¤¤¤¤ Phillippa here! ¤¤¤¤
I hope you guys like this one: it's short and silly (but not as short or silly as Puzzled) and based upon Cinderella. (I'm sure you're all shocked.) I was inspired one day as I looked through the fairy tale fanfics. One talked about a prince who was "too dense to realize that more than one girl has the same shoe size." I was instantly bombarded with ideas. What if the prince thought he had found Cinderella, but had only found a girl who looked like and had the same size feet as Cinderella? What would that girl think?
Ta-da!
(and no, this Fiona has nothing to do with Shrek's wife Fiona. Except fairy tales, and even that's a pretty sketchy comparison.)
If the Shoe Fits . . .
(a little mix-up from the beguiling world of fairy tales)
Identity (&) Theft
"Fi, could you go check downstairs for my . . . my . . . you know, my thing? My thing with . . . things in it? You know?" Reese stared into the mirror, stroking the scraggly hairs on his chin, as he spoke all this to Fiona, who hated being called Fi.
"I assume you mean your shaving kit, Reese?" Fiona shook her head. If Reese had a little less brain, he probably would not be able to even walk straight.
"Um, yeah, my shaving . . . thing," Reese replied, not looking at his twin sister.
Fiona put her pale hand to her forehead and groaned. With a loud, long sigh, she walked past him and down into the cellar. It was so dusty, Fiona could hardly see. She tripped over something and handed head-on into the fireplace. "Oh, ow," Fiona moaned. "Darn it, Reese! Can't you get your own things?" As she stumbled around in the dark, she thought she heard something upstairs. She figured it must be one of Reese's cronies, because if any of Georgia's friends arrived, there was much squealing and "oh my gosh!"-ing. How had it happened that Fiona had ended up with the entire IQ in the family, she had never quite figured out. Her fingers grasped something that felt like Reese's shaving kit. Fiona blew on it and soon realized it was not at all. She put it down and moaned in frustration. How was she ever going to find the shaving kit in all this mess? Serves me right for not cleaning it all these years . . .
"Fiona, um, could you, like, like, come upstairs, um, for, like, just, like, um, a minute? Um, 'cause, like someone's, like, um, here?" Her sister Georgia, who had an ounce more sense than Reese and a little less hair on her chin, called down the stairs.
"Yes, Georgia, I'm coming." Fiona trudged up the stairs. This was not a good day. She hoped whoever it was did not care that Fiona was covered in dust and ashes and had not taken her shower yet.
"Um, like, this is, like, her?" said Georgia.
"Good morning, sirrrrr," said Fiona, dragging out the sir as she stared at their visitors. They looked . . . really important. And unhappy. And . . . royal? Oh, you've done it now, Fiona, baby.
"Good morning, miss," said the tall man, with a tiny bow, and his long nose wrinkled in disgust. It is not very polite or courtly to wrinkle your nose at me like that, Fiona wanted to say. The other man did not bow at all but stared at her with the blankest expression Fiona had ever seen. What is wrong with you, Fiona wanted to ask.
"Um, like, I'm sorry she's, like, um, so dirty and like --"
"Georgia!" Fiona hissed at her. The least her sister could do was let her make her own excuses -- er, explanations.
"Um," Georgia finished quickly. Fiona pushed her disheveled hair back into her ponytail and smiled at the gentlemen. Why didn't they just tell her what they wanted all ready? Fiona felt her face glow red.
"Miss, would you do us the honor -- " Fiona almost laughed, for the tall man looked so revolted, it was comical to hear him still speaking stuffily. " -- of trying on this glass slipper?"
Glass slipper, thought Fiona. What kind of nut case wears a glass slipper? "Of course," she said, (hopefully) demurely. It was sitting on a pillow. Fiona wanted to laugh again. Well, it was obviously breakable . . .
She sat down on the nearest chair and slipped off her left shoe, ashamed at how grimy and hideous her feet were. The tall man looked repulsed and the other man looked bored. Fiona hoped they would leave soon. She hardly felt it right to breathe around them. The tall man knelt in front of her -- Fiona, suddenly and strangely, thought of the tall man proposing to her -- and placed the glass slipper on her filthy foot.
Fiona looked up at the tall man. The tall man looked up at her. All right, now what happens, thought Fiona, with a glance at the bored man, who was staring at Georgia, who was also staring at Fiona's foot.
"Your Highness," said the tall man. Fiona wanted to cry. This was their prince? She suddenly felt worried for their country.
"What is it, Jerald?" His voice even sounded blank, bored. Was it possible for him to be interested in anything? "Are we finished -- " The prince finally caught sight of Fiona. And Fiona's foot. And the glass slipper currently on Fiona's foot. His bored look was changed to an almost excited one. Wow, thought Fiona. The wooden prince has feelings? That's news.
The tall man, Jerald, stood up and held out his hand to Fiona, looking (was it possible?) a little less horror-struck at the sight of her. She grabbed it and stood up. Whoa, thought Fiona, I'm tipsy! Or something.
Suddenly, Woody, the wooden prince was at her side, holding onto her elbow -- hard! -- and saying a lot of things extremely fast that Fiona could not understand.
" -- and I never thought I would find you Cinderella it's so amazing and you look just like you did last night and it's so amazing and -- " Woody was babbling.
"Hold on a minute, Your Highness," said Fiona, moving as quickly as she could (which wasn't that quickly, she was trying not to maim herself with the glass slippers) away from Woody. "What are you talking about? Cin-drella? My name is Fi-o-na." Fiona would have felt rude if Woody wasn't being so awfully familiar.
"You -- you -- you -- you -- what?" Woody's face had moved on to 'almost shocked.'
"I'm sorry, Your Highness, but you've mistaken me for someone else. My name is Fi -- o -- na," she said, even slower this time, " -- and I've never met you before in my life. I'm sorry."
"You -- you -- you -- what?" Woody was sounding much akin to a broken record.
"I'm not whoever you are looking for. This is not my shoe," Fiona said, talking like she would to Reese, or Reese's friend Joseph. "I'm sorry." Fiona leaned down, pulled off the glass slipper, and handed it to Jerald. "Um, have a nice day. Good luck."
"No, please, Cinderella," said Woody.
"I told you!" said Fiona, with finally lost patience. "My name is Fiona! Eff-eye-oh-en-ah. Fiona. Not Cin-drella!" Jerald reached forward and, with a nod from Woody, seized Fiona by the elbow. "Hey! Let go!"
The last thing Fiona saw before the door of her house slammed shut was Reese and Georgia, both waving like the numb-skills they were.
Mental note, thought Fiona, sitting in a carriage, still kept captive by Jerald's iron grip, the next time someone mistakes me from some chick named Cin-drella, run, don't walk, to the nearest exit and don't stop until you reach the closest bordering country!
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