Fairest of All (Whatever After #1) (6 page)

a
ll the dwarfs are at work when I hear a knock at the door. I’m not sure what they do, but they seem very dedicated.

“That’s her!” I whisper, and put down my spoon. I’m not crazy about my breakfast, anyway. Snow’s porridge is no Lucky Charms.

Snow turns even whiter than normal. “Maybe I shouldn’t get it.”

I place my hands on my hips. “You have to! That’s the plan.”

Jonah tugs on my arm. “When can we go exploring?”

“Not now, Jonah,” I whisper.

“I know. But when?”

“Shush! When we’re done.”

“But I don’t want to be poisoned,” Snow whines. “I think I’d rather just live here. And stay un-poisoned.”

“I bet you won’t even feel it,” I say, even though I have no idea if that’s true. The story never said anything about the poison hurting, did it?

I peek behind the curtain, expecting to see the old woman from yesterday, but instead, there’s a young girl standing there. She’s wearing a white dress and has pigtails, and she’s carrying a plate of gooey-looking cookies.

“False alarm,” I say. “It’s just a little girl.”

“Abby —” Jonah says.

“I said shush, Jonah!”

Instead of shushing, he jumps up and down. “She changes into different disguises. It’s probably Evil Evelyn dressed up.”

“Oh, right.” Duh. Of course. I should have noticed that she was still tall. It’s the queen in disguise! She’s so sneaky! She has poisoned cookies! “Snow, are you ready? Let’s do this! Open the door and act normal. You don’t want her to suspect anything.”

“I’m sorry!” Snow yells through the curtains. “I’m not allowed to answer the door!”

What is she doing? “You have to answer the door! Otherwise she won’t poison you!”

“You told me to act normal,” Snow says back. “That’s what I normally say.”

“Fine, but don’t let her get away.”

“I have cookies!” the girl calls from outside. “Chocolate chip cookies! I’m giving them away for free! Would you like one? I’m just a little girl! A harmless little girl!”

“This is perfect,” I whisper to Snow. “The cookies are just like the apple. You eat the cookie, you pass out, the story goes on as normal. Case closed.” I take a step back so the little Evil Evelyn won’t see me, but I pick up the corner of the curtain so I can watch. Jonah crouches behind the couch.

Snow takes a deep breath. “Here I go!” She opens the door and looks at the little girl. “Hello, little girl,” she says in a meek voice.

Because the door opens inward, it’s blocking my view a bit. I can still see out the window, though. There’s an evil glint in the girl’s eyes. I can also see her freckles. Evil Evelyn went all out on this disguise. I bet she rocks at Halloween.

The queen practically shoves the plate under Snow’s nose. “Would you like one? Don’t they smell delicious?”

My stomach grumbles. They
do
smell delicious. I kind of want a cookie. Especially since I didn’t finish my porridge.

No poisoned cookie, no poisoned cookie!

“Well, um, all right,” Snow says, her voice shaky. “I will eat one of your cookies.”

“Here you go,” the little girl says. “Take your pick.”

I snort. I can’t believe that Evil Evelyn thought Snow would fall for the same trick again. Obviously she’s not that smart. Hmm. I almost fell for it, too.

“O-okay,” Snow says. “Will do. I’m taking it. I’m taking it. Here I go.” She reaches outside to pick up a cookie and slowly —
verrry slowwwly
— raises it to her mouth.

No turning back now! She is going to take a bite of the cookie. The story will continue like it’s supposed to. Problem solved. Now all we have to do is figure out how to get home.

Snow opens her mouth and takes a bite.

That’s when I see it.

The young girl is holding a hammer behind her back.

A hammer.

A hammer?

She’s lifting the hammer and swinging it toward Snow’s head.

Noooooo!
This is not the plan! There is no hammer in my plan!

“Stop!” I scream at the tippy-top of my lungs. I jump toward Snow and push her out of the way. We both tumble to the floor.

Snow spits the cookie out.

At the same time, the young girl’s hammer swings through the air and just misses its target. “Drat!” the young girl wails, spinning in a circle like a top.

“Why did you do that?” Snow asks me, pushing herself up on her elbows.

“She was going to hit you with a hammer!” She could have smashed Snow in half or made a dent in her head! Would a handsome prince fall in love with a smushed head? I mean, seriously. And who knows if a smushed Snow could be brought back to life?

“You again,” the young girl spits, her lips morphing into a sneer. Her makeup starts to melt and I can see Evil Evelyn beneath the disguise. And yes, she’s definitely wearing a key on a chain around her neck. What, does she have to wind herself up or something?

Evil Evelyn shakes a long black fingernail in my face. Hmm. There’ll be no fooling me a second time. If that key doesn’t give her away, those claws sure will. “Why are you ruining my plan?” she snarls.

Is she kidding me? “I’m ruining
your
plan? You’re ruining
my
plan!”

Before she can smush
me
with the hammer, I kick the door shut with my bare foot.

Evil Evelyn tries to rattle it open. “I’m coming in! You can’t stop me!” She pushes against the door and then kicks it. Then she stops. I peek out the window. Two seconds later, she starts muttering to herself and smashing the hammer against the door.

With the next bang, the hinges almost pop off.

“Maybe this will help,” Jonah says, pushing the mini-couch against the door.

“Good idea,” I say. “More!” The three of us heave over the mini–dining room table and the mini-chairs. They are much lighter (and smaller) than I wish they were.

I push, Snow pushes, and my brother pushes. We will not — no, we will
not
— let Evil Evelyn in! On the other side, she’s yelling and grunting and hammering. We block the door with all the furniture and appliances we can find. The garbage pail. Chairs. A large pot. Fortunately, the windows are dwarf-sized. No way is Evil Evelyn fitting through them.

“We have to scare her away,” Jonah says.

“But how?” Snow asks.

“We have boiling water!” I scream. “If you don’t go away in three seconds, we’re going to throw it at you!”

“We don’t have boiling water,” Snow whispers.

“She doesn’t know that,” I whisper back. I would never really throw boiling water at someone. But Evil Evelyn probably thinks all people are as evil as she is.

There’s a pause.

“I’m going to throw it!” I yell, feeling a bit sick at the thought. “You’ll be covered in burns and blisters! You won’t even be the second-fairest person in the land. You’ll be the first ugliest!”

“I’ll be back,” we hear.

Eventually the other side gets quiet.

“I think she’s gone,” I say finally.

Snow looks under the curtains. “I don’t see her.” She exhales with relief.

“Now what?” Jonah asks.

Good question.

“So can we take down the blockade?” Snow asks.

I crawl over to the couch and plant myself on a cushion. “Let’s keep it up. Just in case.”

“She only comes around once a day,” Snow says. “We can try again tomorrow. Now help me tidy up before the dwarfs get back. Frances hates it when things are out of place.”

I feel a little queasy. “This whole let-Snow-almost-die plan is not working. What if next time the queen comes back with a truck and mows down the cottage?”

“What’s a truck?” Snow asks.

“A really big horseless carriage,” Jonah says.

“But what if she comes back with a cannon? Or a dragon? What if she keeps coming back until she gets the job done?” I wonder aloud.

We need to save Snow’s story — before there’s no Snow left to save.

a
fter our poisoned-cookie plan fails, I lead us back into the forest and try to retrace our steps. Not that I’m ready to go home yet. I can’t leave Zamel until I figure out how to change Snow’s story back to the way it was. Snow’s so nice. She deserves a happy ending. It’s not fair if she doesn’t get one because of us. And once the story is fixed, I want to skedaddle as fast as possible. I think time has stopped in Smithville, but what if it hasn’t? I don’t want Mom and Dad to worry.

But first we fix the story. We HAVE to. If we don’t, Evil Evelyn could return and kill Snow for real.

I can’t let that happen. Snow can’t DIE because of us.

I feel cold and sick just thinking about it.

“This is it,” Jonah says. “This is where we came out.”

“How can you tell?” I ask. “All the trees look the same to me.” Forget Yopopa. Is my brother a genius? A
nature
genius?

He points to a pile on the ground. “I see Mom and Dad’s law books. And the computer chair is behind that tree.”

Oh. Right.

“This is where you two arrived?” Snow asks. She picks up one of the law books and flips through it.

“Yup,” I say. “Now all we have to do is figure out how to get back.”

“To get here, I knocked on the mirror three times,” Jonah says. “What if I do that again?”

“But there’s no mirror here,” Snow says.

“Good point,” Jonah says.

“What about something else with a reflection?” I ask.

Jonah points in the distance. “Look, a puddle! Water! Water has a reflection, right?”

Yes! “Perfect!” The three of us run toward it.

“I’m going to try,” Jonah says.

“Wait,” I say. “But what if it works? We can’t go home yet.” What if the puddle starts to pull us all toward it and then we’re back in our basement? “We still haven’t fixed Snow’s story.”

What if Snow gets pulled back with us? How would I explain her to my parents?

Not that they’d mind. She
is
really nice. And her cooking might be gross, but she
does
clean. She could even stay in my room. We could be BFFs. Even better than BFFs — she could be the older sister I never had but always wanted. Yes! She’d lend me her clothes, French braid my hair, and teach me how to do a handstand.

Although she wouldn’t be allowed to tell Jonah what to do. That’s my job. She wouldn’t be allowed to tell me what to do, either.

Maybe I don’t really want an older sister.

“I won’t knock more than twice,” Jonah says. “The mirror in the basement hissed when I knocked once, and then turned purple when I knocked twice. If the puddle turns purple, then I’ll stop.”

“Perfect,” I say. Except I doubt this will work. There’s not much of a reflection. Just a lot of mud.

Jonah drops to his knees. He lifts his hand in knocking position. He knocks. Or at least, he tries to knock. But instead, he ends up putting his fist into the dirty water.

Snow and I giggle.

Jonah looks confused. Then he says, “Let me try again.”

He does it again.
Splash.
We giggle again.

“It’s not hissing
or
turning purple,” he says, disappointment written all over his face.

I look down at the still-brown and still-silent puddle. “Nope.”

“One more time,” Jonah says, and lifts his fist.

“Don’t,” I say. “Just in case.” What if it’s too brown for us to see the purple? What if its hissing part is broken? It could still work on the third knock and drag us home!

Too late. His hand slices into the puddle.
Splash!
No purple. No hissing. Just a muddy hand.

Tee, hee. Thank goodness.

“Maybe we need to leave the way we came,” I say as Jonah wipes his hand on a leaf.

“But the cottage doesn’t have a basement,” Jonah points out.

“Not a basement,” I say. “An actual mirror.”

“Enid has a mirror,” Snow says. “You can try hers.”

“Is it magic?” Jonah asks, his voice hopeful. “What we really need is a magic mirror.”

Snow shakes her head. “Sorry. I only know one person who has a magic mirror. My stepmother.”

My jaw drops. Of course! Evil Evelyn has a magic mirror! That’s how Snow got into this mess in the first place. “I bet her mirror could take us home. Or at the very least, it would know how to get us home. Since it’s magic and all.”

Snow shakes her head. “She’d never let us use it. She’s not big on sharing. And we’d have to sneak in.”

“Where did Evil Evelyn get the mirror?” I ask. Maybe there are more around. Well, why not? I have one in my own basement.

“It came with the castle,” she says. “It gets handed down from queen to queen.” Her eyes get teary. “It used to be my mom’s.”

I can feel tears in my eyes, too. Poor Snow doesn’t have a mom. Or a dad.

I feel a squeeze in my stomach. I miss my mom and dad. A lot. What if I was wrong about time stopping at home? What if right now they’re missing me, too?

“But I’m sure my mom never used it for evil,” Snow adds.

I blink away my tears. “I guess we’ll have to sneak in.”

Snow turns white with fear, which is no easy feat, considering she’s already pretty pale. “I’m scared. If she catches us, she’ll throw us in the dungeons. Or kill us. Probably kill us.”

Jonah’s eyes widen. “Do you think she’d eat our lungs and livers, too?”

Snow nods. “She might.”

“Do you think she’d use ketchup? I bet they’d be pretty gross without ketchup.”

I roll my eyes. “She’s not going to eat any of us, okay? We’re not going to let her see us. We’re
sneaking
in, not
barging
in. Anyway, maybe the mirror at the cottage will work and we won’t have to even go there.”

On our way back to the cottage, Snow says, “I have an idea about how to fix my story. But it might be dumb.”

“My teacher always says there are no dumb ideas,” I say. “Only dumb people. Wait, no, I don’t think that’s how it goes.”

Snow looks stricken. “Do you think I’m dumb?”

“Of course not!” True, she did fall for the queen’s disguises multiple times. But that’s because she’s too nice. And anyway, I almost fell for it, too. But only once. “You’re just too trusting,” I say. “Sometimes you let people push you around.”

She twirls her hair. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re a princess living in a cottage with strangers instead of your own castle. There must be some way to get back what’s rightfully yours.”

She walks for a few moments without talking. “It’s just that my stepmother is so much tougher than me. I’m weak.”

“Snow, she’s already tried to eat your lungs, suffocate you, poison you, and smush you with a hammer. But you managed to survive all those attempts. You’re tougher than you think.”

Snow’s eyes widen. “I didn’t think of it that way.”

“Well, you should. You’re one tough un-poisoned cookie. So what’s your idea?”

She squares her shoulders and stands up taller. “Well, you said that the prince finds me dead, falls in love with me, and then brings me back to life, right?”

“Exactly.”

“So why don’t we just skip the dying part? I lie in the box, close my eyes, and act like I was just poisoned. He comes along, falls in love, carries me home, and I spring back to life. Except I was never dead!”

I stop walking and look at her. “So the story will basically stay the same, but you don’t have to eat poison. Or have your head smushed.”

She bites her thumb. “Dumb?”

I link my arm through hers. “Not at all. You know what? It might just work.”

A few minutes later, we’re back at the cottage and knocking on Enid’s mirror.

Nothing happens.

We also knock on all the shiny pots, just to be sure.

Nope. No hissing or purple anywhere.

“Now what?” Jonah asks.

“First we’ll fix Snow’s story,” I say. “Then we’ll have to sneak into Evil Evelyn’s castle and visit the magic mirror.”

“So we get to spend another night? Yay!”

“Not yay. I’m not looking forward to another night of your feet in my face. And I don’t want Mom and Dad to worry.”

“But, Abby, you said that time stopped at home,” Jonah says. “So that means they’re asleep. They don’t even know we’re gone!”

“I know….” I glance down at my watch. “Wait a sec. It says one oh five
A
.
M
. My watch is working again! But really slowly. We’ve been here one fairy-tale day, but my watch says only an hour has passed. Hmm. Maybe time hasn’t stopped at home like I thought. Maybe it’s actually one oh five
A
.
M
. at home. Maybe every day here equals an hour at home.”

“So we can stay?”

“Well, Mom and Dad wake up at six forty-five and wake us up at seven. So as long as we only stay for just under six days, we’ll get home before they realize we’re gone.”

He shrugs. “Easy, peasy.”

“All right,” I say. “We’ll stay. But if you kick me in the face again, I’ll pull an Evil Evelyn and I’ll eat —”

“My liver?” he giggles.

I snap my teeth. “Your toes.”