Rapunzel Cuts Loose, page 2
part #4 of Grimmtastic Girls Series
“A magical good morning to you all, class!” trilled Ms. Blue Fairygodmother. She tapped her wand on her desk, and then stood. A huge bubble of pale blue light surrounded her. Instead of walking, she floated inside her bubble to stand before her desk, hovering a few inches above the ground. Freaky. But in a grimmarkable sort of way!
With everyone’s attention on her, Ms. Blue said, “Open your Handbooks to Chapter Nine, please.”
Realizing that Basil still had her book, Rapunzel leaned out and motioned for him to pass it to her, which he did.
“Crush alert!” Prince Foulsmell teased. He put his hand over his heart and patted it really fast, to imply that Basil’s heart was racing just because she was nearby.
Awesome and Perfect stared hard at Basil as if trying to figure out if this were true.
As if, thought Rapunzel, rolling her eyes. They were pals, that’s all. She hoped Prince Perfect knew that.
Rapunzel pressed a fingertip to the raised oval shape on her Handbook’s cover. There was a swirly gold-stamped GA (for Grimm Academy, of course) logo inside the oval. All school subjects were contained in one Handbook, but not all at once. Students had to ask for whatever subject they wanted for it to appear.
“Bespellings and Enchantments,” she instructed her book. Then she opened it to find that the first page was printed with the words:
This
Grimm Academy
Handbook
belongs to
Rapunzel.
Third period:
Bespellings and Enchantments
Rapunzel thumbed down the contents page and pressed her fingertip over the words Chapter Nine: Enchanted Plants. Her book magically flipped its pages open to the chapter she’d chosen. There, she found pictures of weird plants such as talking cacti and strange-looking strangler vines. She tapped one of the pictures. Up popped a lifelike Venus flytrap. It snapped at her nose, making her jump back in surprise. Then it snapped back into the book, becoming a flat picture on the page again.
“Today we will grow tongue twisters,” Ms. Blue announced to the class. Every eye followed her as she floated back and forth at the front of the room. “Tongue twisters are phrases or sentences that are difficult to speak quickly. Can anyone tell me why that might be?”
Mary Mary Quite Contrary, the red-haired girl who was seated on Rapunzel’s left, waved her hand high. When called on, she summarized the words from the first page in Chapter Nine, saying, “Because they contain repeated sequences of words with very, very similar sounds.”
“Precisely.” Ms. Blue Fairygodmother gave her wand a brisk wave in the air, making a musical trill. Schwing! Twenty terra-cotta flowerpots magically appeared on the tabletops, one before each student. Rapunzel tilted hers to look inside. It was empty. She waited for Ms. Blue to explain the purpose of the pots, but instead, the teacher asked, “Now, can anyone tell us the value of tongue twisters?”
“Actors use them,” Rapunzel volunteered when no one else said anything. She’d heard Red Riding Hood and her crush, Wolfgang, speaking tongue twisters before their Drama class. “To sort of loosen up, in preparation for reading lines of dialogue.”
Ms. Blue nodded approvingly. “Yes, tongue twisters can certainly help develop speech skills. They even play an occasional part in some of the nursery rhymes preserved here in Grimmlandia by the Grimm brothers. Besides that, they’re fun to try to say.”
Her musical laughter rang out as she waved her wand again. “I have just magically placed a seed packet inside your pot. Please use the letter inside it to create the words you will speak aloud in order to grow your tongue twister. Remember that you must only speak the words of your tongue twister directly to your pot. We don’t want to grow twisters on one another!”
Everyone chuckled over that and then began opening their packets. Everyone except Rapunzel. Normally, she loved this class, with its vials of bubbling potions and shelves of weird objects that wriggled, whispered, and sometimes let out screeches or squeaks. She could study for a thousand years and never learn everything there was to know about magic!
But today, her mind was on that message marble and what instructions it might contain. In the general noisy shuffle of students getting to work, she pulled the small, round crystal from her pocket.
She leaned forward, letting her long hair drape like a curtain around her so the girls on either side of her wouldn’t see what she did next. Opening her hand in her lap, she gazed at the clear marble in her palm and waited for the message to reveal itself. It didn’t take long. Within seconds, the marble dissolved and expanded into a ball of pale gray mist as big as her palm. Black letters formed in the mist, running across it in a line. Quickly she read them before they could disappear for good. It wasn’t hard, because this particular message contained only one word repeated over and over: Rampion. Rampion. Rampion.
Rapunzel stared at the words, feeling the blood drain from her face. When she finished reading, the mist gathered itself smaller and turned to a solid crystal marble again. Mistress Hagscorch’s initials were gone from the marble now, so that it could be reused by anyone. She tucked it into her black bag and pushed her hair back over her shoulders.
Mary Mary looked over just then. She stared hard at Rapunzel’s face. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong? Are you sick?” the girl demanded in alarm. She jerked her head back as if afraid of catching germs. “You look like you feel really, really terrible. Like maybe … like maybe you just saw a ghost flower!”
“Is a ghost flower a plant that actually grows in the Bouquet Garden?” a princess named Pea asked from the table behind theirs.
Mary Mary shook her head. “No! To see one causes a fever that makes you go pale.” She would be the one to know, thought Rapunzel. Her tower task was Gardenkeeper, which meant she was in charge of the big garden that grew on the grounds surrounding Grimm Academy.
At the beginning of every school year, a tower task was assigned to each student for the entire term. Putting Mary Mary in charge of the garden had seemed an odd match to Rapunzel. Flowers were so bright and cheery and, well, agreeable. Yet Mary Mary Quite Contrary was positively negative about pretty much everything.
This year, Cinda had gotten the task of Hearthkeeper, Snow was Tidy-upper, and Red Riding Hood was Snackmaker. But Rapunzel had kept her task a secret from everyone. Because it was way grimmbarrassing. She’d been chosen as a Gatherer, a task usually assigned just to witches! And that was something Rapunzel did not want anyone thinking she would grow up to be. Yet in the depths of her heart, she feared it could happen one day.
As a Gatherer, her job was to help gather whatever Mistress Hagscorch needed in the way of herbs, spices, and hard-to-find veggies once a week. The cook used them to concoct the rather strange, but tasty, meals she served each day in the Academy’s Great Hall.
“Know what I think?” asked Mary Mary. Then, without waiting for an answer, she went on. “You should go, go, go see the doctor, the nurse, and that lady with the alligator purse in the infirmary.” She flicked her fingers toward the door, shooing Rapunzel away.
“I’m okay,” she insisted before Mary Mary could start everyone worrying that she’d caught something contagious, which she hadn’t. But Mary Mary was right about one thing. Rapunzel did feel kind of like she’d just seen a ghost. One from her past that wore a pointy black hat. She shivered.
Why had Mistress Hagscorch requested rampion? She never had before. Rampion was a magical, spinachlike plant that grew in only one location in Grimmlandia as far as Rapunzel knew — the deep, dark, very scary Neverwood Forest. The woods where everyone said you “never would” go if you had half a brain. The rampion patch grew there, at the foot of a tower that was guarded by a witch. The very witch who’d raised her until she was six years old! And Rapunzel was not going back to see her. Nuh-uh. No way. She’d have to talk Hagscorch out of this assignment. But how?
She snapped back to attention when Ms. Blue clapped her hands together in delight. “I almost forgot the most exciting part of this assignment,” said the teacher. “Your tongue twister pot plants will be used to help decorate the grounds on Heart Island for the Grimmlandia Festival this weekend. Festival attendees will judge your creations, and awards will be given to the top three.” She paused before adding, “The awards will include no-homework days and tokens for free items in The Cupboard.”
At this, Foulsmell punched a fist in the air. “Yes!” Basil and Awesome high-fived as excited murmurs filled the room. The Cupboard was a small supply store on the fourth floor of the Academy, run by a shopkeeper named Old Mother Hubbard. It was stocked with regular stuff like vellum paper and quill pens, but also with oddball curiosities such as magical bones.
“I heard it was going to rain on Saturday,” Mary Mary informed everyone within earshot. Rapunzel rolled her eyes. Leave it to Mary Mary to be a wet blanket.
When Ms. Blue began floating around the room in her ball of light to check on students’ progress, Rapunzel realized she’d better get busy. She checked inside her pot and found a small packet. After tearing it open, she discovered within it a single seed that was shaped like the letter W. But what was she supposed to do with it exactly? She skimmed the chapter that gave directions.
Create a tongue twister in which more than half of the words begin with the sound of your assigned letter or letter group, she read silently. Immediately, W words began to fill her mind, and she wrote various combinations of them on a blank sheet of vellum. Wand, wish, walrus, wonky … witch. No! She scratched out that last one.
It was no secret at GA that she’d been raised by a witch (it was written in the Grimm tales, after all), but she was not a witch herself and she would never become one. Not if she could help it!
All around her, others began chanting tongue twisters at their flowerpots. Spirits were high and there was much giggling.
One table up, Goldilocks leaned toward her flowerpot and chanted loudly: “Five fuzzy bears followed four furry foxes in the forest.” Obviously she’d gotten the seed letter F. There were gasps all around as a leafy green vine sprang from the soil in her pot and coiled upward. Nine blossoms instantly opened to reveal five little stuffed fuzzy bears and four furry toy foxes. Adorable!
The teacher paused to admire the plant, then instructed Goldilocks to go further. “To get even more blossoms, repeat your tongue twister quickly over and over, as many times as you can, without stumbling or mispronouncing. The more times you say your twister correctly, the more objects will blossom.”
“And that will increase your chances of making a plant that wins an award at the festival!” Rapunzel heard a bubbly voice say. It was Mermily, who sat on her other side. She was a mermaid and Cinda’s roommate in Pearl Tower dorm.
Now Mermily chanted a tongue twister into her flowerpot: “Shy Shari Shellfish sells shiny seashells to ships by the seashore.” She managed to say it three times without a mistake. A vine with three large, shiny seashells curled upward from the soil in her pot.
Rapunzel looked over to see that Mermily had gotten a seed in the shape of the letter group SH. “Nice job,” she told her.
Mary Mary let out a big sigh. “I absolutely hate, hate, hate my letter,” she complained when Rapunzel looked her way. “Will you trade?”
“Sure,” Rapunzel agreed, knowing that Mary Mary would probably have complained no matter what letter she got. And would keep on complaining until someone traded with her. She handed off her W, then looked at the letter Mary passed to her in exchange. An X? What was she going to do with that? It really was an awful choice to get stuck with. Without thinking, she’d made a truly stinky bargain! She frowned at Mary Mary.
“A deal’s a deal,” Mary Mary said quickly. “No givebacks.”
Down the table, the boys started joking around. “I got the letter B,” Perfect announced. “Hmm … Basil starts with a B….” He paused then, appearing totally stumped about how to go on.
Mary Mary eyed him dreamily. When Ms. Blue wasn’t looking, she scribbled something on a slip of paper, which she then folded and held high in her hand. Instantly, a blue bird swooped in from the open window and carried her note to Perfect.
He read the note, and then smiled at her. Holding it before him, he chanted aloud to his pot. “Basil bought a big beautiful blossoming bouquet of bright blue begonias … with boogers.” Whoosh! A vine shot up and a bouquet of blue flowers speckled with boogers blossomed forth.
All of the guys around Perfect cracked up.
“Eew!” said Mermily. She and Rapunzel frowned at Mary Mary.
Mary Mary’s eyes widened. “I did not, not, not write the booger part,” she assured them. “Perfect added that himself.”
“Way to get a girl to do your work for you,” Foulsmell told the prince wryly. In fact, Rapunzel thought, girls often did do things for Perfect. It wasn’t really fair or right, but something about him — his perfect looks, perhaps — just made every girl want to do whatever it took to get his attention.
“My turn,” Basil said. “It so happens I got P.” After giving Perfect a mock-evil grin, he stared at his pot. Then he came up with a doozy of a chant. “Prince Perfect picked a perfect peck of purple pickles. A peck of purple pickles Prince Perfect perfectly picked. If Prince Perfect picked a perfect peck of purple pickles, where’s the peck of purple pickles Prince Perfect perfectly picked?” He managed to repeat all of that five times without a mistake.
Everyone laughed as a vine hanging with bunches of purple pickles whooshed up from Basil’s pot. Perfect reached out and snatched off one of the bunches.
“Hey!” complained Basil.
“Sorry!” said Perfect. “But your twister did say I picked them.” Which was kind of funny, thought Rapunzel. But still, Perfect shouldn’t have done that. Now there was a blank spot on Basil’s plant.
However, the easygoing Basil fixed this by simply repeating his tongue twister, which caused the empty spot to fill in. Rapunzel quit watching the boys so she could attend to her own troublesome tongue twister.
She racked her brain for X words. Ibex, hex, ox, ax, fox, pixie. But she couldn’t use them. Her words had to start with X. Oh, wait! Maybe xylophone would work. She practically gave herself a headache trying to think up any more X words, though. Then she remembered that their book said the words in tongue twisters must begin with similar sounds, not necessarily letters. Hmm. Since the X in xylophone sounded like Z, could she use Z words, too? That would give her more choices. She wrote some ideas, finally ending up with: “Zany Zachary zigzagged alone through the zoo’s zebra zone with his xylophone.” She said it four times without making a mistake.
Up whooshed a vine. Immediately, eight-inch-long xylophones and little toy zebras bloomed upon it. Delighted, she pulled out her pen and tapped out a little tune on the colored bars of one of the xylophones, which made the students around her laugh.
“No! No fair. You only used one X — one X — in your whole twister,” Mary Mary was swift to point out.
“But it rhymed,” Mermily noted. “So actually I think you should get extra points!” she told Rapunzel.
“Thanks,” Rapunzel replied, smiling. Then she turned to Mary Mary. “Need any help with yours?” she asked, hoping her offer would keep the girl from calling more attention to her own possible bending of the rules.
Mary Mary sighed deeply and leaned over to show her the words she’d come up with. “I want to write a twister with the word wiggle in it. Only I can’t think of anything good.”
Rapunzel suggested a few rearrangements of the words on Mary Mary’s list. Then the girl began, saying, “If a wacky wiggly white worm …”
Just then, something soft and slinky wound around Rapunzel’s ankles. She looked down. “Mordred!” He hadn’t left the classroom after all, that bad cat! The cat ignored her, eyeing Mary Mary with a rascally expression. Uh-oh! He loved chasing anything wiggly — including worms!
“… waved at a wig-wearing wiggling worm whizzing by,” Mary Mary went on, “which worm would be the …” Rapunzel leaned down to grab Mordred, but he leaped past her and up onto the table. Standing right in front of Mary Mary, he shook himself. Enough flour dust was left in his fur to poof into the air, causing her to stutter and then sneeze out the final word of her chant. “… wig … uh … wig … wiggliest?”
Rapunzel managed to turn away just in time, so the sneeze didn’t hit her in the face. Instead, it only went into her hair.
“Oh, sorry! Sorry!” Mary Mary told her. “But it was your cat’s fault. Your cat’s —” Her words were cut off when a vine abruptly whooshed up out of her pot. However, nothing blossomed on it.
“What? What went wrong?” Mary Mary wondered aloud, staring at her blossomless plant. Rapunzel stared, too. Because it was odd that nothing had grown on it.
Ms. Blue Fairygodmother came over in her big blue bubble to help. As Rapunzel stood up and moved back to make room, a curl flopped into her face. Which was weird. Her hair hung in soft waves but was not at all curly. She brushed the curl aside. It flopped again. She brushed it back again.
“Um, Rapunzel?”
She whirled around to find Prince Perfect standing behind her. Immediately she froze, feeling her cheeks turn pink.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and shifted from one foot to the other. “You know the Festival Ball Sunday night? The one that’ll be on Heart Island when the festival ends?”
“Yeah … uh … sure,” she said. She and her friends had planned it. Didn’t he know that? She caught sight of Mermily out of the corner of her eye, making an excited face at her. Huh? Why was she doing that? Then Rapunzel drew in a quick, stunned breath. Did Mermily think he was going to ask Rapunzel to go to the ball with him? Was she right?
Suddenly, Rapunzel felt her hair shift around. She’d used a magic spell that morning to make sure her blue braid would stay twined. Had it somehow come undone? She reached with her hands to gather her hair back up, but caught only air. Where had her hair gone? Prince Perfect was looking up at something above her head. Whatever he saw there made him stare in surprise, and then smile smugly.
