by Joan Holub
Snowflake raised her hand. “I hate tests,” she said, just being honest.
“Who doesn’t?” said Red Riding Hood, nodding.
“Never fear,” Wolfgang said in a teacher-y voice. “There’s eggsellent information in your Handbooks that can help you get over your eggzam worries. Take a look.”
“Really?” Snowflake did as he’d suggested. Holding her Handbook in the crook of one arm, she pushed the oval GA logo on the front of it with an index finger, saying, “Grimm Academy Handbook.” You had to make clear what you wanted to read about before opening the Handbook, because it could change its text to reflect whatever class you were in.
Wolfgang and Red continued acting, but Snowflake forgot all about them as she flipped to the back of the book. There, she found test taking in the index. When she pressed her finger on the words, a bubble rose to float in front of her. Words inside it read: Test-Taking Tips to Relieve Anxiety.
What do you know? Wolfgang hadn’t just made up that stuff he’d said while pretending to be Mr. Hump-Dumpty!
“Last-minute cramming?” Wolfgang asked her, in his teacher voice.
Snowflake snapped to attention, only then remembering they were in the middle of doing a scene. “Oh, uh, no, sir. Just reading suggestions to relieve test-taking anxiety.”
“Do give us some eggzamples,” Wolfgang invited. “I’m sure other students will find such tips beneficial.”
“Uh, okay.” Snowflake decided to skip the most obvious test-taking tip: Study. “Here’s a good one.” She read it aloud: “Don’t panic if you don’t know the answer to a question. If you blank on something, just move on to another part of the test.”
Following her lead, Red picked up an invisible test. She gazed at it, her eyes bugging out to demonstrate what not to do. Then she froze and looked around with a panicked expression that was so comical, even Snowflake laughed.
“Here’s another tip,” Snowflake went on. “If you notice you are not thinking clearly, set the test aside and take a few slow deep breaths to help clear your mind and reduce your stress.” She proceeded to ball up a pretend test, toss it over one shoulder, and then draw a happy, relieved breath.
The audience laughed.
“I think you may have misinterpreted that tip,” noted Wolfgang. “You still have to take the test.”
“Yes, Mr. Hump-Dumpty,” Red and Snowflake replied with comically woeful expressions.
“One last tip,” said Snowflake. “Pay attention to your test, not to what others are doing.”
Immediately, Red hopped up and went over to Wolfgang. “All finished, Mr. Hump-Dumpty! I think I aced it,” she said, handing him her imaginary test.
Snowflake glanced up at Red and Wolfgang from her own pretend test and made an exaggerated “worried” face. Looking out at the audience, she wailed, “I’m doomed!” Then she practically fell out of her chair in a pretend faint. The class roared with laughter.
With a feeling of triumph, Snowflake straightened and shut her Handbook. Snap!
The audience clapped and cheered as the three actors bowed. Snowflake couldn’t believe how much fun that scene had been. She’d heard that Red Riding Hood and Wolfgang had won the leads in the two most recent school plays and it was no wonder. They were good!
“Nicely done! I like how you included the Handbook, yardstick, and chairs as impromptu props,” noted Mr. Thumb.
Snowflake was practically glowing as she, Red, and Wolfgang left the stage. Though they’d poked fun at those test-taking tips, she wondered if they could actually help her. Maybe she’d give them a shot for real sometime during an actual test.
They’d barely taken their seats together in the audience when a big bird whooshed from the hall into the auditorium. Several students pointed, squinting up at the creature. “How did that woodpecker get in here?” “I think it’s a parrot.” “No, look at that beak. It’s a giant hummingbird!”
Their flying visitor swooped lower. “I’m a sprite, fools! Name’s Jack Frost.”
So this was the gold spinner! thought Snowflake. He had a beak, er, nose shaped like a carrot and wore a tasseled knit cap, sweater, and scarf. His breath came in frosty puffs when he spoke. Although he was considerably larger than Mr. Thumb, Jack Frost was still small. About the size of the bunny calmly sleeping in Red Riding Hood’s basket.
“Well, Mr. Frost, we are conducting a class here!” Tom Thumb bullhorned at him. “Please go away.”
“Excuuuse me!” the visitor huffed in a tone that indicated he wasn’t at all sorry for interrupting. “Principal R said I can drop into classes to test students for talent in spinning straw into gold whenever I wish. In fact, I have a signed note from him to that effect!” Jack Frost whipped out a little rolled-up piece of paper and presented it to the teacher.
After studying it, Mr. Thumb sighed. “Class, it appears that Mr. Frost does indeed have permission to administer a test as he pleases.”
Mr. Thumb reluctantly yielded the class, and the sprite took over. Flying back and forth above the edge of the stage, he gazed out at the students. “As you may have heard, I am looking for a very special trainee. Someone with the right talent to assist me in spinning the principal’s magic straw into gold.” He glanced over at the teacher. “To save time, I will test your entire class at once.”
Mr. Thumb sighed. “Fine. Please be quick about it. I’ll be backstage.”
Snowflake slumped behind the student in front of her. Tests, ugh. The other students began grumbling, too.
“We’ve already tried spinning the straw and failed,” someone protested.
“Yeah, why should we have to be tested again?” another called out.
“Because my test is new and better, and the results may be different,” said Jack Frost.
It turned out to be an odd test. First, he instructed them to hold out a hand, palm up. Next, a container of water was passed around, and they each had to pour about a spoonful of it into their upturned palm, then wait to learn the next step.
“Huh? How is this going to help him find someone who can spin straw into gold?” Red Riding Hood wondered aloud as she poured water into her hand.
“No clue,” said Snowflake. After doing the same and passing the pitcher on, she peered at the water in her palm. It had particles of something in it. Dust?
“Everyone ready?” When all the students nodded, Jack Frost went on. “Now close your hand into a fist. After I count to five, you can open it.” Everyone did as instructed.
“Okay, one, two, three, four, five … open sesame!” shouted Jack Frost.
All around Snowflake, she heard disappointed or annoyed murmurs as students checked their palms. “Yeah, just like I thought — nothing happened.” “Except the water in my hand leaked out onto my lap!” “This test is so lame.” “Whatever!”
Slowly, Snowflake opened her hand, palm up. There was no gold in her palm, but … there was something else. Something weird.
“Yep, still water,” she heard Red say from beside her. Rubbing her hands together briskly to dry them off, Red leaned over to Wolfgang.
“Same,” he said, playfully flicking the water in his palm toward her.
Laughing, Red leaned Snowflake’s way to duck the spray of water. “Hey! What’s that?” she shouted, drawing everyone’s attention as she stared into Snowflake’s open palm.
In a nanosecond, Jack Frost shot across the auditorium to hover in front of Snowflake. “Puffin’ permafrost!” he exclaimed when he saw what her palm held. Everywhere, students were standing and craning their necks to see.
Snowflake wasn’t sure why everyone was getting so excited. She’d failed the test same as everyone else. She hadn’t made gold. Instead, she held … a perfect blue-white snowflake as big as her entire hand.
“Look, it’s cold!” someone shouted, pointing out the frosty air around it.
“But it isn’t melting,” noted another student.
“Cool!” pronounced Red.
Snowflake tried to
shake off the snowflake. It came off all right, but it didn’t fall to the floor. Instead, it began whirling and twirling in the air around her like some kind of crazy, six-sided pancake, leaving a trail of magic sparkles in its wake.
“What’s your name?” Jack Frost demanded eagerly.
“Snowflake.”
“I know it’s a snowflake, but what’s your name?”
“That is my name,” she told him.
Her mind had begun to race with wild, worried thoughts. Was making a snowflake a “horrid” thing to do? Had her bangs been curly when she was a baby? Was she about to find out she really was the Little Girl Who Had a Little Curl? Stop it! she silently hissed at herself. Making a snowflake was hardly proof that that particular nursery rhyme was hers. If anything, it might show the opposite since the rhyme didn’t mention snowflakes at all. But then who was she?
Itching to get away from all the attention — as well as the snowflake — she stood. The flake still dipped and soared around her doing sparkly acrobatics. It just wouldn’t leave her alone! And to complicate matters, her bunny — no, he was not hers, she reminded herself — started banging around inside Red Riding Hood’s basket.
Suddenly, the bunny-powered basket hopped out into the main aisle and bounded away with the bunny inside. Boing! Boing!
Too stunned to act, all the other students looked on as Red and Snowflake took off after the bouncing basket.
“Hey, wait!” shouted Jack Frost. He zipped through the air after the girls.
Outside the auditorium, the bunny boinged out of the basket and hopped away. As Red Riding Hood stopped to scoop up her basket, Snowflake continued after the bunny. Despite the trouble he caused, the cute critter was growing on her. She needed to make sure he would be okay.
She was so focused on trying to recapture him that she didn’t notice she’d failed to rid herself of the pesky six-sided snowflake she’d made. It was still following her!
Snowflake finally caught up to the bunny outside the library, which had relocated itself to the first floor of Pink Castle today. When she set her Handbook on the floor and picked up the little guy, his heart was thumping wildly.
“Why’d you hop off like that, silly?” she asked. She cuddled him to her chest, stroking his soft fur. “I guess that’s just what rabbits do, huh?”
He nuzzled her hand in reply, snuggling closer. Since the period hadn’t actually let out yet, the halls around her were empty and quiet. Then a voice piped up.
“Honk!” It was the library’s goose-head knob. “You again!” it exclaimed. “You owe me, remember? You’ll have to answer two riddles to get in this time!”
Snowflake pursed her lips in annoyance. “Sorry, but I’m kind of in a hurry again. The Hickory Dickory Dock clock’s going to bong in about fifteen minutes, and I have stuff I need to get done in there before my next class.”
The gooseknob glared at her. If it had had an actual goose body, she felt sure it would’ve crossed its wings and tapped a foot impatiently.
She sighed. “All right, but make the riddles easy. Please? Like I said, I’m in a hurry.”
“Honk! Seems to me you’re always in a hurry,” observed the knob. It eyed the bunny, and then posed this question: “How do you make a hop optimistic?”
“Um … change it to hoptimistic?” she replied quickly.
“Ha-ha-ha!” the knob honk-laughed. “I never thought of that! I was actually going for ‘Add an e on the end of hop to make the word hope.’ But I like your answer, so I’ll accept it.”
“Really? Thanks.” Snowflake felt optimistically hopeful that the gooseknob would appreciate her creativity so much it would let her skip answering a second riddle. But no such luck.
“And now for my next question,” announced the knob. “The opposite of a sad bunny is what kind of bunny?”
“A hopposite one?” she said, adopting the same strategy she’d used to come up with her first answer.
Only this time the knob didn’t laugh. “That doesn’t even make sense,” it scolded her. “You’re just being a lazy thinker now. Try again.”
She let out a little huff, but then tried to puzzle things out. “Well, the opposite of sad is glad, or cheerful, or happy,” she mused aloud. “Hmm. Happy. Is the opposite of a sad bunny a hoppy one?”
Snick! Without another word, the gooseknob turned back into a plain round knob. Right away, a rectangle that was several feet taller than Snowflake and about four feet wide magically drew itself on the wall around the knob. That became the library door, decorated with low-relief carvings of nursery-rhyme characters like Little Bo Peep and her sheep.
With book and bunny now cradled in her arms, Snowflake turned the knob and dashed for her makeshift room in Section F. Luckily, Ms. Goose was nowhere in sight. And there were only a few students around as she made a couple of stops along the way. In the B section, she picked up a box full of shredded paper for a bunny bathroom. And in the D section, she snagged a dish of drinking water for the critter.
Darting into her room at last, she laid out everything she thought the bunny would need and got it settled. Then she sat on her high feather bed, pondering Jack Frost’s “test.”
Suddenly she heard a noise outside her room. Swish! Swish!
What in Grimmlandia was that? She climbed down from the top mattress and went to open the door a crack, barely wide enough to peek out. Huh? There, levitating in midair outside her door, was … the snowflake from Drama! She thought she’d escaped it, yet here it was, back again. Had another student entered the library and let it in without noticing?
“Go away,” she whispered to it. “I don’t need you drawing attention to me and my secret room, thank you very much.”
Instead of obeying, the hand-size snowflake began to whirl around in excited little circles and bump against the door, as if overjoyed to see her again. Snowflake quickly stepped out of her room, closing it behind her.
She flicked both hands at the flake. “Shoo! Go find some snowflake friends and make a snowball or something!”
Just then, Rapunzel and Cinda walked by, carrying papers and pens. Cinda’s roommate, a shapeshifting mermaid named Mermily, was with them.
“Hi,” Cinda said to Snowflake.
“Hi. You guys here to do homework or something?” she asked, trying to sound casual. It wasn’t easy to do. From the corner of her eye, she could see the snowflake on an empty shelf behind the girls, rolling around on its edges like a six-sided wheel. Then it started doing flips and hops, obviously trying to get her attention.
“Our whole Grimm History class is in the library,” Cinda told her. “Mr. Hump-Dumpty is bringing everyone here to research Dastardlies today.”
“Guess I’m right where I need to be, then,” said Snowflake. “I’ve got History next period.”
Before she could say anything more, the snowflake zoomed over, whooshing around the girls and sending sparkles into the air.
Snowflake frowned, but the other girls giggled in delight.
Thump! Thump!
Oh, fuzzbobbers. Now she could hear that bunny hopping around inside her room. Her companions looked at her door.
“What was that?” asked Rapunzel.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Snowflake fibbed. If the girls pushed that door open and discovered she was staying here, she’d probably get in big trouble.
“So … Dastardlies, huh? Can I start researching with you?” she asked, ushering everyone toward the next aisle and away from her secret room. “Since I’m already here, I might as well get going on the assignment early. We should probably head for Section D.” She hurried in that direction, hoping the bunny didn’t make too much mischief while she was gone.
As the four girls headed for D, the annoying snowflake caught up to them again. Mermily pointed it out. “Is that your magical charm?” she asked Snowflake as the flake gracefully swooped around them.
“What? No! It just keeps hanging around me.” Snowflake didn’t tell them she’d accident
ally made the flake in Drama class. Instead, she shot off toward the library exit, planning to shoo it out into the hall. Curious, Cinda, Rapunzel, and Mermily followed.
Cinda flipped her blond hair over one shoulder as she caught up to Snowflake. “Are you sure it isn’t your charm?” she asked. “I didn’t think my glass slippers were my charm at first, either. I wasn’t convinced till they started dancing me around at Prince Awesome’s ball and helped me find a hidden map.”
“Took me a while to figure out about my charm, too,” said Rapunzel as they all paused just inside the library door. “Not until my comb started resizing itself and changing shape at my command did I know for sure it was mine.”
“I haven’t gotten a charm yet,” Mermily said, sounding a little sad. “Most kids wait years before they get one, though. And magical charms only come to those who are good of heart.”
Cinda gave her a quick hug. “Which means you’ll get yours any day now.” Mermily started to smile at her, but then a look of surprise filled her face as the sparkly flake swooped past her nose.
It zoomed twice around their group before landing lightly upon Snowflake’s head like a flat hat. “Hey! Stop that!” she yelled. She ducked from under it, then stuck out her hand and batted it away.
Snap! When her hand made contact, the snowflake grew a stem! The stem slipped itself into her palm, and her fingers automatically wrapped around it. A startled hush fell over the four girls as they stared at the snowflake-on-a-stick she now clasped.
Cinda clapped gleefully, bouncing on her toes. “See? It must be your charm.”
“A white six-sided pancake flake on a lollipop stick?” Snowflake said doubtfully.
The other girls laughed. “Not a lollipop,” Rapunzel said, squinting at it critically. “It’s more like a … a wand.”
Mermily’s eyes lit up. “That’s it! It’s a magic wand!”
Snowflake gazed at the snowflake-topped stick in wonder. Her fingers folded more firmly around the wand — if that’s what it really was. It fit her hand perfectly. She remembered Ms. Goose’s remark about how one day she would find something in the library that fit. Snowflake had thought she meant a tale, not a thing. Then you’ll be filled with recognition. You’ll just know.
