by Joan Holub
For our grimmtastic readers:
Madelyn B., Christine D-H., Khanya S., Julia K., Annie J., Tessa M., Alexandria M., Megan D., Abby-Grace G., Gina P., Jolee S., Jenna S., Sarah S., Amanda H., Danielle T., Emily C., Ava K., Kaitlyn W., Cheyanne W., Kristen S., Alyssa B., Clara B., Stacey B., Becca S., Avery S., Morgan S., Arabella V., Ashlyn C., Cheng X., Huay X., Niharika P., Allie B., Jayla M., Sara B., Hailey H., Amelia G., Caitlin R., Hannah R., Emma T., Ally M., Keyra M., Sabrina C. — and you!
— JH and SW
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
1 Jack Frost
2 Cold as Ice
3 Crack!
4 The Mirror
5 Jack Frost
6 Contrary
7 Cuddly Cuteness
8 Lunch
9 Drama
10 Winter Wonderland
11 Nice Ice
12 Jack Frost
13 Ice Castle
14 Gone
15 Puzzling
16 Good or Evil
17 Jack Frost
18 Emerald Tower
Preview
About the Authors
Also Available
Copyright
It is written upon the wall of the Grimmstone Library:
Something E.V.I.L. this way comes.
To protect all that is born of fairy-tale, folktale, and nursery-rhyme magic, we have created the realm of Grimmlandia. In the center of this realm, we have built two castles on opposite ends of a Great Hall, which straddles the Once Upon River. And this haven shall be forever known as Grimm Academy.
~The brothers Grimm
It was Thursday morning, and Jack Frost was in a snit as usual. In fact, he was totally frosted! Because it was sooo boring in Snow Globe Town, the miniature village that filled the beach ball–size snow globe he lived inside at Grimm Academy.
A snowman stood at the very center of the village. Tired of its jolly, empty-headed grin, Jack whipped the snowman’s black hat off and stomped up and down on it with his pointy-toed boots. Then he kicked the fake fir tree nearby and did a double backflip before flitting around the snow globe’s tiny buildings.
How dare Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm imprison him in here? Jack thought for the frostzillionth time. He stuck out an elbow and knocked an icicle off one of the cute houses in Snow Globe Town as he drifted by. Trapped inside this globe, he could only float among the teeny snowflakes day after day like a goldfish in a wintry bowl.
Those two brothers had stuck him in here around the same time they’d brought other characters from literature to Grimm Academy for safekeeping. But unlike Jack, those other characters from fairy tales, folktales, and nursery rhymes all roamed free. Which wasn’t fair! He’d spent far too many years inside this globe on this shelf in Grimmstone Library’s Crystal Room, surrounded by crystal balls and lots of crystal statuary. Talk about dullsville!
But he was making plans, plotting the mischief he’d cause when he got out one day. He only hoped that day would come soon.
Suddenly, Jack Frost heard the door to the Crystal Room open. Without warning, two scaly green hands shot toward him, grabbing his glass prison. The hands belonged to a dragon lady! She shook the globe, rocking his world. Flakes of snow around him became a white flurry as he went flying to and fro.
“Frabjous! I could use an extra-large paperweight,” cackled the dragon lady. “This snow globe is perfect.”
Next thing Jack knew, he and his fake village had been relocated to the Academy office to steady a bunch of flyaway papers on the lady’s desk. He quickly figured out that she was the principal’s assistant, Ms. Jabberwocky.
Sitting day after boring day on a shelf in the library had been bad enough, but to serve as a paperweight? He, who had the power to bring frigid, wintry days? The power to frost the ground so people would slip and slide? Oh, the indignity of it all. And what a stupendous waste of his talents!
Fuming, Jack Frost plotted his revenge. Should he ever get free, he would waste no time in locating the wickedest character at Grimm Academy. From what he had overheard from snippets of conversation between students who’d occasionally wandered into the Crystal Room over the years, that character would be the very vain, extremely evil Ms. Wicked. She was also the Scrying — as in crystal-ball gazing and fortune-telling — teacher at GA.
He would offer to be her sidekick. When they joined forces, they would rule! Well, mostly he’d be the one ruling if he had his way.
As the morning of his relocation passed, Jack perked up. This outer office was the nerve center for the entire Academy! It turned out that he had a great view of the goings-on from his new perch atop Ms. Jabberwocky’s desk. Late that afternoon, a bunch of students came to see her. While they were there, the office door opened and in walked trouble.
“Troll Moving Company. Where are the mirrors you want moved to the Grimmstone Library?” asked a sturdy-looking troll wearing a uniform.
Ms. Jabberwocky waved him toward the inner office, where the principal’s door stood. “In there. And the sooner Ms. Wicked’s possessions are gone, the better. Thank grimmness we’ve seen the last of her!”
The thick glass of the snow globe muffled sound. However, Jack Frost had gotten good at guessing what people were saying by reading their lips if they were close enough. At the moment, the trolls and the dragon lady were nearby, so doing this was easy.
Huh? he thought now in dismay. He must be behind in the news. Last he’d heard, Ms. Wicked had taken over the job as principal of the school when Principal Rumpelstiltskin went missing. What was going on here?
He didn’t have to wait long to find out. As the trolls promptly set to work removing the mirrors and lugging them into the hall, the principal came out of his office. When had he returned to Grimm Academy?
A dark-haired girl among the group of students was called into the principal’s office. Something about spinning straw into gold? For a while afterward, there were too many people around to tell who was saying what or going where.
Suddenly, all went dark. Ms. Jabberwocky had just buried his snow globe under some papers. Thanks a lot, lady! Now he couldn’t see a thing. And though he strained to hear, the papers muted the sounds around him.
“What’s happening?” he demanded, banging his little fists against the inside of the globe in frustration. But he wasn’t surprised when nobody answered. No one could hear him through the thick glass.
Crash! What was that? It sounded to him like a mirror had broken. The very next moment, something bumped his globe, sending it flying. It landed on the office floor, then rolled crazily off into a corner, where (annoyingly) he still couldn’t see anything. He sat there, feeling dizzy from all the commotion.
Hey! A crack had formed in his snow globe, Jack noticed with excitement. Must have happened when it hit the floor.
At last, a way out!
Fifteen minutes earlier …
At the end of sixth-period class on Thursday, twelve-year-old Snowflake was summoned to her doom. In other words, she got called to the principal’s office.
She’d been to the office only once before — a week ago when she’d first enrolled at Grimm Academy — to get her class assignments. Going there again was something she’d rather avoid. Why? Because she was afraid of fire-breathing dragons. And the office assistant, Ms. Jabberwocky, was the closest thing there was to a dragon that she’d ever met.
She dropped off her Handbook in her trunker, which was the same as a locker except it was an actual trunk standing on end along the hall. Reflected in the mirror that hung inside her trunker’s door, Snowflake’s heart-shaped face looked pale against her long, shiny black hair. The ends of her hair looked as if they’d been dipped in blue ink, but i
t was naturally that way, not dyed.
After shutting her trunker, Snowflake stepped over to a nearby window. The glass was a little foggy. She drew a little round peephole in the misty pane with her fingertip so she could peek outside. Back when she was a little girl in her village, the grandmother who ran the orphanage she’d grown up in had shown her how to do that.
A pang of homesickness filled her. She pushed it away. She could not go back to the village on the outskirts of Grimmlandia, not ever. Her old friends were scared of her now. Scared of her powers. She’d overheard them gossiping that she was being sent here to GA for “observation.” Whether or not that was true, she had no idea. However, she didn’t like the thought of being spied on, especially since, lately, things around her could sometimes get, well, weird.
Hearing footsteps, Snowflake glanced over her shoulder and saw a boy she didn’t recognize heading in her direction. Hoping he hadn’t seen her looking his way, she started off again, walking fast now. As she moved ahead of him down the first-floor hall of Grimm Academy, she pretended to study the interior of the building, trying to appear totally fascinated by her surroundings. And she was, actually. But she was also hoping the boy wouldn’t speak to her if she looked busy.
She adored the Academy. Especially its architecture. She was really into buildings. However, although she was really good at designing cool ones on paper, she was no good at figuring out their internal structure — their bones. Everything she had ever actually built for real tended to fall down. Luckily, she hadn’t built this school!
Her admiring gaze noted the marble walls here in Pink Castle. They were the pale pink of a morning sunrise and were hung with tapestries stitched with scenes of elaborate feasts and pageantry. Tall stone support columns, whose tops were carved with birds, flowers, and gargoyles, supported the high ceilings.
At the other end of the school was Gray Castle, so-called because of its blue-gray walls. A Great Hall stretched between the two castles like a multistory bridge across the bright blue waters of the Once Upon River, which flowed merrily along underneath. Boys lived in dorms atop Gray Castle and girls lived in dorms atop Pink Castle, but they all shared classes on the lower floors of both castles during the day.
“Hey, do you know where the principal’s office is?”
Quibblesnorts! That boy had caught up with her. He was tall and had wavy dark brown hair and green eyes. He also looked fit, like a guy who’d be good at sports.
“On the fourth floor of Pink Castle,” Snowflake replied. “Up the grand staircase with the other offices and stuff.” After sharing that information, she sped up.
“The grand where-case?” he asked, easily keeping pace with her.
Was that supposed to be a joke? She was in no mood. She sighed and slowed down a little. Maybe he’d go ahead of her and she could drop back even more. No such luck. He stuck with her, gazing around the halls with interest, too.
So why had he been called to the office? she wondered. For that matter, why had she been called? She couldn’t be in academic trouble already, could she? Was this about that failing grade she’d gotten on her very first Comportment test? That was a dumb class about manners. The teacher, Ms. Queenharts, should be nicknamed Ms. Meanharts if she’d reported that grade to the principal before Snowflake even had a chance to try to do better!
Thing was, she’d never been good at tests. If she even heard the word test, she got instant brain freeze. So she’d panicked when Ms. Queenharts had announced a pop quiz yesterday. The quiz had been about cutlery arrangements for fancy occasions. Unable to think straight, Snowflake had gotten the correct placement of knives, forks, and spoons completely reversed.
Though she was pretty sure she wasn’t dim-witted, she knew that some kids at her old school — and probably here now, too — thought she wasn’t the brightest candle in the candelabra. And sometimes her frustration during tests made her feel, well, testy. Twice at her old school she’d gotten so flustered that she’d stormed out of a classroom in the middle of a quiz. Still, she’d never admit she had a problem.
She tried to act tough. She was tough. Cold as ice. Didn’t need anybody or anything. That was her. The new her, anyway. Because if you didn’t let anyone get close enough to make friends, no one could hurt your feelings, right? She’d been hurt in the past, betrayed by her so-called friends in the village. But she didn’t want to think about that right now.
Just then, she reached the grand staircase and began to climb.
“So, is the office up these stairs?” the boy asked. When she nodded curtly, he turned to follow her up. Now they walked side by side, the only ones on the stairs, not speaking. Despite her vow to be tough, the silence was starting to get uncomfortable.
“You going to the office, too?” he asked.
She nodded again, but without looking his way. “Mm-hmm.”
“Think we’re going to be fried?” he asked.
“Huh?” Now she did look at him. Was he scared of dragons, too?
He grinned, one side of his mouth quirking up just a little higher than the other to cause a dimple in his cheek. “I’m a little jittery about the alchemy experiments. Back home at my school, we heard rumors about this place. Something about a grumpy principal? And students getting melted into lumps during his gold-making experiments? I even heard that Principal Rumpelstiltskin —”
Snowflake stopped dead on the second-floor landing. “Ooh! Don’t ever call him that!” she said automatically, her blue eyes going round. “I’ve only been here a week, but even I know that’s a really bad idea. It’s against the rules, and he’ll get super upset.”
All of this was information she’d figured out on her own or looked up in the Academy Handbook. Although everything had been new to her when she’d arrived at GA, she’d never asked anyone for help. That could lead to making friends.
“So what do I call him?” the boy asked as they continued upward again. “Does he use a nickname?”
She shot him another glance. She supposed she should try to help him. He might not be as skilled as she was at figuring stuff out. “Mostly, Principal R.”
“His nickname is Mostly Principal R?”
“No —” Thinking he’d misunderstood, Snowflake started to explain that he should leave off the mostly. But then she noticed his eyes were twinkling. He’d been joking around. “Oh,” she said.
He laughed, sending light gold sparkles into his green eyes. “Maybe we should make up our own nicknames for him,” the boy went on. “Like Principal Rumpelgold. Or how about Rumpygrumpy? Or Grumpystiltskin?”
She laughed, too, now, though her laugh sounded a bit rusty since she hadn’t used it in a while. “That last one’s already a nickname the students call him.”
“Okay, Crankystiltskin, instead,” the boy said as they reached the third floor. They both laughed again.
“The guys at my old school would think it was hilarious to hear me say I’m freaked out about meeting him,” he confided. “I’m considered kind of a tough guy back home.”
Snowflake stared at him. She was tough, too, or trying to be. It surprised her that he might be like her.
She let down her guard a little more, and soon, they were talking away like they’d known each other for weeks.
“You’re new?” she asked him.
He nodded. “Just got here a few minutes ago by coach. I’m supposed to get my class assignments and trunker key from the office first thing according to a letter I was sent.”
“I came last Friday,” she told him. They’d arrived at the top of the grand staircase on the fourth floor. To their left was a door. When he reached out for its knob, she moved quicker and had the door open first. Beyond it, a twisty staircase to their right went up to the fifth- and sixth-floor girls’ dorms, but she took him past those stairs and down the hall instead. “This way. The office is down here.”
As they headed through the hall, they passed a door that was propped open. She looked in and saw it was the library. For s
ome reason, there were a bunch of sturdy-looking trolls wearing uniforms in there talking to Ms. Goose, the librarian.
The boy beside her craned his neck, noticing the rows and rows of books and other stuff visible through the doorway. “The library?” he asked.
“Mm-hmm. It moves around the Academy, though, so it probably won’t be here tomorrow.”
“Yeah?” He looked a little skeptical.
She nodded. “Cross my heart. It’s true. Just look for a plain brass doorknob along the halls next time you need to find it. It could be anywhere in the school, but you’ll know it because it’s the only knob that doesn’t have the intertwined GA logo on it. There’s more to tell about the library, but I don’t want to overwhelm you.”
“Too late! I’m already overwhelmed,” he told her. But his smile showed that he didn’t really mean it.
So far, Snowflake had successfully kept her distance from other students at GA, but this boy’s smile made her want to smile back. She wondered who he was and whether he was a character from a fairy tale or a nursery rhyme or what. But she didn’t ask since she didn’t want him asking her the same thing. Because she didn’t have an answer.
The grandmother at the orphanage had informed her she was probably from a nursery rhyme. It hadn’t seemed to matter to anyone which rhyme until lately, when her so-called “powers” had started to become a problem.
Snowflake was sure that once this boy got to know the real her and found out what a troublemaker she was (just ask anyone in her village), he wouldn’t like her. She steeled herself not to care. She didn’t need anyone to like her. She didn’t need friends. Certainly not the kind from her village who ratted you out when your magic powers started to make themselves known.
“This is it,” she said. They’d arrived at the office.
When they started to go in, the boy stopped and touched the top of his head. “Uh-oh. Forgot my crown back in my luggage. I’d better go catch the footmen before they stick my bags in a room somewhere.”
“Oh. You’re a prince?” she asked.
