A Tale Dark and Grimm (21 page)

Total silence.

“They will, of course, marry other people,” the queen added.

Still, total silence.

And then, in the crowd, the tall man from Wachsend, the bald one with the boxer's nose, shouted out, “But they're just little ki—”

But before he could finish, someone else called out. It was a young man with long hair and a fresh, raw scar on his face. The one from the tavern. He had climbed up on the shoulders of a friend. Hansel and Gretel saw him. His face was shining. “They saved us from the dragon!” he cried. “Long live King Hansel! Long live Queen Gretel!”

The people of Grimm gazed up at Hansel and Gretel. There was something in what the king had said. About children. About these children.

“Long live King Hansel!” the young man shouted again. And then someone else took up the cheer. “Long live Queen Gretel!”

Another cried it. And another. More and more, more and more, rising up in a tumult all around Hansel and Gretel. “Long live King Hansel! Long live Queen Gretel!”

As they looked out over the people of Grimm, their father leaned down to them and said, “These subjects are your children now.”

And their mother said, “You must take care of them.”

“Better,” their father added, “than we took care of you.”

Hansel turned to him, and, smiling, gesturing at the crowd, said, “It looks like you did all right.” Gretel reached out and took her father's hand, and then her mother's.

The subjects continued to cheer, till their throats strained and the sky seemed to whirl. “Long live King Hansel!” they cried. “Long live Queen Gretel! Long live Hansel and Gretel!”

They did.

O
nce upon a time, there was a brilliant woman named Gabrielle Howard, who wasn't very tall, and had a lovely English accent, and who was the lower-school principal at Saint Ann's School, in Brooklyn, New York. One fine day, Gabe, as she's called, came into my second-grade classroom and read Grimm's
The Seven Ravens
to my students (you now know, dear reader, that the Brothers Grimm should have called it
The Seven Swallows
—just another one of their many, many errors). As you also now know, the little girl in
The Seven Swallows
cuts off her finger. So after Gabe had finished reading the story, and after I had been resuscitated with a defibrillator, and after Gabe had assured me that I was not fired, because, after all, she had read the story to the students, and not me, I decided that there was something to these Grimm tales, and that I really should look into them. So it was Gabe Howard who introduced me to Grimm, and Gabe Howard who taught me, and still does teach me, to trust that children can handle it. No matter what “it” is. (Once, she proposed I stage
King Lear
with a class of second graders. We, led by the brilliant Sarah Phipps, did
Twelfth Night
instead.)

The students at Saint Ann's are my muses. It was, in fact, a class of first graders who insisted I tell them story after story after story, and thereby suggested to me that I had stories that kids wanted to hear. It is my students' thirst for understanding, their questioning, their calling-out, their thinking, their art, their calling-out-some-more, their writing, their still-calling-out-even-though-I-am-standing-right-in-front-of-them-asking-them-to-stop, and, above all, their growing that inspire me.

I must thank my teachers from The Park School of Baltimore. I think about all of them, every single day. I really do. One of them, Laura Amy Schlitz read the English version of A
Smile as Red as Blood
to me when I was very young, thus warping my mind forever. She still teaches me and inspires me and has kept my spirits up as I traveled through this dark tale.

I have done nothing in the realm of writing and trying to publish my writing without consulting Sarah Burnes, who has been right about just about everything she has ever said to me. She identified me as a writer before I did, and then she told me what in my writing was good and what was bad until we got to where we are. Among her most brilliant acts of guidance was introducing me to Julie Strauss-Gabel. Before she met me, Julie believed that she knew the true story of Hansel and Gretel. But, together, we figured out what the real story was. She has been as much a partner as an editor, and there is no question that I would have produced the wrong, fake, untrue story of Hansel and Gretel had it not been for her.

Some dear friends and family members have read this book and given me invaluable ideas and criticism: John, Patricia, and Zachary Gidwitz; Adele Gidwitz (my first reader); Erica Hickey; and Lauren Mancia.

Indeed, Lauren Mancia has been there for every good and bad idea I have had about anything for the last seven years. And I hope for the next seventy.

Finally, I must acknowledge the Brothers Grimm. It was they who wrote down these dark, grim tales, and it was their vision and voice that inspired this book. If you haven't read their versions of the tales, you must. Their impact on me, and on all of us, has been immeasurable.

 

 

Also, their stories are awesome.