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Everyone knows there are three things fairies cannot resist:
Chubby babies with toes like little perfect bubbles. Sometimes the babies get wonderful gifts. Sometimes they get curses, though. That’s why mothers always put socks on babies—best to play it safe.
Teeth. (What do fairies do with the teeth? That is a story for another day. A much creepier, blood-tinged day, in a dark cave lined with the teeth of generations of children, where a fairy lurks in the corner, muttering to herself as she pets your precious molars and plots how to get all the rest of them.) (Ha ha, whoops, just kidding, there’s nothing creepy about a fairy sneaking into your room in the middle of the night and taking teeth! Nothing creepy at all. Nope. Carry on!)
Beautiful girls crying because they have been cruelly wronged.
Cinderella fit in the last category, fortunately. I’m glad I don’t have to write about the tooth fairy. She’s almost as creepy as Snow White.
“Dear child,” the fairy godmother said, kneeling down. “What’s wrong?”
Cinderella, who never left the house and therefore didn’t know you should never talk to strangers—especially glowing strangers who appear magically in your backyard—threw herself forward, hugging the fairy. “Oh, it’s too awful! I was supposed to go to the ball, but they wouldn’t let me!”
“Well, now,” said the fairy godmother. She patted Cinderella’s sleeve, then coughed at the puff of ash that drifted up. “I—” She coughed again, then cleared her throat. “I can fix that. Now, what to do about your dress?”
“Isn’t it lovely?” Cinderella said, standing and twirling.
“Well, it’s … something. But wouldn’t you like a new one?”
“Oh, no. It’s perfect.”
The fairy godmother frowned. “I could fix it up a bit. What’s your favorite color?”
“Smoke gray and flame orange!”
That was not what the fairy godmother usually got requests for. It was usually spun-sugar pink, or summer-sky blue, and she was especially good at dresses the color of dreams about unicorns. (The king would have loved that one, alas!) But she was up for the challenge. She lifted her hands and concentrated. Around Cinderella rose a skirt in brilliant yellows and oranges. The top of the dress was a shimmery gray, the fabric so light it moved like smoke.
The fairy godmother nodded. “I guess that will do. And your hair?”
Cinderella touched her
hair, beaming. “Can we make it look like it’s on fire?”
“O-okay?” Frowning, the fairy godmother filled the swirls of Cinderella’s hair with deep red sparkles. (In later years, when her services were out of fashion, the fairy godmother would be employed in a glitter factory. She excelled at glitter.)
“And what about shoes? I can make you some nice, sensible—”
“Glass!” Cinderella shouted, a crazed gleam lighting her eyes.
“Glass?”
“Glass! Like a magnifying glass. The type you can use to light things on—” Cinderella took a deep breath, then smiled sweetly. “I mean, wouldn’t glass shoes be pretty?”
This girl was certainly not what the fairy godmother had expected. She’d tell this story for years to come when getting lunch with her other fairy friends. (Not the tooth fairy—even the fairy godmother was creeped out by her.) Concentrating, she pointed her wand. Two glass slippers appeared on Cinderella’s feet.
“They’re perfect!” Cinderella said, spinning and laughing. “Oh, it’s all perfect. How can I ever thank you?”
“By going to the ball and having the best night of your life! But you need to remember, at the strike of midnight, everything will—” The fairy godmother stopped. Cinderella was already sprinting down the road away from her. How the girl managed to run so fast in such impractical footwear, the fairy godmother had no idea. She herself could barely stand heels, and she flew everywhere!
“Oh well,” she said. Shrugging, she poofed away. She had other stories to be in, but none of them are ours. Good-bye, Fairy Godmother! Please don’t tell the tooth fairy we say hello.
Meanwhile, at the ball, the king and queen surveyed the scene in front of them miserably. The ballroom was filled to bursting with girls. The youngest was maybe twelve, or a very short fourteen. The oldest was as old as your grandma. (Wait—is that your grandma? I can’t blame her. It’s a shot at marrying a prince! Good for her.)
“I didn’t realize rugs were in style,” Small-head-big-face said, eyeing her own beautiful gown sadly. The queen was draped in several rugs, and the king wore dirty towels. “Or was this a costume ball and no one told us?” Everyone else had noticed, too. A few of the more fashion-forward girls had stolen rugs from other parts of the castle and thrown them over their glamorous dresses.
“Maybe they just don’t know how to dress themselves.” The stepmother looked around, distracted. There were no servants at all. Had something happened here?
The walls were lined with buckets of water. Everyone remarked on what a clever idea it was—like fountains inside! Only less fountainy and more … buckety. But since it was in a castle, they assumed it was the height of sophistication.
