Just then she heard a scrabbling sound at the boarded-up mouse hole. She bit the wood away and saw the head of the cobra poke through. “We meet again,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, “and I was a beast last time. Sorry about that. There’s this pile of straw; would you mind—?”
“For one thing, your fleece is no longer golden; it’s more silvery,” he said. “A kind of devaluing of the currency. But anyway, I haven’t come to work,” he continued coldly. “I came to collect on my debt.”
“Which was…?” she said. “You’ll have to remind me. I’m not good with details.”
“Your firstborn child,” he said.
“Not Boar Junior!” she gasped.
“The same,” he said.
“Over my dead body,” she snapped.
“That can be arranged,” said the cobra, and he opened his mouth and showed his glistening fangs.
“Oh no, I’m starring in my own private horror movie based on my own life,” said Beauty. “Look, Cobra, I was young and silly last year. My head was all turned around by the attention. The lights, the glamour, the champagne, the works. You can’t hold a young sheep to a foolish promise. I didn’t know any better.”
“A promise is a promise,” he said. “I helped you; now you pay me back.”
“Let’s make a deal,” she said. “If I can guess your name, will you let me keep my baby?”
“How could you know my name?” The cobra laughed. “You never paid attention to anyone but yourself. Sure, it’ll make me laugh to see you try. I’ll give you three tries. Come back tomorrow at this time. Tell me my name, and I’ll let you keep your baby.”
The cobra disappeared with a little wag of his tail. When the king stag came in the morning, he saw the pile of straw and no pile of gold. He said to Beauty, “Gorgeous, you’re letting me down. It’s not nice to let me down. I can make things very unpleasant for you in this town.”
“Stow it, Rake-head,” said Beauty. “I need your help. If I don’t find the name of this cobra fellow, it’s curtains for all of us, you hear? Curtains!” And she told the king stag the predicament she was in.
The king stag sent his minions all over the land, asking up and down and side to side the name of every cobra they could find. But most cobras tend to keep to themselves. They slither away whenever anyone comes chasing at them with a pitchfork to ask them their names. At the end of the day, the king stag had nothing to report.
Beauty waited. When the cobra came back, she said, “Is your name Rambo? Is it Dumbo? Is it Bambi? Is it Simba? Is it Zorro? Is it Fred Flintstone, for goodness’ sakes?”
But none of those were the right names. The cobra said, “Tomorrow night’s your second chance. Better luck then,” and he slid away.
The king stag wasn’t happy with how things were going. His helpers interviewed everyone who had ever even seen a cobra and got their ideas. He delivered a long list to Beauty. She looked it over and made notes. When the cobra came back the next evening, she tried again.
“Is it Poison Pete? Is it Farley Fangmeister? Is it Diamond-Back Davey? Is it Rattlin’ Joe? Is it Old Snake Eyes Himself?”
“Pitiful,” said the cobra when she had exhausted all her ideas. “You’re running on empty, baby.” He chuckled as he wriggled away. He was beginning to enjoy this.
“We’re in deep do-do,” said Beauty the next day. The king stag panicked. He sent out the squirrels, the wombats, the platinum-headed pig, and all the extras he could get from central casting. Everyone ran bleeting and mooing and honking and oinking in every direction.
It was the pig who saw something interesting. Poking around in the garbage Dumpster behind the supermarket, she spied a cobra on the loading dock. He was doing a little dance in the dusk. He sang a song as he danced.
“Everything seems very clear,
But things are not as they appear.
Beneath my skin I’m not the same,
And Rumplesnakeskin is my name.”
The pig thought she had never seen a dancing cobra. Still, she hurried back to the king stag and told him what she had heard.
“It’s a very odd name,” said the king stag. “But there’s nothing left to lose at this point.”
That night the cobra appeared, carrying a little baby rattle between his fangs. Beauty said, “I thought you might be a rattlesnake, making that silly noise.”
“Just setting up the nursery. Need to keep Boar Junior amused,” said the cobra. “You know, my dear, if you had only loved me as I loved you, we might have had a beautiful life together.”
“Don’t torture me,” said Beauty. “This isn’t one of your soppy screenplays. Besides, I love my husband the boar now. He’s not a mover and shaker, but he’s solid. So let’s get this over with. Is your name Moe?”
“No,” said the cobra.
“Is it Larry?”
“No,” said the cobra.
“Is it Curly?”
“No,” said the cobra.
“Is it—Rumplesnakeskin?”
At this the cobra reared up on the tip of its tail until it stood six feet tall, and it swelled like an inflating balloon. Beauty screamed. The king stag burst through the door carrying a sledgehammer and a poison dart gun.
But there was no need to use them. The cobra spun around like a tornado, drilling the tip of his tail into the floorboards, and suddenly his skin began to split. Just like the peel of a banana falling away, the snakeskin shimmied of its own accord to the floor. It looked like an inner tube from an old bicycle tire. An old, rumpled snakeskin.
And emerging from the center of it, blushing with embarrassment, was her husband the boar.
“My husband the boar!” cried Beauty, and she fell on him with kisses and hugs and warm tears. “Whatever were you doing in that old rumpled snakeskin?”
“I was bewitched there,” he said. “Long ago I wanted to be an actor myself, but I knew there aren’t many good parts written for boars. I went to a career consultant, an old witch coyote. She turned me into a cobra but neglected to tell me that there aren’t many parts for cobras, either. I couldn’t change back until someone fell in love with me. But you never did.”
“But when I met you, you were a boar in a supermarket!” said Beauty.
“I was just playing a part,” said the boar. “I borrowed a boar costume from the wardrobe department. Beneath that hairy boar skin that you married was a silvery-diamonded cobra skin, and beneath that was this hairy boar skin I’m in now. Only this one is the real one. Now I’m down to my own skin at last.”
“Acting,” said Beauty reverently. “Don’t you just love it. Now listen: why did you make me guess your name?”
“That was how the spell could be broken,” said the boar shyly. “But you know, you just admitted you loved me best of all. So I think that’s how the spell was really broken. We don’t need to be movie stars to be loved. We just need to be ourselves.”
“It is you I love!” cried Beauty.
“And I love you,” said the boar back.
“This is so beautiful,” said the king stag, sniffling. “Really. Two lovebirds reunited. I love you guys. It’s just like the movies. What could be better? It’s a happily ever after!”
About the Author and the Illustrator
GREGORY MAGUIRE is the author of several bestselling adult novels, including WICKED, which was turned into a Broadway musical. His books for younger readers include the picture book CRABBY CRATCHITT, the novel THE GOOD LIAR, and the popular Hamlet Chronicles series. While writing LEAPING BEAUTY, Mr. Maguire sadly became allergic to all creatures great and small. Now he lives in a house without pets, though he is the father of three happy, noisy small children to whom, at this writing, he has not yet developed allergies. Visit him online at www.gregorymaguire.com.
CHRIS L. DEMAREST, illustrator of many children’s books, including FIREFIGHTERS A TO Z, I INVITED A DRAGON TO DINNER, MAYDAY! MAYDAY!, T. REX AT SWAN LAKE, and the Supertwins series, lives in Claremont, New Hampshi
re.
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ALSO BY GREGORY MAGUIRE
Crabby Cratchitt
The Good Liar
THE HAMLET CHRONICLES:
A Couple of April Fools
Three Rotten Eggs
Four Stupid Cupids
Five Alien Elves
Six Haunted Hairdos
Seven Spiders Spinning
Credits
Cover art © 2004 by Chris L. Demarest
Copyright
LEAPING BEAUTY AND OTHER ANIMAL FAIRY TALES. Text copyright © 2004 by Gregory Maguire. Illustrations copyright © 2004 by Chris L. Demarest. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition March 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-190630-5
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Gregory Maguire, Leaping Beauty: And Other Animal Fairy Tales
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