1Slippers

Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own any sort of fairy tale, or at least not the one this one's revolving around, Cinderella.

Chapter Two-More than Baked Goods

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"The prince is havin' a ball? Well, heaven alive that'll mean a lot of cooking!" Cookie clapped her hands. If Cookie and Lester don't work out, then Cookie and the kitchen certainly have had a history and a definite future together.

As usual, I took it upon myself to be the sensible one. "I doubt the prince himself is having the ball. This sounds like a royal event. I bet his parents did it."

Emi looked at me for a small moment, and then jumped back up, saying, "Well, that still means I have the smallest chance to dance with him." I could practically see the stars forming in her eyes. Yes, there they were- Emi was off in, as we of the staff affectionately call it, Emiworld. I snapped two of my fingers in front of her face, and she came back.

"Sorry."

Cookie let out a small squeal with her and said, "Wait til Lester hears this-he'll have a flip!" Yes, Lester would have a flip. Lester loves gossip, despite being the male version of Emi, only with male things. It's almost funny how similar the two can be at times. I have seen the two exchanging stories about the "family" and giggling, though Lester won't admit that he giggles. He does.

I went back to my station, and turned back to Emi with a bowl of cake mix busying my hands. "He'll love you, if there's a ball. How could anyone not?" Despite the fact that I've never met him and don't know his personality. I don't even know what he looks like. It's almost sad.

Cookie poured some of the leftover mix into another bowl and added some more ingredients, agreeing. "Emi, hun, you are brighter than the sun itself. He'd be crazy...!" She mumbled some more to herself.

I heard Lester come in and settle himself beside Cookie, who slapped his fingers with the wet spoon when he was about to get a cookie. "None o' that! Just like a child sometimes, and..." There was that mumbling again. Cookie never said much about where she was from, but what she did say was that she was never educated in anything but "how to make a darn-good pastry and a sam'mich with it." Her accent was somewhat varied-sometimes she sounded tropical, other times it's southern. She was definitely uniquely Cookie.

Emi came over beside me and said, "Let me help. All I have next is..." She leaned over to check the sheet next to the pantry door that displayed what all the servants did and when. "...I get to go clean off some guest bedrooms at two. Apparently the palatial family is having some extra guests." Everytime she moved, it was like the sun gleamed down on her and made her eyes sparkle and her hair shine. It made the rest of us look lackluster, I thought, looking down at my curly brown hair. At least my eyes were a bright shining blue, when they wanted to be. Sometimes they were stormy. Being in the kitchen so often had rubbed off on my complexion as well; I was pale as snow, but always slightly covered in ashes- that was why I wore the scarf over my hair. I was proud of my looks, no matter how much I wish I didn't care. Servants weren't supposed to care. Emi didn't have to. She just looked like that all the time. Some people got all the luck.. .

I wasn't jealous of her, though it seems like it. For one thing, she entered Emiworld at random times (such as the time she dropped my fresh-off-the-fire pie on the floor). Then there's that happy disposition thing. I didn't know if everyone could handle that much sun, all the time-if you get too much, you get burned. Emi wasn't like that though. Although I had seen her on bad days, and though few and far-between, they were bad.

There was the time that one of the kitchen servants had asked her why she was so smile-y all the time. She gave the guy who asked a look that could rival the deadly accuracy of a bullet to the heart and he was never heard from again. She's just happy. Don't ask why. There's more behind it than she'd say, but I had the feeling that one day the dam she'd built would break, and the truth would come pouring out like a rush of water. Would we be in over our heads? It was best, for right then, to just keep Emi nice and ask no questions. I'd hate to meet the girl who would beat Emi to the prince's heart, for she would not last long with a bloodthirsty happy girl on the warpath. What girl could?

The only way to keep Emi happy was for Emi to have her way. Sometimes I wondered what had brought Emi to this childish behavior of hers. What did her past hold? I brought the cake to another person to bake, as I had many more to make-new guests like desserts. If there has been one thing I've learned these six years, it's that nobody is unhappy when they have a fork-ful of cake shoved in their mouth. Nobody.

"Cookie, dear!" That was Ellen. She was the head supervisor for all the servants, and, well, she knew it. Tall and slim and refined were words that summed up how she looked physically. Mentally-evil. Just...not nice. "Cookie. I'm seeing that not all of the plates are as clean as they could be. Could you please handle that and make the non-clean not non-clean?"

Cookie stood there for a moment thinking over the last part of the last sentence. Then she said, "Yes, of course, Ellen." I could sense the rolling her eyes wanted to do so badly. Call it a sixth sense of mine. Cookie and I are very fine-tuned to how the other is feeling. We have had a late-night kitchen feast before, just the two of us. It was one of the best and happiest memories I have.

As soon as Ellen left, Cookie started to grumble again. "Sometimes, "non-clean not non-clean," meh..." She began to ramble under her breath, and took a spoon and began to viciously stir a batch of cookie mix. I grabbed the spoon from her gently and said, "I think Ellen might mean well underneath all that venom." This really wasn't a very bad request either. One time Ellen had put me on the floors and made me scrub every spot off the kitchen floors because word was the king was coming to check on how the servant floors were holding up. Cookie smiled and grabbed the spoon back while I was distracted.

I went back to where Emi was putting a lattice-weave on a pie for me. I smiled and said, "You're getting better at that, you know."

There were those rainbows again. Someday I decided that I was going to hang a crystal off of her and see if it reflected more, then she'd have them tenfold. Nobody else had that special quality-being able to shine. It would get her far. The only thing I have are pies, I thought, looking around the kitchen. Lots of pies. With a critical eye to making sure I didn't squish a cherry, I thought that seemed very wrong.

There should be more to life than pies. The soft spot in me was crying out for something more, something meaningful. Surely I wouldn't find it there. I couldn't spend my life hiding out in my comfort zone, counting out measuring spoons and scrubbing floors with brushes much too small for the job. Someday I would find it. I didn't think it would be right then, though, with my mouth full of apple pie and Emi stealing a bite under my own fork.

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Small cliffie! Review if you like! I don't want to fish for them.