Always a Bridesmaid…

Hi all. Here we have the ultimate childhood tale…What was Ben Barker like before Prison? Did he know Nellie Lovett? How did he fall in love with Lucy? Well, I'm here to answer all these questions. But it won't be from our favorite barbers point of view, oh, no. This is from Gracie, the one person who linked them all. This was brought to you by a role playing game with the Statue's Follower.

Disclaimer: The Legend of Sweeney Todd has been around since the invention of the razor, approximately, so I can't have had the basic idea. The movie, which is my inspiration, is owned by Tim Burton, and many others who I don't know. The title comes from the old saying, which I also don't own, 'Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.'

'Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd….'yeah, yeah, we know. No one needs someone to chant this at us whenever the new guy in town sets up a barber shop. And it's not what I've come to tell you. We all know that Benjamin Barker was a good man before the Judge took him away…but who among you actually know his story from before the Judge, before Johanna, before prison, and most of all, before he became Todd? That's where I come in.

I guess I should start with who I am, and what I'm doing here, writing to you. My name is Grace McGinnis, called Gracie by friends. I have short, curly red hair and Kelly green eyes. My mom had emigrated here from Ireland, and my appearance along with my name shows it. I met Ben when we were both three, Nell one year later. Lucy….I didn't meet her until I was ten, but we soon became friends. And I guess this is where my tale begins.

Now Ben was an orphan. I bet you didn't know that. His mother abandoned him on my doorstep, when we were both three. I guess it's the vague approximation of giving your 6-month-old puppy away because you can't take care of it anymore, but I still think that it was dead wrong of her. For a week or so, he stayed with my father and me, with Mum staying out of the way. She wanted nothing to do with Ben…or me. Or even Dad, but I know now that it was because he was cheating on her. We lived in a fairly wealthy neighborhood, and it was more than fair to say that we definitely surprised the neighbors with our behavior. I was a bit of a tomboy, and ran around in trousers as often as I could. So did Nell. Ben was happiest, as most three-year-old boys are, when he wasn't wearing any clothes at all. So yes, we traumatized the neighborhood.

Things were pretty much normal, up until the third grade. That was when Ben's adopted sisters started being the bourgeois pains in the butt they were raised to be. Honestly, they couldn't get more stuck-up if they tried. Nell and I tried to stay friends with them….but then they found their parent's copy of Le Notre Dame de Paris. From then on, it was all they wanted to play. And they always made me be Quasimodo, because I was the outcast of the group. Nell was forced to be the priest, Frollo. Since both of the sisters actually liked Ben, he was always Pheobus, and there was a huge argument between them on who would get to be Fleur-de-Lys.

"Quasimodo! I told you, you're not supposed to kiss Esmeralda a million times!" Our 'Fleur-de-Lys' shouted at me. Truth be told, I didn't care. I wanted to be in the tree above her head, hurling acorns at the both of them.

"Leanne, I'm not playing anymore. I've told you before, I hate this game." But she didn't like that.

"You'll play, or I'll make you play! I'll show you how hard it is to deal with me!" Leanne balled her hands into fists, looking generally threatening. But I wasn't threatened.

"Go 'head 'n' 'it me, then! See if Oi care." I internally grimaced…I usually hid the cockney around Leanne and Jessica.

Unfortunately….Leanne listened and hit me right in the face. I managed to dodge in time to keep it from being a black eye, but it still hurt. "Damn it, whoi'd ya do that?"

"I told you I'd make you play." She looked irritatingly smug. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was wipe that smug grin off her face…I didn't remember much after that, except that it was Nell and Grace who finally pulled me off of Leanne.