Trumpets flourish. Drum roll, please ...
The Promiscuous Vegetable in the Tower
Once upon Tuesday the 8th of November, at 7.26pm, the little old woman reminded herself for the umpteenth time that the place wouldn't have been so dirt cheap if had had traditional methods of entering and exiting. And if there was ever a girl who deserved having half her scalp ripped out every time she got a visitor, it was the one two metres of plaited hair away. Despite the little old women's best intentions (though admittedly some, most, of those intentions had not made it all the way to actions), the girl was showing alarming tendencies to be the daughter of her parents.
It began when the girl was twelve. Puberty had hit her early and instead of entering a ten-year period of elbows, knees, and spots, she had progressed straight to porcelain skin and a figure that would usually take a corset and a couple of socks to achieve. The girl had looks that could make a grown man cry; or so the little old woman hoped. Instead, many of the grown men, and all of the men stuck in said ten-year period, got a dangerous shiny gleam in their eyes when the girl passed by, and the little old woman sensibly barricaded the girl in their house. By the time of her fourteenth birthday, the girl was monumentally bored and didn't mind who knew of it. So when the neighbours (new neighbours, and better, the little old woman supposed, but the man's hair needed a good combing) complained about knowing of it at three o'clock in the morning, the little old woman decided enough was enough.
Dragging herself over the window frame, the little old woman collapsed in an undignified heap on the floor. The girl remained in her pretty gilt chair by the window, clutching her aching head.
"How on earth can one little woman be so heavy? I swear you weigh twice as much as the prince. I refuse to let you up again 'til you visit the cleaning lady."
"What did you say?"
"Oh, don't give me that snarky, bloated look; everyone's doing it," the girl replied with a contemptuous slitty-eyed glance.
The little old woman hesitated as she tried to decide whether she was more upset that the girl was keeping dangerous secrets or that she had just been called fat twice in as many minutes. Her mildly developed parenting skills won out. "What 'prince'?"
The girl gasped and belatedly clapped a hand over her mouth. As she searched desperately for an excuse, she fell back on her default position: "You're ruining my life!"
"I am not. I merely asking what manner of man you have allowed into your bed chamber. Your bed chamber!" The little old woman tried to tower over the girl but had to settle for glaring at her eye to eye.
"The best manner of man," the girl sighed, her countenance suddenly overcome with the worst manner of soppy devotion. "He first was enchanted by my singing, my song more pleasing to his ear than lark's. He waited for days near my tower but out of sight, observing the comings and goings of the evil witch –" the little old woman raised an eyebrow "– the evil, conniving, despotic witch, until he steeled his courage to meet the woman of his dreams." The girl's raptures drew her to her feet, and she watched in her mind's eye the events unfolding. "From the bottom of the tower, he called up the witch's secret words of admittance." "I didn't think royalty were allowed to swear," the little old woman commented and was ignored. "Expertly climbing the golden ropes lowered to him, he gracefully entered the tower room and swept his enchanting lady into his arms!" The girl tried to whirl about in delight but got twisted up in her hair, falling ignominiously to the floor.
"What is that?!" the little old woman hissed, pointing at the girl's rounded stomach, exposed in the disarray of clothes. The dear reader must remember that sock-and-corset figures are not given to oddly distributed pounds, and up until now any excess had migrated more northward.
"And how have I affronted you now, despot?" She rolled her eyes so hard she almost strained a muscle.
"You hussy!"
"What!"
"You and the prince ... and you ..." the little old woman made a series of complicated hand gestures. "You're pregnant."
"What?" said the bewildered girl.
"You are growing round with child."
"What?"
"In a matter of months babies will come splurting from out of your body in a very uncomfortable way."
"What?!" Water began welling in the girl's eyes.
"It's a very natural process; lots of women do it. And what with the latest medicinal advances only about half of them die now days."
The girl bust into tears.
"Oh, girl, dearie," the little old woman gave her an awkward hug. "Do you know your prince's name?"
The girl's head shook, more like a shiver than a movement of dissent. "He said he loved me. But I haven't seen him since ... I ... and ... I'll just have to sit here and wait." She collapsed in her chair, her shoulders hunched under an awful weight.
The little old woman could not stand it. "That's certainly not the attitude I raised you to take!" she cried rallyingly. "If you want your man, you'd best go find him. You know he's a prince and I imagine you can describe him intimately, shouldn't be too hard. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that."
Tear-drenched eyes met hers in a pitiful gaze."Will you come with me?"
"With my joints, after climbing up and down this tower every day? Not on your life. I will wait here in case the fellow turns up. Now go pack up a bag, there's a good girl."
As the girl rushed about flinging things into a velvet sack, the little old woman hunted down a pair of sewing scissors.
"One last thing before you go." Slowly and arduously the little old woman sheared through the top of the girl's plait. Her freed hair wisped gently around her face. With a grateful, watery brave smile, the girl climbed onto the window sill.
"Be care, be safe. Good luck, my child," the little old woman called after her as she descended.
.o.o.o.
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!"
The little old woman woke with a jerk. That was certainly not any of the secret admittance words thingies she had ever used.
From outside the window came a quiet scuffling and a dark silhouette bobbed in the embrasure, blacking out the moonlit sky. She waited until he was fully inside the room and fumbling about with flint and wick before pronouncing softly but sternly, "You."
The sudden flare of light illuminated the terror in his eyes. "You!" the prince, for it must be he, accused. "What have you done with her? Why is the hair here, but my love gone? Oh, jealous evil, thou hast done away with her!"
"Go soak your head, you wee upstart," the little old woman muttered, levering herself up off the bed she had been lying on. "I have a bone to pick with you, so cut the nonsense and let's talk about this like reasonable adults. I assume you were an adult when you callously seduced my child?" She descended upon him, one finger fiercely wagging.
"Get away from me, witch!" he shouted.
"Not again," the little old woman sighed. "I don't have time for this, my baby girl has been wandering in search of you for six weeks now." She jabbed viciously at his chest, and he startled backwards. "She's a special girl, and I don't know what you've done to deserve it but she's carrying your child. So you better get out there, find her and do the right thing by her pretty damn quick, mister, or I will slap you with a paternity suit so fast it'll make your crown spin. And ye shall owe a terrible price in child support!" Good measure had seemed to do the trick last time.
She speared her finger at him again but, anticipating another poke, the prince was already dodging, this time a little too far. The little old woman barely had time to say "Be careful!" before he toppled backwards out the window.
The little old woman peered over the window sill; the bush of briars surrounding the tower seemed to have broken his fall, more is the pity. When last she had spoken to the girl a week ago, she had still been utterly infatuated with him. But the prince was entire too much like the girl's father for the little old woman to approve; he had a bit more backbone perhaps but was indubitably just as ridiculous. Was it really too much to ask that the girl find some nice, kind, sensible farmer? After a moment of contemplation, the little old woman nodded. Awkwardly sliding down the hairy rope and passing the prince's sprawled body without a glance, she set off to make sure it wasn't.
The end.
And there you have it. I hope all those who asked so nicely found it worth the wait.
Deleted Scene (goodness, aren't we getting fancy), comes just after "the little old woman decided enough was enough":
First, they tried gainful employment. In a neat, navy, severely plain dress, the girl was sent to the baker. And the washerwoman. And the cleaning lady, and the jam maker, and the music teacher. It wasn't that the girl was bad at her work, it was just it had a tendency not to get done on account of the pile of men at her feet, sometimes reaching up to three deep and eight wide.
