A Treasury of Classic Fairy Tales was written across its brown cover. It wasn’t much to look at and didn’t have nearly as much majestic charm as her grandmother’s Land of Stories book, but it had become Alex’s favorite book to visit in the library.
She looked around to make sure no one was watching her. Besides the librarian, who was busy at her computer, she had the library to herself.
Alex opened the book and flipped through the pages. She skimmed through the illustrations of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, of Rapunzel and Red Riding Hood, and of Goldilocks and Jack and the beanstalk. Surprisingly, they were accurate depictions of the people she had met a year ago in the fairy-tale world.
Alex finally found “Cinderella” and came across the picture she wanted to see most: an illustration of the Fairy Godmother.
Alex couldn’t help but chuckle under her breath every time she saw it. The artist’s version of the Fairy Godmother couldn’t have been further from what her grandmother looked like. In this book, she was a tall and voluptuous woman with big lips, wings, long blonde hair, and a large golden crown.
However inaccurate it was, it was technically still her grandmother, and that was all Alex needed to see.
“Hi, Grandma,” Alex said quietly to the book. “You look great. I like your crown and your wings. It’s funny how different you look in every book I read. Are they just dramatic interpretations, or has your style changed over the years?”
The Fairy Godmother was just a young fairy living in the fairy-tale world when she discovered there was another world. She was the first and only person in the history of both worlds capable of traveling between the two at will. She never understood why she was given such a gift, but magic had always had a mind of its own.
The world was in a very dark place during her first visits. It was the beginning of the Middle Ages, and war and plague were everywhere she looked. The Fairy Godmother told stories of her world to the children she met to brighten their spirits. The tales gave them such hope and joy that she decided to make it her life’s work to spread the history of her world in theirs.
The Fairy Godmother eventually enlisted other fairies, including Mother Goose and members of the Fairy Council, to travel secretly with her and help spread the stories (hence the name “fairy tales”), giving a bit of magic to a world that had little of its own. Over time, the fairies recruited other people, such as the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, to help keep their stories alive.
The two dimensions operated on different time schedules; the fairy-tale world moved at a much slower pace compared to the other world. The fairies tried to visit the other world as much as possible, but though only months would pass between visits in the fairy-tale world, decades would have passed in the other world. It wasn’t until Alex and Conner, the first children belonging to both worlds, were born that the dimensions began moving at the same pace.
Alex and Conner were the links that held the two worlds together. And as Alex held the Treasury of Classic Fairy Tales in her hands, she could almost feel that power running through her veins. It was no wonder they had loved fairy tales their whole lives.
Alex wondered if her grandmother had devoted the last year solely to spreading fairy tales around the world. Or had something bad happened in the fairy-tale world?
“Grandma, I don’t know what’s going on, but I could really use you right now,” Alex said to the book. “Everything is changing; everything is moving in directions I don’t like. This whole growing-up thing is a lot harder than I ever thought it would be. And not getting to see you makes it unbearable.”
Alex took another look around the library to make sure she was still alone. She hugged the book as tightly as she could without damaging it and whispered into the top of its spine.
“Please let me come back to the Land of Stories,” she said. “Let me join you and the other fairies. If something has happened, let me help you. I know I can. Please just send me a sign, let me know that you’re okay.”
Alex held the book for a few moments more, hoping that maybe today would be the day she would be magically transported back into the world she loved so much. But to her disappointment, she stayed put in the library.
Her whispers didn’t go entirely unnoticed, however.
“If hugging that one doesn’t work, try one of these,” said a voice from nearby.
Startled, Alex dropped the treasury. Down the aisle, seated on the floor with a few stacks of books piled around him, was Conner. Alex had completely missed him.
“You scared me,” Alex said. She was embarrassed, not knowing what he had and hadn’t heard her saying to the inanimate object.
“You’re lucky I know you; otherwise I probably would have reported you to the school psychologist,” Conner said with a mocking but loving smirk.
“What are you doing here?” Alex asked him. She walked down the aisle closer to her brother and saw that the majority of the books around him were also different storybooks and fairy tales.
“Same thing as you, apparently,” Conner said and then snickered to himself. “Although I didn’t try getting to first base with any of them or anything.”
“Very funny,” Alex said and took a seat next to him. “Is this your first time ever being in the library?”
Conner sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve been in a bit of a funk today. I thought if I came in here and flipped through a couple of these I would feel better,” he explained.
“Did it work?” Alex asked.
“For the most part, I’d say,” Conner said. “Why do you think that is?”
“Well,” Alex said, straightening her headband, “I read in a zoology book once that certain species of birds and insects that live in trees will climb down and hide in the roots if they ever feel like their home is being threatened.”
Conner looked at her like she was speaking in tongues. “And how is that relevant to this topic?”
“Because,” Alex explained, “our home is being threatened; things are changing. So here we are, in a library, reading old fairy tales. We returned to our roots.”
“Sure,” Conner said, only half understanding her comparison. “How can you remember that but you can never remember the names of singers on the radio?”
“My point is,” Alex continued, “sometimes all we need to see are a few familiar faces to make us feel comfortable again.”
Conner nodded. “Well, I wouldn’t say I saw any familiar faces,” he said.
He searched through his pile of books and pulled out a couple to show her.
“In this, the Egyptian version of ‘Cinderella,’ Grandma is a hawk!” he told her excitedly. “And in this one, Grandma’s not even in it. Cinderella gets her gown and shoes from a tree! Can you believe that? Like a tree could give her a new dress. Please. A complete stranger with a wand is much more believable.”
“We should write letters of complaint,” Alex said. “Should we sign it as the grandchildren of the Fairy Godmother? Do you think they’ll take it more seriously if we do?” They both laughed.
“Definitely!” Conner said. “Or personal acquaintances of the long-lost Charming prince! I bet no one has ever heard that one before.”
Both the twins went silent for a moment and their amusement faded into despair. “I miss Froggy,” Conner said. “I miss saying ‘Froggy.’ ”
“There’s not much we can do about it,” Alex said. “If Grandma wanted us to come back, she would tell us what was going on. Until then, I guess we’ll have to keep hugging books.”
“Great,” Conner said sarcastically. “I wonder what Dad would tell us if he were alive. I don’t think there’s a story even in his catalog that could help us get through everything we’re going through now.”
Alex had to think about it. Most of her dad’s stories had been perfect for their elementary-school dilemmas, but what advice would he give them now?
“I bet he would say that anyone can have a once-upon-a-time or a happily-ever-after,
but it’s the journey between that makes the story worth telling,” Alex said. “And how characters face the challenges at hand is what makes them heroes.”
“Yeah…” Conner said. “Something like that.… You’re good at this.”
A high-pitched beep sounded as an announcement was made over the loudspeaker.
“Conner Bailey, please report to the principal’s office. Conner Bailey, please report to the principal’s office.”
Both of the twins looked up toward the speaker and then at each other.
“What did you do?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know,” Conner said with a gulp. He mentally rewound through the past four weeks of his life, thinking of anything he had done that could warrant a trip to the principal’s office, but found nothing. “At least, I don’t think I did anything.”
Conner collected his things and put the library books back on the shelves.
“Well, wish me luck,” he said to his sister. “See you after school… I hope.”
Alex stayed seated on the floor, discouraging thoughts filling her head. What would happen if she never saw her grandmother again? Would she become a weird, book-hugging lady who traveled from one library to the next? Would her future children believe her when she told them about her connections to the fairy-tale world?
The bell eventually rang and Alex got to her feet. She picked up the Treasury of Classic Fairy Tales from where she had dropped it on the floor and decided to take one last look at the illustration before heading to class.
Alex turned to the same page she had been talking to before, and to her amazement, the illustration was completely different. Instead of the voluptuous woman with the wings and crown, the picture showed a petite woman with a kind smile in a sky-blue sparkly robe. It was her grandmother.
Alex looked around the library in shock as a smile grew on her face. Her grandmother had just sent her a postcard.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE
Conner had only been sitting outside the principal’s office for ten minutes, but it felt like two hours. The mystery of why he was there was picking at his psyche like a pair of hungry buzzards.
He had been a surprisingly good student this year—not as great as his sister, perhaps, but good nevertheless. Conner’s grades were decent, although he probably could have done better in science and math, as he imagined most students could. Besides occasionally forgetting which revolution happened where, he was doing fairly well in his history class, too. And for the first time in his life, he was actually enjoying assignments in his English class.
He was confident he hadn’t done anything wrong. So why was he there? He grew paranoid someone had possibly framed him. Was he being held responsible for the graffiti on the lockers or the goldfish put in the faculty toilets? Sure, Conner thought those pranks were hilarious, but he hadn’t done them. If they didn’t think he was guilty, did they think he knew who was and want him to testify? Could he plead the Fifth in school? Did he have the right to a lawyer or a phone call?
The door to the principal’s office opened and a girl ran out in tears. Conner instantly tensed.
“Mr. Bailey?” Mrs. Peters called from inside her office.
Conner gulped. Hearing her call out his name was just as terrifying today as it had been when she taught him in the sixth grade.…
A huge promotion was the last thing she had expected, but Mrs. Peters had recently come up in the world.
After twenty-five long years of teaching, Mrs. Peters had made the tough decision to retire. The subject had been on the veteran educator’s mind for quite some time. Unbeknownst to her students, Mrs. Peters kept a calendar at her desk for years and marked down the days until she was eligible.
She often daydreamed about her life after teaching. She planned all the exotic vacations she wanted to take. She made a list of all the small fixes around her condo she’d finally have the time to make. She assembled everything she needed to start a vegetable garden in her small yard. In other words, she was more than ready.
But in the final weeks leading up to the conclusion of her teaching career, Mrs. Peters received the offer to become a principal. As appealing as a life of gardening and relaxation was, a life as principal gave her the essence of what she loved the most about being a teacher: authority over impressionable youngsters.
Needless to say, she didn’t hesitate to take the job. She thrived in the powerful position of administering punishment, and occasionally something would come up that allowed her to do what she loved more than anything, which was why she called Conner Bailey into her office.
“Have a seat,” Mrs. Peters ordered.
Conner sat across from her so obediently he reminded himself of Buster, but didn’t expect to be rewarded with a biscuit. His eyes wandered around the room; he noticed Mrs. Peters decorated her office in the same patterns and floral prints as the dresses she wore.
“Do you know why I’ve called you in here today?” Mrs. Peters asked. She wasn’t even looking at him. Her eyes were busy scanning through a stack of papers in her hands.
“Not a clue,” Conner said. He could almost see what the papers were in the reflection of her glasses.
“I wanted to talk to you about the writing you’ve been doing in your English class,” she said, finally making eye contact.
Conner realized the papers she was going through were in his handwriting. He panicked.
“Is this about my essay on To Kill a Mockingbird?” he asked. “I know I wrote, ‘One of the saddest parts about this book is that a girl is named Scout,’ but I talked to Ms. York about my approach and understand why it could have been better.”
Mrs. Peters’s eyes squinted and her brow flexed in a judgmental manner; this was bound to happen at least once when she was in the same room as Conner.
“Or maybe this is about my report on Animal Farm?” Conner said. “I know I said, ‘I wish George Orwell had used something to represent politics that didn’t give me a major craving for a bacon cheeseburger,’ but that’s really how I felt; I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“No, Mr. Bailey,” Mrs. Peters said. “I called you to my office to talk about the creative writing you’ve been working on in Ms. York’s class.”
“Oh?” Conner asked. Creative writing was actually his favorite part of the class. “How am I screwing that up?”
“You’re not,” Mrs. Peters said. “It’s fantastic.”
Conner’s head jerked in disbelief.
“Did you just say what I think you just said?” Conner asked.
“I believe so,” Mrs. Peters said, almost as surprised as he was. “Ms. York was afraid your stories might have been plagiarized, so she sent them to me to look over, but they’re unlike anything I’ve ever read. I assured her they appeared very original to me.”
Conner was having difficulty processing it all; Mrs. Peters of all people was complimenting and defending him.
“So I’m in here for a good thing?” Conner asked.
“A very good thing,” Mrs. Peters said. “Your stories and perspectives on fairy-tale characters are wonderful! I loved your stories about the Charming Dynasty searching for the long-lost Charming brother and the Evil Queen’s long-lost lover being trapped in her Magic Mirror. And Trix the misbehaving fairy and Trollbella the homely troll princess are such imaginative new characters. It’s very impressive!”
“Thank you?” Conner said.
“Can I ask you what inspired these stories?” Mrs. Peters said.
Conner gulped. He didn’t know how to answer. Technically he had used the class to write about his experiences, so the stories weren’t necessarily “creative writing.” Was it considered lying even if he couldn’t tell the truth?
“They just came to me,” Conner said with a shrug. “I can’t really explain it.”
Mrs. Peters did something Conner had never seen her do before: She smiled at him.
“I was hoping you would say that,” Mrs. Peters said. She re
trieved a folder from the inside of her desk. “I took the liberty of looking at the student profile you filled out at the beginning of the school year. I found it interesting that under ‘future career aspirations,’ you simply wrote ‘something cool.’ ”
Conner nodded. “I stand by that,” he said.
“Well, unless you have the goal of becoming a professional snowman, is it safe to presume you’re open to suggestions?” Mrs. Peters asked.
“Sure,” Conner said. He still hadn’t thought of any jobs that fit the description.
“Mr. Bailey, have you ever considered becoming a writer?” Mrs. Peters said. “If these stories are any indication, with time and practice, I think you may have what it takes.”
Although they were the only people in the room, Conner had to remind himself she was talking to him.
“A writer?” Conner asked. “Me?” The thought had never crossed his mind. His head instantly filled with doubts regarding the prospect, like white blood cells attacking a virus.
“Yes, you,” Mrs. Peters said and pointed at him for further distinction.
“But aren’t writers supposed to be super smart?” Conner asked. “Don’t they say things like, ‘I concur’ and ‘I don’t identify with the likes of this’? Those kinds of people are writers, not me. They’d laugh at me if I tried being one of them.”
Mrs. Peters exhaled a small gust of air through her nose, which Conner remembered was her version of a laugh.
“Intelligence is not a competition,” she said. “There is plenty to go around, and there are many ways it can be demonstrated.”
“But anyone can write, right?” Conner asked. “I mean, that’s why authors get judged so harshly, isn’t it? Because technically everyone could do it if they wanted to.”
“Just because anyone can do something doesn’t mean everyone should,” Mrs. Peters said. “Besides, anyone with an Internet connection feels they have the credentials to critique or belittle anything these days.”
“I suppose,” Conner said, but his defeated look said otherwise. “What makes you think I’ll be a good writer? My stories are so simple compared to other ones out there. And I don’t have a very good vocabulary—and I’m worthless without spell-check.”