once Upon River, Pink Castle, the Great Hall, and other parts of Grimmlandia. It was all there.

  Suddenly, golden stitches magically appeared, criss-crossing it! Was Grandmother Enchantress controlling them from afar? The stitched paths didn’t lead to any of the places the real mapestry had taken them to. They were probably bogus — meant to fool E.V.I.L.!

  “Um — can I see you for a sec?” a boy’s voice asked her.

  Startled, Snow jumped about a mile high. Ramming the mapestry into her bag, she looked up to see that Prince Prince was standing beside her. All of her attention had been on the fake mapestry, so she hadn’t noticed him coming over.