Rapunzel by Jacqueline Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

points. She looked as if she could tear out his throat with one bite.

    â€˜How dare you steal from me!’ she shrieked.
    â€˜Oh please, have mercy! I know I shouldn’t have tried – but my wife is so ill and craves your rampion so very badly, you have no idea.’
    â€˜Yes, I have no idea,’ said the old woman, hugging her bent old body tight with her crooked hands.
    â€˜Can’t you take pity on us?’ the husband begged. ‘If my wife cannot eat your rampion she will surely die.’
    The old woman said nothing for a long, long while. A little trickle of saliva slid from between her pointed teeth and dribbled down her chin. Her eyes gleamed like a wild cat’s. The husband wondered whether to try to make a run for it but his sodden feet seemed planted in her garden and he could scarcely move a muscle. He realized he was under a terrible enchantment.
    â€˜Please, I beg you, have mercy!’ he gasped. ‘I will do anything, give you anything, if you will let me go back to my wife.’
    â€˜Anything at all?’ said the old woman.
    â€˜Anything at all,’ the husband repeated desperately. ‘I swear it.’
    â€˜Then your wife shall have all the rampion she can eat,’ said the old woman, stooping down and gathering great fistfuls of it. She thrust them at the husband, who found he could wrench his feet free again. ‘But, in return …’
    He waited, heart thudding.

    The old woman raised her head and pointed a shaking finger.
    â€˜In return … If your wife has a daughter you must give the child to me.’
    The husband gasped and implored but the old woman turned her back on him and shut herself into her dark house.
    He took the rampion back to his ailing wife. She seized it joyously, eating it straight from his hand , not even bothering to wash the earth away.
    â€˜Thank the Lord the old witch didn’t catch you!’ she said.
    The husband didn’t dare tell her what had happened. He could not stand to worry her so. Besides, they might well have a son.
    He consulted all the other old women in the village to see if they had any way of divining the sex of the unborn child. His wife laughed as they dandled rings on ribbons above her swollen stomach.
    â€˜I don’t care whether our baby is a boy or a girl,’ she said.
    â€˜I care,’ said the husband. He shut his eyes as if he were praying. ‘It has to be a boy.’
    â€˜It will be a boy,’ cried the old women as the ring swung backwards and forwards.
    â€˜A baby boy,’ said the wife, and she sounded pleased.
    She looked so much better, a pink flush to her cheek . She bloomed throughout the rest of her pregnancy like a sweet round peach. The husband grew thin and pale with dread.
    â€˜It has to be a boy,’ he muttered, his hands on the wife’s stomach.
    He could feel the baby kicking within.
    â€˜My son,’ he whispered.
    â€˜Our son,’ said the wife.
    But it wasn’t a son. The wife had an easy labour and gave birth to a beautiful blonde daughter.
    â€˜A girl!’ said the husband, and burst into tears.
    â€˜Our daughter,’ said the wife.
    â€˜My daughter,’ said the old witch-woman, suddenly appearing in the room as if she had leaped through the window. She seized hold of the newborn child, still pink and naked, and held her tight against her sunken chest.
    â€˜No!’ screamed the wife, trying to get out of bed, but stuck fast.
    â€˜No!’ shouted the husband, reaching out his arms, but able to grasp nothing.
    â€˜Yes,’ said the old woman, wrapping the baby in a blanket and cradling her. ‘She is my daughter now and I name her Rapunzel.’ She looked over at the anguished wife. ‘Do not worry, I will be a loving mother to the child.’
    â€˜My child,’ the wife gasped.
    â€˜Mine now,’ said the old woman. ‘But perhaps fate will still be kind to you and grant you