Chapter Three

"I cannot believe I am still going to do this after meeting him!" Rapunzel said to Pascal. He whirred in agreement. "But it is the only way I am going to escape this prison. But it's not exactly a prison. It's too pretty to be a prison. Okay, now I'm freaking out!" She ran her fingers through the first few inches of her hair.

"Here I go, Pascal! Do you want to come with me?" He nodded and smiled at her. "Let's go convince the thief to take me away!" Then, of course, Victoria waltzed in.

"Rapunzel, honey! I was so, so, so worried about you! I heard from the guard that he tried to make a pass at you and I had to come see you as soon as I could. Why is your dress so short?" Rapunzel looked at her dress, which was about two inches too short.

"Oh, I was just painting and didn't want to get any stains on my new dresses. See, I painted what I saw from my window." She pointed to a painting she had made about two years earlier. But Victoria did not have to know about that.

"It is beautiful, Rapunzel! I absolutely love it. And what did I tell you about using contraptions?" She gave her daughter a pointed look.

"To not use them? I know, mother. I'm sorry."

"It is okay, flower. Just try not to use them." A knock came on the door, and a guard nodded at Victoria. "Rapunzel, I've got to go. I love you." She wiggled her fingers at her daughter. Rapunzel smiled and waved back.

"I love you too, mother." She waited until the door closed before sighing. "Pascal! Why does she always come at the worst possible time?" He lifted his shoulders at her, before getting in a comfy spot on her shoulder. "Doesn't matter anymore. I feel as if it's time for the plan to get in motion." She giggled at her blatant disregard for her mother's no contractions rule.

She sent the guards away by saying something about how her mother needed them for an important project. And then giving them the wrong directions to get to where she was. She approached the cell that held the ruffian.

"Hey! My nurse is back." He smiled freakishly at her. His whole face seemed to be swallowed up by his teeth and his eyebrows were wiggling at her.

"Do you have an eyebrow twitch or something? Because your face is kind of going crazy." He scowled at her.

"What do you want, nurse?"

"My name is Rapunzel, and I'd appreciate it if you called me that."

"Okay, Blondie, what did you come all the way down here for. I realize it wasn't to see the incredible conditions down here, so just spit it out."

"Fine. I want to you to get me out of this kingdom."

"Excuse me, but what? Why would you want to leave? You've got everything here. People wait on your every need." He looked at her like she was crazy. She was starting to think she was.

"I need to see the world! And I kind of hate healing people every day." He squinted at her.

"What's in it for me?"

"For every day you're with me and not caught, you will get a precious gem and I will get them not to kill you and a year off your sentence. But, if we're caught you would be accused of kidnapping the princess and be killed, execution style. So, are you in or not?"

"That is ridiculous! You waltz in here and think you can tell me what to do?"

"Fine. I guess you can just sit here. I'll be sure to tell daddy to move your execution to this evening. He loves executions…" She started to walk away.

"Wait! I'll do it, just get the keys." She grabbed the keys off the hook and unlocked his cell door. "The first thing we need to do is get rid of that hair."

"You are not going to touch my hair." She glared at him as menacingly as she could. He just sighed.

"Fine. We'll dye it, then. It's too easily recognizable to anyone to leave it as is. Do you have a weapon?"

"Why would I have a weapon?" He sighed.

"Okay, just take this frying pan." He plucked a cast iron frying pan from his cell.

"Why do you have a frying pan in your cell?" She asked, fingering the pan.

"Because I do."

"That's not much of an explanation."

"That's about all I can tell you about it. So, are we just going to walk out of here?"

"Um, yes, I guess."

"So you really haven't thought this out much, have you?"

"Not exactly. But I thought about it enough."

"Apparently not enough to figure out how we're even going to leave. It's a good thing I'm trained in the centuries old technique of sneaking out of a building."

"That's centuries old? And a technique?"

"Yes, it is! Now, here's the plan."


Hello, hello! Hope I didn't disappoint. Oopsies, I mean did not.