Fairy Tales of Fearless Girls Read online

  And then… Rapunzel pushed off from the window.

  She flew down her hair, swooping just like the canary had. She had never felt so free. As she approached the tree, Rapunzel jumped off, landing in a dark-green bush dotted with small blue flowers.

  5.

  “THAT WAS AMAZING!” shouted the young man, running toward Rapunzel.

  Rapunzel turned to him. He was about the same age as she was, and he had kind eyes and a soft face.

  “Thank you,” she said. “And thank you for your help.”

  “I love how you flew down that tower,” said the young man. “And I like your hair. It’s so golden—and such a perfect length.”

  Rapunzel blushed. “I like your hair too,” she said. And it was true—she did.

  “I’ve also been thinking of building something,” said the man. “A water wheel, to pump water to all the fields around my castle.”

  “That’s why you came to the waterfall?” asked Rapunzel.

  “Yes,” said the man. “I was studying its power. I do love to ponder and plan. Would you like to see my village?”

  “Yes,” said Rapunzel, “very much. But first I need to do something.”

  She untied her braid from the tree and it sprang back, hanging down from the tower. Then she returned to where she had landed—the dark-green bush—and picked a large bouquet of the lovely blue flowers growing on it. She left them at the bottom of the tower, thinking the enchantress might like them. Rapunzel didn’t want her to be sad.

  And then Rapunzel and the young man rode away from the tower toward the castle on his white horse. Together, they would build many wonderful things.

  The next morning when the enchantress came to the tower, she saw Rapunzel’s hair already hanging out the window. Alarmed, she scrambled up the tower and discovered that Rapunzel was gone. Screaming in anger, she climbed back down the tower, and it was then that she saw the flowers. She recognized them immediately. They were from a rapunzel plant.

  “Noooooo!” cried the enchantress. “It is over!”

  For, without knowing it, in her sweet act of leaving the enchantress the flowers, Rapunzel had repaid the debt of her parents and broken the enchantress’s bitter curse.

  Rapunzel was free: she no longer belonged to anybody but herself. There was nothing the enchantress could do.

  Back at the enchantress’s village, the dark stone walls of the castle slowly crumbled, and the villagers’ gardens teemed with life once more.

  And everyone lived happily ever after.

  Little Red Riding Hood

  1.

  ONCE upon a time, in a small thatched house on the edge of some large woods, lived a girl named Lucy. Most people called her Little Red Riding Hood, though Lucy didn’t know why. She was quite tall, and never rode a horse, and while she did have a favorite red cape with a hood, it wasn’t the only thing she wore. Yet the name had stuck.

  Lucy’s grandmother had made the red cape for her by hand and Lucy loved it, especially because Grandma had added special pockets around the cape for her to put her collection jars in. Lucy did a lot of collecting. She collected pine cones, seedpods, and bird feathers, but most of all she collected wildflowers.

  Each time Lucy walked the long, winding path leading through the woods to Grandma’s house on the other side, she looked for flowers. She had a sharp eye and she would stop often, inspecting all she saw and using her special scissors to collect flower samples.

  Lucy collected flowers she knew her grandmother would use in the potions and lotions she made. Her grandmother knew a special plant cure for almost everything, and Lucy loved to watch her make her treatments using the large mortar and pestle she kept on her kitchen shelf.

  Lucy also loved to collect flowers for her botanical journal and was always thrilled when she came across one she’d never seen before. Cutting carefully, she would remove a single flower from the plant and place it in one of her glass collection jars to take home with her.

  Once home, Lucy would place the new flower into her wooden press, also a gift from Grandma. When the flower was pressed, Lucy would stick it down in her nature journal, and write down both its common name and its Latin name. She found the Latin names in her precious book, A Botanical Encyclopedia of Woodland Flowers.

  Lucy was very precise with her spelling, and she also noted down important details about each flower, particularly anything Grandma had taught her about its medicinal properties.

  Lucy had been collecting wildflowers for a long time, and her journal was nice and fat.

  There was, however, one very rare flower that Lucy really, really wanted to find, and she would spend hours stopping on the path in the woods each week searching for it. It was called the drooping tulip, or Fritillaria meleagris, a checkered, lily-like bellflower with petals that, as its name suggests, drooped downward.

  Drooping tulips had been very common when her grandmother was a girl, and Grandma often told Lucy about how they looked like glorious stained glass when the light shone through their checkered petals. Lucy longed to find one and kept her eyes peeled every time she walked in the woods.

  2.

  ONE DEWY SUMMER morning, Lucy’s mother woke her early.

  “Please go and visit your grandmother, Lucy,” said her mother. “She hasn’t been feeling well, so I’ve made her a nourishing poppy-seed cake, as well as some elderflower cordial, which will do wonders for her cold.”

  “Poor Grandma!” said Lucy, jumping out of bed. “I’ll leave straightaway.”

  “Good girl,” replied her mother, watching with a smile as Lucy pulled on her dress, stockings, boots, and of course, her cape. “But remember, no wandering off the path for wildflowers. The woods can be dangerous!”

  “Don’t worry, Mother, I won’t,” cried Lucy, basket in hand and flower jars in pockets, as she skipped out through the back gate leading to the woods, swinging it shut behind her.

  Lucy was not the only one walking the woods that morning. Far from the path, a hungry wolf was also out early, prowling around looking for his breakfast. He stopped, lifted his long snout to the breeze, and sniffed.

  “Hmmmm,” he said, licking his lips. “Something tasty is coming.” And he sauntered toward the path.

  Meanwhile, Lucy had skipped along the woodland path, around the first turn, until she reached the tall oak tree that marked the beginning of the bluebell grove. Hundreds of beautiful flowers grew along either side of the path here. She stopped to gather a big bunch of them, some for her and some for Grandma.

  Lucy continued on her way, and soon enough she came around the second bend in the path and saw the wolf up ahead.

  “Hello, little girl,” called the wolf.

  “Oh, good morning, Mr. Wolf,” Lucy replied politely as she drew closer. “My name is Lucy.”

  Now, Lucy had never seen a wolf up close before. Being such a keen observer of nature—fauna as well as flora—she was, of course, keen to study him.

  She noted his ears. They were quite small, rather pointy, and dark gray in color, with flecks of white.

  She noted his squinty eyes. They were of medium size, and Lucy thought she could detect a glint in them.

  And she noted his very big and sharp-looking teeth. Which would be very good for chomping into things, Lucy thought.

  The wolf was also interested in Lucy. “What do you have there in your basket, Lucy?” he asked.

  “Some poppy-seed cake and elderflower cordial,” replied Lucy.

  “Delicious!” said the wolf, licking his lips. And while he did think the cake and the cordial sounded very nice indeed, he was thinking more about what a tasty sandwich-filling Lucy would make.

  “Where are you off to this fine morning?” continued the wolf, moving a little bit closer.

  “I’m going to visit my grandmother. She lives in the house at the end of the path, on the other side of the woods,” replied Lucy. “She’s not feeling very well, and elderflower cordial is excellent for clearing the head.”
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  Aha! thought the wolf. I can make a club sandwich with both this little girl and her grandmother. But how will I get to the grandmother before this girl does?

  Then the wolf spied the girl’s flower jars, and that gave him an idea.

  “You’re a flower collector, I see,” he said. “Do you know, I passed the most beautiful flower I’ve ever seen, just beyond the path.” And, with his long, furry paw, he gestured vaguely into the woods.

  “You did?” said Lucy. “Did it… did it look like a bell, by any chance? Did it have a checkered pattern to its petals?”

  Of course, the wolf had seen no such flower, but he could tell from the eager look on Lucy’s face that it meant a great deal to her, and so he said, “Why yes, it looked exactly like that. It was extremely beautiful and there was just the one.”

  Lucy could hardly breathe, she was so excited. A drooping tulip, at last! “My goodness!” she said. “They are very rare.” She just had to see it; to have it in her collection.

  “Are they indeed? Well, it’s just through there,” replied the wolf, again pointing toward the dark woods.

  Lucy knew that she shouldn’t leave the path. Her mother had told her not to. But perhaps, just this once… for just this one flower?

  “Is it far off the path?” she asked the wolf.

  “No, no, not at all. It’s straight through there,” said the wolf, again licking his lips.

  Lucy took a deep breath. “Well, thank you, Mr. Wolf,” she said. “Thank you very much indeed. You have a nice morning!” And she stepped off the path.

  “Oh, I most certainly will, a delightful morning, I expect,” replied the wolf, and he turned and ran, full wolf-speed, down the path toward Lucy’s grandmother’s house.

  3.

  WHEN THE WOLF reached Lucy’s grandmother’s house, a little out of breath, he knocked on the door.

  “Who is it?” called a raspy voice from inside the cottage.

  “It’s me, Lucy,” cried the wolf, trying to make his voice very high and, he hoped, very little-girl-like.

  “Oh, how lovely. Do come in, dear,” called Grandma. “Lift the latch. You’re just in time for a cup of tea—I’ve boiled the kettle.”

  The wolf lifted the latch and walked into the cottage. Grandma turned toward him with a wide smile that soon disappeared from her face. “But you’re not—”

  She didn’t have time to finish her sentence, because the wolf grabbed her, bound her hands with her dressing-gown cord, pushed a silk scarf into her mouth, and shoved her into the large wooden linen chest in the corner of her bedroom.

  “Wait there,” he growled, pushing her down roughly on top of her nicely folded pillowcases, which smelled of lavender. “I’ll be back when I get the other half of my sandwich.”

  Just before the wolf slammed down the lid of the chest and locked it with the key, Grandma let a bit of her nightgown hang out of the side of the chest. The wolf didn’t notice. He was much too busy putting another of Grandma’s nightgowns on, as well as a matching nightcap, and climbing into her bed.

  “Now to wait,” said the wolf, licking his lips with his long, red tongue.

  4.

  LUCY HAD LOOKED and looked for the drooping tulip, but she couldn’t find it anywhere.

  Was that wolf imagining things? she wondered, sighing in disappointment.

  Just then, she caught a glimpse of brilliant yellow through the undergrowth. “Oh, buttercups!” she exclaimed. “Grandma will be pleased. This is something, at least.”

  After gathering a bunch of buttercups, Lucy decided it was high time she returned to the path and her journey.

  Lucy was feeling impatient to reach Grandma’s now, so she decided to run the rest of the way. Her flower jars jangled as she went.

  Just before the third bend in the path, she passed a woodsman. He looked up as she ran by, but Lucy did not want any further distractions, so she kept on running.

  A little farther along the path she noticed an axe left in a tree trunk, but she didn’t stop to think about that, either.

  She kept running, almost all the way to her grandmother’s house. Just before the path and the woods ended, Lucy caught a flash of red and white on her left and skidded to a halt. Poppies! Since Grandma only ever used a few of these at a time, Lucy used her scissors to carefully cut just three flowers from their stalks. Then she continued on her way.

  When Lucy arrived at the front gate, she immediately noticed that the front door was open.

  That’s unusual, thought Lucy as she walked into the cottage.

  Next, Lucy noticed steam coming from the kettle, but saw that Grandma’s yellow teapot and tea canister were still sitting on the table.

  Grandma never leaves her canister out, thought Lucy. She was a little worried now.

  “Grandma?” she called out. “Where are you?”

  “In here, dear,” cried the wolf from the bedroom. Lucy didn’t think the voice sounded like Grandma’s, but after all, she did have a heavy cold.

  However, when Lucy walked into the bedroom, she didn’t think whoever was in the bed looked like Grandma, either. She bravely moved in for a closer look.

  “What pointy ears you have, Grandma!” cried Lucy, as she saw the wolf’s furry ears sticking out from the nightcap.

  “All the better to hear you with,” replied the wolf. “Come closer, my dear.” But Lucy wasn’t so sure that was a good idea.

  “And what squinty eyes you have, Grandma!” she said instead. They now had a most definite glint to them.

  “All the better to see you with,” replied the wolf.

  Of course, Lucy had realized by now that it was the wolf from the woods who was sitting in Grandma’s bed, wearing Grandma’s nightgown and nightcap. She had also noticed the wolf’s particularly big and sharp-looking teeth—but she was definitely not going to comment on those.

  Where is Grandma? Lucy wondered. Her eyes darted around the bedroom. Then she caught sight of the small bit of flannel, white with purple lilac (Lucy had given it to her last birthday), sticking out of the side of the linen chest. Grandma would never put her nightgown in with her linens! thought Lucy.

  Now she knew where Grandma was—but how could Lucy rescue her? Lucy’s heart was beating fast, but her mind was working faster. She looked at the wolf in the bed, she looked down at her flower jars and saw the three poppies, and she remembered the teapot in the kitchen. And then Lucy knew exactly how to help Grandma.

  She took a deep breath and looked the wolf straight in the eyes. “Grandma, I’m going to make you your favorite tea!” said Lucy.

  “Oh no, dear,” said the wolf, a little too quickly and a little harshly. “You don’t need to do that. Come here and give me a hug instead.”

  “Oh yes, Grandma, it would be my pleasure. I know how you love your tea,” replied Lucy, turning and walking boldly into the kitchen. “And look, the kettle has already boiled.”

  Lucy worked quickly. She ground up the red poppies with the mortar and pestle, just like she’d seen Grandma do many times before. Then she added boiling water. Lucy waited a few minutes before pouring the tea into Grandma’s favorite fine-china teacup, which was white with red roses.

  Lucy carefully carried the teacup into the bedroom and handed it to the wolf.

  “Here you are, Grandma,” she said. “Your favorite tea.”

  The wolf still felt a little annoyed, but he did actually quite like tea, so he played along and took a big gulp.

  It was only a few seconds before his eyes started to droop. Then the wolf opened his mouth in an enormous yawn.

  It’s working! thought Lucy. And, goodness, what big teeth you have. All the better to eat me with, I’ll bet. But not today, Mr. Wolf.

  “One more sip of your tea, Grandma,” said Lucy to the now very drowsy wolf. “You know you always love the last little bit.”

  “I do?” mumbled the wolf, his head falling back onto the satin pillow.

  “And now,” said Lucy, smiling, “what
a nice big sleep you are going to have.”

  And, indeed, the wolf was fast asleep. Lucy ran over to the chest, unlocked it, and opened the lid. She untied her grandmother’s hands, took the scarf from her mouth, and helped her out of the chest.

  “Grandma, I made your sleepy tea!” she said proudly. “Only stronger… much stronger.”

  “Oh, good girl, Lucy!” said her grandmother. “What a clever idea to use Papaver rhoeas! And now I think that wolf needs one more thing. Lucy, did you happen to collect any buttercups today?”

  “Why yes, I did,” replied Lucy, taking the flowers from one of her pockets and handing them to her grandmother.

  “Very good,” said Grandma. She went to the kitchen and pulled down some jars from the kitchen shelf. “Now, we will just add a few more things to make a rather special blend. Lucy, mortar and pestle at the ready, please!”

  Lucy pounded the buttercups, and Grandma added some more seeds and then more powders from her jars. Soon there was a green paste at the bottom of the mortar.

  “Well done!” said Grandma, smiling proudly at Lucy as she carried the mortar into the bedroom.

  “Now, you greedy wolf, we need to do something about those teeth,” she said as she rubbed the paste onto the sleeping wolf’s gums.

  Lucy and Grandma then dragged the wolf outside and onto a handcart, which, together, they pulled off the path and far into the woods. As Lucy helped to tip the wolf onto the mossy ground, she saw that quite a few of his teeth were lying on the cart’s floor.