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

spinning her memory away all at once. But then I stopped crying. Istopped worrying that anything bad would happen, and I stopped hoping that anything good would happen. I think I stopped feeling anything at all. I just spun.
    For four months, I spun and traded the gold to the miller. The trade was never fair, but I never argued. Once, I traded ten skeins of gold for a small sack of flour and some rotten carrots. Soon I found I didn’t care how fair the bargains were. Trading the gold became more of a habit than a need.
    I no longer went to the mines. I never even went outside unless I was going to the mill, but no one seemed to notice or care, except Red. She visited me sometimes, though we said very little. Once in a while, she brought a loaf of bread from her mother. That’s the only time I felt anything. It’s hard not to feel guilty when starving people bring you food.
    I thought I would just live that way for the rest of my life, spinning gold and never getting rich, eating food and never getting full. Or tall, or smart, or kind, or anything at all.
    Maybe it would have stayed that way forever if a certain visitor had not come to The Mountain in search of a certain kind of gold.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
King Barf
    As winter melted away, the creatures of The Mountain began to emerge from their long slumber. I woke one morning to a pixie on my nose. It seemed the pixies had nested in my chimney, and now that they were waking, the whole cottage had become one big, swarming pixie nest. I tried to swat them away from the tangles of gold all over the floor, but they shrieked and bit me. I ran outside. The air was still chilly, but at least I could breathe without my tongue freezing.
    Then I noticed something strange. The villagers should have all been at work in the mines by now, but instead, everyone was gathering in the village square. The crowds were just visible from my cottage, down the street and in front of the mill. It seemed the whole village was there, chattering and buzzing, as excited as the pixies inside.
    I found Red, walking with her mother toward the square.
    “What’s going on?” I asked.
    “Mountain pass is open,” she said.
    “So?”
    She pointed down The Mountain. “Someone’s coming up.”
    A big open sound rang through the air, like the village bell, but deeper and longer. It sounded again and again with a regular rhythm.
    “It’s a royal procession,” said a woman.
    “A what? What for?”
    The most royal visitor we ever received was the tax collector, and he never brought a procession.
    I looked down the road winding up The Mountain and saw the most amazing sight. A dozen horses, two dozen! And not little horses from The Mountain, but big warhorses from The Kingdom. And on those horses were soldiers dressed in red-and-gold tunics, with spears and swords and bows and arrows.
    We waited. Everyone was whispering excitedly, guessing at who it could be and why they were coming.
    “Maybe there’s a war,” said Frederick, “and they need soldiers.”
    “Maybe we haven’t been sending enough gold for the king’s liking,” said a woman, which I thought probably closer to the truth.
    The procession finally reached The Village. A soldier lifted a golden horn to his mouth and blew three high notes. Pixies fluttered all around the horn.
    “Announcing His Royal Majesty, King Bartholomew Archibald Reginald Fife!”
    The villagers all gasped in unison. Everyone whispered to each other. Never before had a king come to visit The Mountain. Everyone hushed as the soldiers parted and the king came forward.
    My entire life, whenever I heard mention of his name—King Bartholomew Archibald Reginald Fife—I imagined someone very big and very handsome and very brainy. I think everyone did. But now that I saw him, “King Barf” almost seemed more fitting.
    If I had just looked at his royal costume, I suppose I could have been impressed, though gold wasn’t so impressive to me anymore. King Barf wore a gold