Read Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin Online
Authors: Liesl Shurtliff
Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2013 by Liesl Shurtliff
Jacket art copyright © 2013 by Zdenko Basic
Interior illustrations copyright © 2013 by the Florida Center for
Instructional Technology
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon
are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Visit us on the Web!
randomhouse.com/kids
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools,
visit us at
RHTeachersLibrarians.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shurtliff, Liesl.
Rump : the true story of Rumpelstiltskin / Liesl Shurtliff. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Relates the tale of Rumpelstiltskin’s childhood and youth, explaining why his name is so important, how he is able to spin straw into gold, and why a first-born child is his reward for helping the miller’s daughter-turned-queen.
eISBN: 978-0-307-97795-3
[1. Fairy tales. 2. Names, Personal—Fiction. 3. Magic—Fiction.
4. Gold—Fiction. 5. Humorous stories.] I. Title.
PZ8.S34525Rum 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2012005093
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
For Scott
,
my best friend in the whole world
CONTENTS
2. Spinning Wheels and Pixie Thrills
3. The Greedy Miller and His Daughter
5. Fluff to Mouse, Mouse to Mice
19. Trolls, Witches, and Poison Apples
20. Trolls Smell, but They Also SMELL
24. Where There’s a Will, There’s No Way
27. The Miller and the Merchant
29. Guessing Games for Finding Names
Epilogue: Your Destiny Is Your Name
CHAPTER ONE
Your Name Is Your Destiny
My mother named me after a cow’s rear end. It’s the favorite village joke, and probably the only one, but it’s not really true. At least I don’t think it’s true, and neither does Gran. Really, my mother had another name for me, a wonderful name, but no one ever heard it. They only heard the first part. The worst part.
Mother had been very ill when I was born. Gran said she was fevered and coughing and I came before I was supposed to. Still, my mother held me close and whispered my name in my ear. No one heard it but me.
“His name?” Gran asked. “Tell me his name.”
“His name is Rump …
haaa-cough-cough-cough …
” Gran gave Mother something warm to drink and pried me from her arms.
“Tell me his name, Anna. All of it.”
But Mother never did. She took a breath and then let out all the air and didn’t take any more in. Ever.
Gran said that I cried then, but I never hear that in my imagination. All I hear is silence. Not a move or a breath. The fire doesn’t crack and even the pixies are still.
Finally, Gran holds me up and says, “Rump. His name is Rump.”
The next morning, the village bell chimed and gnomes ran all over The Mountain crying, “Rump! Rump! The new boy’s name is Rump!”
My name couldn’t be changed or taken back, because in The Kingdom your name isn’t just what people call you. Your name is full of meaning and power. Your name is your destiny.
My destiny really stinks.
I stopped growing when I was eight and I was small to begin with. The midwife, Gertrude, says I’m small because I had only the milk of a weak goat instead of a strong mother, but I know that really it’s because of my name. You can’t grow all the way if you don’t have a whole name.
I tried not to think about my destiny too much, but on my birthday I always did. On my twelfth birthday I thought of nothing else. I sat in the mine, swirling mud around in a pan, searching for gold. We needed gold, gold, gold, but all I saw was mud, mud, mud.
The pickaxes beat out a rhythm that rang all over The Mountain. It filled the air with thumps and bumps. In my
head The Mountain was chanting,
Thump, thump, thump. Bump, bump, bump. Rump, Rump, Rump
. At least it was a good rhyme.
Thump, thump, thump
Bump, bump, bump
Rump, Rump, Rump
“Butt! Hey, Butt!”
I groaned as Frederick and his brother Bruno approached with menacing grins on their faces. Frederick and Bruno were the miller’s sons. They were close to my age, but so big, twice my size and ugly as trolls.
“Happy birthday, Butt! We have a present just for you.” Frederick threw a clod of dirt at me. My stubby hands tried to block it, but it smashed right in my face and I gagged at the smell. The clod of dirt was not dirt.
“Now that’s a gift worthy of your name!” said Bruno.
Other children howled with laughter.
“Leave him alone,” said a girl named Red. She glared at Frederick and Bruno, holding her shovel over her shoulder like a weapon. The other children stopped laughing.
“Oh,” said Frederick. “Do you love Butt?”
“That’s not his name,” growled Red.
“Then what is it? Why doesn’t he tell us?”
“Rump!” I said without thinking. “My name is Rump!” They burst out laughing. I had done just what they wanted. “But that’s not my real name!” I said desperately.
“It isn’t?” asked Frederick.
“What do you think his real name is?” asked Bruno.
Frederick pretended to think very hard. “Something unusual. Something special … Cow Rump.”
“Baby Rump,” said Bruno.
“Rump Roast!”
Everyone laughed. Frederick and Bruno fell over each other, holding their stomachs while tears streamed down their faces. They rolled in the dirt and squealed like pigs.
Just for a moment I envied them. They looked like they were having such fun, rolling in the dirt and laughing. Why couldn’t I do that? Why couldn’t I join them?
Then I remembered why they were laughing.
Red swung her shovel down hard so it stuck in the ground right between the boys’ heads. Frederick and Bruno stopped laughing. “Go away,” she said.
Bruno swallowed, staring cross-eyed at the shovel that was just inches from his nose. Frederick stood and grinned at Red. “Sure. You two want to be alone.” The brothers walked away, snorting and falling over each other.
I could feel Red looking at me, but I stared down at my pan. I picked out some of Frederick and Bruno’s present. I did not want to look at Red.
“You’d better find some gold today, Rump,” said Red.
I glared at her. “I know. I’m not
stupid
.”
She raised her eyebrows. Some people did think I was stupid because of my name. And sometimes I thought they were probably right. Maybe if you have only half a name, you have only half a brain.
I kept my eyes on my pan of mud, hoping Red would go away, but she stood over me with her shovel, like she was inspecting me.
“The rations are tightening,” said Red. “The king—”
“I
know
, Red.”
Red glared at me. “Fine. Then good luck to you.” She stomped off, and I felt worse than when Frederick and Bruno threw poop in my face.
Red wasn’t my friend exactly, but she was the closest I had to a friend. She never made fun of me. Sometimes she stood up for me, and I understood why. Her name wasn’t all that great, either. Just as people laugh at a name like
Rump
, they fear a name like
Red. Red
is not a name. It’s a color, an
evil
color. What kind of destiny does that bring?