8. Who's the pretty one?

"Go faster, man," the queen said to the driver of the carriage, "I have pressing things to attend to!"

"Sure, lady," the driver said, "you can have all the pressings you want, but old Betsy here is not going to go faster than she can. If you can outrun her, feel free."

The queen was slowly losing her good attitude. This announcement threw tar over her shiny mood of having taken care of the female nuisance in the house of the dwarfs. Of course she wanted this verified by the talking-glass in her room, the one she had so successfully stolen from the wicked witch. She seriously considered to go by foot, but something told her a slow horse would still be quicker than a fast queen.

Hilda spotted the carriage as it passed through a patchwork area of fields. "Ah. There you are. Now let's see if we can make this more memorable for you..." With an invisibility-spell around her, she dropped down to almost carriage level. She enjoyed the unhappy face of the queen and knew that things would get much worse for the bitch in the cart. She calmly lifted her wand and aimed for the front wheels of the carriage.

"Sorry, old boy," Hilda said to the driver, as she unleashed her magic.

It dissolved the front axle of the carriage, making the wheels fall away from under it. The front part of the carriage reacted to that unnatural phenomenon in a most natural way: it slammed downwards, catapulting the driver onto old Betsy's back, his trajectory aided a bit by the wicked witch. She was wicked, not mean without reason. The mean queen, not prepared for this unexpected behaviour of the carriage either, toppled over and over, to the part of the carriage that was now at the lowest point and banged into it. And she managed to miss that side with her extra padded behind.

The scream, the thud and the oompf coming from the carriage were balm to Hilda's soul. "Alright," she mumbled. If there had been someone near to her, she would have had the irresistible need to hold up her hand and slap the other person's hand in mid-air. There was no one near, so the feeling ebbed away. With a appreciating smile, Hilda saw how old Betsy trotted off with what was now her rider on her back, leaving the stranded carriage in the middle of the dirt road. Then she diverted the broom and headed back home, as there were other matters to attend to. This would keep the bitch-queen off her back for a while.

By the time the queen had lost most of the blur in her eyes and brain, old Betsy and her rider had reached the village. The queen stared up, seeing part wagon, part sky. "This. Is. Not. Good." Her royal angriness let herself roll out of the broken down wagon. As she was not used to this kind of exit from a cart, something had to go wrong of course. A leather line caught her ankle. In itself this would not be bad, but as the weight of the queen now did not keep the front of the cart down, the cart obeyed the laws of physics and tilted backwards. It dragged the queen's leather-strapped leg upwards, making her end up in a very undignified position, one leg held up by the leather line and her skirt hanging over her head.

It took the mean queen a lot of time to get out of her awkward situation. It was determination and the unsinkable conviction that Snow-White was now for good out of her life that set her free. She cursed a few times, then started walking back towards the castle, which would mean a healthy stroll of some nine miles. At that point the queen had no idea of this distance.

At home, Hilda walked up and down through the room. There were things to arrange for the witches meeting on Scary Mountain, and plans to cook up for the follow-up to the queen's downfall. As often as she could, she glanced at her mirror and kept track of the queen's progress, which was not progressing very quickly.

"Oh dear," Hilda said, as she watched how the queen was getting all dusty on the dirt road. "Is it that dry out there?" She picked up her wand from the table, pointed it at the mirror and mumbled something. Nothing happened. "Crap. I hate Latin..." She mumbled almost the same thing in English.

Clouds pulled together over the fields and the forests of the kingdom. It took less than three minutes for them to accumulate enough momentum to be able to unleash interesting amounts of rain onto the land and queen below.

Drenched, covered in muddy streaks, cold, sore feet and legs, and very, very angry. That summed up the mean queen when she finally reached the castle. She slammed the back door behind her and stomped through the long halls towards her chambers. A clear trail of water and mud showed where she had gone, much to the despair of the cleaning crew who had just finished their job for the day. No one dared to mention a thing. They wanted their life more than they wanted justice, so they heaved a few heavy sighs, brought out the buckets and the mops again and started all over again.

The king saw his wife as she came barreling down the corridor. "Goodness gracious, my dear, what happened to you?" He had never seen her in a state of disarray like this.

"Shut up," the queen barked. "Not another word or it will be your last!"

Confused and slightly insulted, the king watched her disappear into her room. "A bit short-tempered today, are we?", he quietly asked.

"I told you to shut up!", the queen screamed at him, through the closed door.

The king put his hand over his mouth and chuckled. He knew he was being quite naughty, but the view of his beloved wife in that disheveled state had really made his day.

The queen stood in front of her magic mirror. "Looking-glass, looking-glass on the wall, who in this land is the fairest of all?"

The mirror considered the request and the person in front of it. "Would you believe that it is very hard for me to tell at this moment?", it then replied in a very diplomatic way.

Without a word the queen picked up a perfume bottle and raised it. "I should damage you for this. Do away with you over this insolence." The hand was lowered and the perfume bottle was spared a shattering experience. "But I can't. You're unique and I need you. But don't push it."

Her anger flaring up again, she made her way to the royal bath, to get cleaned up. The sand and dust that had accumulated on her body were giving her serious bother and they were also scratching in the most unmentionable places of her physique.

"Now what is this again," Doc asked himself as he came close to the house. He had decided to check on Snow-White after the mishap of the previous day. The door was ajar in a way it was not supposed to be.

"Mighty shovel!", the dwarf yelled out as he saw Snow-White lying on the floor. "Wake up!"

Snow-White didn't.

Doc kneeled down with her, fussing and honestly making a bit of a fool of himself at first. But soon he pulled himself together and assessed the situation. It did not take him long to find the comb, and as he got it out of Snow-White's hair, her eyes fluttered open.

"Doc? What..."

"Heck if I know, missy, but it looks as if you did the wrong thing again." Doc got up and helped Snow-White to her feet. "Who was it this time?"

"A neighbour lady," Snow-White confessed.

"Neighbour lady? We have no neighbours." Doc scratched his head. "And you'd better keep that door shut, lil' lady, or one day we're coming back and find you dead, meaning there will be no food on the table!"

Snow-White was shocked by his words so much that she started sobbing.

Doc was sorry about what he said, so in a comforting way he put his arms around the girl and patted her... bottom. After all, Snow-White was a human girl and Doc was just a dwarf, so he could not reach any higher without straining himself. "Now, come, come, I did not mean to be harsh," he said, trying to make the crying girl feel better.

"Oh, Doc," Snow-White said, a sudden smile on her face and the flow of tears stopped immediately. "Could you do that again?"

"What? This?" He patted again.

"Oh... yes... that... now don't stop..." Snow-White's voice became kind of husky and heated.

Back at the mine, Grumpy was feeling utterly himself. "Suck an elf... what is taking Doc so long? He should've been back here and help out with all this here."

Happy slapped Grumpy on the shoulder. "Relax, Grumpy, you know Doc. He's probably helping Snow-White with something." Happy had no clue how close he was to the truth.

Grumpy reached out for a piece of wood. He did not like Happy slapping him, so the next time the idiot would try it, he'd be in for a woody that would last him for a while.

Sneezy came out of the mine. "Wha.. haaa... haaachooo!!!!" He had intended to ask a question, but the hay fever hit him as soon as he appeared in the open air. The cart with ore they had dug that day keeled over, Happy tumbled over the sand, laughing, and Sleepy rolled onto his other side.

"Oops... sorry about that, brothers," Sneezy said, "I just wanted to know what you're talking about while we're doing all the work. Bashful down there says he could do with some water."

Happy slapped the sand off his clothes and grabbed a cup that he filled with water. "I'll take it to him, Sneezy, you and your sneezes will never make it to him with a cup filled with water."

Sneezy nodded. "Haa... haaa... haaaa..."

The other dwarfs ran for cover, but the expected storm didn't come.

"Hey, guys, I was only laughing," Sneezy said, quite dismayed.

The brothers came out of hiding again. Happy went into the mineshaft with the water. He hadn't gone but a few yards, when a thundering sneeze sounded, followed by Grumpy's words: "Now do that one more time and you won't see another sunrise. Brother."

In the castle, the queen got out of the bathtub. After a double clean-up she felt better again. Clean too. She put on her best clothes, her best make-up and, thinking about Snow-White's demise, her best mood.

She put herself in front of the talking mirror and asked her question again. It's response did not make her very happy: "Oh, queen, thou art fairest of all I see, but over the hills, where the seven dwarfs dwell, Snow-White is still alive and well, and none is so fair as she."