Ella Revenged
Four of these characters are not mine: Ella (older), Char, Mandy, and Areida. If I missed anyone, please inform me. These characters belong to Gail Carson Levine, and I greatly respect her work. (GO GAIL!)
"Done." I wiped my forehead as though I had sweat on my brow, but I didn't. I was wiping away the effort of concentration. I snapped the red mathematics book shut and placed it on the shelf beside me. I didn't know why I bothered to finish my studies. I was leaving tonight anyway. I was tired of this life.
By the way, I'm Ella, or Eleanor, after my mother and grandmother, and I believe my great grandmother. My great grandmother died before my mother even knew her, and my grandmother died when my mother was fourteen. I never knew her, of course, but my mother says that she would have loved me, and my brothers. Of which, I have three, unfortunately.
"Although they seem terrible," my mother will say, "I know of a worse situation." Then she will gather us around her, I at her feet, Stephen, the youngest, on her lap along with Percival, and Isti being three years older than I, stood near father, smiling at the tale he had heard so often. Then she began the story once we are all comfortable. "There was once a bad fairy, who would use big bad magic to put curses on people. Her name was"-
"LUCINDA!" we all recited. At this point mother would and father would laugh together, seeming merry and young again. I smiled and leaned against mother's dark green velvet leg (don't worry, I mean her dress is dark green and velvet), a signal for her to continue.
"Oh yes, right then. " She'd giggle. Then she would go back into her special story voice and tell about how the fairy made a girl be obedient, and how the girl had lost her mother, was forced to go to finishing school, run away, get caught by vicious ogres who almost made her cook herself, get rescued by a prince she knew, and make her way to see Lucinda, who wouldn't take the curse off her, she met her father, and went back home where her father informed her that he had lost all their money, then married a wench of a mother, and when the mother found out she made the girl a servant in her own home, she wrote to the prince, who asked her to marry him, but she couldn't because of the curse, this broke the curse, because refusing the marriage would have saved the kingdom. Of course it was a lot more exciting, filled with action and adventure and other fun things. Anyway, the moral of the story was that things could always get worse. I always believed her, even when it wasn't logical, but I knew that in this world, things weren't logical, and I hated being so. When your raised a princess, this is what happens, it isn't all balls and parties, mind you.
Goodness, now look what I've done, ok, now lets get back to where I started:
After I have done the work my tutor assigns me, I'm allowed to do what I please. I exited my desk and searched for my play clothes. After a thorough search through my closet, and all through my things without luck, I decided to call for Lily.
"Lily!" I almost sang the syllables. She cane through the doors to my room panting. "You know you shouldn't run!" I rushed over to her. "You've already sprained your ankle, do you wish to break your leg?" I helped her over to my bed. She had weak bones, yet her family still had to work for us, they needed the money. I had tried to give her some of mine, but she wouldn't have it. She would have been my best friend in this place if it weren't for the fact that her parents were so worried about her condition, they wouldn't allow her to play at all. And she was the only one in the whole stinking castle that was my age. When she was breathing normally again I asked her, "Have you seen my play dress?" She frowned.
"It's not there?" she stuttered in her squeaky voice she used especially for worried situations.
"I'll double check." I answered. After another through check, which included the rest of the room, I found it underneath my bed. Lily giggled. "Oh yeah. I forgot." I blushed red while I beat the dust off. "Thanks Lily." She curtsied and left the room. I closed the door and was about to close the curtains for the window seat when I noticed something odd. A huge group of hustling people with packages wrapped in brown paper and crates of food were coming across the lawn towards the castle. Then it hit me.
Well actually one hit me mentally, the other physically. The decorations and food were for Isti's sixteenth birthday party. He wanted a ball held in order to 'get better acquainted with the people.' I called it being foolish and conceited around girls. The other thing that hit me was a pebble thrown by my younger brother Percival on my back. He was nearing age seven, and therefore found it necessary to be a pest. I whipped around to see what happened. He stood laughing and pointing, pleased with is joke. I took a deep breath and rushed over to him. Since I was built after my father, I am tall for my age, not to mention strong. So it was easy for me to pick him up, which he hates, and hold him while he squirmed.
"Percy, how many times have I told you that it isn't kind to hit people with stones?" I scolded. "You must be civilized, you're a prince. If you hit me one more time, I promise you, your teddy won't be safely on your bed tomorrow. " At the suggestion of having his precious teddy taken away from him, tears began to streak down his filthy face. I set him back on the ground and watched in frustration as he picked up another pebble while scampering around the corner. I knew he had only pretended to cry, he was getting better at it too. Well, I wouldn't have to deal with that if my plans went through as I hoped they would. I tried not to think of that now. I sighed and walked back into my room.
After struggling for 5 minutes with the dress, I sat on the top of the stair rail and slid down easily, without flailing. I landed on the cushion mother always kept at the bottom, in case of accidents, and looked back up the stairs, considering another ride. I looked out the window, the sun was already begging to go low in the sky, and the people in the ballroom across the hall were moving more rapidly. No, no time for another ride.
I slowly opened one of the many entrance doors to the kitchen. Mandy wasn't inside. She was probably helping mom with something, they were almost like mother and daughter, but Mandy seemed older. There were dinner rolls on the table, along with carrots for salad. I grabbed a roll and a carrot and sped out of the kitchen. Mandy could be back any moment, and didn't approve of me grabbing treats for the centaurs. I headed towards the paddock.
For Isti's eighth birthday, (I was four), he received a centaur mare named Strawberry. My mother was given a centaur colt by my father when she was fifteen, so he was an adult now. Apple, the colt, had been bred with the beautiful Strawberry, so now we had another centaur colt, Carrot. I had named him that when he was born. I was six at the time, and my favorite vegetable became his name.
As I approached the family I started whistling. All three of them turned their heads. I smiled as Carrot, always the first to notice a treat, came running towards the fence where I sat. I tossed him the carrot and he caught it in midair. He began to munch noisily, and I wished he would understand me when I told him to close his mouth while he ate. Apple and Strawberry came over to me, searching for their treat. I broke the roll in half and handed it to them. I jumped over the fence carefully and waited for them to finish eating. Carrot immediately began running in circles around me and pouncing teasingly. I smiled happily.
Our game often got dangerous, but I learned to sit on the ground and ignore him when he got too dangerous. I touched him on the shoulder and ran the other way. He immediately came chasing after me and touched my shoulder. We went back and forth, hiding behind trees and surprise tagging. Every once and a while Strawberry would let me onto her back for a faster ride. Eventually I touched Carrot three times on the shoulder, which meant the game had ended and I had won. He ran the length of the paddock, to let off steam. He hated loosing. I jumped off Strawberry and did a victory cartwheel which was messed up from my easily tangled skirts. I fell to the grass and looked at the purple and orange sky.
"The world is so beautiful." I thought to myself. Suddenly Carrot's face popped in front of my view. I smiled and stood up, wondering why people thought centaurs were so stupid. It was obvious to me that they were just as smart as the humans they looked like, but they just didn't want to mar the beauty of the earth, so they left it alone, and forgot their powers of thought to keep out thoughts that we humans had kept and used to destroy our mother.
I brushed my hand through Carrot's golden blonde hair and smiled. His hair looked red in the sunset. Sunset! I whipped around to see that the sun was almost below the hills. I would have to hurry if I ever wanted to make my last appearance at that ball.
In two seconds I had jumped over the fence(with much difficulty from the stupid skirt) and headed towards the back door of Mandy's kitchen.
Four of these characters are not mine: Ella (older), Char, Mandy, and Areida. If I missed anyone, please inform me. These characters belong to Gail Carson Levine, and I greatly respect her work. (GO GAIL!)
"Done." I wiped my forehead as though I had sweat on my brow, but I didn't. I was wiping away the effort of concentration. I snapped the red mathematics book shut and placed it on the shelf beside me. I didn't know why I bothered to finish my studies. I was leaving tonight anyway. I was tired of this life.
By the way, I'm Ella, or Eleanor, after my mother and grandmother, and I believe my great grandmother. My great grandmother died before my mother even knew her, and my grandmother died when my mother was fourteen. I never knew her, of course, but my mother says that she would have loved me, and my brothers. Of which, I have three, unfortunately.
"Although they seem terrible," my mother will say, "I know of a worse situation." Then she will gather us around her, I at her feet, Stephen, the youngest, on her lap along with Percival, and Isti being three years older than I, stood near father, smiling at the tale he had heard so often. Then she began the story once we are all comfortable. "There was once a bad fairy, who would use big bad magic to put curses on people. Her name was"-
"LUCINDA!" we all recited. At this point mother would and father would laugh together, seeming merry and young again. I smiled and leaned against mother's dark green velvet leg (don't worry, I mean her dress is dark green and velvet), a signal for her to continue.
"Oh yes, right then. " She'd giggle. Then she would go back into her special story voice and tell about how the fairy made a girl be obedient, and how the girl had lost her mother, was forced to go to finishing school, run away, get caught by vicious ogres who almost made her cook herself, get rescued by a prince she knew, and make her way to see Lucinda, who wouldn't take the curse off her, she met her father, and went back home where her father informed her that he had lost all their money, then married a wench of a mother, and when the mother found out she made the girl a servant in her own home, she wrote to the prince, who asked her to marry him, but she couldn't because of the curse, this broke the curse, because refusing the marriage would have saved the kingdom. Of course it was a lot more exciting, filled with action and adventure and other fun things. Anyway, the moral of the story was that things could always get worse. I always believed her, even when it wasn't logical, but I knew that in this world, things weren't logical, and I hated being so. When your raised a princess, this is what happens, it isn't all balls and parties, mind you.
Goodness, now look what I've done, ok, now lets get back to where I started:
After I have done the work my tutor assigns me, I'm allowed to do what I please. I exited my desk and searched for my play clothes. After a thorough search through my closet, and all through my things without luck, I decided to call for Lily.
"Lily!" I almost sang the syllables. She cane through the doors to my room panting. "You know you shouldn't run!" I rushed over to her. "You've already sprained your ankle, do you wish to break your leg?" I helped her over to my bed. She had weak bones, yet her family still had to work for us, they needed the money. I had tried to give her some of mine, but she wouldn't have it. She would have been my best friend in this place if it weren't for the fact that her parents were so worried about her condition, they wouldn't allow her to play at all. And she was the only one in the whole stinking castle that was my age. When she was breathing normally again I asked her, "Have you seen my play dress?" She frowned.
"It's not there?" she stuttered in her squeaky voice she used especially for worried situations.
"I'll double check." I answered. After another through check, which included the rest of the room, I found it underneath my bed. Lily giggled. "Oh yeah. I forgot." I blushed red while I beat the dust off. "Thanks Lily." She curtsied and left the room. I closed the door and was about to close the curtains for the window seat when I noticed something odd. A huge group of hustling people with packages wrapped in brown paper and crates of food were coming across the lawn towards the castle. Then it hit me.
Well actually one hit me mentally, the other physically. The decorations and food were for Isti's sixteenth birthday party. He wanted a ball held in order to 'get better acquainted with the people.' I called it being foolish and conceited around girls. The other thing that hit me was a pebble thrown by my younger brother Percival on my back. He was nearing age seven, and therefore found it necessary to be a pest. I whipped around to see what happened. He stood laughing and pointing, pleased with is joke. I took a deep breath and rushed over to him. Since I was built after my father, I am tall for my age, not to mention strong. So it was easy for me to pick him up, which he hates, and hold him while he squirmed.
"Percy, how many times have I told you that it isn't kind to hit people with stones?" I scolded. "You must be civilized, you're a prince. If you hit me one more time, I promise you, your teddy won't be safely on your bed tomorrow. " At the suggestion of having his precious teddy taken away from him, tears began to streak down his filthy face. I set him back on the ground and watched in frustration as he picked up another pebble while scampering around the corner. I knew he had only pretended to cry, he was getting better at it too. Well, I wouldn't have to deal with that if my plans went through as I hoped they would. I tried not to think of that now. I sighed and walked back into my room.
After struggling for 5 minutes with the dress, I sat on the top of the stair rail and slid down easily, without flailing. I landed on the cushion mother always kept at the bottom, in case of accidents, and looked back up the stairs, considering another ride. I looked out the window, the sun was already begging to go low in the sky, and the people in the ballroom across the hall were moving more rapidly. No, no time for another ride.
I slowly opened one of the many entrance doors to the kitchen. Mandy wasn't inside. She was probably helping mom with something, they were almost like mother and daughter, but Mandy seemed older. There were dinner rolls on the table, along with carrots for salad. I grabbed a roll and a carrot and sped out of the kitchen. Mandy could be back any moment, and didn't approve of me grabbing treats for the centaurs. I headed towards the paddock.
For Isti's eighth birthday, (I was four), he received a centaur mare named Strawberry. My mother was given a centaur colt by my father when she was fifteen, so he was an adult now. Apple, the colt, had been bred with the beautiful Strawberry, so now we had another centaur colt, Carrot. I had named him that when he was born. I was six at the time, and my favorite vegetable became his name.
As I approached the family I started whistling. All three of them turned their heads. I smiled as Carrot, always the first to notice a treat, came running towards the fence where I sat. I tossed him the carrot and he caught it in midair. He began to munch noisily, and I wished he would understand me when I told him to close his mouth while he ate. Apple and Strawberry came over to me, searching for their treat. I broke the roll in half and handed it to them. I jumped over the fence carefully and waited for them to finish eating. Carrot immediately began running in circles around me and pouncing teasingly. I smiled happily.
Our game often got dangerous, but I learned to sit on the ground and ignore him when he got too dangerous. I touched him on the shoulder and ran the other way. He immediately came chasing after me and touched my shoulder. We went back and forth, hiding behind trees and surprise tagging. Every once and a while Strawberry would let me onto her back for a faster ride. Eventually I touched Carrot three times on the shoulder, which meant the game had ended and I had won. He ran the length of the paddock, to let off steam. He hated loosing. I jumped off Strawberry and did a victory cartwheel which was messed up from my easily tangled skirts. I fell to the grass and looked at the purple and orange sky.
"The world is so beautiful." I thought to myself. Suddenly Carrot's face popped in front of my view. I smiled and stood up, wondering why people thought centaurs were so stupid. It was obvious to me that they were just as smart as the humans they looked like, but they just didn't want to mar the beauty of the earth, so they left it alone, and forgot their powers of thought to keep out thoughts that we humans had kept and used to destroy our mother.
I brushed my hand through Carrot's golden blonde hair and smiled. His hair looked red in the sunset. Sunset! I whipped around to see that the sun was almost below the hills. I would have to hurry if I ever wanted to make my last appearance at that ball.
In two seconds I had jumped over the fence(with much difficulty from the stupid skirt) and headed towards the back door of Mandy's kitchen.