Hi everybody! I haven't posted fanfiction in a while! Okay. So that summary was really crappy, but summaries are not my thing, I'm sorry. This is like a modern version of Disney in New York City, just saying.
STOP! Stop reading right now and go to the image I've posted as my coverpage. Some of it might be cut off, my bad, but look at it. Do you guys like it? Custom made! This story is just a rough draft and an idea, but I'm trying to expand it forward into something nice.
Reviews are appreciated! Enjoy the story, guys!
Somedays I love my father. Most days, I just want to kick him out of the house. But I can't. It's his house.
Or so he says.
-Wendy
"And that…that damned constable…he…he stopped me in the streets….and you know what he asked me? Wen—wen-day? Wen-day, do you wanna knooow?"
Wendy looked up silently at her father. He was staggering, red faced, around the room. He had just returned from a tavern in the heart of New York City and was brimming with alcohol.
"Wen-day!" he roared. "Wen-day, tell me. Do you want to know or not? If not, you're wasting my time."
Wendy just looked evenly at him, waiting for his hysterics to end.
George Darling leaned over and picked up a vase off the ground. "Confound it. This blasted vase reminds me of your sorry-ass mother. She didn't want a family. Or any of the hard work and responsibility that comes with it. I'm glad she's gone. I hope she died!" yelled Mr. Darling, and threw the vase. It smashed against the wall.
Wendy's mother had left a year ago. She had been a nice woman, but all Mr. Darling ever did was work and drink and come home and sleep. It was the drinking that helped her make up her mind. She decided to leave and never come back. She offered to take the children. But Mr. Darling forbid it.
A little body appeared in the doorway of my room. It was Michael, in his footie pajamas. "Daddy?" he asked sleepily.
"John!" Mr. Darling slurred.
"No, Daddy," said Michael, evidently confused. "I'm Michael."
"Don't correct me, boy!" Mr. Darling yelled. "I know my children, you half-wit piece of nothing!"
He picked up another plate and hurled it at the wall. Michael vanished.
Wendy got up from the bed and went to get Michael. She picked him up, deciding to sleep in his room. It was about two in the morning and it didn't look like her father was going to leave her alone anytime soon.
"Wen-day!" Mr. Darling hollered. "Listen, listen. So the constable; he thinks he's the biggest thing ever to strike this stupid world since hot dogs. And he struts up to me like he's some prissy peacock. Like he's that bigheaded president we have!"
Wendy closed her eyes. "Daddy."
"And he gets the nerve to say, 'Sir, you either stay sober or stay off the streets.' Wen-day, did you hear that? Like I'm some kind of nasty little schoolboy who's leaving his dorms after hours to get drunk with his friends! Does he even know who I am?"
"Do you even know who you are, Daddy?" Wendy asked quietly.
Mr. Darling narrowed his eyes. "Of course I do! I'm the most important bank manager in all of New York City, that's who I am."
"If you know," Wendy snapped. "It'd be good for you to stay out of the bars rather than making a big fool out of yourself in front of your superiors."
"Well now," said Mr. Darling softly, dangerously.
Wendy's reflexes shot into action. Michael whimpered against her. She didn't take a step back.
Taking a step back meant heading into the past. Wendy knew she was stronger than that.
Mr. Darling was moving carefully forward. "Well now," he said again quietly. "Who the hell do you think you are, Wen-day?"
Wendy held her ground.
Mr. Darling shook his head sarcastically. "I bust my ass trying to provide for you and your sorry siblings day and night. Slaving away at the bank. Bringing home packs of money. Where is that money going?"
"Booze?" Michael offered from Wendy's shoulders.
Wendy inhaled sharply. She was the one who had told Michael and John about the drinking. She had sat them down before her bed, had an important talk with them, and had made it very clear not to speak of the booze in front of their father. But Michael, being only four, of course had violated it. Wendy bit her lip.
"Booze?" Mr. Darling whispered. "Booze. Wine. Liquor. Beer." Mr. Darling turned to Wendy, looking angrier than ever. "You've been filling my son's head with lies, you impertinent little fool!" he yelled.
Wendy shook her head. "Daddy, calm down," she begged. Fear made her heart beat.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Went her heart.
Mr. Darling grabbed the plate, turned it over in his hands like a wheel. "Booze!" he repeated, as if he couldn't believe such a foul word could ever be associated with an important know-it-all bank manager like him. One of the biggest folk in upper New York. Thump-thump-thump. Her heart beat a little faster at the sight of the plate in her father's hands.
"Daddy, really, if you just stop drinking—" Wendy began.
"I take care of all four of you!" Mr. Darling raged.
"Three," Wendy corrected softly. "Three of us, Daddy. Mother is gone, remember?"
Mr. Darling just stared at her. Then without warning, a cry of anger issued from his mouth like lava spewing from a volcano.
Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump. Warning bell.
He hurled the plate at her and Michael.
Wendy ducked, falling to the ground. The plate smashed, shards of fine china littered across the dark maroon carpet. Mr. Darling just stood there for a moment. Then he straightened up, fixing his shirt. "Wendy," he said calmly. "Look what you've done! Clumsy girl. Clean up this mess at once, and then get on to bed. You have school tomorrow."
With his face still red, Mr. Darling started for his room down the hall.
Wendy looked up with teary eyes. "Daddy, you don't mean to say this is my fault!"
Mr. Darling didn't say anything. Just closed the door in response.
"It wasn't your fault, Wendy," Michael whispered.
Wendy just set him on the ground. "Go to your room," she said quietly. "And stay away from the plate shards."
Michael hurried into his room, giving the pieces of plate a wide berth.
Wendy sucked in air, went downstairs and got out the dustpan and brush, went back upstairs, got down on her knees and cleaned up the plate shards.
Just before she dumped them out into the garbage bin in the back, a single drop of water fell and made a small plink sound against the plate shards in the dustpan.
Wendy looked to the heavens, but it wasn't raining.
I made a plan. On how to escape Lady Tremaine. But my plans always manage to start with MONEY. It's funny how you always need the thing you don't have.
-Peter
"Peter, I've told a thousand times!" Lady Tremaine looked exasperatedly at Peter. "When you play the classical flute, you have to press down the buttons firmly! Don't just let your fingers dangle on them! And actually blow! Blow, Peter!"
He blew. And it sounded like a cat was being crushed, the air slipping out of its windpipe slowly.
"Anastasia," said Lady Tremaine, hissing at me. "Show Peter how its done."
"I like playing the panflute," Peter told Lady Tremaine. "For your information. This sorry piece of junk is not what I play."
"Panflutes are juvenile, Peter!" Lady Tremaine trilled, shocked at his behavior.
"That's why we call him Peter Pan," giggled Anastasia and Drisella.
"You're dismissed, Peter," said Lady Tremaine, flinging a hand dramatically over her eyes.
"Thank God," Peter muttered, and left, making sure to slam the door as he did. As he headed down the stairs, he tried not to rip his ears out as he heard Drisella's strains of "Sing, Sweet Nightingale" floating down the corridor like a screeching, howling monster.
"Cindy!" Peter called, coming into the kitchen. He greeted Pluto, Cindy's dog, and went outside to sit on the steps, waiting for her.
She was feeding the cows, speaking to them in gentle voices.
"Oh, Peter," she said, after she had finished and walked back to him. "The only bit of solitary time I get. Feeding the cows."
Peter smiled at her.
"What's up?" she asked me in her sweet voice.
"Music lesson."
Cindy laughed, putting the feed sack down in a corner. She went up to the grimy cracked mirror hanging on the brick wall near the stove and stared at her face. Her face was covered in muck and soot and cinders stained her apron.
Peter grabbed a cloth off the table and handed it to her. "Clean off."
Cindy obliged. When the soot was cleaned off, he tilted his head. "Better, Cindy."
Her skin was sunkissed and her eyes gleamed in her porcelain face. Cindy was so delicate she should've been born a princess, Peter thought. She was beautiful and doll-like, as pretty as an angel.
But he'd never really think of her as any more than a sister.
"Cinderella!" screamed Anastasia from above.
"The demons are calling," she said sarcastically. "Better go."
"Guess so," Peter told her, climbing the stairs with her.
"Cinderella!"
"Coming Stepmother!" Cindy shouted. "Give me one minute!"
"Stop this horror right now!" Lady Tremaine was saying, gliding down the stairs. She gasped when she spotted Peter hovering by the servants' kitchen door.
"Peter!" she gasped. "Get away from there this instant! Haven't I taught you anything?"
Peter made a face.
Anastasia and Drisella looked horrified as well.
"Do not fraternize with the servants!" Lady Tremaine hollered, her eyes glowing dangerously steely.
"Except," Peter said fiercely. "She's not a servant, is she, Mother? She's your stepdaughter."
Lady Tremaine narrowed her eyes. "Peter Tremaine, do not speak to me in that manner!"
Peter raised his eyebrows. "Peter Tremaine?" It was these kinds of things that bothered him! He was not Lady Tremaine's son. He'd rather kill himself. He had been adopted by Lady Tremaine from Anya's Orphanage after her husband had died and she had been nothing but nasty to him.
Lady Tremaine opened her mouth, and then stopped. Cindy hurried forward with the trays, balanced on both her hands and head. The tray on her head wobbled, almost falling.
"Oh, for crying out loud, Cinderella!" screamed Lady Tremaine. "Take care of those! Those trays were expensive!"
Suddenly, the tray on her head fell over, leaving the eggs in a soppy sunshiny yellow puddle, the toast crumbling and breaking, the porridge making a gloopy splotch on the white marble floors.
Lady Tremaine couldn't have looked more shocked if someone had struck her with a live wire.
"I'm s-sorry," Cindy stammered, kneeling down on the floor to pick up the broken dishes, the silverware and the cracked tray, setting down the other two trays aside.
"Anastasia, Drisella," said Lady Tremaine calmly. "Take the two trays and go have your breakfast."
Peter nibbled on his bottom lip warily. The tension in the air was as thick as butter.
Lady Tremaine stepped forward, grabbed a clump of Cindy's light brown hair.
"When I tell you to be careful," she said, snarling every word into her ears. "I expect you to be careful, you worthless little monster."
"Stepmother, I was trying—" Cindy began. "It's hard to—I was trying to get the breakfast trays upstairs in time—I didn't do it on purpose—I promise—please, Stepmother—"
"Quit your incessant whining!" Lady Tremaine exclaimed. "Clean up this mess. And heaven help you if I come back and some of the stains won't come out."
Lady Tremaine started up the stairs.
Peter got down on his knees to help Cindy with the broken plates.
"Peter!" Lady Tremaine shrilled. "Get back upstairs. Your music lesson isn't over. And ask Cinderella to bring up your breakfast as well."
Peter didn't say a word. He only got up and began to climb the stairs to the music room.
About a half hour later, slaving away over that damn flute, he heard a timid knock on the white door.
"Come in, come in!" Lady Tremaine barked.
Cindy's face appeared there. "Stepmother?" she whispered. "There's a stain."
Stepmother's eyes went wide. "A stain?"
"It won't come out. I've been scrubbing for twenty minutes and—" Cindy held up her hands. They were cracked, raw, and bleeding.
"Well, keep scrubbing!" Lady Tremaine snapped. She started up the opening chords.
"If you'd only come down and see how much I tried…" Cindy paused to sniffle. "Stepmother, I can't anymore. I tried my hardest and—"
Lady Tremaine rolled her eyes and started down the stairs. She paused. "Egg," She said, eyeing the yellow stain.
"I'm sorry," Cindy whispered. It sounded like butterfly wings against skin. You had to strain to hear it.
Lady Tremaine got two red spots in her cheeks.
"She's got it coming," whispered Drisella to Anastasia, both of them smiling at the top of the stairs.
Cindy closed her eyes and braced herself.
Lady Tremaine whirled around and slapped Cindy across the face, sending her tumbling to the floor.
Peter felt nauseous. "Cindy!" he yelled.
"Everything's alright, Peter," said Lady Tremaine calmly. "Come, we must finish the song…"
"NO!" Peter shouted. "Can't you see she tried?" He knelt down in front of her and grabbed her hands, waving them in front of Lady Tremaine's face like flags. "Do you see her hands, Mother? She has been scrubbing nonstop since we went upstairs for our music lesson! You have no right to treat her this way!"
"Cinderella," said Lady Tremaine, coming downstairs and yanking her up by her wrist. "Peter has just cost you all your meals for today with his impertinence. I will take you upstairs to your room."
Cindy shook her head rapidly. "No, no, Stepmother…." Tears ran down her face. Lady Tremaine ignored her stepdaughter's tears and proceeded to yank her up the stairs.
"Mother, wait!" Peter said, raising his voice as she ignored him.
"We do not raise our voice inside or outside the house, Peter," said Lady Tremaine.
He hated her calm voice, the state of normalcy she was in, despite the grim circumstances.
He hated her. For doing this to his best friend.
"Stepmother, please!" Cindy was begging breathlessly, choking on her tears.
"Mother!" Peter yelled. "You can't starve her like this almost every day! She'll die!"
Stepmother shoved Cindy into the hallway that held the stairs leading to Cindy's bare room in the attic and locked the door.
"That's a chance I'm willing to take," she said.
Peter balled up his hands at his side. Anger surged through him like a mighty wave.
"Oh, and Peter," said Lady Tremaine, about to disappear into the music room with Anastasia and Drisella.
"Don't forget about the music lesson."
How was this chapter? I won't be posting so frequently, I'm sorry. I have lots of schoolwork and stuff so it'll be hard. But every weekend. Solemn promise. Bye!