Chapter One
How it all began
"Cree!" Called Ayiesha. Cree, from her room upstairs whence she wrote her stories, ran down stairs. Her brown eyes were scouring her older sister's black one's searching for any ideas of what her sister could be calling for her when she clearly had no idea what was going on.
"What?" She exhaled out. Her eyebrows lifted, her eyes got bigger, her feet shoulder length apart, hands on her sister's shoulders, mouth wide open. Ayiesha's grin was uncontrollable.
"Remember that picture that I sent in? You know, the one of Prince Charming and Cinderella dancing in the garden outside of that palace?" Cree's hands immediately flew to her mouth and gasped.
"No . . . !" Ayiesha nodded ecstatically. "Holy sugar-monkeys! It got excepted to be in one of those books that people buy for their children? So people all over the world see your picture and then want to know who drew it? So they can call you to buy more of your artwork for more books? And then you'll be famous?" Ayiesha nodded again. "Ahhhhhhh!" Cree screamed as Ayiesha screamed along with her. They danced around and around until they got dizzy, causing them to fall over laughing.
Cree slowly stood up holding up her pointer finger walking to the kitchen. Ayiesha followed her with her eyes puzzled.
"This deserves to be celebrated with the proper prize . . . " Cree buried her face into the freezer side of the refrigerator pulling out an ice cream box. "...chocolate ice cream. Or at least what's left of it." Cree said walking over to the living room where Ayiesha sat on the couch.
"This is a historical moment. Cree Skye Woods is letting me, Ayiesha Hannah Woods, eat her chocolate ice cream."
"Some of her chocolate ice cream. I know, it's rare, but you deserve a bite."
"But this is your ice cream." Cree shrugged her shoulders.
"So. Just because I'm addicted to chocolate ice cream doesn't mean I can't let you have some of my stash as a celebration!" Ayiesha smiled, grabbed the spoon and the box and jabbed the ice cream with the spoon revealing a large spoonful of dark chocolate ice cream.
"Hey!" Cree exclaimed grabbing the box from her. "You took a first kiss scoop!"
"I don't care. Yet you do nothing to prevent it from happening." Ayiesha gummed the last of her ice cream.
"Now I am!" Cree said running toward her.
"Run away!" Ayiesha hurtled toward the kitchen. Cree, wearing wool socks, didn't notice that the floor had been recently waxed. She soon found out that wool socks do not go well with waxed floors as well as the bare feet that Ayiesha had. The next thing Cree knew she was covered in a pile of plastic bowls and chocolate ice cream.
"Then Cinderella flew through the air far from all things ugly and ordinary."
"Ugh! Ordinary, how boring!" Kanye exclaimed, her red hair lay neatly on her shoulders in pigtails. She always carried around her bear Teddy. It was Grem's. Kanye was the only one who had looked like she did when she was a child. Thus, she gave Kanye Teddy.
As usual, Cree would tell everyone a story, her auburn hair in a braid laying down the middle of her back ceasing at her waist.
"When she landed at the ball, she found herself surrounded by pirates!" Kanye snuggled up closer to Ayiesha, her black, straight hair up in a half ponytail cut short at the nape of her neck. "There was Alf Mason, so ugly his mother sold him for a bottle of muscat. Bill Jukes, every inch of him tattooed. And worst of them all, HOOK!" Cree shaped her finger to look like a hook. "His eyes blue as forget-me-nots, except for when he clawed your belly with the iron hook he had instead of a right hand, of which time his eyes turn red." Ayiesha squirmed off Cree's bed from underneath Kanye picking up a fencing sword, pointing it at Cree.
"'Girlie,' said Hook, 'we have come for ye glass slippers.' " Ayiesha growled. Cree picked up another fencing sword from the treasure chest by the window.
"Who are you to order me about and call me 'girlie'?"
"Take that!" Ayiesha thrust forward, causing Cree to block it with a new defensive technique that she had learned that day during her fencing class.
"Take that!" Cree thrust at her, forcing Ayiesha to parry the rest of the time and work her way toward the wall. "And that!" Cree thrust again only to be pushed against the opposing wall where the bookshelf sat, her sword lay at her foe's feet.
"Commoner!" Ayiesha boasted.
"Hook came at her." Cree continued. Ayiesha hurled forward thrusting her sword into the bookshelf causing books to fly everywhere around the crouching body of Cree.
"What happened then? What happened then?" Kanye asked urgently. Cree stood up wiping dust off her jeans.
"The brave Cinderella settled the matter once and for all." Cree announced triumphantly. "With her revolver." Ayiesha dropped her sword with the effect of her floppy arms at her side.
"With her revolver? Don't you think that's a little unfair?" Cree shrugged her shoulders.
"It's how the story goes. My mind, my story." Suddenly Nana, their nurse, let out a bark at the window that was open.
"Nana's barking again." Kanye complained.
The night when the extraordinary adventures of these children have been said to begin was when Nana barked at the window. But there was nothing there, not a bird or a leaf, so they forgot about it. For what troubles a parent, doesn't trouble a child.
"Uh-oh . . . " Cree gasped.
"What?" Ayiesha asked. Cree stared at the digital clock on her bed stand, proudly stating seven o'clock pm.
"Aunt Millicent's here!"
Ding-dong! Aunt Millicent was here. Mr. and Mrs. Woods walked over to their front door fixing things around the house as they went. As they finally decided that the house was tidy enough for their aunt they opened the doors to reveal their home to her.
"Oh, dearest, George, dear Mary. Oh what a journey I've had." Now, Aunt Millicent and Mary came from a rich family. Their riches continued on as their parents died enabling them to live in a large house mostly known as a mansion.
A rumbling that came from the upstairs, made such noise it caused the chandeliers to shake.
"Mary? Mary, why are the lights shaking?" Aunt Millicent asked horrified.
Mary smiled with the mothers sparkle in her eyes. "Bath time."
"Agh!" Kanye ran as Nana chased her. She was wearing a chief headdress, whooping like an Indian in one of Cree's stories. As Kanye was running, she passed the bathroom containing the bathtub that held the warm water that was to get her clean.
Nana suffered to catch up to her but with no avail, at least for Kanye. The two ends of the hall were blocked off. Ayiesha appearing on one side and Nana on the other.
"Kanye. Take your bath."
"I don't need one."
"Why not?'
"I already took one today."
"LIAR! You know where liars go?" Ayiesha said running toward her and picking her up.
"Hell?" Kanye suggested, as they made their way into the bathroom. Ayiesha shook her head as she held her sister above the tub.
"IN THE BATH TUB!" She immediately let go of her sister and Kanye dropped into the tub.
"Not fair!" Kanye complained; Nana trotted in licking her face with kisses. Not fair indeed. But
Nana was the finest nurse on four paws with the help of Ayiesha.
"No. No, I won't forgive you no matter how many kisses you give me!"
