Leaping Beauty: And Other Animal Fairy Tales by Gregory Maguire, Chris L. Demarest

money to make it. Everyone’s jittery since Giant Killer was such a huge flopperoo.”

    “She’s good at making money, too,” said Bubba, who was maybe a little too anxious to move his daughter’s career along. For next he said, “She’s a winner. She can spin straw into gold.”

    “No!” said the king stag. “Really?”

    “I prefer not to; it ruins my nails,” said Beauty quickly. But before she knew it, the king stag had arranged for her to come to his movie studio and spin some gold for him.

    “Good-bye, honey,” said Bubba, kissing his daughter fondly. “Spin nicely for our king.”

    “Are you crazy, Pops?” said Beauty. “I don’t know how to spin wool, much less straw into gold.”

    “I didn’t mean it literally,” said Bubba. “I meant that any piece of trash you star in will make a bundle. But don’t worry. You’re clever, you’ll think of something. Ta ta,” said Bubba.
    To tell the truth, Bubba had been getting a little fed up with Beauty’s vanity.

    The king stag chattered all the way to the studio about camera angles and foreign rights and how genius usually ends up on the cutting-room floor. “You’ll be a big star one day,” he said

    to Beauty. “You’ve got the looks. You’ve got the curves. I’ve got a serious case of the nerves.
    Spin me some gold, sweetheart. All the world will thank you for it.” And off he went, locking the door behind him.

    Now Beauty threw herself down on the floor and wept. In a corner of the room was a huge pile of straw that the king stag expected her to spin into gold. The bankers were coming in the morning to count it. “What shall I do?” she asked. “I just painted my nails this morning. I can’t spin this straw. It’s beneath my dignity as a soon-to-be movie star.” Suddenly she heard a rustle in the straw. Using her back hooves so as to protect her front nails, which were colored a delicious Popsicle red, she kicked the straw away. Waking from a deep sleep was a huge cobra with two impressive fangs right where you’d expect them to be.

    “What’re you doing here?” asked Beauty.

    “I fell asleep in a meadow and look where I am,” said the cobra. “Gosh, I’m starved. And you look lovely tonight, my dear.” He smiled in a hungry way.

    “Well, don’t get any big ideas, buster,” said Beauty, “because if you come one inch nearer I’ll stamp your brains all over the floor. I’m not in the mood for kissing cobras. I’ve got to spin this straw into gold, and how the dickens do I do that?” The cobra said, “If I tell you how, will you give me a little kiss?”

    “If you do all the work and be quick about it, I’ll give you one eensy-weensy kiss,” said Beauty. “And I don’t promise to like it.”

    “What I need,” said the cobra, “is some of your beautiful golden fleece. I’ll just take a third—say from around your middle? It’ll make you look a little like a French poodle.
    Emphasize your delicate waistline. They’ll go crazy about the new look. You’ll set a trend.”

    “I don’t know,” said Beauty, but the cobra set to fleecing her. When he was done, she looked like a sheep who had had a run-in with a lawn mower. She spent the rest of the evening putting her wool into spit curls, trying to make the best of a bad business.

    But the cobra was true to his word. He spun her fleece into gold and threw the straw out the window so nobody would know. Then he came forward and Beauty gave him a lip-smacking kiss on the head. “Va va va voom,” he said. “I could fall for you in a big way, sweetheart.”

    “Get lost, you bother me, cobra,” she said. “Scramola. Vamoose.” So the cobra squeezed away through a mouse hole in the baseboard.

    The king stag was delighted to see the gold. He sent it off with the bankers, and they agreed to finance the film. True to his word, he hired Beauty to star in it, and she was a vision of loveliness in the scene with the guillotine and the butcher knife.