Conner jumped back to consciousness. “What is it?” he asked.
He looked over and saw something very shiny in his sister’s hand. His eyes were still a little blurry from sleeping, and he had to let them adjust before realizing what it was.
“A glass slipper!” Conner exclaimed, and Alex gestured for him to keep quiet so the driver wouldn’t hear them. “How in the world did we get one? Did you steal it?”
“I thought it was you!” Alex’s mouth was so wide, it could have fit a dozen of the pears inside it.
“No, it wasn’t me, I swear! Do you think Lampton or Cinderella put it in your bag?” Conner asked. “Do you think one of them knew we needed it?”
“I have no idea,” Alex said. She couldn’t believe she was actually holding on to one of Cinderella’s glass slippers. They both were completely dumbfounded.
“Looks like our trip to the Charming Kingdom wasn’t such a waste after all,” Conner said.
CHAPTER TEN
THE RED RIDING HOOD KINGDOM
The subtle shakes of the pear cart finally rocked Alex and Conner to sleep. If they hadn’t been so exhausted from the previous restless night and eventful day, the shock of discovering the glass slipper in their possession would have kept them up all night.
The next morning, they awoke just as the cart was arriving at the northern village it was destined for. The first thing Alex did when she awoke was to make sure the slipper was still in her tight grip as it had been when she’d fallen asleep. She couldn’t let go of it; she was afraid that if it wasn’t in her hands at all times, it might disappear just as easily as it appeared.
The mystery of how it had gotten into her bag was still the most prominent thing on their minds.
“Do you think it was magic?” Conner asked Alex. “Maybe the slipper knew we needed it and transported itself into your bag?”
“I’ve read enough fantasy books to know that that’s a possibility,” Alex said. “And after everything we’ve been through, I wouldn’t be surprised. But the point is, we have it now. It’s one less item we have to collect, so let’s focus all our energy into getting ahold of Red Riding Hood’s basket.”
She wrapped a blanket around the slipper for safekeeping and stored it in her bag. They didn’t want any unwanted attention from carrying it around.
“I hope Cinderella or Lampton don’t send soldiers after us once they realize it’s gone,” Conner said.
Alex hadn’t thought about that. What if, as they were speaking, Lampton was putting together a band of soldiers to find them and take them into captivity?
“Then we’ll tell him the truth and worry about it when it happens,” Alex said. “But let’s keep moving in the meantime.”
There didn’t appear to be any roads or paths on the map that went to the Red Riding Hood Kingdom, so the twins were forced to travel straight through a forest of elm trees to get there.
Alex read from the journal as they walked.
As everyone knows, the Red Riding Hood Kingdom is surrounded by a tall wall to keep out the wolves. There are guarded entrances into the kingdom along the perimeter of the wall.
“So we’ll find the wall, find an entrance, and be inside the kingdom in no time,” Alex said.
“What if they don’t let us inside?” Conner asked.
“I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t let us in,” Alex asked. “But if they don’t, this time let me do the talking.”
An hour or so of walking later, the twins could see the wall surrounding the kingdom in the distance. It was massive. It was thirty feet tall and made from enormous gray bricks. The same warning sign was posted on the wall every few feet or so:
“Wow,” Conner said. “The wolves are definitely not getting in there.”
They walked beside the wall for another couple of hours but never found an entrance. Alex reread the journal and found a part that she had missed.
There is a north entrance, a south entrance, an east entrance, and a west entrance. Each has its own path that goes to the center of the kingdom, where the town is. There is only one town in the Red Riding Hood Kingdom; the rest is farmland.
“Oh no,” Alex said. “I misread the journal. Apparently there are only four entrances into the kingdom.”
“And how close are we to one of them?” Conner asked. Alex looked closely at the map and her eyes widened a bit. Conner could tell it wasn’t going to be good news.
“It looks like we’re right in between the west entrance and the south entrance, which means—”
“More walking?” Conner said with a furrowed forehead and his hands on his hips.
“Yes…” Alex said, bearing the bad news. “About a day or two’s worth.”
Conner walked around in a circle, frustrated beyond belief.
“This is so annoying!” Conner yelled. “Why can’t anything be easy?”
“Conner, everything’s okay. It’s just going to take a little longer to—”
“No, Alex, it’s not okay!” Conner yelled. “We’ve been in this world for almost a week! I want to go home! I miss Mom! I miss my friends! I’m even starting to miss Mrs. Peters! There, I admitted it!”
Conner was so upset that he kicked a tree, but he ended up just hurting his foot.
“Ouch!” he yelled.
“I miss home, too, but there’s nothing I can do about it!” Alex said. “We’ll get home when we get home, and that’s that. But in the meantime, it doesn’t do us any good to be angry. We just have to get through it!”
Conner crossed his arms and his shoulders slumped. He was aggravated almost to tears. Alex assumed they were closer to the southern entrance, and led the way toward it. Conner verbalized his frustrations the entire way.
“I miss pavement and sidewalks,” Conner ranted. “I miss our crappy rental house. I miss our neighborhood. I miss that dog down the street that barks constantly through the night. I miss homework. I miss getting detention for not doing homework.”
“Let it out, Conner,” Alex said. “You’ll feel better.”
“I hate this place,” Conner continued. “I hate the dirt paths. I hate the man-eating witches. I hate the mutant-size wolves. I hate sleeping outside. I hate bridge trolls. I hate all the trees… wait, that’s it! The trees!”
Conner searched their surroundings and ran ahead to a big tree next to the kingdom’s wall.
“What are you doing?” Alex asked.
“I’m getting inside the kingdom! I’m going to climb this tree and hop over the wall!” Conner yelled back at her. He started climbing it at a very quick and determined pace.
“It’s a thirty-foot drop on the other side at least!” Alex shouted at him.
“Come on, Alex!” Conner said and gestured for her to follow him.
“I’m not climbing that tree!” she said.
“You’ll climb up Rapunzel’s tower but a tree is out of the question?” he asked mockingly.
“And I shouldn’t have done that! I agree!” she said, but was ignored.
Conner was almost at the top of the tree. Alex ran over to the tree and climbed a little ways after him.
“Conner, please come down from there! I’d rather travel slowly and safely than quickly and dangerously!” she said.
Conner stood up on the tallest branch of the tree. The top of the wall was just a few feet away.
“I’m gonna jump to the wall and see if I can spot a way down,” Conner said.
“Conner! Don’t be stupid! Climb down right now! You’re going to hurt yourself!” Alex demanded.
“Wish me luck!” Conner said, and prepped himself for the jump. “One… two… three!” Conner jumped off the tree branch and soared toward the wall.
“No!” Alex yelled.
He had jumped a little too hard. He missed the wall by a few inches and flew over it headfirst.
“Allleeeexxxx!” Conner bellowed as he fell.
She heard a large thump from the other side, but she couldn’t see anything.
&n
bsp; “Conner!” Alex screamed. “Conner, are you all right? Conner, are you alive?” She was hysterical.
Alex clambered up the tree faster than any animal she had ever seen in a documentary.
“Conner, answer me!” she pleaded. “Can you hear me? Are you hurt?”
Alex heard laughter just as she reached the top of the tree. On the other side of the wall, she saw Conner lying safely on a big stack of hay.
“Hi, Alex!” Conner said with a big smile on his face.
“Conner! You scared me to death!” Alex shouted.
“I know! It was so entertaining!” Conner said. “Do you really think I would have jumped if I didn’t see something to land on?”
“I’m glad you’re alive, so I can kill you myself,” Alex said.
“Jump over! It’s a soft landing, I promise!” he said.
“Fine!” Alex said. She carefully tossed him her bag before jumping over the fence.
Conner was right: The landing was soft. They were covered in hay, and they brushed it off each other.
“Take a look at this place,” Alex said as she and Conner journeyed into the Red Riding Hood Kingdom. They felt as if they had entered another dimension all over again.
There were rolling hills of farmland for as far as they could see. Cows and sheep were grazing across the fields. Shepherds with curved staffs and shepherdesses in large bonnets attended to the animals with their dogs.
“Everything’s so peaceful here!” Alex said. “I feel like I’m in a nursery rhyme.”
“They must be bored out of their minds,” Conner said.
“I wonder whose land this is?” Alex said.
A few moments later, Alex got her answer. They passed a big, wooden sign stuck into the ground that said:
BO PEEP FAMILY FARMS
The scenery was so pleasant that the time went by fairly fast. After they’d traveled a while longer, the peaked and pointed rooftops of the town came into view. They couldn’t see much while looking at it from the outskirts, but once they were in the center of it, the town came to life.
“How adorable!” Alex squealed at first sight of the town.
It was so dainty and picturesque that they felt like they were in a theme park. It was filled with tiny cottage homes and shops made of bricks or stone walls and hay roofs. A bell in the steeple of an old schoolhouse rang. Many staff-carrying men and bonnet-wearing women like the ones they had seen in the fields walked about the town pulling goats and sheep along with them.
Among the many stores and shops were the Henny Penny Bank, Jack Horner’s Pie Shop, and the Pat-a-Cake Bakery. The Shoe Inn, just adjacent to the main town, was a boot of gigantic proportions turned into a working hotel.
In the very center of the town was a grassy park that hosted several memorials and monuments. Alex was doing mental backflips at the sight of each of them.
A small brick wall that stood by itself had a golden plaque on it that said:
SIR HUMPTY DUMPTY’S WALL
YOU WERE A GOOD EGG AND SHALL BE MISSED BY MORE THAN JUST THE KING’S HORSES AND MEN. REST IN PIECES
Just past Humpty Dumpty’s wall was a small hill with a well on top of it. A sign pointing to the hill said:
JACK AND JILL HILL
In the middle of the park was a circular fountain. A statue of a young shepherd boy stood in the center of it and water poured from the mouths of the sheep that were under him. The carved dedication of the fountain read:
IN MEMORY OF THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF
YOU WERE A LIAR, BUT YOU WERE LOVED.
The twins were so enthralled by everything that they were getting strange looks from the villagers and townspeople.
“This place reminds me of that miniature golf course in town,” Conner said. “Not the one by us, but the really legit one across town, where all the rich kids live.”
At the edge of town, with the best view of the park, was Red Riding Hood’s castle. The castle had four tall towers that could be seen from anywhere in town. It appropriately had red walls with dark red roofs. A moat circled the castle and had its own water mill.
The castle looked massive from far away. However, as the twins moved closer to it, they realized it wasn’t very big at all; it was just built to look big. The moat around it was so small that one of the twins could have easily stepped over it.
“I bet you Red Riding Hood’s basket is in there somewhere,” Conner said.
Alex retrieved the journal from out of her bag and began reading the specifics of collecting the basket to Conner.
Unlike every other palace or castle, Red Riding Hood’s isn’t very difficult to break into. The castle was built so quickly after the C.R.A.W.L. Revolution that the builders forgot to add some basic necessities. The kitchen windows located in the back of the castle have no locks on them.
The Red Riding Hood Kingdom is the safest and smallest of all the kingdoms; therefore, they’re shorthanded on soldiers and guards. The halls of the castle are only patrolled until midnight, and the guards don’t return until dawn. Sneak into the castle between midnight and dawn through the kitchen windows, stay away from the main halls, and you should be fine.
Queen Red Riding Hood has a special room in her chambers devoted to all the baskets she’s acquired and been given over the years. Find this room, and you’ll find her very first basket, the one she took with her to her grandmother’s house all those years ago.
You don’t need to collect the whole basket, just a small chunk of the tree bark that surrounds the rim. It should be easy to identify, as there is already a chunk of tree bark missing from when I collected it.
“And I was just hoping we could ring the doorbell and ask for it,” Conner said.
Alex looked up at all the towers and windows. She wondered which window belonged to the room they would find the basket in. And as she looked up at the castle, something else entirely caught her eye.
“Look over there!” Alex said, and pointed to the sky.
Conner turned to look in the direction she was pointing. Sticking straight up into the air a hundred feet or so was an enormous beanstalk.
“That must be Jack’s beanstalk!” Alex said. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“No, but I’m sure you want to go see the beanstalk—” Conner said, and before he could finish, Alex had taken off toward it.
The twins ran through the town and had to take a trail leading out of town to get to the beanstalk. They passed a few cottage homes and more farmland as they traveled; it was much farther than they had thought. Eventually, they saw the base of the beanstalk ahead.
It was thick and curly and had huge leaves. It grew right next to an old, decrepit shack that was only large enough to have one room inside of it. A little ways behind the beanstalk and the shack was a large, elegant manor with yellow bricks and enough chimneys and windows to hold a dozen rooms.
“Which one of those is Jack’s house?” Conner asked as they approached the beanstalk.
Alex looked at it for a moment until she figured it out.
“That shack must be where Jack lived with his mother when they were poor, and then after he defeated the giant and became rich, they must have built a new home just behind it!” she said happily. “They’re both his!”
Conner shrugged. He had no reason to doubt her guess.
“Look how tall it is!” Alex said once they had reached the base of the beanstalk. “It would take a lot of bravery to climb that!”
Just then they heard a door slam, and a man came out of the manor. He was young and tall with short hair and broad shoulders. He was very good-looking, but he wore a subdued expression. He carried an axe and a log.
“Look, Alex!” Conner whispered. “Do you think that’s Jack?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “Let’s ask him.”
The man set the log on a chopping block in the front yard and began chopping the log into small pieces.
“Hi there!” said Alex, being extra friendly.
“Hello,” said the man, never looking up from chopping.
“Are you Jack?” Conner asked him.
“Yup,” the man said. “Do you need something?”
“No, we’re just traveling around,” Alex said. “We saw your beanstalk from all the way in town and wanted to get a closer look.”
“Many people do,” Jack said. “I have to chop it down once a week because it grows so fast.”
His expression barely changed as he chopped the wood. Was he just accustomed to random people approaching his home and beanstalk, and he’d become numb to it?
“You have a lovely home,” Alex said.
“Except for that eyesore in the front,” Conner said, and nodded toward the shack behind him.
“Conner, be polite!” Alex said.
“I’ve turned it into a workshop,” Jack told them. He finished chopping the wood, collected the pieces in his hands, went into the shack, and slammed the door behind him.
“Well, someone isn’t much of a conversationalist,” Conner said.
“I wonder what’s wrong with him. He seems so different,” Alex said.
“Have you met before?” Conner asked. Sometimes he wondered if she had forgotten that they were from another world.
“No, I just mean from the way he’s always been described,” Alex said. “He was always so energetic and adventurous. I wonder what’s troubling him.”
“Maybe he doesn’t like people coming up to his house,” said Conner. “If I were him, I’d get really annoyed, too—”
Conner had another sarcastic comment to add, but he was distracted by a high-pitched sound coming from inside the manor.
“Do you hear that?” Conner asked Alex. “It sounds like singing.”
They both turned to face the manor as a set of window shutters were pushed open. The twins wouldn’t have believed it if they hadn’t been so close, but standing behind the open window was a golden woman.
She happily sang a soprano ballad as loudly as she could. A set of strings played along with her, but the twins couldn’t see where the music was coming from.