The
Other Cinderella
As
the Prince’s manservant went around trying the glass slipper on all the women
in the castle village, Cinderella’s excitement grew so much that she almost
blurted out her secret. That she was the one the shoe belonged to. Somehow, she
contained herself and patiently waited until the Royal Carriage stopped at her
cottage.
Her
mean old step-mom and two step-sisters rushed to the door. They didn’t wait to
be asked if the slipper belonged to them; instead they crowded the Prince’s
manservant until he almost lost his balance.
Finally,
the man was able to restore some sort of order and had the women line up, even
Cinderella; against her step-mom’s wishes and evil glares, she stood at the end
of the line.
As expected,
the shoe did not fit ugly Dora’s foot. Dora, with her nasty looking wart on the
end of her chin, making it look like she always had a piece of food hanging
from her mouth. Cinderella’s step-mom made Cindy’s life miserable after dad
died from being crushed by the wagon wheel he was working on when the horses
got spooked by a flying bug three years ago.
Step-mom
decided that Cindy could stay, as long as she remembered to stay in her place.
She was a mere servant now, after all. Cinderella smiled brightly as the
servant shook his head, indicating that the shoe did not fit Dora.
He
moved on to nasty Nelda. Nelda was HUGE! She was at least three hundred pounds
of bacon fat, cream cheese, and pizza crust wrapped up in human flesh. Cindy
had a hard time getting Nelda’s bed sheets clean for all the crumbs in the bed.
Nelda pushed and the manservant pulled; that shoe was about to break, thought
Cinderella. She was glad when he shook his head, again indicating that Nelda
did not belong with the shoe.
Cinderella
wished she could jump ahead of Zurna. Of the other women, Zurna was the most
presentable one, if not at all pretty. She had Cinderella’s appealing figure,
she was the cleanest, and she smelled nicer than her mom and sister. But, she was
meaner than a rabid dog. Cinderella endured much physical abuse from Zurna just
because Cinderella had the gall to be born of her mom and dad.
Cinderella
and Zurna were close in age, Zurna older by one year. Cindy at first looked up
to Zurna during the three years Cindy’s dad was alive and married to Zurna’s
mom. Zurna was patient with Cindy, too, even kind at times. But after dad’s
funeral, Zurna turned the tables and showed her true self. Cindy had every
reason to be afraid of her.
When
the shoe slipped onto Zurna’s foot for a perfect fit, Cinderella almost blacked
out. She saw, but didn’t believe…she COULDN’T believe. She knew personally that
the show was hers. Cindy had the matching slipper in the treasure box that she
kept under her bed.
She
slapped herself.
This
can’t be happening, she thought. She slapped herself again, this time hard
enough to get the attention of those partying and celebrating women who would
just as soon forget all about her.
“What’s
the matter with you, runt?” Zurna asked with a wide smile on her plain face (no
warts or zits for her). “Aren’t you happy for me, sis?” Zurna crowed.
“How
can this be? That slipper doesn’t belong to you,” Cinderella almost burst into
tears, knowing that she could not reveal that she was the rightful owner of
that slipper.
“If
the shoe fits, my dear, sweet, beauty of a sister,” Nelda pushed her fat face
into Cindy’s with an explosion of sour breath from her lungs. “Then she MUST
wear it, isn’t that true, noble sir?” Nelda asked the Prince who had only just
now joined the crowd in the cottage.
Prince
Charming looked from Zurna to Cinderella and back again. And again. He looked
askance at his manservant, “Did the slipper really fit HER?” pointing at Zurna
with obvious distrust in his voice.
He
looked to Zurna and asked a question only the girl he’d danced with last night
at the ball would know the answer to, “What is my favorite number?”
He
had told the girl he’d danced with at the ball his favorite number because he
could come up with nothing else to say at the time.
He
studied the girl with the slipper on her foot. There was nothing familiar about
her. He was sure that she was not the girl from the ball last night. If she got
the number wrong, he would know for sure.
Only
there would be nothing he could do about it. The King was bound by his word and
his word was that the Prince would wed the lady for whom the glass slipper fit.
There HAD to be only ONE woman for whom the shoe would fit. Didn’t there?
He
waited for the answer to come while eyeing the last girl standing in line
waiting. Now, that girl looked familiar. The way her blue eyes hid beneath a
feather’s nest of long eyelashes. The way she dipped her head at just the
slightest angle to make it appear she wasn’t studying him as well. Her small
waist with the apron belt wrapped twice around. Her delicate fingers. Her tiny
feet. The slipper HAD to be hers. But, no, it fit this other dainty, plain but
not beautiful; sturdy but not delicate woman.
“Twelve,
your majesty,” Zurna answered with a curtsy. She was pretty sure the answer
was wrong, but the King’s word was the King’s word. And the word said the
Prince would marry the woman who fit the slipper, NOT the woman who answered
twenty questions.
Both
Cinderella’s head and the Prince’s snapped back to attention. Zurna’s answer
was wrong! But there was nothing either of them could do about it.
Cinderella
started to cry. The answer was “infinity plus one.” He’d whispered the answer
in her ear as they’d danced in the Garden of the Red Roses last night at the
ball. Cinderella told him afterwards that “infinity” wasn’t exactly a number
but “plus one” made a difference and
they’d both laughed.
That’s
when the clock had begun to strike at midnight. Without explanation, Cinderella
gave the Prince a short mouth-to-mouth kiss that felt like forever and then had
taken off at a full out sprint towards her “carriage” waiting for her at the
bottom of the stairs.
Back
to the present, she watched and her heart sank as the Prince shifted his gaze,
regret filling his every facial feature, from Cinderella to Zurna and
instructed the manservant to gather all of Zurna’s belongings and load them
into the Royal Carriage. Zurna would become his bride.
*************************************
Cinderella
sat in her room crying. She didn’t understand what had just happened. Her fairy
God-mother suddenly appeared.
“What
the heck just happened in there?” Fairy God-Mother Mabel stood in all her
pretty African-American beauty. “That shoe and that title should be YOURS,
girl! What happened?” Mabel studied Cinderella’s fallen, wet face.
“Oh
sugar,” she held Cindy in her massive arms. “Don’t you worry none. I’m gonna
get to the bottom of this and find out how that girl stole your place.”
Poof! Cinderella almost fell over; Fairy
God-Mother Mabel had vanished.
Still
trying to compose herself, Cinderella almost jumped outta her skin as Dora
burst into the room demanding Cindy get the place cleaned up.
“There’s
gonna be a party!” Dora yelled and slammed the door to Cinderella’s room.
Before
leaving the room, Cinderella had to be sure she wasn’t going crazy. She pulled
her treasure box from under her bed. There, where the other glass slipper
should have been, was a ratty old open-toed house slipper, so dirty Cinderella
couldn’t quite claim she knew what color the thing had even originally held.
She
didn’t understand. How could anyone have known that she had put her own glass
slipper in this box to begin with? And how on earth had they gotten it out of
there?
Faced
with the fact that she probably would never know what happened, Cinderella
threw the old dirty slipper away from her and was about to close up the box
when she noticed a piece of paper had been placed under the slipper. “This is not the end!”
Cinderella still
didn’t know what to think. She hoped Fairy God-Mother Mabel could come up with
some sort of answer. She left the treasure box out and went to “clean the place
up.”
***************************************
Fairy
God-Mother Mabel was stumped…….for all of three minutes. She stomped back and
forth in her little cottage hidden in the woods of the castle village. She
paced the floor for exactly three minutes. And
then the explanation of what happened hit her and she knew she’d been beaten by
her own step-sister.
Fairy
God-Mother Samantha was just mean and angry for no good reason. Samantha was a beautiful African-American god-mother.
She had naturally long flowing, thick light brown hair. Her skin was a smooth
chocolate color with absolutely no blemishes with no help. She was a pretty and
physically beautiful woman. But, she was mean and deceitful. Because her mother
had died giving birth to Samantha. As a growing child, Samantha blamed herself
for never having the chance to meet and know her mom. Mabel was a great very
older sister, but she was no substitute for the mom Samantha had “killed.”
Samantha
blamed herself and she hated herself and that hatred made her do things she
would never be able to undo. Once a fairy god-mother makes a move, it cannot be
stopped. It will play on until an end or until another god-mother could come up
with a way to deter the move. Mabel had no idea how to deter Samantha’s move…she
didn’t even know what Samantha’s move was.
The
general plan of the fairy god-mothers had always been to bring a woman for the
Prince to wed. Mabel’s plan had been to help Cinderella escape her prison by
bringing her to the Prince’s attention. Samantha’s plan had been just to deter
Mabel’s plan. It didn’t matter that Samantha may have made a mean woman a
future Queen of the Kingdom, as long as Samantha’s plan deterred Mabel’s plan.
“Samantha!”
Mabel yelled. She really wanted to get Samantha’s attention. A silent scream
would normally do it, but this time she really needed to be heard. She yelled
again, “SAMANTHA!” Loud and long.
Samantha
whispered, “yes, big sister?”
“Samantha,
what have you done? What have I done to you that you would interfere with my
work? Why have you paired the Prince with Zurna? Do you know what you’ve
created?” Fairy God-Mother Mabel waved her arms around as she ranted to her
little sister.
Once
she finally calmed down, Samantha said “I did the girl a favor,” and began to
walk away. Mabel stopped her by simply holding her hand outstretched in front
of her.
“Please
explain.”
“The
King does not approve of the girl. Once her mean sister gets to the castle, she
will be in the same position Cinderella is in now, used as a servant. Only, she
will sleep on the floor in the dungeon, a damp and dark and lonely place, as
punishment for putting the Prince under some kind of enchanting spell to make
him fall in love with her. Cinderella will have to wait three months before the
Prince realizes that the slipper in fact does not belong to Zurna. And she will
have to wait another three months before the Prince can convince his father the
King that the lovely, beautiful girl in the Garden of the Red Roses did not
enchant him with magic, but with her very own wonderful personality.”
Samantha
turned to look at her big sister. “I hate myself, Mother-Mabel, NOT this
kingdom.”
As
tears filled both women’s eyes, Samantha said, “Cinderella will, at her
step-mother’s party, finally understand what happened today. Because I will
tell her. And she will believe me.”
Mabel
couldn’t speak at first. “Why?” she croaked when she found her voice. “Why will
she believe you?”
“Because
you will tell her that although I am mean and can do deceitful things, I cannot
tell a lie. It is in our genetic makeup. It is a part of our DNA, us fairy
god-mothers, that we must at all times tell the truth, even when we allow
others to be not so truthful.”
Mabel
knew that Samantha spoke the truth, as she’d just explained, it was impossible
for fairy god-mothers to literally tell a lie. But, she could not help but
wonder how Samantha had come to know the plans of the King. She asked.
“I
was simply eaves dropping, dear sister.” Samantha explained that she was
lurking in the Garden of the Red Roses after witnessing the “absolutely
gorgeous” transformation that Mabel had performed on the already beautiful
Cinderella and watched the child run from the Garden at the first stroke of
midnight.
“The
King held the Prince back from going after her and demanded to know what kind
of spell he was under. The Prince failed to convince his father that he was
under any spell and that the girl was just a nice and beautiful girl. After the
Prince managed to break away from dear old dad to go after Cinderella, dad
declared that he would find a way to punish the little witch for her treachery.
Little Cindy losing one of her slippers helped his plan along perfectly.” Samantha
was still standing where her sister’s outstretched arm held her.
Her
eyes twinkled with excitement. Punishment talk always brought her spirits up. “But,
I could not let Cinderella be punished for just wearing a pretty dress, so I
made Zurna take her place. Zurna hits Cindy anyway. Time for her to pay.” And
with a violent shake of her body, she at once broke from her sister’s hold and
transformed herself into a village commoner attending Cinderella’s step-mother’s
party.
********************************
At
the party, Cinderella was busy being serving hostess to all the village
dwellers who came out to celebrate with the “evil ones.” She was tired,
despondent, and her feet hurt. She wished aloud, when she finally had a moment
alone, that she could escape her mean step-mother and sister. Now that Zurna
was going to be Princess, it was a bitter-sweet relief not to have to worry
about the physical abuse. The daily beating and berating would be over, but
Zurna had Cindy’s man.
The
thought made Cinderella want to throw up.
Suddenly,
there was a very pretty woman standing next to her, whispering something in her
ear. As Cinderella began to focus on what the woman was saying to her, she felt
compelled to go to her room.
She
moved that way, knowing that Dora would scream at her. Cinderella notice that
the woman at her side was moving with her. She made it unnoticed to her bedroom
door. A quick look at the crowd of people told her that everyone was busy
congratulating Dora and Dora was way too busy with the attention to give any to
Cindy. Cinderella slipped inside her room.
Fairy
God-Mother Mabel was there wrapping her large arms around her telling
Cinderella that all that the strange woman had said to her was true.
“Well,
we can’t keep her in a dungeon,” Cindy sympathized.
“That
is her fate for now,” fairy God-Mother Mabel explained. “We cannot undo that
for six months. And then you will take your place to release her, if you wish.”
Cinderella
thought about it and grudgingly accepted this news as expected.
“How
am I to continue living with those two?” she cried.
Fairy
God-Mother Mabel touched her nose and outside the bedroom, Cindy could hear
Nelda scream.
Yanking
the door open to see what happened, Cinderella was surprised to see Nelda being
escorted to a carriage of her own by a not completely handsome man.
“I
will make you my bride,” the man shouted and Nelda screamed again. “Yes! Yes!
Yes! I will go with you!”
Dora
cried a different cry, “No! Do not leave me here, my daughter! I want to go
with you!”
And
yet another man, not completely ugly, said out loud, “My son, is there room in
the carriage for one more?”
All
four of them rode away to a future unknown.
Cinderella
went to bed a heap happier than she had been in all the last three years.
THE
END
©La-ShantaHolloway2012
