Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin by Liesl Shurtliff Page A

it with me. A little piece of Mother, a piece of home. I wished I could take a piece of Gran with me too, but there was nothing. I would have to carry a memory.
    It was late afternoon as I walked through The Village,toward the road that led down The Mountain. I stopped once and looked back on The Village. I had never seen it from this view. The houses were stacked in jumbled clusters up the mountainside, some so lopsided they looked like they might slide right down. Smoke rose from chimneys, and windows were lit with candles. The mill stood above all the houses, the biggest building by far. High above the village were the mines that I had worked in my whole life. I had never been anywhere but this village. Even though I knew there were other kingdoms and villages and probably mountains all over the world, this had always been my world. I imagined my mother leaving Yonder and feeling the same.
    In my mind I thought I would not be gone for very long, but in my heart I felt like I was leaving on a great expedition, and if I ever returned, I would be very different. I hoped I would be different.
    I was leaving The Mountain at last. True, my leaving might have sounded far grander if I were leaving a place with a real name, like Ochenleff or Asteria. But I left just the same.

    It all sounded so big and adventurous, but my lofty sentiments were squashed before I had gotten even halfway down The Mountain. Nothing didn’t carry a thing. Instead, I hauled him . It was about as fun as playing with pixies. When I tried to ride him, he either wouldn’t move or moved so fast I couldn’t hold on. Then he stumbledand I fell off. I ended up pulling him the whole way while he bellowed and spit in my ear.
    When I finally reached the bottom of The Mountain, it was night. Luckily, there was a little moonlight or I wouldn’t have been able to see at all. I met a man driving a wagon and asked him how far it was to The Kingdom and what direction.
    He pointed in the direction I was already going and said it was a good twelve miles. My heart sank. “I would gladly give you a ride in my cart,” said the man, “but your donkey doesn’t look like he’d keep up with the horse.”
    “No,” I said, “he wouldn’t.” I wanted to kick Nothing. Maybe I could just tie him up here and get a ride anyway, but then someone might steal him. Worthless as he was, he was the only company I had on this journey. I gave another tug and we plodded down the road.
    After an hour I was starving, so I ate all the biscuits in my sack. We found a stream to drink from and some early spring grass for Nothing. After that he settled right down in the grass and didn’t want to move. I pulled and pulled, but he just bellowed. I got on his back and kicked him as hard as I could with both legs. He still didn’t move. I pulled out my mother’s bobbin and poked his side with it. He bellowed and jumped right up and started trotting down the path, with me hanging on him sideways.
    Nothing carried me for only a few miles before I had to start pulling him again, and after another hour I wondered if the man with the cart had been mistaken and it was really twenty miles, or even thirty. I had no sense for distance. Maybe I wouldn’t get there by tonight andsomething really awful would happen in the morning. What would the king do to Opal and her family if she didn’t spin the straw into gold? How could I go back home if I failed?
    The road widened and small houses started to appear, their windows all dark and quiet. It must have been very late, but the houses gave me hope that I was close to The King’s City. The houses got closer together and smaller, then very close and stacked on top of each other. They looked like little towers made of rubble that a wind might blow over. Then they spread out a little and got bigger. A lot bigger. The road began to wind and curve up a steep hill, and at the top was a giant stone wall. Beyond that wall was King Barf’s castle. Opal was