English 10H
8 November 2004

Rapunzel
(Modernized)

Once upon a time, there was a couple who lived in a beautiful palace that overlooked the garden of their sweet neighbor – Okay, enough of that. Here's the real story. A story that began not long ago, but nineteen years ago, when Galinda, a recently rehabilitated waitress, married Harvey, the most boring and gullible accountant you'd ever met. Galinda was a pretty lazy person, and since Harvey made enough money for them to get by, she quit her job and they moved to New York. Not just any part, mind you; they moved to the heart of the Bronx.

Things were going good for them in their new appartment, up until the point when Galinda discovered María Juana's beautiful "herb" garden. Miss María fashioned herself a medicine woman who dealt strictly with natural remedies. Well, in the 21st century, her "natural remedies" were just what the doctor ordered for quite a few people, so business was good.

It was a normally dull day; Harvey came home from work, on-time, ate a half-frozen TV dinner, since he hadn't been able to find the time to buy a new microwave, and the television was on with the volume too high. But there was one thing that was out of place. Galinda wasn't in her usual corner, moaning on about her boredom, she was sitting in a chair, staring out the window that faced María Juana's garden. Now, Galinda had been succesfully rehabilitated from her addiction to pot, but at that moment . . . well, you'd think she'd never gone to that hospital.

Her eyes seemed distant; they focused on nothing yet something at the same time. At that moment Harvey just knew, she wouldn't come out of the trance until she had at least one puff of the leaves that grew so malevolently in his neighbor's backyard. No amount of persuasion would get her mind off the leaves, until finally she plead with him so much that tears began to roll down her cheeks. Harvey's defenses broke with the first tear.

That night, Harvey climbed over the medicine woman's wall and stole one leaf for his wife, but, as he had predicted, that one leaf was not enough to satisfy her. Galinda became irritable, demanding, and wouldn't leave Harvey in peace until she had once again forced him to climb over the medicine woman's wall. But this time he was met by María Juana herself, and she was not pleased to see him.

"How dare you steal from me?" María screamed at Harvey, "How can you bare the sight of your ugly mug in the mirror each morning, knowing you've stolen from an old woman? You'll pay for this, mark my words!" Just then, María began to search through the trenchcoat she wore over her nightgown.

"Wait! I can explain!" Harvey said, desperate to find an explanation before María tried to kill him. To his releif, she produced a pen and paper from her coat, instead of the gun or knife that he'd expected.

"Well, what are you waiting for? I'm listening," María said, crossing her arms, her fingers twitching to write what they had wanted to on the crumpled paper.

Quickly, Harvey explained the situation with his wife and as he spoke the old woman thought of what she was going to write. The more she heard, the more promise her premonition offered. In her premonition, she'd seen the man's wife bear a little girl. She figured, the daughter of an accountant must inherit some sort of mathematical genes. She couldn't trust to hire anyone to manage her accounts now, people were too dishonest, but if she raised the girl, gained her trust, taught her the knowledge necessary, then she would have a very powerful ally. Once he'd concluded, and María had finished writing what she'd wanted to write, she handed the paper to Harvey for him to read.

"What . . . what's this about?" Harvey asked, truly confused.

"What? Can't you read?" María asked, and seeing that the bewildered look on his face wasn't going to disappear anytime soon, she continued, "Listen, and listen well. That there paper says that your wife can have as many of theses leaves as she wants, so long as I get the baby that she'll be giving birth to come Spring."

"Wha – What?" Harvey said, looking towards his wife's bedroom window, "Galinda's pregnant?" He thought back to the year after they were married. She had given birth to a boy, but she had been so wasted throughout the whole pregnancy that the baby was born addicted to the drug and died of the severe convulsions caused by not getting the drug. They had lost their son. Paul, they we're going to name him, but Galinda didn't remember any of it. She simply thought she'd miscarriaged, and never gave it a second thought.

That question earned him a smack on the back of his head as María explained, "Have you or haven't you been paying attention? Your wife's not pregnant yet, but she will be. And when she is, the child is mine."

Still dazed from the smack and confused form the night's events, and thinking that this woman might take better care of a baby than Galinda would, so he agreed to what the medicine woman was saying and signed the paper with the pen that María handed to him.

The moment Galinda went into labor, María Juana was there. She swiftly named the girl Rapunzel and claimed her as her own daughter. The minute the adoption papers went through, María took Rapunzel to an old shack she had on the outskirts of the town, from where she raised her until she was old enough to take care of herself.

María took Rapunzel to an abandoned apartment building, in which María quickly made into a home for her on the fifth floor. Up there, on the lonesome fifth floor, Rapunzel's only companion was music. In the four years she spent there, Rapunzel had grew into a beautiful young woman of sixteen, with waist-long, stawberry blond hair, like Harvey's, and deep, dark brown eyes, like Galinda's, and she had an amazing voice to go with her beauty.

In her apartment, shed'spend the day either listening to music or singing the songs she'd written about her solitude. On other days, María Juana would call out to her, "Rapunzel! Lower the 'scape ladder!" whenever she came by to check up on her . . . and to quiz her.

"Ready?" María asked her.

"Yes." Rapunzel replied.

"Can't have a dumb girl running my business now can I?"

"No, ma'am."

María cringed at being called "ma'am," but left it alone since she prefered the title to a first name based relationship with Rapunzel.

"Alright then, . . ." María said, and quized Rapunzel on her math, which was better than her father's, and her botanical knowledge, which became better than María's with every book she'd bring Rapunzel on the subject.

As María's watch began to beep, announcing that it was now 6pm, she got up saying, "Very well, that'll do. I'm going to be gone for a few days, seven at the most. Is there anyting you think you'll need in that time?"

"Maybe some Midol? I've been getting cramps lately."

"Alright. See you in a week," she said as she shuffled towards the window, waving good-bye before continuing her descent.

As María made her way down the alley and around the building to her car, a young man came out from the shadows behind a dumpster. He'd hidden there so that Rapunzel would not see him standing there, listening to her sing before María had arrived. After the sound of María's car confirmed that she had already left, he walked out of the alley as well.

The next day, around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the young man, who couldn't have been more than nineteen, came back to hear Rapunzel's song. But this time, he did not stay a bystander. He walked up to the ladder and called up, "Rapunzel! Lower the 'scape ladder!" Not knowing wether she would lower it or not, he flattened himself against the wall so she wouldn't be albe to see his face. He didn't have to wait long for the ladder to come down, and, stepping out of the shadows, he began to climb the ladder.

Rapunzel had her back towards the window, as she was turning off the record player, but she quickly noticed that the footsteps that landed on the floor were heavier than that of María Juana's. Turning around, trying not to scream, she saw that it was indeed not María, but a young man. He was roughly six feet, with short, punk, brown hair and light eyes. his skin was tanned and tattooed. And even though she'd never seen a man, other than the guy María sent to bring her food and clothes, she was not scared.

"Don't be frightened," he told her quickly.

"Why should I be? I'm not child." Rapunzel retorted.

"Allow me to introduce myself," he said, holding out his hand, "My name is Raúl. My father is the owner of Virgin Records."

She shook his outstreched had warily, but was interested by his father's profession.

Seeing that she was not going to call the cops on him, Raúl continued, "You have an amazing voice, and I liked the lyrics. Did you – did you write them yourself?"

Blushing at the thought that he liked her lyrics, Rapunzel nodded.

"That's great. You could possibly have a career in music, you know? I could put in a good word with my father, we can make a demo . . ."

Wrapped up in their discussion of music, 8 o'clock came and went, and Rapunzel decided that it was time for Raúl to leave. His hopes weren't dashed however. He came back every night that week, which gave a chance for their friendship to grow.

The next day, María came back, and Raúl had to once again hide in the shadows until she left. For a month, their relationship grew from friendship to a budding romance, and all of this remained hidden from María. But Rapunzel soon grew restless. She battled with her feelings of possible love for Raúl and often dreamt of the musical career that she and Raúl talked so much about.

So one day, when María came to visit, Rapunzel finally asked, "María?"

This caught her attention. Rapunzel had never called her by her first name before, so she decided to proceed with caution and said, "Yes, child?"

"Well, I was wondering," Rapunzel went on, "When am I going to be able to go out into the world? I mean, I like to sing. So I was thinking of persuing a musical career, and maybe start dating and –."

"Now wait a minute," María said, shocked at what she was hearing and wondering where all these wild ideas had come from. "When did you decide that you wanted to be a singer? I thought that we'd agreed that you were going to take over my business and that you were going to leave men out of the picture becaue they were too troublesome."

"Yes, I know, but –."

"Wait a minute," María said, smelling trouble in the air, "Have you had someone else up here?"

Rapunzel kept quite, but it was her silence that spoke volumes to María. Angered by this notion, and trying to come up with a conclusion as quickly as possible, she finally decided that she'd give Rapunzel what she wanted . . . but it would come with a price.

"Call him."

"What?"

"I know he's down there somewhere, so call him."

"Wha – Why?"

"Just do it!"

Not wanting to anger María more, Rapunzel leaned out the window and called out to Raúl. But Raúl, knowing that María was still there, climbed the ladder cautiously, knowing that something was wrong. Once he was fully inside the apartment, María examined him, looked him up and down, left to right, and finally said to Rapunzel.

"Go. Persue your 'singing career.' I won't stop you, but don't come crawling back to me when this lowlife cheats on you, or when your records won't sell, because I won't be here to help!"

"But –." Rapunzel was near tears, both of joy and sadness, at this news. Raúl, thinking that they were only of sadness, tried to comfort Rapunzel, but on his way there he was attacked by María. It seemed that she had thought he was going to try to hurt her, so she pepper sprayed his eyes. Unfortunately, the distance between them was so miniscule that the pepper-spray blinded him instead of momentarily blurring his vision.

Not knowing what else to do, Rapunzel ran to Raúl, helped him down the fire escape, made sure that he was safely in the hospital, and then ran. It wasn't for another four months, that Rapunzel finally resurfaced. She had gotten a record deal with Atlantic records, but the records didn't sell. She tried to get a job anywhere else, but the fact that her address was a motel room, that she didn't have at least a high school degree, and that she had no previous work experience didn't fit well with any of them.

Five months later, Rapunzel found herself in labor, living in a motel room, now had twins, and relatively alone. She tried to contact Raúl, the father of her twins and her forgotten love, but she didn't know his last name so that was a lost cause. However, it turned out that he had been looking for her as well. In the hospital, Raúl was tended to quickly. After his father was contacted and told of his son's case, he was able to set up an appointment for Raúl to have an eye operation to get his vision back. Three months later, he was out of the hospital and seeing again.

Knowing that Rapunzel had only been scared, and must still have been since she was alone, he hired a P.I. to find her. Finally, when the twins were already six months old, Raúl was able to track Rapunzel down through the address she'd provided for Atlantic records. They were married three months later, moved into a house in NY, NY, and Rapunzel's singing career finally took off, with Raúl as her manager and producer.

And they lived happily ever after . . .

The End