Eighteen
“You look perfect!” Jess straightened my wig with its long, blond pigtails and tied the red hood under my chin.
The outfit was ridiculous. A blue-and-white gingham dress, white ankle socks that did my legs no favors, shiny black shoes, and a huge red cape. I must have been the tallest Red Riding Hood ever, coming in just a hair under Karl the Wolf, who wasn’t exactly a shrimp himself.
Jess, meanwhile, was gorgeous in her shimmering blue gown that perfectly matched her eyes. She didn’t mind the gazillion petticoats or that the Cinderella wig and crown made it feel like you were balancing a set of tires on your head. It was as though she’d been born to live in huge black false eyelashes and white gloves and prance about in tiny shoes.
“I could wear this to sleep!” she exclaimed, spinning so hard, I could see her legs in her pale blue stockings.
Andy agreed that there was nothing left to teach. “She’s a natural just as you described,” he said, when we were watching Ian and Jess execute a flawless dance right down to the appropriately chaste air kisses. They aligned their lips with pristine precision that was so innocent, even RJ thought it was sweet.
“You are perfect,” he said, looking Jess up and down admiringly.
Jess bit her lower lip. “How perfect?”
RJ laughed. “Fishing?”
“Maybe.” She half smiled. “I’m waiting. . . .”
He bent down and whispered something that made her giggle. If she weren’t my best friend, I would have barfed. “Whatever, Jess, you’re a far better Cinderella than Adele,” I said.
“What’s up with Adele? Has anyone heard from her?” she asked, slipping her hand into RJ’s.
So I guess it’s official, I thought. RJ and Jess were officially a thing. I tried to act like their holding hands and being all over each other was normal. “I have no idea.”
We got halfway down the hall, and RJ got even bolder, circling his arm around Jess and pulling her into him. “Adele’s not going to do anything. By now she’s probably halfway back to Wisconsin, and after a couple of days at home you’ll be the furthest thing from her mind.”
The first buzzer sounded, our cue to find our places. Valerie, the gorgeous Sleeping Beauty, floated up the hall in her pink gown, Dash beside her. He took one look at me in my cape and made a face. “Now you’re Red Riding Hood?”
“Next I’ll be Prince Charming,” I said. “So watch out.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing,” he said. “Watching out for you.”
I took that to mean he had my back.
Valerie cleared her throat, none too happy with this little exchange of pleasantries. “And who is this?” she asked, nodding to Jess.
“Um, that’s Jessica Swynkowski.” What, have you been living in a bubble? “She’s Adele’s permanent replacement.”
Jess gave Valerie a confident two thumbs-up, and I took some comfort in knowing that my cousin, though naturally shy, was secretly as tough as nails. She wouldn’t fall for the other princesses’ tricks, as I had. Jess had this Cinderella thing down, and when Ian took his place next to her, the audience obviously agreed, applauding magnificently after their debut performance.
Everybody was getting what they wanted, even Ian, who I had to begrudgingly admit was a much more capable Prince Charming than Marcus, even if he had lied to get the job. The way Ian boldly galloped to the stage and elegantly dismounted was almost thrilling, a far cry from Marcus’s plodding entrance, clutching the reins with white knuckles, sweat pouring down his face.
Finally, I thought, I’d achieved what I set out to do the first day at Fairyland—make Jess a princess. And now she was a mere bleached-blond Cinderella hair away from winning the twenty-five-thousand-dollar grant that could change her life. All I had to do was keep serving the Queen with my usual diligence—while ensuring that she continued to think of Jess and me as completely upstanding, loyal Fairyland interns—and the grant would be in the bag.
The only obstacle standing in our way of guaranteed success was Jake the Hansel’s letter. Adele still had it—she’d made that clear in her farewell note to the Queen. The question was: Would she send it, or was RJ right when he claimed that once she got back to Wisconsin, all grudges would be forgotten?
Let’s just say I had my concerns.
“Don’t get near him, Red! It’s a trick!”
Viviana, an adorable six-year-old girl all in pink with plastic beads in her pigtails, clutched my cape and held me back as the Wolf beckoned with his paw.
“Come closer, my dear, the better to see you.” Karl could really lay it on thick, rubbing his paws maliciously as he approached in matronly white pumps. (Very few guys could pull off a wolf costume and a J. C. Penney wardrobe with as much élan as Karl did.)
The gathering crowd of children was riveted. They covered their tiny mouths in anticipation. They gripped their mothers’ hands when Viviana and I backed ourselves into a corner between the faux medieval clock tower and the faux medieval cobbler’s shop on the faux medieval cobblestones.
“My, Grandma, wha, wha, what a big nose you have,” I stuttered.
“The better to smell you with, my dear.” Karl was twelve terrifying inches away.
Viviana screamed. I screamed. Karl covered his ears, and I took advantage of his auditory agony to tiptoe away with Viviana just as Ian arrived on his horse to save the day.
He reined to a stop and smiled with beneficent interest. “Is there a problem, good maidens?”
Viviana furiously waved toward Karl. “That wolf is trying to eat Red Riding Hood.”
Karl hooked his blue plastic purse in the crook of his arm, straightened his flannel nightgown, and stuck out a hip.
Ian squinted. “You mean that kindly old grandmother?”
“He’s not a grandmother!” the children protested. “He’s a wolf!”
“Let me see about this alleged wolf,” Ian said, sliding off his saddle and adjusting his white jacket.
“Oh, no, Your Highness, I was just saying hello to my granddaughter.” Karl’s falsetto voice was delightfully absurd. “I’m not a wolf. Not me. Oh, no.”
“Yes, he is!” the children cried.
Karl and Ian faced off with each other while I had second thoughts. If Ian had to save us, what kind of message were we sending to little girls like Viviana? Weren’t Viviana and I perfectly competent to save ourselves without the help of male intervention?
“Come on, Viviana,” I said, taking her hand again. “We can handle this.” And we charged ahead, planting ourselves between Ian and Karl as I reached up and removed the wolf’s lace nightcap, the one item that, in Fairyland, apparently distinguished carnivorous wild animals from brownie-baking grandmothers.
“You’re not my grandmother,” I declared. “The children are right. You’re a wolf, and I’m going to ask this prince to arrest you for trying to kidnap me!”
Karl gasped and wobbled off in his heels. The children cheered. Red Riding Hood was saved . . . until the 4:00 p.m. show.
I knelt down and handed Viviana a rainbow lollipop from my basket for being such a brave ally. She rewarded me with a hug and a furtive “I love you, Red,” before skipping off with her mother.
I gave Ian a reluctant grin. “Good job.”
“Not too bad yourself,” he said.
The iPhone buzzed in the pocket of my cape. “In my office,” she ordered. “Stat!”
I slid my phone to Off and stepped behind Jack’s Beanstalk. After checking to make sure no one was looking, I yanked open the dark green door, took the staircase down to Our World, and then the elevator to her office, where I discovered Her Majesty hunched over her keyboard, googling.
“Sit,” she commanded.
I took a seat and pushed back my hood. It was pleasantly cool in here with the air-conditioning. During heat waves a girl could miss a climate-controlled office.
“I suppose I don’t have to tell you who Sage Adams is,” she said, exiting out of a video.
“He was a runner-up on American Idol.” I decided to refrain from adding that he was also the celebrity crush of Karolynne, the sixteen-year-old mother-to-be from Teenage Pregnant Nightmare. “And now he’s a professional singer.”
“Depending on how you define the word professional. Or, for that matter, singer.” The Queen pressed a button, and pages began to spit out of her printer. “Be that as it may, it seems the famous Mr. Adams has a longing to revisit the days of yore by stopping by Fairyland for a tour of his favorite childhood haunt. Corporate would like us to seize the opportunity to make him our spokesperson.”
That wasn’t a bad idea, actually. Sage was almost eighteen, on the cusp of adulthood. Tweens loved him. Teenagers abhorred him. And middle-aged mothers thought he was exactly the kind of boy their daughters should be dating.
“That’s sensible,” I said. “Sage Adams is big among middle schoolers.”
“I’m glad you have so decreed, because Mr. Adams and his manager, a one rather odious Michelle Michaels, will be here within the week, and you, my young and loyal assistant, will be their—albeit mute—escort.”
She lifted the stack of newly printed pages and deposited them in front of me with a thud. “Some light reading for you.”
I gaped at the stack, wondering what possible relation it had with Sage Adams. “Why me?”
She crossed her arms and scowled. “Because I’m like a dragon, Zoe—dangerous, incendiary, and decidedly ancient. Mr. Adams would no more relate to me than I would relate to his juvenile music. What’s his hit song again? I was just looking at it on the You Tubes.”
“YouTube,” I corrected. “It’s ‘Come Away, My Love.’ The live version. It drives girls wild, because it makes it sound like he’s going to fall in love with them onstage.”
“How incredibly naive and, yet, I must admire his marketing savvy. Hmm.” She perched herself elegantly in the chair. “Sing it for me.”
“Really?” I was a lousy singer.
“Yes,” she said. “Really. I would like to be able to quote the lyrics, if possible, during negotiations.”
I couldn’t sing it because I couldn’t carry a tune, but I could say it.
“This is my love song to you
I don’t know who.
But when I look out into the crowd and see
You being wowed. I’ll know you’re the one.
So don’t be surprised if I step off this stage and reach out and say
Come away with me . . . my love.”
The Queen lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “On behalf of all that is good and melodic, Ludwig van Beethoven, I apologize. Now, to the matters at hand.” She tapped the papers. “What you have there is a comprehensive list of Mr. Adams’s likes, dislikes, and deal breakers. It is your mission to read through the lists and ensure that everything he has requested is ready by his arrival, though we are lacking an ETA.”
I checked the first demand: no raw broccoli. As if Fairyland even served fresh vegetables. The Xbox 360 and feather-free pillows seemed easy enough, but the fair-trade 80 percent dark chocolate and peanut butter made from nongenetically altered peanuts had me stumped. This was New Jersey. Everything here was genetically altered.
“The thing is, ma’am,” I began, uncertain of how to turn down her offer to escort Sage. “I’m probably not the best person to be handling Mr. Adams and his manager. I don’t mean to seem rude, but I’m just not a fan.”
“Which is why you are ideal.” She hand-fed a piece of mozzarella from her Insalata Caprese to Tink. “Somewhere on that list you’ll see that Mr. Adams specifically requested an escort of a nonfawning nature. Also you two do have something in common.” She arched her eyebrow. “A deep and abiding nostalgia for Storytown. He’s curious to see its remains.”
That threw me for a loop.
I was surprised that a big star like Sage cared about Fairyland’s precursor, too. Maybe he wasn’t so commercial and awful after all.
I said, “I thought Storytown was long gone.”
“Not entirely, though according to our engineers it is sinking fast into the soft New Jersey sand.” She sipped her tea. “You haven’t seen it, Zoe, because in the interest of protecting public safety, it’s been secured behind a wall, out of sight in the Forbidden Zone.”
Sinking! The wall! The Forbidden Zone! That must have been where I got trapped in the quicksand and was saved by Dash.
“And you want me to take him there?”
Her teacup slipped out of her hand, falling to the saucer with a clatter. “Heaven forbid! Only if you wish to send me to an early grave!” She whipped out her white Chinese fan and started waving it to cool herself from the shock of my suggestion. “Were Mr. Adams to see how Storytown has been allowed to slip—quite literally—into decay, there is no doubt he would reject our offer of spokesmanship. Such a blight on our property is, shall we say, déclassé.
“Indeed, your goal will be to avoid all talk of Storytown while buoying his impression of Fairyland, so that Storytown becomes nothing more than a footnote in his future poorly crafted, overhyped, ghostwritten autobiography.”
I sighed. There was no arguing with the Queen when she had made up her mind.
“Moreover, Mr. Adams will be here on business. To wit, he will not sign autographs or personally entertain the flirtations of various interns. Nor will you inform said interns that he will be, is now, or has been, on the premises. Do. You. Understand?”
I nodded.
“Speak!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She sat back, somewhat mollified. “You should know, Zoe, that there are only ten candidates remaining for the Dream and Do grant, and they include you and the sweet, hardworking cousin who you admirably support and who has the Wow! spirit in abundance. It would be a tragedy if a mishap during Mr. Adams’s visit reduced that number to eight.”
I swallowed hard, my throat as dry and scratchy as sandpaper. “Yes, ma’am.” No pressure there!
Her computer dinged, and the Queen swiveled to check her email. “Oh, dear. This is not good. Not good at all.”
“Is everything okay?” I asked. Now that I thought of it, she had been looking paler than usual—if such a thing were possible.
She absently played with the ruby-scarab brooch on her dress. “It’s Adele, I’m afraid. We received information this morning that she didn’t fly home to Wisconsin as Personnel had arranged. According to this alert from Security, a survey of our cameras shows she hasn’t left the park.”
She was still here—waiting to get me.
“Where do you think she is?” I asked, trying not to act too nervous, though I was frantic.
“Not far. Perhaps hiding out in someone’s room or in the Forbidden Zone. Security, naturally, is fanning the area.” The Queen checked her email again. “It is one of the most dreadful crises to afflict a fairy-tale theme park, a Cinderella gone rogue. There’s no telling what kind of mayhem a scorned princess can wreak. No telling at all.”