Gretel Pushes Back Read online

  “Watch out, you klutzes! You almost knocked us down,” complained Malorette. She and Odette stood on the first-floor landing.

  Hansel could feel himself flush. Did the Steps have to always be so totally rude! What happened to that nursery rhyme he’d once read in the Grimmstone Library about girls being sugar and spice and everything nice? That rhyme did not apply in their case at all. They were more like snickers and spite and everything impolite.

  Odette’s dark eyes fastened on the bandage on Jack’s forehead. She let out a cackle. “What happened to you?” she asked in a voice that was completely lacking concern or empathy.

  “Let me guess,” said Malorette. “You fell down again, right?” Her voice was so shrill that Hansel wished he could cover his ears. But he was more polite than these sisters, so he didn’t.

  Both girls laughed as if Jack getting hurt was the funniest thing ever. “You’ve got to be the clumsiest person in all of Grimmlandia!” Odette exclaimed.

  Before Hansel could tell them off, however, Jack spoke up. “That’s where you’re wrong,” he said good-naturedly. “I’m not just the clumsiest person in Grimmlandia, I’m the clumsiest person in all possible realms. Including the Dark Nothingterror.” He smiled at them. “Not that I’ve ever been there. Just guessing.”

  “And,” he went on, “I don’t just trip over stairs and hills. Anyone can trip on uneven surfaces like those. However, it takes great skill like mine to trip on flat surfaces, especially when nothing’s in your way. See? Watch this.”

  He took a step in their direction, then pretended to trip and tumble toward them. The girls shrieked, dropped their books, and stretched their hands out to ward him off. At the last second, before he could crash into them, he caught himself and straightened again.

  The sisters glared at him, realizing he’d scared them on purpose. “You’re crazy,” Malorette announced, scowling.

  Jack touched a fingertip to his bandage and nodded. “Too many injuries to the head can do that to a person,” he agreed pleasantly.

  Hansel had to hand it to Jack. He sure knew how to handle these sisters. Clearing his throat, he said, “Well, as much as we’d like to stay and chat, we’ve got stuff to do.”

  Both boys reached down to pick up the books the girls had dropped. All GA students had to take Comportment, an etiquette class taught by Ms. Queenharts. The boys had learned manners in that class even if these girls had not.

  “Yeah,” Jack agreed as he gave Malorette her books. “I don’t hear the rain outside anymore. Think maybe it stopped?” he asked Hansel.

  “I heard somebody say it was only drizzling now,” Odette said, suddenly becoming interested enough in the conversation to briefly turn off the nastiness. “Why do you guys care?”

  Hansel handed over her books with a shrug. “It’s easier to hike when it’s not raining.”

  The girls shared a quick, secretive look. “So you like to hike?” Malorette asked, blocking the boys’ way now on purpose. “How good are you at following a trail map?”

  Huh? That was a strange question, thought Hansel. But he answered it anyway. “Superb. That means very good, by the way. Gretel and I have been hiking trails almost from the time we were old enough to walk!” he couldn’t help boasting.

  Jack nodded. “It’s the truth,” he told the sisters. “They’re the best.”

  “Good to know,” said Malorette. She and Odette exchanged another sly look.

  What was that about? Hansel wondered briefly. However, these two sisters were always exchanging sly looks, so he promptly let the question go. Whatever!

  “Later, klutzes,” Odette said. She and Malorette pushed past the boys and continued down toward the basement, their dark-haired heads close together as they whispered.

  “Wonder where they’re going,” murmured Jack. “I have a feeling they’re up to something.”

  “Yeah, what else is new?” Hansel replied as they continued up the Gray Castle stairs. “Maybe they’re going to the infirmary to have their heads examined.”

  Jack laughed. Then he began taking the stairs upward two at a time. “Let’s get to our room and grab our boots. Even if it’s drizzling, we still might be able to get out and hike for a while!”

  “Okay, but slow down!” Hansel cautioned. “Or do you want to end up in the infirmary again?”

  Jack laughed. “You’re such a worrywart!” Then his feet tangled and he tripped.

  Hansel leaped to try to prevent disaster, but before he got there, Jack sprang up and shot him a big grin. He’d only been pretending to fall, like he had with those sisters!

  “Ha-ha! Just joking!” Jack called back to him. “C’mon, get a move on!”

  On her way to the infirmary to see Jack, Gretel first crossed the stone walkway that ran between the Pink Castle’s three towers. At the sixth-floor landing, she took a twisty staircase down to the fourth floor, then continued down the majestic grand staircase to the first floor.

  As she zipped through the corridor heading for the Great Hall, she couldn’t resist running a hand over the castle’s stone walls. They were cool to the touch, and a pale pink color that reminded her of frosted valentine cookies.

  Here and there the walls were hung with tapestries showing scenes of feasts and pageantry. And every so often, Gretel would pass one of the tall stone support columns whose tops were carved with figures of fantastical flowers, birds, and gargoyles. The flowers and birds looked so real she could almost imagine she was actually out in Grimmlandia hiking!

  Oh, grindlesnorts! Her footsteps began to slow and grow less eager as she approached the Great Hall. The infirmary was in the basement of Gray Castle, on the opposite bank of the Once Upon River from Pink Castle. Since the Great Hall spanned the river, stretching over it like a tall bridge between the two castles, students could cross through the Hall to get to either castle.

  However, if she’d remembered in time, she’d have crossed over on the fourth floor instead. She’d been thinking she could go outside and use one of the swan-shaped boats docked along the river to take the alternate water route to Gray Castle. She’d forgotten that the rain would mean the boat idea was out for today. Still, she didn’t want to go all the way back up to the fourth floor, so … that left one choice. Crossing through the Great Hall.

  She paused at its entrance, more than a little reluctant. Although the two-story Hall was a magnificent sight, there was something — or rather, someone — inside it that she hoped to avoid.

  As quietly as possible she opened the door and began to tiptoe. Concentrating on trying not to even breathe very loudly, she hardly noticed the colorful banners on the walls, the high balconies at either end, or the two linen-draped tables that ran the entire length of the Hall, one along each wall. This was where dancing classes and balls were held, but mainly it was where meals were served. And it was the person who cooked those meals that she was trying to avoid.

  Light streamed into the long room through rows and rows of windows with beautiful diamond-shaped glass panes as Gretel tiptoed on. As usual, some of the windows were propped open. Birds were flying in and out of the Hall, crossing in on one side and zooming back out the other. Many of them were super-helpful bluebirds. They could be summoned to deliver messages, and they also picked up empty trays after every meal and returned them to the kitchen.

  Bang! Clank!

  Uh-oh. Dinner wasn’t for another couple of hours yet, but it sounded like the Head Cook, Mistress Hagscorch, was already setting up in the serving area. As she banged around bins filled with salad ingredients and whatever else was on today’s menu, Gretel tried to sneak past.

  Not that long ago, Gretel had refused to eat her meals in the Great Hall because of terrifying nightmares about this very cook. In the nightmares, Gretel would be putting loaves of bread into an oven to bake, when Mistress Hagscorch would suddenly sneak up behind her. Then the cook would give Gretel a push and send her tumbling into the red-hot oven! It was at that point that she always woke up scr
eaming. Which had understandably kind of annoyed her roomie, Red.

  Good thing she’d sort of, mostly, gotten over her fear of the cook by now. She was trying to become braver about other things as well, slowly but surely. Still, even though she hadn’t had a nightmare about the witchy cook in a long while, she never went out of her way to talk to her. But this time, before Gretel could tiptoe past her, Mistress Hagscorch glanced up and saw her.

  Gretel froze in her tracks, a sickly grin on her face. “Uh, hi, Mistress Scary — um, Mistress Hagscorch.” Oops! She’d almost slipped and called the cook by one of the many nicknames she’d made up for her, such as Mistress Scaryscorch or Mistress Frightwig. Names she was never so impolite as to actually call the cook out loud!

  With eyes as yellow as a cat’s and wild, scraggly white-gray hair, Mistress Hagscorch did look like a witch. And Gretel had always feared witches. Because, well, who didn’t?!

  Grinning at her now, Cook Witchyface licked her lips as if imagining some new recipe for a dessert — like Gretel pie, perhaps. Then she beckoned to Gretel with the crooked fingers of one clawed hand.

  “Come here a moment, dearie. You look like a tasty treat” — Gretel let out a gasp at this, causing the cook to startle momentarily, but then the cook finished what she’d been about to say — “wouldn’t do you a bit of harm.”

  With that, Mistress Bloodcurdler held out a green-colored cookie cut in the shape of a fat foot. “I call them troll toes.” She pointed to the five slivered almond “toes” sticking out from one end of the cookie foot. “It’s a new recipe and I need a student opinion.”

  Unable to come up with a reason not to try it (and being a huge cookie monster besides), Gretel sidled over and took the treat. Quickly, she took a step back. Then she bit into the foot cookie, and chewed it thoughtfully.

  “So? What do you think?” the cook asked, sounding a bit anxious. “Are they sweet enough? And how’s the texture? Not too chewy, I hope?”

  Gretel swallowed and gave Hagscorch a thumbs-up. “Delish,” she pronounced. “Not too sweet and not too chewy, but just right.” It was the kind of thing a girl at school named Goldilocks would probably have said to describe the cookie. “Toe-tally awesome,” she added.

  The cook cackled at Gretel’s pun. Then she reached way over the serving counter to pinch her cheek. “I like you, girl. You’re so sweet I could eat you up!”

  Though she knew Hagscorch was simply repeating a figure of speech, a shiver ran down Gretel’s spine. She took a few more steps back. “Uh … thanks,” she mumbled, looking toward the exit. “Well … um … it’s been toe-tastic, but I’ve gotta go.”

  Gretel shoved the rest of the cookie into her mouth. Smiling around her mouthful of crunchy goodness, she waved good-bye.

  Once she reached the western end of the Great Hall, she breathed a big sigh of relief. Made it! Pushing through the door, she started down some steps to the basement of Gray Castle. When she entered the infirmary, however, she found that its two beds were both tidily made and empty. Her shoulders drooped with disappointment. She’d been so jazzed about seeing Jack! Where was he?

  Just then, in came the Doctor, in came the Nurse, and in came the Lady with the Alligator Purse. The Doctor and Nurse immediately decided Gretel must be ill and zoomed over to diagnose her.

  “Mumps!” said the Doctor.

  “Measles!” countered the Nurse.

  “Wait! I don’t think Gretel’s here because she’s sick! Am I right, Gretel?” asked the Alligator Purse Lady. Since Gretel had visited Jack for various injuries many times over the last few years, she was well known to the infirmary staff by this point.

  “I was just looking for Jack,” Gretel told her.

  “Thought so,” said the lady. “He’s probably back in his dorm room by now.”

  “So you aren’t sick?” the Doctor asked, sounding disappointed.

  Gretel shook her head. “No, sorry.”

  He and the Nurse sighed. Then out went the Doctor and out went the Nurse.

  However, the Lady with the Alligator Purse stayed behind. She took some bottles of pills and tubes of ointment out of her large purse and began organizing them in a nearby cupboard. “Jack didn’t need stitches today. Just a bandage. Good thing that boy heals fast.”

  “That is lucky,” said Gretel. Still, she’d really been hoping for a chance to hang out with him today. She stood in the middle of the room for a moment, feeling disappointed and swinging her schoolbag back and forth as she wondered what she should do next. Girls weren’t allowed in the boys’ dorms and vice versa. She could send Jack a message though. However, just as she was thinking about finding a paper and pen to write one and then calling on a bluebird to deliver it to him, the Lady with the Alligator Purse glanced at her over one shoulder.

  “Would you mind running an errand for me?” she asked Gretel.

  “Sure! I’d be happy to,” Gretel replied, brightening. Whatever it was, it would be something to do, anyway. And she genuinely liked helping others. Which was probably why she’d been assigned the tower task of Pathfinder at the beginning of the year. The task involved helping other girls in her dorm find a path to friendship whenever they were having trouble getting along. “What would you like me to do?” she asked.

  “Do you know where the candlestick-maker works?” asked the Lady as she fluffed up the bed pillows. When Gretel shook her head no, the Lady pointed down at the floor. “In a ship-shaped room below us in the dungeon. Could you go tell him I need two dozen candles?”

  “Yeah. No problem,” said Gretel. Excitement bubbled up in her. Although she’d been almost everywhere students were allowed to go in both castles, this was someplace new to explore. She hadn’t even realized Gray Castle had a dungeon! Though why wouldn’t it, since Pink Castle had one? she thought as she left the infirmary. In fact, Rapunzel, a girl who looked kind of goth, had actually gotten permission to sleep in a room in Pink Castle’s dungeon with her five pet cats.

  It took only a few minutes of searching around the basement to find a door to stairs leading down. When Gretel reached the bottom of these, she went along a wall until she saw what looked like the side of an actual full-size ship.

  “How did you get here?” she wondered aloud. Had this ship been wrecked on the shores of the Once Upon River a long time ago? Maybe it had, and had proven so difficult to move that it eventually got built into the castle’s dungeon!

  Pausing before a small door cut into the ship’s hull, she studied the big round lifesaver ring hanging on it. Painted in red upon the white ring were the words THE TUB.

  She raised her fist to the door. Knock. Knock. Knock. Although she could hear voices inside, no one answered her knocking. She put her ear to the door and listened for a bit. She heard words like “That porthole … job … built … not my problem …”

  None of that made any sense to her, probably because she couldn’t hear the conversation very clearly. The voices were talking over one another and were a little muffled besides. She knocked louder. When still no one came, she let herself in.

  Instantly, all talking in The Tub stopped and five sets of eyes turned to stare at her.

  “What are you doing here?” grumped a girl she immediately recognized as Malorette. Apparently, Gretel had interrupted a private conversation that she and her sister, Odette, were having with three stout men, who were each no taller than the girls themselves.

  The two black-haired sisters were Cinderella’s Steps (as in stepsisters) and were also major bad news. Gretel didn’t really know them all that well herself, but she’d heard a lot about them because Cinderella was one of Red Riding Hood’s BFFs, along with Snow White and Rapunzel. And it had been pretty obvious that Cinderella had had difficulties with her stepsisters from her very first day at the Academy.

  “I came to get candles for the infirmary,” Gretel announced, looking around the neat, shipshape room. “The Lady with the Alligator Purse sent me.”

  “Well, that’s illuminating,
” said one of the three small men. He wore an apron that had scorch marks on it here and there.

  “Wait! We weren’t finished. What about the —” Odette started to say to him.

  “I think we’ve about covered that whole ball of wax,” the man in the scorched apron interrupted.

  “Right! So why don’t we cut this visit of yours short?” a second man said to the stepsisters. He was sharpening an assortment of big knives.

  Scorched Apron Guy turned toward Gretel again, saying, “I’ll help you. I’m the candlestick-maker.”

  Aha! That explained the scorches. They were probably from accidental candle flame burns.

  Stepping briskly away from the others, he went over to a pot at the back of the room. Above the pot dangled many wax-coated wicks attached to a paddle. Newly made candles! Quickly, he took some of them down for her.

  The other two men got back to work, too. After moving to a freestanding countertop at the front of The Tub (or maybe the bow since this was a ship?), the one with the knives put on a butcher’s apron and began to slice a slab of meat. And the one who wore a tall white chef’s hat — a baker? — started punching down some dough rising in a bowl.

  In the meantime, Malorette and Odette slunk over to Gretel. Curling her lips as if she’d just bitten into a very sour lemon, Odette spoke to her in a harsh whisper. “What are you up to? Come here to spy?”

  “Yeah, I bet she is a spy,” Malorette echoed shrilly. To Gretel, she said, “You’ll keep your nose out of things that don’t concern you if you know what’s good for you.”

  Gretel looked at the two sisters in surprise. “My nose isn’t into anything,” she sputtered. She’d meant to say she wasn’t up to anything, but they probably got the idea.

  Overhearing, the baker shook his head. “Never mind those two,” he told Gretel. “They’re as nutty as fruitcakes.”

  The butcher nodded in agreement. “Any way you slice it, you two are out of line,” he admonished the sisters, waving his knife in the air.