The Wide-Awake Princess by E. D. Baker Read Free Book Online

Annie.
    Something scrabbled at the floor on the far side of the room and Annie raised her head to look around. A ladder led up to a loft across from where she was sitting. A wide cupboard painted a cheery yellow with a green vine and red and blue flowers stood beside a fireplace where a crackling fire burned. A metal door on the other side of the fireplace covered the opening for an oven big enough to fit a small ox. On the floor near the oven door there was a woven basket. Inside the basket a gray-furred animal lay staring up at Annie with beady eyes that didn’t blink. It had a sharp little twitchy nose and whiskers that quivered with every breath.
    “That’s the biggest rat I’ve ever seen,” Annie said under her breath.
    Granny Bentbone saw where Annie was looking.“That’s my little dog… What’s his name again? Just a minute, dear.” The old woman walked along the wall, eyeing it closely, until she stopped suddenly and said, “I think it’s... Yes, that’s it. He’s Fluffy. I need to feed him.”
    “He bites!” whispered the little girl, looking solemn.
    “I bet!” Annie said, and the little girl giggled.
    While Granny Bentbone cut a chunk from a wheel of cheese and set it in a dish for Fluffy, Annie peered at the wall, puzzled by the way the woman had been studying it. And then she saw them—little candy hearts, some made of pink sugar, some of yellow. They were everywhere and they all seemed to have something written on them. Annie leaned toward the one closest to her. It read:
    Brush your teeth before you go to bed.
    “Interesting,” Annie murmured.
    The little boy had been watching Annie. “She forgets things a lot,” he whispered. “She reads those hearts and they tell her what to do. Sometimes she remembers things, but then she forgets them again. Can you read? We can’t, although I wish I could. I’d like to know what some of those hearts say.”
    “So would I,” Annie whispered back. The writing on the hearts was so small that she could read only those closest to her. The wall on the opposite side of the room sported dozens, some of which were covered with the tiny writing.
    Granny Bentbone was carrying a mug to the cupboard when she said, “You must be lost. So many are. That’s why they come this far into the forest.”
    Annie turned to the children seated beside her. “Were you lost?”
    The little boy nodded. “I’m Tomas and this is my sister, Clara. We’re here because of our new stepmother. She said we eat too much and didn’t leave enough for her children, Poopsie and Wiggles.”
    “Why would anyone name their children Poopsie and Wiggles?” asked Annie.
    “They are dogs,” said Tomas. “She just calls them her children. She gave them our food to eat and put our clothes on them and called them by our names, then took us for walkies in the woods and left us there.”
    “We waited for Papa to come get us, but he never did,” said the little girl. “So we started walking until we saw this cottage.”
    Fluffy brushed past Annie’s legs. She grimaced and pulled her legs back, then watched him waddle to the peppermint stick post, which he began to gnaw.
    “Papa probably hasn’t noticed we’re gone yet,” Tomas told Annie. “He leaves every morning before the sun comes up and gets home after we would be in bed.”
    “Do you need someone to help you find your way back?” Annie asked. She was in a hurry to get to Shimshee, but if their cottage wasn’t too far out of her way...
    “We don’t want to go back,” said the girl. She yawned and rubbed her eyes with her fists.
    “Papa wasn’t our real father,” said Tomas. “Our real father lived in a castle. Papa stole us away when Clara was just a baby. That’s where we’re going now—to find our real father.”
    “Don’t lie, Tomas,” Clara told him. “Papa will take a strap to you again if he finds out you’ve been telling fibs.”
    The little boy looked as if he wanted to say something, but instead he