Disclaimer: I do not own Rapunzel, nor do I own Chad Michael Murray – my obsessive friend would murder me if I so much as presumed such a thing. There are some parts in there that seem quite random, but let me assure you that everything was taken from the text, and adapted directly from that. With that aside, please enjoy my retelling of the Rapunzel tale!
Mary-Jane by Dailenna
A couple of migrants had been attempting to get pregnant for their whole married lives. They loved each other very much, and were dedicated to the other's wants and needs, but nothing seemed to work. They finally agreed that they would try IVF.
The house they lived in was next door to a large estate that belonged to a pot-head. They didn't know how such an irrational and unmotivated man could gain hold of such a place, but he owned it nonetheless. His backyard was filled with all sorts of hydraulic gardens and there was a marijuana patch behind the shed, but what they liked when they could see over the fence was a small patch of flowers and what seemed to be an actual vegetable garden.
One day, the wife was looking at this garden from the second storey of their house, and a glint of red amongst all of the green caught her eye. She looked closer and saw that among the other vegetation was a tomato plant. When she saw the tomatoes, they seemed so brilliantly red and juicy that she just had to have one. For a whole week she tried to ignore her neighbours tomatoes, attempting to sate her desire with regular store-bought kinds, but they weren't the same. They were small and dry, and everyday she wanted those tomatoes over the fence more, and became lethargic and sickly with longing.
Her husband noticed the change in her, and was alarmed. "Y' can't keep doin' this!" he cried. "Y'll kill th' baby!"
"If I kennot eat thoess tomatas in th' neighbour's garden, I'll die!"
The husband was distraught. Doan want th' missus t' die. I'll get th' tomatas for her. Th' neighbour woan notice – he's too outovvet.
When darkness fell, he clambered over the fence and plucked a few of the tomatoes before vaulting back over. He quickly chopped them up into a salad, and presented it to his wife, who ate it at once.
It tasted amazing to her. So mouth-watering, that the next day when she looked over the wall, she wanted the tomatoes ten times more than she had before. If her husband wanted any rest from her constant nagging, he'd have to jump the fence again and get some more for her.
Darkness came once again, and he leapt over the fence. When he dropped down into the garden, he froze – the pot-head stood before him, a dangerous glint in his eyes.
"What the beep do you mean by beeeep into my garden, you beeeep! Are you trying to beeeeep my tomatoes? If you've beep touched them, I'll beep you in the beep!"
"Mistah," said the husband, "giv me a chance. I only did this 'cos th' wife made me. Y' know what wimmen ah like. She looks out th' winda and sees a mungin' good tomata in y' patch, and woan shuddup til I gets it fer ha."
The pot-head calmed down a little. "Yeah, mate. I know what beep women are like. Tell you what? Take as many of my tomatoes as you want, give me your kid when it's born, and we'll call it quits, right?"
"Wotchu talkin' 'bout? I ain't givin' up my kid for no tomatas."
"Then what the beep are you doing in my beeep garden, beeeeeep? I'll beeep your beep head!"
He looked at the pot-head in surprise. "Nah, mate, nah! How c'n I be sure thet y'll take gud care of my kid?"
The pot-head broke down in tears. "All my beeep girlfriends take my kids away when I get 'em preggers. Make me pay the beep child support, and don't let me see my beep kid!"
The husband looked at him oddly. "Well, I suppose me 'n' the missus ken get anatha one," he said. "Yeah, y' c'n have this one, then."
Going home, he was so shocked at what he'd done that he didn't tell his wife, and when she went into labour and the pot-head turned up at the hospital, she was too exhausted to keep the baby from him. The pot-head took their daughter, and called her Mary-Jane after his favourite plant.
Now, in one of the pot-heads crazy, drug-induced dazes, he had once ordered the construction of a tower without any doors, or steps – just one tall tower, with a solitary room high up. But he kept Mary-Jane in that tower, and she grew her hair long so that whenever he wanted to come up to check on her, he'd stand down the bottom and yell up "Mary-Jane, Mary Jane! Toss us yer hair!" She would loop her hair around a hook near the window, and throw her hair down so he could climb up to her. To battle this constant tugging on her scalp, the hair grew strong and since she was very self-obsessed, she washed it regularly and it remained a shining blonde mass.
Now, quite some time after the pot-head had taken her into his care, Chad Michael Murray was strutting down the street past the pot-head's house and he heard a voice belting out a tune that he just couldn't place. It intrigued him so much that he had to find out what it was. Chad wanted to climb up to find the voice, and ask its owner what she was singing, but he couldn't find a door to get him in there. Disappointed, he strutted off home to Hollywood. Even in Hollywood, he couldn't find the song that he had heard, and so he returned to stand outside of the pot-head's house each day to hear Mary-Jane's singing.
One day, he was sitting across from the house, pretending to be waiting for a bus at the bus-stop, when he saw the pot-head stumble out of his house and stand at the bottom of the tower, roaring "Mary-Jane, Mary-Jane! Toss us yer hair!" To Chad's amazement, soon enough a pile of hair was unravelled down the tower side, and the pot-head climbed up.
If that's the way to get up to that voice, then I'm going to try it! Chad thought, and the next day, when day began to fade, he stood at the foot of the tower, and cried "Mary-Jane, Mary-Jane! Ummm . . . 'Toss us yer hair!' . . ?"
To his intense relief, her hair flowed down and he climbed up to meet her.
Mary-Jane stared when she saw Chad Michael Murray climbing into her room. She hadn't seen any person other than the pot-head, whose appearance had been detracted from by years of smoking, drinking, snorting and the like. But Chad spoke to her easily, and in a friendly manner, and told her that he had heard her song, and had become so curious that he had to come see her. Then Mary-Jane wasn't afraid anymore, and when he asked for her hand in marriage, she leapt at the chance.
"Of course I'd marry you, but can't you see I'm stuck in a tower with no way of getting myself out of here? Look – Chad darling – if you bring me a sheet every time you come visit, then I'll rip them up and make a ladder. When it's long enough, I'll come down and we can get the heck out of here."
They agreed that until the ladder was ready, he'd come visit her every evening, because the pot-head had usually passed out by then.
The pot-head knew nothing of this until Mary-Jane said to her in a blonde moment "Gosh, 'Dad', why can't you get rid of a few kilos? I swear, you're twice as heavy as Chad is."
"Chad? BEEEEP! Have you been beeep seeing beep guys behind my beeeep back?"
"Ummm . . ."
In his rage, the pot-head grabbed Mary-Jane's hair near the base of her head, took a knife and cut it all off. He tied the hair to the hook near the window, grabbed Mary-Jane – shrieking and protesting as she was – and climbed down. On his next joy-ride in a stolen cop-car, he took her out to the middle of a desert and left her there. Getting home before evening fell, he climbed back up to the tower, and pulled the hair in, smoking a joint while he waited.
Soon enough, a confident cry came out below: "Mary-Jane, Mary-Jane! Toss us yer hair!" He let the hair out the window, and Chad came up.
"Sweet-heart, you've changed!" Chad shrieked.
"So YOU'RE the beep who beeeep visited my beep daughter, eh!" The pot-head roared. "You're never going to beep see her again!" And he poked poor Chad very hard in the eyes and booted him out of the tower.
Landing in a patch of thistles that scratched his eyes further, he wandered away, and couldn't find his way around. Because he was such a pretty boy, and the hero of this story, he couldn't die, so people he met along the way gave him food, and occasionally he'd find a cat which he gnawed on. Somehow, in a few years he made it out to the very desert that Mary-Jane had been abandoned in, where she now lived with the twins she had been pregnant with.
Chad heard a voice, and seemed so familiar that he went towards it, and when he got close, Mary-Jane knew it was him, and hugged him, crying. Now, at the time, Mary-Jane had been cleaning her make-do kitchen, and wore gloves covered in all sorts of disinfectants. When she hugged Chad, the disinfectant fell into his eyes, and after all of his screeches of protest had subsided, he noticed in amazement that the scratches and intense pokings on his eyes disappeared and he could see again. With joy, he led her and their kids into the city again where many girls cried because he was taken and they lived together, happily ever after.