CHAPTER I
Once upon a time, in the great state of Kentucky, there was a little girl named Ella. Ella had two loving parents, but sadly, her mother died when she was very young, and her father was soon diagnosed with the same illness. Lonely and bereaved with grief, Ella's father jumped immediately into finding a new romance. He searched online, and via his favorite dating website, found a match with a woman whose screen name was Lady Tremaine. The two had a first date that went so well that by the date's end, the two had gotten married.
Had Ella's father been thinking clearly, he would have been able to see that Lady Tremaine only cared about his money. But, his judgment was clouded by several things: the grief of losing his wife, the severity of his illness, and wanting to provide his young daughter with a guardian as soon as possible. So he jumped into the marriage, and shortly thereafter, passed away from his illness.
Ella now found herself living with her stepmother and two stepsisters. Lady Tremaine was a gold digger who was very strict and stern. Her real name was Cate and she had always been poor white trash, but she had gone by alias Lady Tremaine her entire life to give off the air of elegance and wealth. Her two daughters, who were about Ella's age, were named Anastasia and Drizella, though they went by Anna and Driz. Both girls were ugly, obnoxious, buffoonish, and loved playing cruel tricks on Ella. Lady Tremaine was aware of this and did not care.
It did not take long for Lady Tremaine to squander all of Ella's family wealth, and within a few years, the family was so heavily indebted that they had moved back into the very trailer park where Lady Tremaine had grown up. All four women made due in a tiny, ugly, dingy, beat-up trailer, and while it was far from a glamorous life, Lady Tremaine could take pleasure in making Ella do all the household chores.
By the time she had turned sixteen, Ella had grown into a beautiful and very intelligent young woman with long blonde hair and a charming smile. While it might seem extreme to say Ella was the most beautiful girl in all of Kentucky, she certainly was the most beautiful of the four women living in the Tremaine trailer. Yet her life was one of misery and abuse. Almost all of her clothing and possessions had been either taken by her stepsisters or sold by Lady Tremaine without even asking. Ella was forced to wear dirty, raggedy clothes.
The worst humiliation of all was sharing a small and nasty bedroom in their trailer with her two stepsisters on those hot and sweaty nights. Anna and Driz each slept comfortably in their beds while Ella would have to sleep on the floor; she could smell both of her stepsisters' feet from across the room and it was absolute torture.
Ugh, Ella thought as she covered her nose, It's bad enough Anna and Driz push me around during the day, but now I have to spend all night smelling their feet too?
She knew that Anna and Driz intentionally always left their stinky shoes and stinky socks on the very spot of the floor where Ella slept. Every Sunday, Ella was forced to do everyone's laundry by hand in the trailer park's wash basin station. The Tremaine family laundry always smelled bad in general, but Anna and Driz's socks were in a category all their own. Ella always washed them last, and would hold her nose the whole time.
This isn't the life my parents wanted for me, Ella thought, Sleeping on a hard floor in an ugly trailer, having to spend all night smelling feet. And not just any feet, but the feet of the same girls who torment me. I want more out of life.
The one escape Ella had was her love of writing fan fiction. She spent all her free time on her laptop, writing stories for the Internet. Ella loved Harry Potter and Doctor Who, but she strongly hated Disney and all Disney-properties. Why shouldn't she hate Disney? After all, life was no fairy-tale.
But things would soon start happening that would make her think otherwise…