Your princess requests knowledge. Knowledge of the type and ilk and substance of which one would seek when longing to rid oneself of a pesky pest. Namely, a Jabberwock. We need the vorpal sword in Ever After. But how? And wherewith? And ho-hum? Respond immediately.
Lizzie Hearts, Your Princess of Hearts, etc.
"Um," Cedar said, a little nervously. "Have you ever written a letter before, Lizzie?"
"Of course I have," Lizzie said, fairly certain that wasn"t true. "Why? What"s wrong with it?"
Cedar held her breath as if afraid to let the truth out.
"Why are you holding your breath?" Lizzie asked.
"Oh. It"s so new. The breathing. I sometimes forget to do it," Cedar lied. And then widened her eyes.
"Cedar?" Maddie asked. "Did you just...?"
"I just forgot to breathe," Cedar lied again, smiling. "Also, I really like eating... um... porridge with mustard!"
Cedar folded up the letter and stuffed it in the book.
"Plus," Cedar said, "I once buried myself in the dirt up to my neck to see if I would grow."
"That is odd," Lizzie said, "though I suppose a reasonable scientific experiment."
"And I did grow," Cedar continued, laughing with delight. "Into a giant walking tree! And I... I lived for a hundred years in the Otherlands, battling giants and baking award-winning cupcakes."
"That explains a lot," Lizzie said, not really paying attention. "Where is the book?"
"Right over here," Cedar said, pointing at a spot on the gra.s.s that was just gra.s.s. "Whoa. It really was right here a second ago. I swear I"m not lying. Now."
Maddie nodded. "It does that," she said.
"Where is it?" Lizzie sputtered. "We need it!"
"We have to find it," said Maddie. "It"s one of those kind of books."
CEDAR WOOD LIED. CEDAR WOOD LIED!.
The girls were scrambling around the Grove, searching for the book, but Cedar could only wander, her mind spinning and tumbling about with the thought: I lied!
Apparently, when the Jabberwock"s magic triggered her deep-rooted transformation into a real girl, it also undid that th.o.r.n.y honesty curse. She was free! She didn"t have to blurt and blab. She could choose her own words-she could choose her own life!
Cedar knelt down, relishing the press of the gra.s.s against her knees, the tickle of a dangling flower on her ankle. She leaned over to look for the book under a bush of white roses dripping red paint, when a thought caught inside her like a fish on a sharp hook.
If her honesty curse was undone, was her "caring" and "kindness" curse undone, too?
Cedar straightened up and let her feelings probe her fast-beating heart. No more lies. Now she would have to discover the truth. Who was she really, beneath the wooden body and cursed-to-care-ness? Without the Blue-Haired Fairy"s magic, was she still the girl who would do anything for her friends? Or, when faced with danger, would she and her tender body run away?
Cedar looked up and found Maddie looking back. Maddie, as the Narrator, knew Cedar"s thoughts. She smiled encouragingly. Cedar nodded, but her heart still beat in rapid, shallow gasps. No more lies, not even to myself. So who am I?
They scoured the Grove three times over. Cedar checked her pockets, even though they weren"t big enough to hold a book. Yet another truth fell on her, heavy as a stone-they might have to go back into that Jabberwock-infested school to find the book. The search could take forever! Lost things were always in the last place you looked.
"That"s so true, Cedar!" Maddie said aloud. "You always find things the last place you look, so let"s skip the middle part and just look in the last place."
"You make perfect sense, Hatworm," said Lizzie.
"Okay, let"s all decide we"re done looking after the next place," said Maddie.
Lizzie shut her eyes. "I am done."
"So done," said Kitty.
"Done!" said Cedar, meaning it. Wonderland logic could be fun.
Maddie got a serious look on her face. Well, she couldn"t see her own face, but it felt impressively serious. She put out her hands and let them lead her to the Last Place. She crouched down by Cedar, unlaced Cedar"s left boot, pulled it off, and removed the book.
"Whoa!" Cedar said. "I"m feeling everything today. You"d think I could feel a book in my boot."
She opened the letter and read:
Princess-
We were overjoyed to receive your letter! You are beamishly correct, of course. The only way to defeat the Jabberwock is with the vorpal sword, which is thrust in the left-most bole of the fourth wabe of Tumtum trees. Alas, I cannot send it to you with words. I consulted with an owl, who informed me that with just the right picture, meticulously painted in fluxberry shades, you might be able to pluck it out of Wonderland, though such has never been done. Good luck!
Lizzie threw a handy hedgehog at Cedar. "Paint," she said.
"The letter said the sword is in Wonderland...." Cedar said.
"So what are you waiting for?" Lizzie made shooing motions with her hands. "Go do art!"
The Narrator had some distance from the action and was able to see how, sometimes, Lizzie just didn"t explain things very clearly. Especially to people outside her own head.
"Cedar, we can"t get to Wonderland," said Maddie. "But maybe if you paint the sword here in this Wonderlandish Grove, the magic of Wonderland could make it real and within our reach."
"Really? But I can"t," Cedar said. She pulled a leather pouch out of her skirt pocket. "I have my brushes but they"re useless without paints, and I don"t even know what it is supposed to look like!"
"It"s a sword," Lizzie said. She pulled a b.u.t.ter knife out of her own pocket. "Like this, but bigger." She held it up and closed one eye. "Also with more vorpal. Like, twenty percent more vorpal."
"But..." Cedar looked at her hands. Her real, fleshy, soft hands. She"d never drawn anything with a real hand before. Doubt pumped through her like blood. "Well, to begin with, I"m going to need a better description than just asword." "
"A vorpal sword," Lizzie said.
"It seems to me," Kitty cut in, "that descriptions of things, especially the good ones that actually make you brain-picture something, come from Narrators."
"Good idea," Lizzie said. "Maddie, narrate a detailed description of the vorpal sword for Cedar."
Good descriptions come from good Narrators. Okay, then.
"There"s a tree in Wonderland," said Maddie. "A Tumtum tree. And it looks as trees do. You know, with the trunk and the branches and the leaves that are sometimes green. And leaves are always moving about, so they"re the unpredictable lifey part of an otherwise predictable tree."
"Come on, Maddie, you can do it," said Cedar. "Keep going. That was... good-ish."
"I"m new at this, and my brain is getting tired and isn"t as springy and bouncy as it was. Plus, it"s been so long since I saw a Tumtum tree. Or anything in Wonderland."
"Ooh, I bet other Narrators have described the vorpal sword and Tumtum trees," said Cedar. "We should just go look for a book in the library!"
She smiled. Then she frowned. Lizzie was already frowning. Kitty disappeared and then reappeared dangling upside down from a tree so that her constant smile seemed to turn into a frown. At first, Maddie thought they must be playing a frowning game and-what fun! Even a frowning game was still a game!
But then Maddie realized that they were frowning because they had to get a book from the library. And the library was in the school. And the school was mad and haunted by the Jabberwock.
Now was a moment to find out who Cedar was without the curses. She took slow, deep breaths until she felt able to say what she absotively, never-aftery wanted to say.
"I"ll do it," said Cedar. "I"ll go out there to get the book. It"s better that you Wonderlandians stay safe in here. If the Jabberwock captures me, it can"t use me to power the permanent transformation of Ever After."
"Cedar, your knees are knocking together," said Lizzie.
"No, they"re not," said Cedar.
But they were. She hadn"t realized, because in the past when her wooden knees knocked together, they made a tapping sound.
"I"ll do it," she said again. "It doesn"t matter if I am afraid. You"re my friends, so I should do it."
Lizzie was watching Cedar very carefully. "You are brave, ex-puppet, to offer to do what scares you. But you must stay here, make paints, and prepare. I will retrieve the written word!"
Cedar exhaled again and didn"t argue. But her real stomach flopped about, and she knew in a way that it wasn"t her imagination but what people with guts called "a gut feeling," that this wouldn"t be the last time she"d have to make that choice. To risk her new life for her friends. Or to save her new, real life and run away.
"Hold your sea horses!" said Maddie. "If Lizzie goes, I should go with her because it will be dangerous, and that"s interesting, and Narrators are supposed to storytell the most interesting bits. But stuff will keep happening here with Cedar and Kitty that I wouldn"t be able to narrate. Good gravy boats, but this is getting more complicated than a tea party underwater!"
"I can go by myself, thank you," said Lizzie.
"Not a fairy chance," said Maddie. "I took a sacred oath to tell this story. And this story has two main characters: Lizzie and Cedar. A real Narrator would know what Cedar was doing when Lizzie was away, but I"m not a real Narrator and I don"t have all those powers."
"We"ll tell you what happened here when you get back," said Cedar.
"But that"ll be boring," said Maddie. "Everybody knows you can"t just tell what happens. You have to show it."
"I don"t think everybody knows that," Lizzie muttered.
" aShow Don"t Tell" is an entire chapter in the narration book! I can"t narrate Cedar"s action and go with Lizzie!" said Maddie.
"I"ll do it." Kitty was lying on her stomach in the gra.s.s, examining her nails.
"Do what?" asked Cedar.
"Narrate this part of Cedar"s story. What"s the matter with me, volunteering to do helpish things and being involved?" Kitty shuddered. "But since I"ve always been able to hear the Narrator, same as Maddie, I must share the ability to step in as an emergency Narrator. So I will be the emergency Narrator to the emergency Narrator."
Maddie crouched down and gave Kitty a kiss on her cheek.
"Uck!" Kitty licked the back of her hand and then wiped it on her cheek to clean off the kiss.
"Try to be talkative, Cedar," said Maddie. "That will make Kitty"s job easier."
"Good luck, you two!" said Cedar. "Or as they say, break a leg!"
Lizzie straightened up taller and adjusted her crown. "Yes, we will break all the legs."
The heart-shaped door was waiting, hanging in midair with no wall to support it. Lizzie opened the door, revealing blackness beyond. She stood even straighter and stepped in first. Maddie took Earl Grey out of her hat, set him on the gra.s.s, and hopped after Lizzie. The door shut.
"Um, Kitty? Are you narrating? Kitty? You"re not narrating, are you, Kitty?"
"Kitty shrugged."
"Kitty, I don"t think you actually need to say what you"re doing. Not out loud, anyway. Maddie said she narrated by thinking out loud."
I would like to pluck all the petals off those roses.
"Kitty, you didn"t take the oath! I hope this works without taking the Narrator"s Oath. Just remember to think aloud about what"s happening so it gets written down somewhere."
My fingernails look amazing. Maddie"s dormouse smells like waffles. Also, waffles are gross. I don"t know what Gus and Helga were going on about.
"Try not to just think about what you would normally think about, Kitty. Don"t use the word I. Observe what"s happening and think your observations in nice, clean sentences. And make sure after I speak, you aloud-think aCedar said." "
Cedar said.
Kitty Cheshire, the girl formally known as "I," observed things. She observed that Cedar Wood used to look like a scratching post. But now she was fleshy and soft. And now she was picking fluxberries in every shade from black to green to orange to pink and smooshing them onto big, broad leaves to use as paint. She also seemed more confident than normal, which somehow made Kitty Cheshire feel proud of her.
Kitty Cheshire was really bad at narrating. And the fact that she noticed a flaw in herself worried her. Clearly, Kitty Cheshire was no longer her perfect, indifferent self. Kitty Cheshire had been changed by the Jabberwock"s magic. Kitty Cheshire was actually starting to care about other people"s Happily Ever Afters.
The change magic was definitely getting stronger.
LIZZIE MARCHED THROUGH HER SPECIAL heart-shaped door with what she hoped was absolutely no fear. But she feared there was fear. The hallway that had been on the other side of the door when they went in was gone. Instead, they entered a dark and cramped s.p.a.ce, the only light trickling down from a dim circle at least thirty feet above their heads. The walls were old stone and slick with mossy slime. It felt for all the world like they were at the bottom of a well.
Lizzie reached behind her to feel the coa.r.s.e wood of the heart-shaped door. She could go back. Cedar had said she would do it, and queens commanded other people- "There are stairs," Maddie whispered, pointing.