This comforted Red a little bit and the distance of her pacing shortened. There was a knock on the door and the third Little Pig entered the room. Froggy and Alex stood from their seats and Red stopped pacing altogether.
“Good evening, Your Majesty,” he said.
“Have the votes been counted?” Froggy asked.
“Yes, they have,” the third Little Pig said.
The room grew uncomfortably tense and Red didn’t know what else to do but laugh. “Good,” she said, pretending it wasn’t a big deal. “Has all this election business finally been settled, then? Can we let Little Bo Peep know that I’m here to stay?”
The third Little Pig hesitated to respond and Alex and Froggy knew it hadn’t gone in her favor. Red was about to hear the worst news of her life.
“Actually, Little Bo Peep has been elected the new queen,” the pig said.
Red fell into the closest seat and clutched her chest; her heart had just broken into a million pieces. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to fight the tears forming in her eyes. “Can you repeat that?”
“Little Bo Peep has been elected the new queen, ma’am,” the pig said again.
Froggy had a seat next to Red and held her hand tightly. Alex placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. Clawdius came and sat by her feet. Even though Red had heard the news twice she still had a hard time comprehending it.
“This isn’t possible,” Red said, shaking her head. “This is my kingdom. It has my name, after all.”
“Actually, ma’am, the kingdom is going to be re-named,” the pig told her regretfully, as if she hadn’t heard enough bad news already.
“To what?” Alex asked.
“The Bo Peep Republic.”
Red forced a laugh again. “Well, that’s a ridiculous name,” she said, desperately needing to make light of the situation for her own good.
“When does Little Bo officially take over?” Froggy asked.
“In one week,” the pig said. “She’s kindly asked that Red Riding Hood have all of her belongings out of the castle by then.”
Even Red couldn’t hold a stoic face after hearing this. She burst into tears and buried her face in Froggy’s shoulder.
“I’ll give you a moment to yourselves,” the pig said, and left the room.
Sometimes it was difficult to be around Red when she was happy, but Alex had never expected it would be so painful to watch her be so miserable. Red sobbed for the rest of the evening. Her spirit had been broken and Alex was afraid it might never be salvaged.
“But I’m the queen…,” she cried into Froggy’s arms. “I’m the queen… I’m the queen.…”
Seven days, one thousand dresses, eight hundred pairs of shoes, five hundred paintings, twenty-eight statues, and one wolf later, the entire castle had been cleared of any trace of Red Riding Hood. She spent her last moments in the castle alone in her empty bedroom looking at the bare walls she had once called home. She was so depressed all she wore was a simple red dress and a matching overcoat.
There was a soft knock on her door and Froggy peeked inside. “All the carriages are loaded, darling,” he said. “It’s time to go.”
“All right, then,” Red said, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. She stood up and somberly left the room. She shut the door behind her, not only to her old bedroom, but to her life as queen.
Froggy gave her his arm and escorted her down the grand staircase and through the castle. All of the servants lined the walls as she passed. They respectfully bowed to her one final time. Red and Froggy walked outside, where a parade of twelve carriages jam-packed with Red’s belongings was waiting for them.
The carriages were very plain wooden—much different from the luxurious ones Red was used to traveling in.
Froggy and Clawdius climbed into the first carriage and waited for Red. She looked up at the castle and admired the towers and windows she had personally designed. She thought about the happy and not-so-happy memories she had lived through inside and said good-bye to it all.
The parade of carriages left the Red Riding Hood Kingdom and traveled into the Fairy Kingdom to the Fairy Palace. Alex had invited Red to stay with her for a few days while she figured out what the next step in her life would be. Alex had to magically shrink Red’s belongings so she could place them inside a tiny cupboard; otherwise they never would have fit in the palace.
Alex took Red, Froggy, and Clawdius up to the grand balcony of the Fairy Palace, hoping the remarkable view might cheer Red up.
“I suppose I took things for granted,” Red said. She hadn’t looked at the view once, her eyes cast down at the floor. “Just like I expected the sky to always be blue, I expected to always be queen.”
“We have to take some things for granted every now and then,” Alex told her friend. “Otherwise we would live life afraid of losing everything.”
Clawdius whimpered on the floor at their feet—even he missed the castle. Froggy had been quiet since they arrived and hadn’t been acting himself. He looked like he was getting sick but didn’t have any symptoms yet.
“Are you feeling all right, Froggy?” Alex asked him.
“I’ll be just fine,” he said. “I’m a tad dizzy, that’s all. I think the week is catching up to me.”
He walked a little ways away from them, clutching the balcony tightly as he went, but Alex didn’t press the matter. She tried to think of something to talk about that would take Red’s mind off her troubles.
“At least while you’re here I can introduce you to Rook,” Alex told her.
Red nodded but then quickly looked confused. “Sorry—who?” she asked.
Alex sighed. Red had been through such a wringer she couldn’t fault her for not remembering his name.
Emerelda suddenly rushed onto the balcony and went straight to Alex.
“Alex, you need to come with me,” she said in a serious tone.
“Why, what’s wrong?” she asked.
“It’s your grandmother,” Emerelda said. “She’s sick.”
Alex didn’t know what to say to this. As far as she knew, her grandmother had never been sick in her entire life. Could Fairy Godmothers even get sick?
A croaking sound unexpectedly came from the end of the balcony and interrupted her train of thought.
“Would this by chance have anything to do with my current situation?” Froggy asked.
They all turned to look at him by the railing and Red screamed. Without warning or reason, Froggy had transformed back into a frog.