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“Well, it’s official: we’re lost,” grumbled Melissa, stowing her cell phone away after its latest failure to connect to any networks and glancing down at the slumbering six month old snuggled up against her chest. “I just hope we find our way back to the campsite before Billy wakes up. Or at least before we run out of diapers.”
“Don’t worry,” said Josh. “I’m sure we’ll run across someone who can help soon enough.”
As if on cue, a sudden peal of wordless music in a high, clear soprano came echoing down through the trees toward them.
Melissa’s eyes widened, then immediately narrowed in suspicion as she turned to face her husband, hands on hips. “Josh. Did you suggest camping because you were hoping for a Schmigadventure?”
“I…wouldn’t say I was opposed to the idea,” said Josh carefully. Then, before Melissa’s annoyance could boil over, he added, “And don’t pretend you weren’t okay with the possibility, or you’d have suggested we go somewhere else.”
“It’s been months since I’ve had four uninterrupted hours of sleep!” Melissa protested. “All my energy for sensible decision-making goes toward work.”
“That’s not a ‘no,’” Josh pointed out.
“Anyway,” said Melissa, notably still avoiding a direct response to Josh’s accusation, “we’re in it now, and the only way out is through. So, which way’s the singing coming from?”
It only took a couple of wrong turns for them to find the clearing from which the singing was emanating, and the hooded figure picking flowers who appeared to be generating it.
“Is that Jenny?” Josh whispered. “I mean, Jenny’s…performer? I’m still not clear how the whole thing where everyone but us becomes an entirely different person every time we end up here works.”
“At least you’re not expecting her to recognize you this time,” Melissa whispered back.
As their footsteps drew closer, not-Jenny paused her song to look up from her flower-picking and stood to greet them. Her hair was back to blonde again, in looped braids, and she wore a simple, modest shift dress that reached down to her ankles, layered with a surprisingly bust-minimizing red corset to match her cloak. And one more unexpectedly familiar feature: a picnic basket dangling from her arm.
“Good day, sir, ma’am,” she chirped, sounding even younger and more innocent than Betsy. “Are you on your way to the village? Or are you also here to pay Granny a visit?”
“Um…” Josh glanced over at Melissa for help, but she seemed transfixed by the top of not-Jenny’s head.
Or more specifically, her cloak. Her bright red, hooded cloak.
Despite all their adventures, Josh still didn’t know much about musicals. But after months of reading every storybook in the house cover to cover repeatedly to try and soothe a cranky infant? He was a certified fairy tale expert. And he knew exactly how to expedite this one’s way to a happy ending.
“We were on our way to the village, actually, but we got lost,” he explained to Little Red Riding Hood, picking up confidence as he went. “Quite lost. In fact, we could use a guide. Why don’t you come with us? I’m sure Granny will appreciate you picking up some additional reinforcements…I mean, refreshments.”
“Oh, goodness.” Little Red twisted the hem of her cloak. “I’d like to help, sir; truly, I would. But I fear the day’s already gotten away from me, picking these flowers. Granny must already be wondering where I am.” She sighed, accompanied by the plink of a song cue. “If only I’d listened: ♪ Mama said, off you toddle / But stick to your task, and best not dawdle… ♬”
“Aw, c’mon, but wasn’t my way more fun?” someone growled.
Josh stifled a yell as he turned to discover the speaker was a humanoid wolf, clad in nothing but a black-and-white striped vest, yet somehow still remaining G-rated in the manner of cartoon animals. Or a bipedal wolf, at least. Josh wasn’t sure you could get away with calling a being that mangy “humanoid.” In fact, he was beginning to rethink his initial assessment that the wolf had been growling; he had a funny feeling its voice just always sounded like that.
“He’s new,” Melissa observed sotto voce to Josh.
Little Red squealed delightedly. “Oh, Mr. Wolf, you’re back! How wonderful! Could you please show these nice people the way to the village? You know these woods ever so much better than I do, and I’d be terribly grateful.”
“Uhh…” was all the wolf had time to say, before to everyone’s shock, Red actually hugged the creature.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she exclaimed into the still-stunned silence. Then without even pausing to brush herself off, she skipped on her way while singing the wordless refrain from earlier.
Once he recovered, Josh decided to take this as a win. “See?” he told Melissa. “One happily ever after already taken care of.”
“For her, maybe. You owe me a lunch.” The wolf licked his muzzle, staring disconcertingly at the still somehow miraculously sleeping Billy. “That little morsel you’ve got bundled up there should do nicely.”
Melissa swooped in with a snarl, jabbing a finger against the wolf’s chest. “Don’t even think about it, pal. I’ve crushed worse predators than you with chandeliers for less. Besides, we’ve already done the child-eating subplot.”
The wolf held up his paws as he slunk off. “Fine, fine. Sheesh. I’ll just go back to trying to blow down brick houses and keep an ear out for little liars no one’ll miss.”
“Yeah, you better run!” Josh yelled after the wolf’s retreating form.
“No, wait, don’t go!” Melissa called, sounding almost panicked.
A bewildered Josh stared at her. “I’m sorry, he just threatened to undo everything we arguably went through the last two musicals to get, and you still want to use him as our GPS?”
“Josh,” Melissa hissed. “We are lost in the woods. With a baby. On the verge of a fight. In the middle of a fairy tale that is not going according to Disney. Unless we get out of here or change the genre, I am going to die.”
“And we can’t have that, can we?” asked a voice that sounded more than a little like a Scottish-accented version of Mayor Menlove.
This time, Josh failed to hold in a yelp of fright at the newcomer. So did Melissa. Billy woke up crying at the commotion. Upon beholding the vaguely cat-shaped monstrosity wearing only a disturbingly shiny pair of black leather platform boots that probably brought the rating up to PG on their own, he screamed even louder.
“No need to fret, folks!” said the cat-thing, smiling what Josh tried to reassure himself was undoubtedly meant to be a friendly smile and not the gateway to whatever hellish uncanny valley it had sprung from. “The name’s Spangledanglespurs, but you can call me Puss in Boots. I’ll have you back on the road to Schmigamelot in just a shake of a tail.”
“Please don’t,” said Melissa, as the cat threatened to demonstrate exactly what that might look like.
“You’ve picked a fine day for a visit,” said the cat, seemingly unperturbed by their reaction. Which might have been the case; Josh had to imagine this was the sort of reception it—he—received more often than not. “The royal family’s invited the entire kingdom to the Crown Prince’s wedding. His bride’s a local girl: a servant, if you can believe it. Love at first sight, so they say. Not the strangest thing I’ve seen in my time, mind you…”
“You don’t say,” said Josh, recognizing the song cue and deciding it was best to get it over with. Sure enough, Spangledinglewhatever proceeded to regale them with a catchy but entirely inessential musical boast on how he was the greatest and most interesting cat of all time. Against all odds, it did at least seem to calm Billy down.
It also kept them sufficiently distracted that they didn’t even realize they’d left the woods and reached their destination until they found themselves in the middle of a singing, cheering crowd of peasants, enthusing over how happy the Prince and Ella—who none of them had ever been cruel enough to call Cinderella; how could anyone possibly suggest such a thing?—were sure to be together. Josh took a quick glance around to see if the cat was still with them, but to his relief, their guide seemed to have made his exit once his song was done.
Thanks to the choreography, he was able to spot the royals soon enough, standing on the balcony of a castle that didn’t seem like it should be located in such a relatively small hamlet, but was nonetheless here. The King (who reminded him of Sergeant Rivera) certainly looked happy enough, as did the Prince (a particularly smug and more neatly styled Topher), but Cinderella…
“She doesn’t look like she wants to be there,” he observed, as much to himself as to Melissa. The next question, though, he directed at his wife: “Do we still need this to not be a fairy tale to keep you safe?”
Melissa gave it some thought. “Maybe?”
“Good enough,” Josh decided. Without waiting to explain his plan further, he made his way to the front of the crowd, and yelled as loudly as he could, “I object!”
The music came to a halt as everyone stared at him. Seeing the hope in Cinderella’s eyes, and remembering how badly he’d almost botched things for her when she’d been Emma, he quickly pivoted. “...To how much this wedding is costing us ordinary townsfolk!”
“He’s right!” yelled an actual townsfolk dressed in anachronistically bohemian attire. “The landlords already tax us past our breaking point, to make way for ‘more upscale shops’ and ‘job-creating ventures.’ Enough is enough! We’re not gonna pay!”
“We’re not gonna pay!” the crowd roared back.
As their chanting smoothly transitioned into a stirring anthem led by Cinderella, who’d wrenched her arm away from the horrified prince the second the shouting began, raced down from the balcony, and quick-changed into a snazzy gold-embroidered vest and pants, a satisfied Josh made his way back to Melissa and Billy. “There we go. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of a fairy tale with ‘abolish the monarchy’ for a moral. Although you’d really think there’d be more.”
Melissa didn’t look as impressed as he’d hoped. “Well, unless everyone comes down with the plague—which seems like it would be in poor taste on multiple levels—we’ve lessened the odds of my certain death. But given the survival rate of female leads in the plotline we now appear to be following is still only 50% if you stretch the definition to include Madame Thernardier, I don’t feel significantly safer. And you’re now part of the revolution, which is…bad.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Josh assured her, as the music reached a crescendo. “Be right back.”
He reached the center of the town square just in time for Cinderella to reach the end of her bridge section, and for the beat to shift. “Yo!” he yelled, and launched into a two minute rapid-fire rap whose words he couldn’t retain the second they left his mouth, apart from the occasional rhyme pairing like “scare ‘em” and “antidisestablishmentarianism.” Once done, he jumped back into the crowd to catch his breath, before returning to a considerably more nonplussed Melissa.
“There we go,” he told her proudly. “Lafayette doesn’t die.” Unfortunately, as the high of the performance started to wear off, so did his confidence. “He doesn’t die, right? The second half of the musical was kinda vague on that, and I only made it a couple of chapters into the book.”
“I think we have more immediate problems,” said Melissa, looking up and shielding Billy as the sky darkened, and a long peal of cackling laughter punctuated by thunder echoed across the town square. As the rest of the crowd began to notice, the revolutionary spirit subsided into cries of fear.
“Well, well, well,” boomed the voice of Schmicago’s Narrator as the figure in question descended from the heavens, wearing a truly fabulous black gown and headdress that would have made Maleficent weep with envy. “A royal celebration, and no one bothered to invite me?”
“If it helps, we’ve moved on from the celebration part,” Josh offered.
“That’s worse!” the Narrator—or Witch—snarled (although the level of frustration directed at him specifically certainly reminded Josh of the Narrator). “I don’t even get to be fashionably late. For that, a thousand curses upon this land and its inhabitants for a thousand years. I’ll start by making your toast always fall butter-side down.”
“Fairy Godmother, help!” Cinderella cried out, barely audible over the Witch’s aria as the spell gathered strength. Even so, Josh had to resist the urge to tell her to pipe down so he could listen; it was easily the most impressive thing he’d heard since arriving.
Several peasants took a step back as the town square began to fill with iridescent bubbles. Gradually, they coalesced into the figure of a woman resplendent in a shimmering blue ballgown, with a tiara perched atop her golden curls and a wand wielded in her hand.
“It’s good to see me, isn’t it?” the former Bobbie Flanagan beamed, as the reenergized crowds cheered.
“Huh,” said Melissa. “I don’t know who I was expecting, but I don’t think it was that.”
“Ugh, of course you’re here,” groaned the Witch, pushing past Josh and Melissa to confront the Fairy Godmother. “Can’t ever let me have a moment. Even when we were studying together, it was always, ‘Mistress Yaga, watch this!’ and ‘Mistress Yaga, I have a question.’ Well this time, I’m not sharing the spotlight.”
“It’s not my fault anything you can do, I can do better,” the Fairy Godmother declared primly.
“Girls, girls!” an elderly voice yelled, with surprising force. Madam Frau, much aged since they’d seen her last, waved herself a path through the crowd with her walking stick, followed by an anxious-looking Red Riding Hood. “You’re both still apprentices. Now, stop causing trouble for these nice people, and make up.”
“Yes, Mistress Yaga,” the spellcasters bowed their heads and murmured in unison, to Josh’s disappointment. He’d been hoping they’d at least get one musical confrontation first.
“Excuse me,” said the Prince, having made his way down from the balcony safely at some point in the confusion. “I came here to get married, and…” He broke off, staring into Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes.
“Love at first sight appears less miraculous than advertised,” Melissa muttered, as the Prince sank to one knee.
“Oh, sir!” Little Red clutched at the clasp of her cloak, roughly around the area of her heart. “I’m flattered, truly, but…I couldn’t possibly leave Granny.”
“You can’t leave the woman who terrifies every other magic user in the kingdom?” asked Josh, not remotely loudly enough for any of said magic users to hear.
This objection didn’t seem to have occurred to the Prince, who remained unfazed. “Then I shall renounce my crown, and stay here, as one of the common folk.”
The common folk cheered at this announcement. To Josh and Melissa’s surprise, so did the King, who had finally arrived on the scene alongside Cinderella. Apparently noting their expressions, he shrugged. “Why do you think I wanted him married so badly?” He turned to Cinderella. “Still interested in inheriting the place?”
“I have conditions,” Cinderella said.
As Cinderella and the King commenced negotiations, and Granny, the Witch, and the Fairy Godmother gathered along with the rest of the kingdom around Red and the Prince to sing a stirring reprise of the earlier celebration song, Josh turned to Melissa. “That was quick.”
“Yeah,” Melissa agreed. “And I don’t feel like we did all that much this time.”
“Trust us, ye’ve done enough,” said an irritated Irish voice from somewhere around Josh’s shin. He and Melissa looked down to see the leprechauns—triplets this time—glowering up at them.
“Time to go,” the middle one said.
“Can’t we stay to hear the end of the song?” Josh asked.
“Please?” asked Melissa. “The Fairy Godmother hasn’t gotten a solo yet, and I really feel like that’s going to be…”
“GO!” the leprechauns yelled in unison, pointing.
Josh and Melissa complied. They’d barely made it five steps back into the woods following the direction they’d been sent in when they stumbled across their campsite.
“Looks like we’re back,” said Melissa. Her nose wrinkled as she sniffed the air. “And just in time, too.” She held out Billy. “You get to clean him up, since this was your idea.”
This time, Josh didn’t protest it had been a mutual decision. Something still bothered him, though, and it wasn't the impending prospect of a stinky diaper. “I’m not sure what lesson we’re supposed to have learned this time.”
“Save the camping until Billy’s old enough to appreciate it?” Melissa suggested.
“Maybe, but—” He broke off as they heard the sound of approaching hoofbeats. Out of the woods from the opposite direction they’d come, a riding party appeared, consisting of a dashing knight, a fair damsel, and a less-than-distinguished king.
“Pardon us, sir, madam,” said the damsel. “Might you be able to direct us toward Schmigamelot? ‘Tis a silly place, but ‘tis where our quest leads.”
Billy giggled.
“Uh…” said Josh. When Melissa failed to jump in, he volunteered, “...Just keep heading that way, and it’ll find you?”
Fortunately, this answer seemed to satisfy the travelers, who rode off in the recommended direction with a salute. Once they were gone, Josh turned to Melissa. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Yeah,” Melissa sighed, but with a smile. In the background, Josh thought he could hear the faintest strains of an ending theme. “With this kid, I don’t think Schmigadventures will have any trouble finding us.”