THRICE Upon a Time...

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"Jellybeans."

"Well...yeah. Three...jellybeans." 

Rapunzel's lid blew.

"OH. MY. GOD." Her hair snaked around the poor boy's neck and tightened. Rapunzel did not fight it. "YOU LISTEN HERE, BOY, ARE YOU TROLLING US?? COS IF YOU SAY ANOTHER SENTENCE ABOUT SWAPPING YOUR COW FOR JELLYBEANS I SWEAR I WILL TAKE THOSE JELLYBEANS AND SHOVE THEM UP YOUR---"

"Rapunzel, stop!" Snow White reached out a hand and put it on Rapunzel's shoulder. "I think...I think he's serious."

"Agreed." Aurora pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed deeply. She needed another boost of Botox. "Although this boy has OBVIOUSLY been dropped on his head when he was a child, he do seem genuine."

"H-hey, wait a sec!" Jack cried, his eyes jumping from one person to the next. "It's not like that!"

"Oh, really?"

"The man, the wizard, he said that he cast a spell on these beans. That they're MAGIC beans." Jack swallowed, his eyes big and serious behind his thick, lop-sided glasses.

"Wizard." Rapunzel dead-panned, unimpressed.

"Y-yeah! He gave me this business card, and he wore this big pointy wizard hat, and he held this wand and everything!"

"You mean...he likes dressing up at Halloween and he picked up a stick?" Rapunzel translated, sarcasm flowing freely out from her mouth. Jack winced, his own desperate protests backfiring.

"Very well, Jack." Aurora sighed again. "What did this man say to you?"

"He said," Jack sniffed defensively. "That if I plant these jellybeans, they'll grow into a jellybean tree." his face flushed red. "I like jellybeans. It would be cool if we had an endless supply, right? And we need money, so we could sell them, right?"

"Jack..." Aurora sighed deeply yet again. This boy was going to be the cause of many wrinkles, she decided. "Jack, jellybeans don't grow on trees...and neither does money." she planted her face in her palm. "Jack, you probably just lost your family a couple thousand dollars."

"WHAT? But, no way!" Jack shook his head furiously. "Look, I'll prove it!" He fished in his pocket for what seemed like an eternity before producing three little jellybeans. They were average-sized, innocent-looking and perfectly normal, one red, one orange, one green. They laid curved up in his hand, sweet and chewy. "LOOK!" Jack shoved them eagerly under Aurora's posh nose. "LOOK! They glow, see?"

Aurora squinted, and gradually she saw a faint greenish glow outlining the jellybeans, lighting up Jack's hand. "Huh." Aurora was taken aback. "Fascinating."

"What? Move, Aurora!" Rapunzel pushed past Aurora and glared at Jack's hand. She immediately gave a loud scoff and rolled her eyes in pure annoyance. "FAR OUT YOU MELON-BRAIN," she almost ripped her hair out, but refrained from doing so, because that would be a tedious task to complete. "That's GLOW-IN-THE-DARK PAINT!!"

"WHAAAAAAAAAT?" Jack's jaw dropped. "Impossible!!"

"Oh, that's right! I had glow-in-the-dark nail polish, too. They worked like a charm." Snow White piped up.

"What in the name of Bumblisa is this glow-in-the-dark sorcery?" Aurora yelped above the commotion.

"Watch." Rapunzel snatched the three jellybeans from the poor idiotic boy and stuck it under the dusty carpet. Aurora, Snow White, and Jack all crowded around Rapunzel and peeked under the dark fabric.