Free Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird by Vivian Vande Velde Page A

have you done?
" Isabella cried.
    "Don't yell at us," Gretel said. "She was a witch."
    "She was definitely a witch," Hansel agreed. "We don't like being yelled at."
    "She was just a poor old woman," Isabella shouted, "half blind and half lame."
    Gretel turned in the doorway to look at Hansel. Hansel nodded. They both looked at Isabella.
    Isabella took a step back.
    "We don't like being yelled at," Gretel said.
    Isabella took another step back. Her voice shaking, she asked, "How did your mother die?"
    Once again Gretel looked over her shoulder at Hansel.
    Hansel said, "We don't like you."
    Isabella kept on backing up until she reached the end of the walkway, then she turned and ran. Her heart pounding wildly, she ran and ran till she spotted their own cottage in the woods. She considered stopping for Siegfried but then she ran on.
    After all, he was the one who had gotten her into this.

TWELVE
Evidence

If the coach turned back into a pumpkin
and the coachman into a rat
and the footmen into mice,
one can only wonder
why the glass slippers alone remained
untouched by magic's ebbing tide.
    Obviously a set-up.
But by whom?
The fairy godmother's ability
didn't extend beyond midnight.
And where would a cinder girl
have ever gotten shoes like that?
Could they possibly have been a secret gift
from the stepmother,
eager to get her out of the house,
tired of her unrelenting goodness,
and beauty,
and cheerfulness
(not to mention all that singing)?

THIRTEEN
Beast and Beauty

    Once upon a time, in a land where even parents had magic, a mother got so upset with her son's bad temper, sloppy clothes, messy room, and disgusting table manners that she said: "II you're going to act like a beast, you might as well look like one, too."
    The next thing the poor boy knew, he had hair all over his body, his knuckles reached the floor, his teeth curved into tusks, and his nostrils were so big that anyone he stood near could see halfway up his nose.
    Despite his promises never to yell again and to wash his socks at least once a week and to take out the garbage and to keep his elbows off the table, his mother would not relent. And his father
never
contradicted his mother.
    "You may live alone," she said, "so that you may live however you choose."
    "But Mother," Beast said—speaking quietly now, since shouting hadn't helped—"but Mother, I love you."
    She continued to shoo him out the back door so the neighbors wouldn't see him. "That's nice," she said. "And you will remain a beast until you get a good and beautiful woman to agree to many you. I love you, too," she added, and closed the door.
    Now this wasn't as heartless as it sounds, for Beast's mother wasn't sending him out to beg for his food or to sleep on the hard, cold ground. The family had not one but
two
castles, the second one being deep in the woods without neighbors. It was also a magical place that would provide whatever Beast asked for, except human companionship.
    Although the magic castle would have happily picked up Beast's dirty laundry and washed his dirty dishes and fixed the holes he kicked or punched into walls whenever he was angry at something, Beast very quickly mended his ways, hoping that this would please his mother and that she would allow him to return home. Besides, living out in the woods, with no friends to visit and nothing much to do beyond tending the garden, Beast had plenty of time on his hands to try to make everything perfect. Every time his parents would drop in—birthdays and holidays and the occasional unannounced surprise visit just to keep him on his toes—he would invite them to come into the house to see how clean it was. But his mother would always say, "No, no. Sitting with you in the garden is fine with me."
    Then he would say, "At least let's have dinner out here so that you can see how good my table manners have become."
    But she would always answer, "No, no. We ate just before we came; I couldn't possibly eat a bite more." Then she