Fairy Tales of Fearless Girls Read online

  FEARLESS:

  TYPICALLY DESCRIBES ONE WHO IS DETERMINED AND COURAGEOUS; WHO OVERCOMES FEAR.

  For Robin

  With love and gratitude for real-life happily ever afters

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  RAPUNZEL

  illustrated by Beth Norling

  LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

  illustrated by Claire Robertson

  CINDERELLA

  illustrated by Lucinda Gifford

  THUMBELINA

  illustrated by Sher Rill Ng

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ONCE UPON A TIME, in a land far away

  (yet not so different from today),

  four young girls stand and fight

  for what is good; for what is right.

  Dark forces try to hold them back.

  Evil tempts them from the track.

  In order to be truly free,

  these girls must strong and fearless be.

  In the darkness they find the light,

  cleverness triumphing over might.

  And when others do them wrong,

  in their softness they are strong.

  They may be small, but they’re big of heart—

  kind and cheerful, brave and smart.

  And so with courage, hope and laughter

  they make their own “happily ever after.”

  Rapunzel

  1.

  ONCE upon a time, in a village on the edge of a forest, there lived a woman and her husband. Their village was overshadowed by a dark stone castle belonging to an enchantress.

  The enchantress was old, and regaining her youth was the one thing her magic powers could not conjure. This made the enchantress bitter, and the more the bitterness grew in her heart, the meaner she became.

  So the enchantress conjured up around her what she could not achieve in herself, and the castle garden teemed with sweet, magical flowers of every kind and color. The flowers were never cut, and they never faded, blooming within the high castle wall all year round. Yet as the castle was charmed, the surrounding village was cursed: its gardens died; the crops in the fields failed; and no babies were born. The villagers lost hope, and now bitterness also cloaked the village.

  One day, with great joy and surprise, the woman and her husband discovered that they were to have a child. Yet their joy was short-lived, for as the child grew inside her, the woman became sick: her belly pained her, and a bitter taste formed in her mouth that not even the sweetest honey could remove. As her belly swelled, so too did this strange illness.

  Lying on her bed one afternoon, the woman looked out of the window to see a lush green rapunzel plant growing through a crack in the castle wall, its bright-blue flowers glowing in the sunlight. The woman began to crave the plant’s bitter leaves, and soon she could think of nothing else but how much she wanted to eat the rapunzel, believing that it, and it alone, would cure her illness.

  The husband fetched the plant for his wife, and as she devoured the bitter leaves, the taste in her mouth sweetened and the pain in her belly eased. For the first time in weeks, she slept soundly that night, but by morning the pain had returned.

  The woman asked her husband to fetch more rapunzel, but there was no more of the plant growing outside the castle wall, and the husband was afraid to enter the garden of the enchantress.

  Yet as his wife’s groans grew louder and he thought she would surely die, he could bear it no longer. So that night, and every night following, he scaled the castle wall and jumped into the garden to steal more rapunzel.

  One moonlit night, the enchantress discovered the husband in her garden.

  “You! Thief!” she hissed. “How dare you enter my garden and steal my rapunzel!” And she raised her hands to cast a terrible spell upon him.

  “Please, I beg you, let me take it to save my wife and unborn child,” pleaded the husband.

  A child! Youth! The enchantress smiled a terrible, scheming smile.

  “I will release you,” she said, “and you may take all the rapunzel you can carry—but on one condition.”

  “Thank you, thank you!” exclaimed the husband. “Anything!”

  “You will give me your child on the very day it is born.”

  Horrified, the husband refused at first, but he loved his wife and, believing that she and the baby would die without the rapunzel, in the end he agreed.

  And so it was. The baby, a girl, was born, and the enchantress appeared at the door of the cottage to claim her. She took the baby and carried her away to raise her as her own, behind the castle wall. The woman and her husband moved far, far away, and no one in the village ever saw the girl again, although it was rumored that the enchantress had named her Rapunzel, after the bitter-leafed plant for which she was the payment.

  2.

  THE BABY GREW into a sweet girl, with eyes as blue as rapunzel flowers and glowing, golden locks. The rapunzel plant her mother had eaten had enchanted her hair: it grew never-endingly long, strong and thick, and it gleamed like nothing else the enchantress had ever seen.

  “So beautiful,” she would croon as she stroked and braided Rapunzel’s hair. “I am your mother, and you, child, are mine—mine alone and mine always.”

  Rapunzel often wouldn’t reply at first, for she was always busy doing something else—folding pieces of parchment into creatures, or stacking her trinket chests to build tall towers.

  “Rapunzel?” the enchantress would repeat.

  “Sorry, Mother,” Rapunzel would reply absentmindedly. “Look what I’ve made!”

  But the enchantress was never interested in Rapunzel’s creations, and Rapunzel would sigh. Sometimes she thought the only thing the enchantress cared about was her hair.

  Indeed, the enchantress did love all things beautiful. Fearing that Rapunzel might be stolen from her just like her rapunzel plant, one day she took the girl from the castle and locked her in a tall tower in the middle of the forest.

  The tower had only one room with one window, right at the very top, and there were neither doors nor stairs. Red climbing roses twined around the tower. They flooded the room with their fragrance, but entangled the tower’s walls like barbed wire with their sharp, cruel thorns. The only way into the room was to climb up on Rapunzel’s hair, which the enchantress did every day.

  “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair!” she would cry from the bottom of the tower.

  “Look out below!” Rapunzel would shout back.

  Rapunzel would unwind her braid, sling it around a hook above the window, and let it tumble to the ground. Then the enchantress would climb up the braid and through the window.

  Rapunzel was happy in her tower. Unlike the rapunzel plant, she did not have a hint of bitterness in her; she always saw the best in everything. The enchantress had filled the tower room with many beautiful things: gold-framed mirrors, in front of which she would brush Rapunzel’s hair; bejeweled dresses of silk and taffeta; fine necklaces and bracelets in a small, exquisitely crafted glass chest; a lute; luxurious cushions to lie on. Rapunzel saw these items’ beauty, but she also saw something else… building materials. For Rapunzel had a very special gift indeed, the gift of imagination and invention.

  One day, for example, when Rapunzel’s enormous braid was feeling even heavier to her than usual, she looked at the ornately carved wooden chest in the corner of her room.

  Rapunzel thought. Rapunzel sketched. Rapunzel planned and pondered. Then Rapunzel built.

  Using bed knobs for wheels and a long pearl necklace for rope, she converted the chest into a cart, so that she could pull her heavy braid along behind her. Now, with a new lightness of head, Rapunzel could think more clearly and move
more freely. Hands on hips, cart behind her, she looked around the room again. She spied the curtain rings above the window, and it wasn’t long before Rapunzel had made herself a game of quoits to play.

  When the enchantress arrived later that day, she was dismayed.

  “What have you done, Rapunzel?” she cried. “Your beautiful chest! Your pearls!”

  “Yes, Mother,” replied Rapunzel cheerily. “Now they are beautiful and they move! Would you like to play quoits?”

  The enchantress did not want to play quoits. She only wanted Rapunzel to be still, so that she could brush her long, heavy hair.

  Rapunzel had other ideas, though. Another day, she eyed her four-poster bed.

  Rapunzel thought. Rapunzel sketched. Rapunzel planned and pondered.

  Then Rapunzel built, and soon after, the four-poster bed became a two-poster as Rapunzel built herself some stilts.

  The enchantress did not approve of the stilts. “Rapunzel,” she exclaimed, “get down from there—it’s not safe!”

  “But they’re brilliant, Mother,” cried Rapunzel. “I can touch the roof!”

  And so time went on in the tower. Rapunzel built a step to make it easier for the enchantress when she came through the window; that was one invention the enchantress did approve of.

  She built a bed-making system out of curtain sashes. And, with the shutters from the window, she invented a candle-powered fan for the hot summer months ahead of her.

  Rapunzel was always building something new in her tower.

  3.

  ONE SUMMER’S DAY, something a little different happened. Up high on her stilts, Rapunzel discovered a small hole in the tower roof, and that gave her a new idea.

  Rapunzel thought. Rapunzel sketched. Rapunzel planned and pondered. Then Rapunzel built.

  She enlarged the hole and, with some glass from her jewelry chest, crafted a window. She stood on her stilts looking up at the fluffy white clouds rolling by.

  The enchantress was not pleased. “Rapunzel,” she exclaimed, “what have you done?”

  “But, Mother,” Rapunzel protested, “it’s brilliant!”

  The next day, the enchantress brought a length of heavy, scarlet velvet to cover the new window.

  “Oh, thank you, Mother,” said Rapunzel, eyeing the strength of the fabric.

  When the enchantress had left, Rapunzel lost no time converting the fabric into a sturdy hammock slung between two rafters next to the window. Then, throwing a hair ribbon over one rafter and attaching it to her jewelry box, Rapunzel also made a pulley, so that she could raise snacks up to herself as she lay in her sky-gazing hammock.

  “Perfect!” she exclaimed, proud of her work. “Now I can lie and watch the clouds float by in the day and see the stars come out at night—while I eat!”

  That night, Rapunzel lay in her hammock, munching on an apple as she gazed up at the night sky. As she did so, she began to wonder what else besides her tower the stars might be twinkling down upon….

  The next day, Rapunzel found that she could not stop imagining what lay below her tower, on the side without a window. Seeing her reflection in the large ornate mirror behind her, Rapunzel had another idea.

  Rapunzel thought. Rapunzel sketched. Rapunzel planned and pondered. Then Rapunzel built.

  She removed the glass from a small vanity mirror and, using a diamond from her necklace, cut it into two. She then took a hollow curtain rod and positioned the glass at a certain angle at each end. Rapunzel had made a periscope, and by standing on her stilts and holding it high so it poked out of her new window, she could now see what was on the other side: a glorious waterfall, with torrents of water glittering in the sunlight and crashing down onto the rocks below.

  “How amazing!” exclaimed Rapunzel. “I wonder what else is to be seen outside this tower.”

  “Mother,” she said as she had her hair brushed and braided later that day, “what is the world like? May I see it?”

  The enchantress paused in her braiding. “Oh, no,” she replied, winding the heavy braid tightly around the girl’s head, pulling at Rapunzel’s hair just a little too hard. “The world outside is full of thieves, and here, in this tower, you are safe. You must never leave it.”

  But Rapunzel wasn’t sure she wanted to be safe. She was beginning to think she wanted to see the world instead—or at least more of it than she could see from her windows.

  She did not want to upset the enchantress, though, so she simply smiled and answered, “Of course, Mother.”

  The next day, the enchantress arrived at the tower carrying a yellow canary in an exquisite cage.

  “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair!” she cried. And then, once she had climbed inside: “Here, Rapunzel, isn’t it beautiful? It will sing to you.”

  “Uh… thank you, Mother,” said Rapunzel—but she found she couldn’t smile, for the bird wasn’t singing, and its beautiful feathers were already losing their luster.

  Rapunzel couldn’t bear to see the bird unhappy, so as soon as the enchantress was gone she took the bird from its cage and, stretching her arms out the window, opened her hands. She smiled at last as the bird spread its wings, soared upward and then swooped down the tower and into the forest below.

  How Rapunzel longed to follow the bird out of the tower—but she knew now that the enchantress would never take her. Perhaps she could just leave on her own, but how? Was there a way for Rapunzel to get herself down the tower? Rapunzel pondered.

  4.

  A WEEK OR two later, as Rapunzel was leaning out of her window with her periscope, she saw something emerging from the forest below. She leaned as far as she dared out the new window to get a closer look.

  Now she could see a young man on a white horse, riding toward the waterfall. Rapunzel tilted her periscope to see what he did and watched, fascinated, as the man got off his horse, knelt down by the waterfall, took out a scroll, and started to write.

  Rapunzel wondered what the man was writing. As she was wondering that, he got back on his horse and rode away. Rapunzel saw that he could come and go as he pleased—that, like the canary, he was free.

  Then and there, Rapunzel decided that she would be free too.

  She didn’t want to disobey or hurt the enchantress, but she knew in her heart that it was time: time to leave the tower, not just for one day to look for building materials, but to start building her life.

  The only way for the enchantress to climb up or down the tower was on Rapunzel’s hair, but perhaps there was another way.

  Rapunzel thought. Rapunzel sketched. Rapunzel planned and pondered.

  Could she just climb down the rose branches? She looked out and down the tower wall and saw the jagged thorns. Ouch, thought Rapunzel, that would hurt. Back to the drawing wall.

  A catapult? she thought. She could launch herself out of the window into the forest. She sketched some more. Too risky, she decided. After all, where might she land?

  Next, Rapunzel thought perhaps she could make a rope from all her dresses. She took them from her wardrobe and measured them, calculating how long her dress-rope would be if she cut them all into strips and joined them up. She frowned as she realized that, however cleverly she cut, her dress-rope would only reach halfway down the tower. Hmmm, thought Rapunzel, and then it would be the thorns again Back to the drawing wall.

  Rapunzel kept coming back to the thought that the only way up and down was by climbing her hair. When she lowered it for the enchantress, she wound it around the window hook, so that the hook took the weight of the climber. That wouldn’t work if Rapunzel was the climber.

  The enchantress could climb up the hair because she wasn’t attached to it. Therefore, Rapunzel logically realized, if she wasn’t attached to it… If she cut off her own braid…

  Excitement and fear struck Rapunzel. The enchantress had told her that she could never leave the tower. And now Rapunzel realized that she was going to do just that.

  “And, actually,” she said out loud,
“I’ve never liked my long hair—not even a little! It’s Mother who loves it.”

  Rapunzel thought. Rapunzel sketched. Rapunzel planned and pondered.

  “And so she can have it,” she declared, taking out her cutting diamond. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, it’s time to let go of your hair!”

  In one stroke, Rapunzel slashed at her locks. She left some length, so her hair now fell to her shoulders. She looked in a mirror and smiled. She felt light, as if a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders, which of course it had been.

  Now all she had to do was tie her braid to the hook and climb down it. She tied her old hair fast, and she was just about to hurl it down the tower wall when the young man on the white horse rode out from the forest again.

  And just like that, Rapunzel, remembering the way the canary had swooped down the tower, had a better idea.

  “Hello, sir!” Rapunzel called out. The young man looked up. “Will you help me? I need someone to tie this hair halfway up that big tree.” She pointed to a pine tree some distance from the tower.

  “Fascinating!” called back the young man. “May I ask why?”

  “So I can slide down it.”

  “Brilliant!” he replied. “Will it reach?”

  Good question, Rapunzel thought. She liked the way this young man thought. “Yes,” she replied. “I have calculated that if the braid is tied exactly two lengths from the ground, it will reach.”

  So the young man tied the braid to the tree, according to her instructions.

  “Tied fast?” she called.

  “Tied fast!” he replied.

  Rapunzel took her lute and broke off its neck. She put it over the top of the hair-rope, gripped it hard, and pulled on it, checking it could hold her weight.