Rapunzel, the One With All the Hair by Wendy Mass

Author:Wendy Mass
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2006-10-13T21:00:00+00:00

I tried to keep my eyes open throughout the night so that when Steven came to collect the tub, I could share my new plan. At one point in the night, I actually had to use my fingers to hold my eyelids open. Alas, I must have succumbed to sleep even without my daily dose of sleeping powder, because the squawking of the birds has just awakened me. The tub is gone, Sir Kitty is playing with the scab on my chin, and it is almost dawn. With a sigh, I blow out the lamp and store it away in the trunk. Before my imprisonment, I saw this time of early morn only during harvest time with Father. Who will help him this year if I am not back? I shake the thought out of my head. I will be back. I have to be!

Belly growling, I pick up Sir Kitty and we go to the window to watch the birds soar over the dew-covered treetops. Soon the last stripes of pink and orange in the east have been burned off by the sun’s glow. No doubt as thirsty as I am, Sir Kitty has discovered she can lick the dew off the window ledge. As I stroke her back, her fur suddenly stands on end and her ears flatten. That can’t be good.

“You have been busy,” a voice cackles from behind me. It is not the voice I had hoped to hear.

My heart begins to pound. What does she mean by that? Has she found out that I know about Steven? Clutching Sir Kitty so tightly she mews in protest, I slowly turn around to face the witch. She is standing in front of my cottage on the wall. She spits onto one of her gnarled fingers and wipes it across the scene, smudging the drawing as she goes. I cringe but refuse to cry out. After all, I have a plan now that will bring me back to the real cottage. I put Sir Kitty down and she runs under the wool blanket. I would, too, if I could. The smell from the pot of meat pie the witch left on the table draws me like bees to a honeysuckle shrub. Truly my mouth is watering. Garlic and mustard fill the room till I feel almost faint from it.

When the witch is done ruining my sketch, she turns and peers right into my face. My body tenses, but I do not move. She gives me a slow once-over and I try to keep my heart from leaping out of my chest. It occurs to me that after my bath I must look quite changed.

“Hmm,” she says, tapping one finger against her long, square chin. If I weren’t so terrified, I would laugh, because the finger she is tapping with is the one covered in ash from my drawing. She is making quite a mess of her face. “You look different somehow. I cannot place it.” She continues to look, even asking me to turn around.

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