Fairy Tales of Fearless Girls Read online

  The carriage sped through the palace gates and down the road into the woods, toward the manor farm.

  They were at a crossroads in the woods, still a ways from home, when the final chime sounded. The carriage slowed down. Then it stopped. POP! Ella was sitting in the dirt in her old dress, next to a pumpkin and six mice, with Gabriel and Grace pecking in the dirt, and Tess licking her hand. The one thing that remained was the glass slipper.

  “I guess we’ll have to walk home,” said Ella, and sighed, eyeing the road leading to the manor farm. “Or, maybe…”

  Ella looked at the glass slipper. It must be very valuable. She remembered what her mother had said: Take courage.

  She remembered what her fairy godmother had said: Follow your heart.

  And she remembered what the prince had said: Do something new.

  Ella looked at Tess, her mice, and her geese, and she smiled. She picked up the glass slipper, and with her animals following her, she started walking down the other road, away from the manor farm. By morning, she would be far, far away.

  5.

  THE NEWS SPREAD across the kingdom: the prince was determined to find the girl who had so enchanted him with her passion and kindness—the owner of the dropped glass slipper. He and his courtier would travel the kingdom until the owner was found. Girls everywhere were desperate to try it on, for if it fit them, then they would become queen.

  None were more desperate than Ella’s two stepsisters. When the prince and his courtier arrived at the manor farm a few weeks later, they fell over each other to try on the shoe.

  “It is my shoe, I’m telling you,” cried Grisella, stuffing her foot into the much-too-small shoe.

  “Don’t listen to her,” cried Mona, shoving her sister to the floor. “My foot will fit.” But it didn’t, of course—the slipper was much too big.

  The prince’s courtier checked his list. “How about Ella?” he inquired.

  “Cinderella, you mean!” said Mona. “We haven’t seen her since the night of the ball. She took off, stole two geese. Only has time for dirty animals, that one.”

  The prince, who had been waiting in the hallway, came into the room.

  “Did you say animals, madam?” he asked.

  “Yes, animals—she spends all her time with them,” said Grisella. “Good riddance, if you ask me… Your Highness?” For the prince, on hearing that, had walked right out of the manor house, jumped on his horse with the glass slipper in his pocket, and ridden away.

  One day a few weeks later, Ella was bringing some hay for the sheep into the stables of Kindness Farm. With the money from selling the precious glass slipper, Ella had bought a farm, and she was busy making it into a refuge for hurt animals.

  “Hello,” said a voice that she thought she recognized. “Could you use another pair of hands?”

  Ella smiled when she turned around. It was the prince. He’d knelt down in front of Tess, who was licking his hand.

  “Hello!” she replied. “That would be wonderful, thank you.”

  “And I’m pretty sure you have the other one of these?” said the prince, passing her the glass slipper.

  “Well… I did,” confessed Ella, taking off her rubber boot and slipping her foot into the slipper, which, of course, fit perfectly, “but I sold it to buy this animal sanctuary.”

  “Of course you did,” said the prince. “Then perhaps you could take this?” He took a sack from his saddle and gently pulled out a rabbit. “I found it in a trap.”

  “You haven’t been hunting?” asked Ella, squinting at the prince.

  “Only for one thing,” said the prince.

  “What’s that?” asked Ella, frowning.

  “You,” said the prince.

  Ella took the rabbit and gave the prince a big hug. “If you’re serious, there’s a whole stable to clean out,” she said.

  “On it,” said the prince, rolling up the sleeves of his very non-frilly, non-itchy shirt.

  And Ella and the prince and all of the animals lived happily ever after at Kindness Farm.

  Thumbelina

  1.

  ONCE upon a time a young woman lived in a cottage with a flower-filled garden, on the edge of a sweeping meadow and fields that burst with harvest.

  The woman tended her garden lovingly, watching with joy each year as the first daffodils and violets appeared, followed by perfumed jasmine, and then wisteria that draped the garden like a purple cloak.

  Her vegetable garden filled with strawberries, snow peas, and cucumbers, and butterflies hovered in the lavender.

  Every evening, from her spot on a white bench under a silver birch tree, the woman listened to the birds sing their last song and watched the sun sink. She was happy caring for her garden, but in a little corner of her heart she was lonely.

  One day, an old woman in raggedy clothing came to the cottage gate asking for food. The young woman welcomed the stranger. She sat her down on the white bench in the shade, and brought her a pot of soothing chrysanthemum tea and a bowl of deliciously sweet berries, all from the garden.

  The old woman was grateful. As she took her leave, she pulled a single large seed from her coat pocket. “Here, kind woman,” she said. “Take this, with my thanks. Plant it, and you will be blessed with your heart’s longing.”

  The young woman planted the seed in a large stone pot. She thought no more of it until the next morning, when she was surprised to see that a long, single orange tulip had shot up in the pot overnight.

  The petals of the flower were tightly shut, but as the woman sprinkled water over them, they slowly uncurled. The woman stood back in wonder when she saw a tiny girl lying at the flower’s center, smiling up at her.

  Tears of joy streaked the young woman’s cheeks. “At last, a companion!” She lifted the tiny girl up on the palm of her hand. “You’re so small—not even as tall as my thumb. I will call you Thumbelina, and we will be so happy in the garden together.” And they were. The young woman and the tiny girl shared many wonderful times in the garden. Thumbelina was always inventing new games to play, and she loved to laugh and tell jokes.

  Her laughter, almost like a song, would ring out over the garden and meadow, lifting the hearts of all who heard it.

  The young woman had placed a large dish on the garden table and filled it with water. When she was busy planting and weeding, Thumbelina would row up and down this dish on nasturtium-leaf boats, using horsehairs for oars, imagining she was the captain of a large boat sailing to unknown lands. She enlisted a family of ladybugs as her crew, and they would sail the water for hours, navigating their way through islands of fallen leaves.

  “What is a bug’s favorite sport?” Thumbelina called down from atop the nasturtium-stem mast.

  The ladybugs shook their antennas.

  “Cricket!” cried Thumbelina with a gleeful snort. “Now, my mates, to the end of the dish!”

  Thumbelina would also help the neighborhood ants collect their food, carrying heavy seeds for them to their storehouse at the base of a large oak tree.

  She would tell stories and jokes to the snails, encouraging them as they edged their way down the garden path, leaving glittering silver trails behind them.

  “What do you call a snail on a ship? A snailor!”

  Thumbelina loved playing with all her friends, but sometimes, peering out over the distant garden gate from her vantage point high up the ship’s mast, she did wonder what it might be like to explore the vast meadow and fields that stretched as far as the eye could see, out in the world beyond the cottage. At night, lying in her polished-walnut-shell bed, with its violet-petal-padded mattress and rose petals for blankets, Thumbelina would often dream of the adventures she might have, the new friends she might meet in the meadow.

  One morning, Thumbelina was helping the baby ladybugs with their flying practice. She longed to fly herself, and had woven some grass blades together to make little wings, but no one’s attempts were very successful. The little beetles’ wings poppe
d out, fluttered furiously, and then fell back in under their shells, and Thumbelina’s grass blades just caught a little gust of air, then sank. They all tumbled onto the soft grass in peals of beetle laughter. Thumbelina’s laugh was the loudest of all, and it rang out over the cottage garden and gate, carrying as far away as the large lily-pad-filled pond on the other side of the meadow.

  Which was where a large mother frog heard it.

  “How beautiful,” croaked the mother frog. “Such a happy sound! Whoever has that laugh would make a fine plaything for my froglings.”

  And with that, the mother frog leaped across the meadow, over the garden gate, and onto Thumbelina’s table. She picked up a surprised Thumbelina in her big mouth and took her back to her lily-pad pond.

  “This is your home now,” croaked the mother frog imperiously. She placed Thumbelina on a raft of joined-up lily pads by the side of the pond, next to her eight froglings, who were about Thumbelina’s size and who hopped over each other in delighted shock upon seeing her—for they had never seen a tiny girl such as Thumbelina before.

  Now, Thumbelina had quite enjoyed the ride, and the little frogs did look rather fun, but she didn’t want to live on the pond. “Please take me home,” she said firmly.

  The mother frog shook her head. “You must stay here, with my froglings.”

  “Listen here,” began Thumbelina indignantly, “you can’t treat me like a plaything just because I’m little.”

  “That’s exactly why I want you,” croaked the mother frog, a little impatiently. “You’re different. I haven’t seen a tiny child like you for such a long time.”

  “What?” shouted Thumbelina, astounded. “A child like me? What do you mean?”

  “You know: tiny girl, lovely laugh,” said the mother frog. “Now, I see you’re going to be difficult.”

  And with that, she picked Thumbelina up in her mouth again and, in one giant leap, hopped onto a single lily pad sitting all alone in the middle of the pond and set Thumbelina upon it. She croaked delightedly as she hopped away.

  But Thumbelina wasn’t delighted. She sat back on the lily pad and thought about how to escape.

  2.

  THUMBELINA LOOKED DOWN into the pond and saw three minnows swimming past the lily leaf. She watched them nibble at its stem underwater—and that gave her an idea.

  “Hello there!” she cried. The minnows popped their heads above the water, their eyes bulging inquisitively. “Might I trouble you for some help? Would you mind nibbling all the way through this lily-pad stem?”

  The minnows turned to look at each other. The lily-pad stem was delicious, after all. And so they nibbled away until, just as Thumbelina had hoped, the lily pad was set free of its stem and began to float away.

  Thumbelina had hoped the lily pad would float all the way to the side of the pond, but the current was weak, and she simply floated around in circles. This is no use, she thought, looking up at the sky just as a white butterfly settled on a water reed above her. Another idea struck Thumbelina.

  “Hello!” she shouted to the butterfly. “Might you come over here? Oh, and please bring that reed with you.”

  The butterfly looked a little surprised, but obediently clutched a long, thin reed with its front legs and fluttered over. As it hovered over Thumbelina, she grabbed the reed. “Now to the bank, please, if you will,” she cried. “Would you like to hear a joke while we are floating?”

  The butterfly tilted its antennae down toward Thumbelina.

  “Why wouldn’t they let the butterfly into the dance?” asked Thumbelina. “Because… it was a mothball!”

  “Good one,” said the butterfly, wings fluttering in amusement. And, just a few jokes later, Thumbelina and the butterfly had reached the edge of the pond.

  “Thank you!” said Thumbelina. “If I can ever return the favor, do let me know!”

  The butterfly fluttered away, still chuckling.

  Hands on hips, Thumbelina looked up and all around her. It was late summer. Above her, long stalks of wild grass waved and glistened in the sunshine. Cicadas chirped, and wildflowers dotted the vast landscape. “The meadow,” she exclaimed. “I’m here!”

  Thumbelina remembered what the mother frog had said about there being other tiny children like her. Perhaps they were hidden somewhere in this very meadow. Right then and there, she decided that she wouldn’t go home, but would stay and search for them instead.

  Thumbelina was excited, and perhaps a little nervous, but before she had taken even one single tiny nervous or excited step, a beetle swooped down over her head and snatched her up in its feet.

  “Hey!” yelled Thumbelina.

  The beetle flew higher and higher, carrying Thumbelina up to the top of a large oak tree before setting her down on a branch, alongside a whole group of other beetles. The view was magnificent.

  “Hey!” Thumbelina yelled again, trying to uncurl the beetle’s legs from around her waist. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve never seen a tiny girl like you before,” said the beetle. “My friends will think you are very interesting.”

  Thumbelina sighed. And then she stopped struggling, and tried to look as uninteresting as she could. No jokes for them, she thought.

  “Look what I’ve brought!” buzzed the beetle to his friends.

  But Thumbelina’s plan seemed to work—the other beetles weren’t at all interested in her.

  “No shell,” buzzed one.

  “No wings,” buzzed another.

  “No antennae,” chirped in a third.

  “Odd,” judged another. “Not one of us.”

  Thumbelina hadn’t wanted to be with the beetles, but she couldn’t help but feel a little hurt by the rejection. The beetle who’d caught her looked disappointed too. When Thumbelina asked it to take her back to the ground, it complied, dropping her at the base of the tree.

  “That’s better!” said Thumbelina. “Now, where was I? Ah, yes, searching. I’d never imagined there’d be other tiny children like me. I wonder what it would be like to meet some….”

  So Thumbelina set out to see.

  3.

  THE DAYS TURNED into weeks as Thumbelina made her way across the meadow. She found plenty to eat, munching contentedly on pollen sandwiches, and on blueberries that she cut into segments using a knife she made from bark. She sipped on dew from leaves, and used daisies as sun umbrellas.

  She met many new friends on her way across the meadow—caterpillars, ladybugs, grasshoppers—and she asked them all if they had seen any other little children like her. Sadly, no one had, but Thumbelina was determined and kept walking.

  “Hello,” she said one day to a mother rabbit and her fourteen baby rabbits. “Have you ever met a little girl like me around the meadow?”

  “I don’t think I have,” replied the mother rabbit distractedly, counting off her children as they hopped down into their burrow.

  Thumbelina thought the mother rabbit looked a little harried, what with all those children to look after. Perhaps a joke will cheer her up, she thought. “One more thing: What do you call a happy rabbit?”

  “A happy rabbit? No idea, I’m sure,” replied the mother rabbit.

  “A hoptimist!” cried Thumbelina.

  The fourteenth bunny, who was about to hop into the hole, fell backward laughing at the joke, but the mother rabbit simply twitched her nose.

  “Oh, yes, I see,” she said, picking the last baby bunny up by the scruff of its neck with her teeth and scurrying toward the hole. “Can’t stop longer, sorry—family calls.”

  Thumbelina felt a bit glum after that. Does my family call? she wondered. She took a deep breath. “Onward!” she told herself aloud. And so she pressed on across the meadow.

  Another day, after summer had turned into autumn, Thumbelina heard a swarm of bees above her. “Hello!” she called up to them as they landed on one of the season’s last sunflowers. “Have you seen any little children as you’ve flown around? Perhaps in a flower?”
r />   “No,” buzzed the bees.

  “Oh,” said Thumbelina, a little dejected—until another joke came to her. “What kind of bee can’t make up its mind?”

  “Hmmm, don’t know,” buzzed one of the bees.

  “A maybe!” shouted Thumbelina.

  “Oh, that’s rather good!” they all buzzed, heading off. “We must tell the queen. Good luck finding your friends!”

  Thumbelina kept traveling and meeting other insects and animals of the meadow, and they all wished her well too… but none had seen any little children like her. As the weeks turned into months, Thumbelina couldn’t help starting to feel more than a little bit sad.

  Surely I can’t be the only little child in the whole world, she thought one day, as she climbed up a dandelion stalk to get a better view. A flock of swallows flew past. She hadn’t met any swallows yet on her journey. “Hello!” she shouted. “Excuse me!”

  But the swallows didn’t stop, and Thumbelina grew sadder. She didn’t think to wonder why the swallows seemed so determined to leave the meadow; nor did she notice that the air was turning chilly and the leaves were starting to fall from the trees. But she did notice when the rain came. Heavy drops of rain pelted down on her. The wind blew stronger, and it was hard climbing through all the fallen leaves.

  When the snow began to fall, Thumbelina dodged the snowflakes as best she could. The snow coated the branches of the trees, and Thumbelina was both cold and afraid. Now all the animals seemed to have left the meadow, and she was alone.

  “Brrr,” she shivered one night, snuggling into a heap of fallen oak leaves. “What shall I do now? Perhaps a joke will cheer me up. Hmmm, I know—what did one firefly say to the other? You glow, girl! Ha!”