Of Snow White, Who Is Very Unpleasant Indeed

“YOU’RE LATE!”

David’s eardrums rang like bells as Comrade Brother Number One opened the front door of the cottage and cried, very nervously, “Coo-ee, we’re home!” in that singsong voice that David’s father had sometimes used on David’s mother when he got back late from the pub and knew he was in trouble.

“Don’t ‘we’re home’ me” came the reply. “Where have you been? I’m starvin’. Me stomach’s like an empty barrel.”

David had never heard a voice quite like it. It was a woman’s voice, but it managed to be both deep and high at the same time, like those huge trenches that were supposed to lie at the bottom of the ocean, only not quite so wet.

“Ooooooh, I can ’ear it rumbling,” said the voice. “’Ere, you, listen to it.”

A big white hand reached out and grabbed Brother Number One by the scruff of the neck, lifting him off his feet and yanking him inside.

“Oh, yeph,” said Brother Number One, after a moment or two. His voice sounded slightly muffled. “I can hear iff now.”

David allowed the other dwarfs to enter the cottage ahead of him. They walked like prisoners who had just been told that the executioner had a little extra time on his hands and could fit in a few more beheadings before he went home for his tea. David cast a lingering glance back at the dark forest and wondered if he shouldn’t just take his chances outside.

“Close that door!” said the voice. “I’m freezin’. Me teeth are chatterin’.”

David, feeling that he had no other choice, stepped into the cottage and closed the door firmly behind him.

Standing before him was the biggest, fattest lady that David had ever seen. Her face was caked with white makeup. Her hair was black, held back by a brightly colored cotton band, and her lips were painted purple. She wore a pink dress large enough to house a small circus. Brother Number One was pressed hard against its folds, the better to hear the strange noises that the great stomach beneath was currently making. His little feet almost, but not quite, touched the ground. The dress was decorated with so many ribbons and buttons and bows that David was quite at a loss as to how the lady could remember which ones actually released her from the dress and which were merely for show. Her feet were squashed into a pair of silk slippers that were at least three sizes too small, and the rings on her fingers were almost lost in her flesh.

“Who are you, then?” she said.

“He’ph comfany,” said Brother Number One.

“Company?” said the lady, dropping Brother Number One like an unwanted toy. “Well, why didn’t you say you were bringin’ company?” She patted her hair and smiled, exposing lipstick-smeared teeth. “I’d have dressed up. I’d have put me face on.”

David heard Brother Number Three whisper to Brother Number Eight. The words “anything” and ‘’improvement” were barely audible. Unfortunately, they were still too loud for the lady’s liking, and Brother Number Three received a smack across the head for his trouble.

“Careful,” she said. “Cheeky sod.”

She then extended a large pale hand toward David and gave a little curtsy.

“Snow White,” she said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, I’m sure.”

David shook hands and watched with alarm as his fingers were swallowed up in Snow White’s marshmallow palm.

“I’m David,” he said.

“That’s a nice name,” said Snow White. She giggled and buried her chin in her chest. The action created so many ripples of fat that her head looked as if it was melting. “Are you a prince?”

“No,” said David. “Sorry.”

Snow White looked disappointed. She released David’s hand and tried to play with one of her rings, but the ring was so tight that it wouldn’t budge.

“A nobleman, maybe?”

“No.”

“Son of a nobleman, with a great inheritance waiting for you on your eighteenth birthday?”

David pretended to think about the question.

“Er, no again,” he said.

“Well, what are you then? Don’t tell me you’re another one of their booorrrring friends come here to talk about workers and oppression. I warned them, I did: no more talk about revolutions, not until I’ve had me tea.”

“But we are oppressed,” protested Brother Number One.

“Of course you’re oppressed!” said Snow White. “You’re only three feet tall. Now go and get me tea started, before I lose me good humor. And take your boots off. I don’t want you lot puttin’ muck on me nice clean floor. You only cleaned it yesterday.”

The dwarfs removed their boots and left them at the door along with their tools, then lined up to wash their hands in the little sink before preparing the evening meal. They sliced bread and cut vegetables while two rabbits roasted over the open fire. The smell made David’s mouth water.

“I suppose you’ll be wantin food an’ all,” said Snow White to David.

“I am rather hungry,” David admitted.

“Well, you can share their rabbit. You ain’t ’avin’ any of mine.”

Snow White plopped herself down in a big chair by the fire. She puffed her cheeks and sighed loudly.

“I ’ate it ’ere,” she said. “It’s so booorrrinnng.”

“Why don’t you just leave?” asked David.

“Leave?” said Snow White. “And where would I leave to?”

“Don’t you have a home?” said David.

“Me dad and stepmum moved away. They say their place is too small for me. Anyway, they’re just booorrinnnng, and I’d rather be bored here than bored with ’em.”

“Oh,” said David. He wondered if he should bring up the subject of the court case and the dwarfs’ attempt to poison Snow White. He was very interested in it, but he wasn’t sure that it would be polite to ask. After all, he didn’t want to get the dwarfs into any more trouble than they were already in.

In the end, Snow White made the decision for him. She leaned forward and whispered, in a voice like two rocks rubbing together: “Anyway, they ’ave to look after me. Judge told them they ’ad to, on account of how they tried to poison me.”

David didn’t think he’d want to live with someone who had already tried to poison him once, but he supposed that Snow White wasn’t worried about the dwarfs trying again. If they did, they’d be killed, although the look on Brother Number One’s face made David suspect that death might almost be welcomed after living with Snow White for a while.

“But don’t you want to meet a handsome prince?” he asked.

“I’ve met a handsome prince,” said Snow White. She stared dreamily out of the window. “He woke me with a kiss, but then he ’ad to leave. He told me he’d be back, though, once he’d gone off and killed some dragon or other.”

“Should have stayed here and taken care of the one we have first,” muttered Brother Number Three. Snow White threw a log at him.

“See what I have to put up with?” she said to David. “I’m left alone all day while they work down’t mine, and then I have to listen to them complain as soon as they get home. I don’t even know why they bother with that all that minin’. They never find anything!”

David saw the dwarfs exchange some looks when they heard what Snow White was saying. He even thought he heard Brother Number Three give a little laugh, until Brother Number Four kicked him in the shin and told him to be quiet.

“So I’m going to stay ’ere with this lot until me prince returns,” said Snow White. “Or until another prince comes along and decides to marry me, whichever happens first.”

She bit a hangnail from her little finger and spit it into the fire.

“Now,” she said, bringing the subject to a close, “WHERE’S. ME. TEA?”

Every cup, pot, pan, and plate in the cottage rattled. Dust fell from the ceiling. David saw a family of mice evacuate their mouse hole and leave through a crack in the wall, never to return.

“I always get a bit shouty when I’m ’ungry, me,” said Snow White. “Right. Somebody ’and me that rabbit…”

They ate in silence, apart from the slurping, scraping, chewing, and belching coming from Snow White’s end of the table. She really did eat an awful lot. She stripped her own rabbit to the bones and then began picking meat from Brother Number Six’s plate without even a by-your-leave. She devoured an entire loaf of bread, and half a block of very smelly cheese. She drank tankard after tankard of the ale the dwarfs brewed in their shed, and polished it all off with two chunks of fruitcake baked by Brother Number One, although she complained when a raisin chipped one of her teeth.

“I told you it was a bit dry,” whispered Brother Number Two to Brother Number One. Brother Number One just scowled.

Once there was nothing left to eat, Snow White staggered from the table and flopped down in her chair by the fire, where she instantly fell asleep. David helped the dwarfs to clear the table and wash the dishes, then joined them in a corner where they all began smoking pipes. The tobacco reeked as if someone was burning old, damp socks. Brother Number One offered to share his pipe with David, but David very politely declined the offer.

“What do you mine?” he asked.

There was some coughing from a number of the dwarfs, and David noticed that none of them wanted to catch his eye. Only Brother Number One seemed willing to try to answer the question.

“Coal, sort of,” he said.

“Sort of?”

“Well, it’s a kind of coal. It’s stuff that used to be, sort of, in a way, coal.”

“It’s coalish,” said Brother Number Three helpfully.

David considered this. “Er, do you mean diamonds?”

Seven small figures instantly leaped on him. Brother Number One covered David’s mouth with a little hand and said, “Don’t say that word in here. Ever.”

David nodded. Once the dwarfs were sure that he understood the gravity of the situation, they climbed off him again.

“So you haven’t told Snow White about the, er, coalish stuff,” he said.

“No,” said Brother Number One. “Never, um, quite got round to it.”

“Don’t you trust her?”

“Would you?” asked Brother Number Three. “Last winter, when food was hard to come by, Brother Number Four woke up to find her nibbling on his foot.”

Brother Number Four nodded solemnly to let David know that this was nothing less than the truth.

“Still have the marks,” he said.

“If she found out the mine was working, she’d take us for every gem we were worth,” continued Brother Number Three. “Then we’d be even more oppressed than we are already. And poorer.”

David looked around the cottage. It wasn’t very much to write home about. There were two rooms: the one in which they now sat, and a bedroom that Snow White had taken for her own. The dwarfs slept together in one bed in a corner beside the fire, three at one end and four at the other.

“If she wasn’t around, we could do the place up a bit,” said Brother Number One. “But if we start spending money on it then she’ll get suspicious, so we have to keep it the way it is. We can’t even buy another bed.”

“But aren’t there people nearby who know about the mine? Doesn’t anybody suspect?”

“Oh, we’ve always let people know that we make a little from mining,” said the dwarf. “Just enough to keep us going. It’s hard work, mining, and nobody wants to do it unless they’re sure of getting wealthy from it. As long as we keep our heads down and don’t go wild spending money on fancy clothes or gold chains—”

“Or beds,” said Brother Number Eight.

“Or beds,” agreed Brother Number One, “then everything will be fine. It’s just that none of us is getting any younger, and now it would be nice to take things a bit easier and perhaps treat ourselves to some luxuries.”

The dwarfs looked at Snow White snoring in her chair, and all of them sighed as one.

“Actually, we’re hoping to bribe someone to take her off our hands,” admitted Brother Number One at last.

“You mean, pay someone to marry her?” asked David.

“He’d have to be really desperate, of course, but we’d make it worth his while,” said Brother Number One. “Well, I’m not sure there are enough diamonds in the whole land to make living with her worthwhile, but we’d give him a pile to ease the burden. He could buy some really nice earplugs, and a really big bed.”

By now some of the dwarfs were nodding off. Brother Number One took a long stick and nervously approached Snow White.

“She doesn’t like being woken up,” he explained to David. “We find this is easiest for everyone.”

He poked at Snow White with the end of the stick. Nothing happened.

“I think you’ll have to do it harder,” said David.

This time, the dwarf hit Snow White a good, strong prod. It seemed to work, because she instantly grabbed the stick and gave it a sharp tug, almost flicking Brother Number One straight into the fireplace before he remembered to let go and landed in the coal scuttle instead.

“Unk,” said Snow White. “Arfle.”

She wiped some drool from her mouth, rose from her chair, and staggered to her bedroom. “Bacon in the morning,” she said. “Four eggs. And a sausage. No, make that eight sausages.”

With that, she slammed the door behind her, fell on her bed, and was immediately sound asleep.

David sat curled up in the chair by the fire. The house rumbled with the snoring of Snow White and the dwarfs, a complex arrangement of snorts, whistles, and dusty coughs. David thought of the Woodsman, and the trail of blood leading into the woods. He remembered Leroi, and the look in the Loup’s eyes. David knew that he could not afford to remain with the dwarfs for longer than one night. He had to keep moving. He had to make his way to the king.

He got up from his chair and walked to the window. He could see nothing outside, so thick and heavy was the darkness. He listened, but he could hear only the hooting of an owl. He had not forgotten what had brought him to this place, but his mother’s voice had not come to him again since he had entered the new world. Only if she called to him would he be able to find her.

“Mum,” he whispered. “If you’re out there, I need your help. I can’t find you if you don’t guide me.”

But there was no reply.

He went back to his chair and closed his eyes. He fell asleep and dreamed of his bedroom at home, and of his father and his new family, but they were not alone in the house. In his dream, the Crooked Man stalked the hallway until he came to Georgie’s bedroom, where he stood for a long time looking at the child before departing the house and returning to his own world.

XV

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 868