Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin Read Online Free PDF

flung his sack over his shoulder, and ran, mice trailing in his wake.
    Red laughed and shook her head. “That fool! He still hasn’t learned to stay away from magic. He’d be safer playing with fire.”
    “But Kessler only does small tricks. What’s wrong with that?”
    “All magic has consequences, Rump. Even small magic can have big consequences.”
    “If he had turned it into a squirrel, would all the squirrels have attacked?”
    “Something entirely different could have happened, something even worse. Like maybe he would have grown squirrel teeth.” Red stuck out her teeth and wiggled her nose.
    I laughed. Red dropped her squirrel face so she looked grave and grim. “For your food, Kessler takes the risk. But one day it will catch up to him. He might not even get to eat that food before the mice do.”
    I felt annoyed. What made her think she knew everything about magic? “Well, I thought it was brilliant. I should have paid him more,” I said.
    “Why?”
    “He got rid of all the mice in The Village!”
    Red stared at me, then shook her head and walked away.
    If I could, I would do magic. I would change lots of things, for good, like make myself grow, or turn fuzz into food. I’d put more gold in The Mountain.
    That bit of magic made me hungry for more. More magic, more transformation—and not from Kessler. I wanted magic all my own. How bad could the consequences be?

CHAPTER SIX
Gold! Gold! Gold!
    That night I jerked awake to a shrill hum. A swarm of pixies hovered over me. One was on the tip of my nose, another on my ear, and two were walking down my chest. Several danced on my hands and chirped excitedly.
    I held very still. I didn’t want another attack like in The Woods. If only I had set a bucket of dirt by my bed. They tugged at my fingers, and with their combined efforts I felt an actual pull to get up.
    It was still dark. Only a faint glow of moonlight spilled through the window, illuminating my bed and the spinning wheel. Across the room, Gran’s snores were deep and even, undisturbed by the chattering and screeching of the pixies. Suddenly they were right in my ears, and their shrieks and chirps went straight to the center of mybrain and shook in my skull. They were saying something. I had to strain to listen but they were chanting excitedly. I didn’t know pixies could say real words.
    “Gold! Gold! Gold!” it sounded like. The pixies tugged at my hair and ears and clothes. Dozens were wrapped around my fingers, furiously beating their wings in an effort to lift me from my bed. They were pulling me toward the spinning wheel.
    And in that moment, an idea cracked open in my brain. It was like an egg had been sitting there quietly for a long time, and suddenly the egg hatched and out came the idea, and it was flying all around in my brain and would not stop flapping and chirping until it was let out. I had to let it out.
    What if pixies couldn’t just sense gold inside The Mountain? What if they could also sense it in a person, in someone who might possess the magic to take one thing—a piece of fluff or wool or straw—and turn it into …
    “Gold! Gold! Gold!”
    I rose from my bed and moved toward the spinning wheel. The pixies squeaked and flitted back and forth between me and the wheel. I placed my hands on the wheel and felt a vibration run through me. I spun it with my hand and listened to the whirring as if it had something to say that I needed to hear. Destiny. That’s what this was.
    I had no wool. The pixies had taken it all the last time I tried to spin. I looked around the cottage. There were chicken bones and chicken feathers and bits of yarn.There were quilts and dishes and the big empty kettle in the hearth. I looked down at my feet. Destiny. It’s right under your feet . Just dirt and … “Straw.” I said it out loud.
    “Gold! Gold! Gold!” the pixies sang in response.
    I gathered the straw from the ground until I had a handful. I sat at the wheel. A few pixies