Chapter 2
"How much longer?" Lucretia whined, starting to kick her fat feet in impatience. "I'm cold!"
"Hush! It shouldn't be too long. Cinderella had to have been down there hours before midnight to accomplish all she did. Wait – what's that sound?"
They pricked their ears up and listened. There was a distant, tinkly-bell sound. In a cloud of sparkling red and white bubbles there appeared an ugly young man in a fantastic golden suit and hat. He stared at the goggle-eyed pair with surprise.
"Who are you?!" shrieked the girls, clutching their necks in shock.
"I was about to ask you the same question," replied the fairy gentleman, stepping lightly to the floor. He must have been about four feet high. "I was expecting a – different girl."
"Never mind about her, she's already married. Aren't you supposed to be a godmother?"
"No – Ma was busy and she sent me. Goodness, what a pair you are. Alright, what do you need? Dresses, carriages, engraved invitations?"
The girls looked at each-other in silent agreement and turned to the little man with the bold faces of people determined to do something drastic.
"My sister and I wish to attend the public dance but we have neither clothes, transportation or connections. Could you help?"
"Certainly!" he cried with a snap of his fingers. "I was just waiting for you to ask! Now, first, clothes. I have no idea what modern girls are wearing so you'll have to help me. Skirts – full or narrow? Are the necklines high or low? Hairstyles, up or down? Are hats in for evening wear?"
The girls had been furtively bobbing and shaking their heads to his relentless questions.
"Of course you'll need gloves, a mantle, a reticule. And what about legs? Do they wear stockings now, or none at all?"
Aspasia reached to slap him for this slight to her outraged modesty, but her hand whizzed right through him. It seemed like no time had passed before the silly sisters were finally dressed and the fairy gentleman stepped lightly back to survey his handiwork.
"Quite right, quite right, my dears, those towering powdered wigs were just the thing to set you off. All dressed, then?"
Lucretia demurely raised her hems a few inches to reveal her bare feet. The little gentleman was awhirl again.
"Shoes, shoes, shoes! How could I have forgotten them!" A brilliant flash of light sent off trails of sparkling blue dust, in the midst of which were two tiny pairs of – what else? – glass slippers.
"Very funny," muttered Lucretia, whose fat feet could never negotiate anything so tiny.
"What kind of deformities do you think we are?" Aspasia scowled at the little man. "Why, I couldn't even force my big toe into one of those. Something bigger, please?"
"And what sort of magician do you think I am?" he hurled back, flitting madly about the room like a moth. "Hardly finished my training and expected to conjure up more than four glass slippers in one night? I doubt that. You'll take what I can give you! What do you ladies say to china?"
"Fine, fine, anything!"
In an instant the promised shoes were on their feet, slippers of vulgarly painted china. They were cold and painful, with extremely pointed toes and high heels – and no give whatsoever. But our girls were bound and determined – and if Cinderella had snagged a prince with slippers so uncomfortable, there was nothing more to be said.
"You'll be needing a carriage next, I suppose?" whined the fairy, tapping nervous fingers. "Have you ladies any sort of vegetable about?"
His question could hardly have been more appropriate. In seconds each sister had a hated potato in her hand and was thrusting it eagerly at him. He eyed them curiously.
"And what are these?"
"Why, potatoes, of course!"
"That's all you girls can give me?"
"You perhaps see something we don't?" sighed Aspasia, casting a glance about her. "All there is, is potatoes."
"You're sure?"
"Quite sure."
With a heavy sigh the little gentleman took up the spuds and threw them into the air. They began to spin so fast they quite disappeared from view. Many coloured sparks began to fly off them when they suddenly shot out the window into the road. The girls looped up their heavy skirts and flew into the street after them.
There, they stood stock-still in amazement. In the street stood a closed coach of unimagined splendour, studded with stones and fitted with cosy seats upholstered in tufted silk – and looking about as lovely as a gold-plated potato can possibly look, given its lumps, bumps and eyes. On the whole, it was really quite beautiful.
"Didn't you throw two potatoes out the window?" Lucretia wanted to know.
"Yes, but you didn't think I would make a coach for each of you if you were both going to the same place, did you? For a coach that size, you can see that I needed both potatoes."
Our pair could hardly argue. Aspasia picked at a jewel on the hubcap as she entered the coach.
"Are these real?"
"Pretty near, I'd say!" chirped the fairy. "Now, get in, get in – that's the way –" he puffed, shoving the plump Lucretia after her sister, being careful to mind her towering wig. Aspasia poked a dainty nose out the window – it really was a dainty nose; these sisters were not as ugly as history would have you believe – with a rather good thought:
"What's pulling this thing?"
"Pulling it?"
"Yes, horse, camel, mule – anything, quick!"
The fairy gentleman was deft of hand and capable of performing tricks that had confounded cleverer people than this pair. A screeching cat in the alley next became a proper horse; two gutter rats became drivers and a sooty street sparrow the footman.
The coach set off as the girls turned back to wave at the little fairy gentleman, who was standing in the middle of the dark road and waving back.
"What time do we have to be home?" shouted Lucretia.
"I think you both know that better than I do!" he replied, and promptly vanished.
"What'd he mean by that?"
"Hush! He means midnight, Ooh, Lu!" Aspasia squealed, hugging her sister tight. "We're really off to the dance!"