Chapter 1. Our story begins with Dirk. Dirk is the most ordinary of all boys, except when he tells of his very ordinary life. One summer, when he is ten, he decides to climb to the top of a very ordinary-looking church tower. Dirk climbs for a long time, but he is just not ready to go on. So when he turns around and looks down, he sees nothing but sky. On the outside, Dirk is an ordinary boy, but Dirk can't be ordinary for long. A wind begins to blow. A strange wind. A wind unlike any other. This wind washes over the countryside, causing weather to vary from day to day, year to year. Ordinary people see trouble and disaster, while the strongest shrug them off, saying the wind only blew because they had asked for it. But not Dirk. Only he knows what the wind is really trying to say. Then Dirk climbs into the tower again. This time he climbs farther, a little farther. And at last Dirk can go no farther. The tower is complete. There he is at the top. He looks down. And he knows that the wind is only trying to say his name. Dirk. His name is Dirk. Dirk is very ordinary. And nothing is ordinary. Nothing. This story is about a story. Dirk is in an ordinary house, watching an ordinary boy. His name is Rumpelstiltskin. And the boy is looking for something. It isn't a small thing—it's huge and special and extraordinary. This story is about two extraordinary lives...and how they collide. "It's not a fairy tale. It's a new kind of story. I can see it, but no one else does." —Rumpelstiltskin's mom. MRS. HANDELMAN ## Chapter 2. SARAH was just as surprised to see her son at breakfast as Dirk was surprised that morning. At home she knew where her children were, and how to find them. And now here he was, in her house, the town's only psychiatrist, suddenly popping out of nowhere. Sarah tried to think of where she had seen his face before. "I've seen you before," she told him. "Right here?" "Yes," she replied, "here." Dirk smiled. He was ten years old and tall for his age, with blond hair that curled up a little at the top. It was as if he had some of his mother's and father's hair, but not quite enough of it. "Your hair curls up a little bit, like mine does. But your mother has hair just like mine." Dirk reached up to touch it. "I don't have as much hair as you, though," he said, touching his head. "Some girls don't have much hair. Like your friend Tina." "Tina." Sarah laughed, but there was worry in her eyes. She didn't want Tina to look different from other girls. She didn't want any of her daughters to look different. "This must be a nice surprise for you," she said. "Oh, it's a very good surprise," said Dirk. "It's a really, really good surprise. Not only for me, but for the whole town." "Why's that?" "Well, remember the letter we got? With the list of kids in first grade that were chosen for the pilot study?" "Yes, you told me about it," said Sarah. "Well, what do you think? I'm one of the lucky ones." "You are?" "They want me to be in the program. I get to go to second grade next year." "That's wonderful, Dirk! Isn't that wonderful?" "What?" "That the program is going to go national." "That's what I was thinking about all night," Dirk explained. "I can't stop thinking about what you said." "Oh?" "What you said about being a psychologist. That you wanted to help people." Sarah looked around the breakfast table and noticed the girls staring at her. "Oh, I'm sorry, Tina. It's just that Dirk has such a lot to learn. He's not used to girls." Tina looked at her strangely. Dirk was already her best friend and had been since they were toddlers. "Dirk doesn't need to learn," she said. "His teacher's a woman, right? So he's already been with a woman before, right?" "I didn't mean it that way. It's just that..." "I'm not scared of women," Dirk interrupted. "I mean, I don't know any girls except Tina." "Except Tina," Sarah replied, her voice softening. "And Trixie. And the girls you go to school with. But I suppose it's true about the teacher." "He'll be fine. You don't have to worry," Tina said. Then she turned to Dirk. "Okay, what are you talking about? You're always talking about stuff, but I don't understand what you mean." Dirk took a big bite of cereal. Then he took a second bite, but the first one was still in his mouth. "Okay," he said, "here's what I'm talking about. I can't even remember what I told you." "Everything! You told me everything." "Me?" Dirk said to Sarah. "Yes, you," said Tina. "You told me you're going to go to second grade next year, but you didn't tell me why." Sarah tried to think of a nice way to let Tina know that her friend was not crazy. "I think the wind blew his voice away." "No, I'm serious. You said it blew his voice away." "Okay, okay." Dirk pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. "Okay, here's the story. "How do you feel when you wake up in the morning?" he asked Sarah. "I don't know. I think it's called morning. I suppose you're going to say it's awful." "It is awful. You want to be in bed. But if you stay in bed, you'll get in trouble. So you get out of bed and go to school. You need to get dressed. You have to eat breakfast. You walk across the street to get to school. You get picked on." "What's picked on?" Sarah asked. "Rotten kids," said Dirk. "He's exaggerating." Tina said. "Dirk is just getting this from some weird book he's reading." "No, Tina, that's not why," Dirk continued. "You always have breakfast at the cafeteria. And you have to eat just the same kind of food at home." "They make you eat stuff you hate?" "Sometimes," Dirk admitted. "It's all in how you feel. You have to look at what you do and what you feel. That's why everyone's looking at me. And that's why I've got these voices in my head that are telling me to do something different." "What kind of voices?" "Wind voices. The wind brought them into my life. It's not really wind—it's the wind blowing over from another country. And the wind is saying..." Tina interrupted. "What are you doing over there?" she called across the table. "You're staring at us. But we're not making you do anything." "No," said Sarah, "you're not. You're sitting here eating breakfast. Now, what are you talking about?" "Nothing," said Tina. "Something," said Dirk. "Where are you in second grade?" asked Tina. "I'm in the front row," said Dirk. "Yeah, me too. My teacher's name is Mrs. Van Der Steen. She's a man. Everybody thinks he's a she, but it's him. I hate him. He doesn't like kids who don't pay attention. He can be mean." "Look," said Dirk, "there's a kid over there with a newspaper." "So?" asked Sarah. "He's always reading it. I saw him reading it all morning. He always sits in the same place at the same table, and I always go over there to get milk, and I always see him with the newspaper in his hands." "How do you know he reads it all day?" Sarah asked. "He's always in the same place, and he always reads the same part of the paper every time I come there. Then there's this lady who always sits at the next table." "I don't understand," Sarah said. "She comes to the table with her family every day. She always sits at the same table. Every day. It's the same table she sits at. But she doesn't have a family. So I think they sit there waiting to be a family. And when I see them, I think of when I'll have a family."