Cinderella: The Dreamer With a Wooden Clog
By: Lella
Once apon a time, in a magical place and time, there lived a beautiful young lady, and her name was Cinderella. She lived in a marvelous home, but she was no such of a princess or royal. And she was neither a slave or servant. She was simply average. Middle class. Normal. Her entire life was the basis of normality with a pinch of sugar and salt for contrast. Nothing happened to her. She did nothing out of the ordinary. And she yearned for everything.
Cinderella dreamed of a day when she could leave the ordinarily-exquisite home. She wanted to spread her arms, shape them into wings, climb the twirling stairs of her house to the very top, and jump off. Fly away. She wanted to soar with the pale white wings into the sunset of a warm September day, with her reddish-blonde hair tangling in the light breeze. She wanted the sunset to melt her freckles from her face, giving her a perfect complection that she had always dreamed of having. She yearned for the brilliant orange light to take her fears and petty life away with it while it waned over the earth into oblivion.
She was a dreamer.
She was a dreamer who was lost in a socially average place that hinted of former magic around her.
She wanted to be free.
Cinderella had spent the bulk of her seventeen years waiting for this day.
I'm graduating from this horrid place. This horrid school. This average place that makes the mundainly unimportant seem like the Prince's gossip itself. I'm finally leaving! she thought. For the past fourteen years, she had spent seven hours per day, six days per week, at the Maperate School for Girls. She had learned everything a normal girl would need to know in society--cooking, cleaning, dancing, art, music, gardening, sewing, and a few magic spells that every housewife knew those days. And, now, it was finally time to leave.
She had always hated school. Cinderella was the type of person who, if given the choice, would hunt rather than sew, play polo rather than garden, and would spit in a man's eye if given the chance and reason to force it apon the unlucky fellow. She didn't like the constant nagging. The gossipy girls. The thought of being the perfect wife. It wasn't for her.
But, as she walked to the chairs in the middle of the Maperate School's lawn, she couldn't hold back her excitement. She rushed to the front of the two rows where her friend, Marie sat.
"Just think," Marie whispered, "We'll be out of this school for good by five o'clock!"
"I know!" Cinderella squealed with joy as she tried to sit in the chair with a lady-like posture that was only for show.
"It's scandalous!"
"That we're graduating from here?"
"Yes," Marie giggled, "It's scandalous to think that this ignorant school is allowing us to graduate as ladies. For them to think that we're girls who want nothing more than to be a trophy wife with good manners and a thin waist. That they are letting us leave."
Cinderella giggled and put her gloved finger to her lip as she thought. "This bloody school hasn't put up much of a fight, either. It seems hardly fair to Maperate."
"Indeed it does," Marie managed to whisper into Cinderella's ear before the school's headmistress stepped infront of the giggling girls.
"Talking again, are we?" she croaked in a voice that screamed of a life-long addiction to tobacco smoke.
Marie through a discrete glance at Cinderella before tipping her head and replying, "Ms. Chonpilion, we were simply discussing our future as ladies. You have always told us that beig a lady is a celebration unto itself, correct?"
Ms. Chonpilion paused before answering, "Very well then. At least I know now that you were listening during those lectures I recited over the years. Just mind your manners when others are preparing to speak. My nerves are at a climax, you know."
"Yes, Ms. Chonpilion. We will leave your nerves sure alone and remain simple and courtious girls, indeed," Cinderella almost laughed back.
Ms. Chonpilion turned away toward the podium resting beside the two rows of chairs. Cinderella looked out. Infront of them, it seemed as if row after endless row of seating had been filled by the family of the graduating girls.
How can there be so many people for just the twelve of us?
Searching through the first few rows, she finally saw her mother, grandfather, and grandmother sitting on the side. She caught her grandfathers attention and smiled in his direction. To show that I am supposedly happy for spending fourteen years in this nightmarishly-boring school.
He smiled back before turning back to his gray-haired wife for more conversation.
"Excuse me!" Ms. Chonpilion called out to the murmuring crowd. Slowly, the chatter died down into a low fuss before finally ending with a small hush. All faces centered on the headmistress, and Cinderella almost swore that she could see her hands flutter with her nerves and sweat drip down from her hairline.
She practically dying up there. One false word, and she'll have to start all over.
"Here at Maperate, we pride ourselves in teaching any kind of girl how to become," and here she paused, "simply a lady. We put them through classes that teach the essence of quiet work so that they can have the finest of husbands one day. They are taught manners, and I'm sure that you have noticed how much these fine girls have improved over the past few years. They are now seen and not heard, and know perfect manners of simple magic."
Get on with it before I make you!
"I present to you, "and with only one crack in her croaking voice, "The ladies of Maperate."
Here, the entire crowd rose out of their white seats and clapped their hands in an explosion for the twelve girls. Ms. Chonpilion handed a diploma to each girl as the clapping died down before running off to take a swag of whiskey. Nerves, nerves. Cinderella thought as Ms. Chonpilion wringed her hands and ran to the school. Then, she stood from her seat to meet with her family.
Later that night, before heading off to bed, Cinderella softly stepped into the parlour of her house for a glass of hot tea. When she lit a candle with one of the various spells that she had mastered, she caught glimpse of her grandfather sitting at the table.
"Grandfather, now what on God's great Earth are you doing here?" she gasped, temporarily losing her manners. She set the candle on the table and covered her mouth to show her sorry.
"Oh," he sighed, removing her hand from her mouth. "I was just waiting for you."
"How'd you know I was coming?" Cinderella asked.
Her grandfather smiled before taking a sip of cold coffee. "Because you come down here every night to get tea. I'm not ignorant of what goes on in this household."
Actually, you are.
"Actually, I'm not." he smiled.
"Don't do that!" Cinderella fussed, "It's rude to read others' thoughts without permission! Use your magic for good."
He laughed, set his coffee down to the wooden table, and smiled again. "That school taught you your manners where it counts, but you didn't like it, did you?"
"What, the school?"
"The school. The teachers. The classes. Everything. You hated it, didn't you?" he asked.
Of course I hated it!
"No," she lied, "it taught me the simple things in life that I needed to know."
"You didn't answer me, Cindy," he said stearnly.
"What? Well, I..." she trailed off.
"You?" he asked, leading her to finish the statement.
"Oh!" she cried while throwing her hands up into the air. "Of course I hated that bloody school! I thought I was going to kill myself, save for once per week days off!"
"That's what I thought," he mumbled while taking another cold sip of coffee.
"Well, if you knew something, why didn't you do anything about it?! If you knew that I hated Maperate, why did you pay so much for me to go?" she cried out while tumbling over her words.
"I don't know..."
You don't know. You have to be kidding me.
"I suppose that I'm getting old... Not to mention that it's past ten o'clock. You should get to bed."
Cinderella couldn't with hold her furry anymore. She stood up, knocking over the wooken chair, and whisper-yelled, "But, you didn't answer me!"
"Goodnight, Cindy," he said as he walked away, leaving Cinderella in the kitchen with the fallen chair.
She kicked the chair before heading to her own room for a mad-night's sleep.