The Rumpelstiltskin Problem by Vivian Vande Velde Read Free Book Online

and—once in a while—a plate of sweets. So he shook his head.
    "Don't you try getting more out of me," Katya warned, placing her hand protectively over the thin gold chain around her neck. "I'm offering you the ring: Take it or leave it."
    Rumpelstiltskin decided she wouldn't be happy until he took the ring, so he took it.
    "Ha!" Katya said, and got up from the stool next to the spinning wheel.
    Rumpelstiltskin sat down and began to spin.
    Spin and spin and spin, all night long while Katya slept on the straw.
Whir, whir, whir
went the wheel, changing straw to gold. Round, round, round went the spindle as Rumpelstiltskin worked through his late-night nap and missed his third saucer of cream. Till finally by morning—Rumpelstiltskin had to nudge the sleeping Katya off the last of the straw so he could spin that, too—finally he was finished.
    There was a loud clattering at the door: someone unlocking it.
    Katya jumped to her feet. "Don't let anybody see you," she warned Rumpelstiltskin in a whisper. She began brushing stray tiny pieces of straw from her skirt.
    Rumpelstiltskin bowed and burrowed down into the floor, through the ceilings, through the walls, back to his place beneath the lowest basement, feeling the happiness of the household through every bone in his domovoi body. Exhausted but pleased, he settled down for a good morning's sleep.

    He was awakened from his early evening nap by the sound of crying.
Someone is not happy,
he thought. It was strange that he had gone for almost a whole year without anybody being unhappy in the house, and now someone was crying for the second night in a row. He followed the sound.
    There was Katya again, by a spinning wheel, sitting in an even bigger room than before, surrounded by even more straw than before. The king, Rumpelstiltskin guessed, must have realized that—vodka or no vodka—he had stumbled upon a good thing.
    Katya jumped up as soon as she saw him and unclasped her gold necklace. "Here," she said. "I'll give you this if you spin more straw into gold."
    Rumpelstiltskin shook his head. He couldn't possibly take her necklace. There was a crow that lived under the eaves of the castle, and Rumpelstiltskin had given him the ring, knowing he liked shiny things. Rumpelstiltskin was about to tell Katya she would spoil the crow by giving him her necklace, but she put the necklace into his hand and closed his fingers around it. "Take it," she insisted angrily. "I don't have anything else."
    Since that was the only thing that would make her happy, Rumpelstiltskin nodded his head. Then he sat down and began to spin.
    Once more Rumpelstiltskin worked through his late-night nap and his second as well as his third saucer of cream, till finally, just as morning dawned, he finished. There was scuffling outside the door and, as Katya straightened her skirt and fluffed her hair, Rumpelstiltskin bowed and left before he could be asked to. Back beneath the lowest basement, where it was dark and quiet, and at last feeling the happiness in the household, Rumpelstiltskin fell asleep.

    And woke up yet again to the sound of crying. It was earliest evening, and he had had
no
saucer of cream at all. But, being a domovoi, he couldn't ignore the sound of unhappiness. It couldn't be Katya again, he thought: not three nights in a row. Surely she had to be happy now. Through the walls and floors and ceilings he burrowed, finding himself at last in a tower room that was bigger yet than the other two, and filled with—somehow he had guessed though he'd told himself
no
—straw.
    "You've taken all I have from me," Katya cried.
    Rumpelstiltskin wanted to tell her he could get the ring back from the crow, and the necklace back from the mouse to whom he'd given that. But he didn't have time.
    Katya said, "All right, all right. I promise to give you my firstborn child."
    Rumpelstiltskin knew this was wrong. A ring can go to a crow, and a necklace can go to a mouse, but the child