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Other than the fact that it was the middle of a bright and sunny day. Cinderella just wished it were a dark and stormy night. Then they would have to light a fire.
Mmm, a fire …
She hummed happily to herself, combing through the ashes in the fireplace. Maybe this time there would be an ember left. Even a single spark. She could do so much with a single spark.
“Ella!” her stepmother said with a voice like a bucket of water being dumped on her head.
“It’s Cinderella,” one of her two stepsisters said. She had a very small face on a very large head. It was the opposite of how baby animals look. It was also the opposite of how cute baby animals are. This stepsister always followed Cinderella around, bossing her, telling her what to do and not to do.
“If Ella,” her stepmother said, glaring, “has time to poke around in the ashes, she obviously needs more to do. Go make lunch, Ella. Then you can polish the floors.”
When Cinderella’s father had been alive, she had never been treated like this. He went away on his trips and came back with the most wondrous gifts. New clothes and jewelry, magnifying glasses, and, best of all, books! Books with their pages of dry paper. So much paper …
She was never allowed to have books now.
Singing a soft, sad song to herself, Cinderella made lunch. Cold cucumber sandwiches, cold tea, cold pudding. She longed for something toasty and comforting. But her stepmother wouldn’t allow anything warm.
When they were finished eating, she cleaned. Then she cleaned. Then she cleaned some more. It didn’t matter how clean the house was, her stepmother always found another task. Today, she was polishing the backs of the tiles in the kitchen floor. First, she had to pry up the tile. Then she polished the back. Then she re-glued it onto the floor.
Does anyone ever see the backs of tiles? No. But at least this wasn’t as bad as the time her stepmother had her take inventory of the feathers on each chicken out in the coop. At least tiles didn’t peck or scratch. Or poo.
At the end of every day, when Cinderella was too tired to see straight, her stepmother walked her up to the tower. (As you have noticed, there were a lot of towers in this kingdom. It all started a long time ago with the very first king. He was terrified of rain. So he had towers built everywhere, and then found all the tallest people in the kingdom. He made them stand at the tops of the towers. That way, they’d know the second it started raining, and could send a messenger pigeon with a warning. But by the time the pigeon got to the king, the rain had already hit the ground. Kings aren’t kings because they’re smart
. But it explains why the zoning laws allow such high towers. You can write the kingdom council to have them revise the rules, but it’ll take three years for them to write back.)
“Goodnight, Ella,” the stepmother said every night, after checking every corner of the room to make sure Cinderella hadn’t managed to hide anything precious. No books. No jewels. She wasn’t even allowed a real window, just a metal shutter over a gaping hole. And she couldn’t sneak out. The tower was too high to climb out the window. And the endless steps were so noisy that by the time she got to the bottom someone would have heard her.
(At least everyone was in great shape from clomping up and down all those winding tower stairs. In the future, an enterprising person would invent winding escalators. And then, when people were out of shape from no more exercise, she would invent a workout program to mimic walking up stairs and sell that, too. Eventually she would become so rich she’d buy the entire kingdom and make it into a mall. But that’s a terrible story. Let’s go back to Cinderella.)
So passed day after day. Sometimes Cinderella’s stepmother was gone, but the stepsisters were always there, watching. They made sure she worked herself to the bone. They complained that their singed hair wasn’t growing back fast enough. They took away anything fun. She had no time to herself. No possessions of her own. No sparks. No joy. Poor Cinderella! Will things ever change?
Of course they will. Otherwise this story would be even worse than the one about escalators and malls.
On this day, as Cinderella was in the pantry organizing grains of salt by size, an official knock sounded at the front door. Cinderella was not allowed outside without supervision. All the doors were triple-locked, and her stepmother held the keys. But Cinderella listened at the pantry door with interest as her stepmother spoke in low tones, arguing.
“Of course we won’t attend. It’s absurd,” she said.
A man answered, “It’s royal orders. Every girl in the kingdom has to come to the ball.”
“Why?”
“So the prince can choose a wife.”
The stepmother snorted. “Why doesn’t he do it the old-fashioned way?” (This was back before dating on the Internet. It used to be if you wanted to find a wife, you put an ad on the back of the community messenger pigeon. As it delivered notes, everyone saw what you had to offer. “Good hair, decent teeth, all ten fingers and nearly all ten toes. Employed cleaning pigpens. Looking for a wife with no sense of smell.” If someone liked what you had to offer and met your requirements, a meeting would be arranged.)
The man sounded annoyed. “I don’t know why they’re doing it this way, lady! I only started working for the castle today. I’m actually a pigpen cleaner.”
“Yes, I had guessed. How is your wife search going?”
“Not many girls with no sense of smell these days. Everyone has noses.”
The stepmother clicked her tongue sympathetically. “Keep looking. You’ll find someone.”
“Thanks. Hey, I don’t suppose you smell very good …”
“You mean to ask if I smell well, which I do. And I smell good, thank you very much!” She slammed the door. “Honestly, the rudeness of poor grammar. Girls!” she called out. “Come here.”
Cinderella was there in a heartbeat, her own heart fluttering like a candle flame. Her stepsisters took longer. She thought she would die of suspense before they got there.
