Cinderella
On Planet Pomelo lived a rich nobleman with light green skin and short thick emerald green hair with a fine beard. His first wife had died during childbirth, leaving him with a small son called Zarbon. After some years the man married again, but his second wife was as proud as she was mean and loved no one but her 2 daughters. The 2 girls were large in stature from all the fine food bestowed to them, their hair was always frizzy and greasy and their skin oily and spotty. These girls, in turn, were jealous of the man's first child. His skin was flawless and pale, his hair grew long and soft and glossy, his rare coloured eyes shone bright like precious amber. In time the sisters made themselves the centre of the household, until Zarbon was almost altogether forgotten, forced to become their servant. He had to scrub the floors and wash the dishes, shake out the heavy feather beds and, worst of all, get up before dawn each day to clean out the cinders in the hearth.
He slept in the attic on a sack of straw. In the wintertime, the snow would blow through the tiles and cover the sack like an eiderdown, so he would lay himself down near the ashes and cinders in the kitchen hearth to keep himself warm, making his clothes dusty with the ashes from the fire. For this reason, and because his beauty was almost feminine, the 2 sisters used to call him Cinderella. In fact, they were envious of him, for no matter how hard Zarbon worked nor how ragged his clothes were, he still looked far prettier then they.
One day the king's son, Prince Dodoria gave a ball and invited all the highest class people to it. The prince was of age to find a wife and his father was keen for him to find one at the ball. Zarbon's stepmother and her daughters were invited along with the rest, and the sisters set to work at once ordering elaborate gown makers, jewellers and hairdressers to make them up. They made Zarbon starch the lace and pleat the frills on their dresses and steam the velvet and iron the silk.
''I'm going to wear a red velvet gown with white lace trimmings'' said the eldest sister.
''I think,'' said the younger sister, ''that I shall wear a gold flowered blue dress with my diamond bodice.'' Zarbon didn't think people with green skin ought to wear red, and that gold flowers were rather gaudy, but he daren't speak up.
On the day of the ball the sisters teased Zarbon. ''Wouldn't you like to go too?'' they asked. ''Oh, but of course you can't. Everyone there would laugh at the cinder dust on your clothes! Shame, I bet he'd rather like the prince!'' the 2 sisters laughed at him.
''Father!'' shouted a flustered Zarbon towards the older man, ''Tell them I'm not gay!'' Zarbon's father didn't bother looking up from his newspaper. ''It's always the ones that deny it the most, son.'' The sisters laughed as Zarbon's cheeks burned red and he glared at the floor.
As the ball drew near the 2 cruel sisters and their mother left in their coach and drove off to the palace in a cloud of red and blue flounces and frothy lace. Zarbon watched until they were out of sight. Then he went back to sit beside the fire and cried his heart out from loneliness and sorrow. Suddenly there was a tapping at the window, and a strange small lady entered the kitchen carrying a little wand in her hand. She asked Zarbon what was the matter.
''I wish I could… I wish I could…'' Zarbon was crying so hard he couldn't finish his sentence.
''My boy, you wish you could go to the ball. Well, so you shall! Now, be a good boy and run into the garden and bring me a large golden pumpkin fruit.''
Zarbon hurried into the garden and with the help of a lantern chose the finest pumpkin fruit there and bought it to the small lady. The lady took a little silver knife out of her robe and scooped out the centre of the pumpkin fruit, leaving nothing but the rind. Then she struck it with her wand and it instantly turned into a fine coach. Zarbon had seen carriages driving through the street when he was scrubbing the front steps, and had wistfully seen his sisters riding haughtily off to the ball in their stylish coach, but he's never seen a coach like this, all covered in gold the colour of a pumpkin fruit.
Next, the small lady asked him to look in the mousetrap in the pantry, where he found 6 mice, all alive. The lady asked Zarbon to lift up the little trap door, and as each mouse scuttled out she gave it a tap with her wand and turned it into a fine horse with a long flowing mane. In no time they were harnessed to the coach, and made a handsome team of 6 horses with beautiful, mouse coloured grey coats.
''We still need a coachman…'' she said to Zarbon, who at once had an idea. ''There's a rat trap in the shed,'' he cried. ''I'll go and see if there's a rat in it that we could make into a coachman.''
So he bought in the trap and inside it they found a stout rat with splendid whiskers, whom the lady turned into a fat, jolly coachman with a fine moustache. After that she said to Zarbon, ''Go into the garden again and you will find 6 lizards hiding behind the watering can. Bring them to me.'' Zarbon had no sooner done so then the strange lady turned them into 6 footmen in livery who skipped up behind the coach and hung onto its straps as tightly as if they had done nothing else all their lives.
''Oh, yes!'' cried Zarbon. ''But how can I go to the ball dressed in rags like this?''
The small lady touched him once with her wand and his clothes were instantly turned into a suit of the finest silk, silver and white like a summer's night. On his head lay a circlet of silver adorned with pearls, his mattered hair lay in a loose braid over 1 shoulder with a silver clasp at the end, and on his once bare feet pumps of spun glass lined with swansdown appeared
As Zarbon was just about to drive off in his coach and 6, the lady called out. ''Remember to come back before midnight. If you stay a moment longer, the coach will be a pumpkin fruit again, the horses mice, the coachman a rat, the footmen lizards and your clothes as ragged as before.''
Zarbon promised to leave the ball before 12, and then away he drove, trembling with joy.
When Zarbon stepped out of the coach the prince and all the court were struck dumb with admiration. The lords and ladies left off dancing and the minstrals stopped playing, the better to admire the young man's beauty. Then as he walked on the minstrals took up their instruments again and the music sounded more sweetly than ever before.
Everyone present praised Zarbon's beauty and his graceful dancing and wondered who he could be. The prince approached him and conversed with him, Zarbon had never seen a creature quite like the prince before, he was tall and wide, pink with spikes adorning his head and forearms and although he held a serious expression on his face there was a mischievous twinkle to his black eyes. After a short while the prince asked Zarbon to dance, Zarbon was shocked at the offer as he wasn't sure if 2 men should dance together, but as it was the prince asking he accepted and they began to dance. As the evening wore on and the prince danced with no one else, tongues began to wag behind fluttering fans, matronly dowagers with marriageable daughters could not help looking askance beneath their heavily painted eyelids at his uspuring stranger, while the slightest young misses themselves pouted increasingly at their less favoured partners. Zarbon and the prince, however, were oblivious to all of this as they danced the evening away at what could have been their own private ball.
It is hard to say which of the 2 was the most transported- Zarbon, who seemed made of starlight, or Prince Dodoria who help him luminously in his arms. Certain it is that the prince was so entranced by him that he did not even notice when supper was served and ate not a morsel of the rich banquet that had been prepared. Zarbon sat down by his sisters, politely offering them some of the sugared oranges and lemons that the prince had given him. This flattered the 2 vain girls, who never recognised the handsome stranger as the boy they had left in the ashes at home.
Zarbon walked away onto the balcony into the fresh air. Feelings of confusion flowing through him, he had wished to attend the ball to speak to people, to learn, to glimpse a world outside the house his sisters forbade him to leave, but now all he could think of was the prince. Was it wrong? Was there something wrong with him? Why would another man be on his mind? And why did his heart seem to flutter every time they touched whilst dancing. With a sigh he returned to the ball room. When the clock struck a quarter to midnight Zarbon rose to go. He bowed to the company and hurried away before anyone could even ask his name.
When he reached home the small strange lady was still there and he told her what a wonderful time he'd had and that the prince begged him to attend the ball the following day too. He was still thanking her when he heard the sound of a coach pulling up, and ran to open the door for his sisters.
They boasted to Zarbon about the lovely stranger who had been so charming to them at the ball, and that the prince had danced all night with another man, none the less! Zarbon had to turn away so they would not see him smiling.
Next evening the 2 sisters went to the ball again, and so did Zarbon. Prince Dodoria never left his side and the 2 of them danced and talked until they felt they'd known each other their whole lives. So lost were they in each other that Zarbon quite lost track of time. As the clock struck midnight, he started up and fled through the palace like a deer. The prince hurried after him, but he could not catch him. As Zarbon ran down the great staircase one of his spun glass pumps fell off and the prince picked it up and clutched it to his chest.
The guards at the palace were asked if they had not seen a prince go out. They had seen nobody, they said, save for a young man in rags, who looked like a chimney sweep.
When the 2 sisters returned from the ball they told Zarbon that the prince had quite lost his heart to the mysterious prince who had vanished so suddenly, and that he had done nothing but gaze at the glass pump he left behind for the remainder of the evening.
The prince ordered that the pump should be laid on a silk cushion and carried in state through the city, whilst his heralds read a proclamation that he would marry the person whose foot the shoe fitted. It was to be tried on by every unmarried person, starting with the most noble families. Finally the turn came for Zarbon's sisters to open the door to the royal messenger. They protested that no one else but their father and mother lived in the house, but then Zarbon came to the door smiling and said, ''Let me try on the shoe.'' The sisters protested but the messenger kneeled down and slipped it on Zarbon's foot. It fitted him as if it had been made of wax. Then Zarbon pulled out the other pump from his pocket and put it on his other foot. The small lady appeared again at that moment and changed Zarbon's clothes into magnificent robes of cream and gold, with a golden circlet and earrings decorating his delicate face.
Then his 2 sisters recognised him as the beautiful man at the ball, and they threw themselves at his feet and begged his pardon for their ill treatment of him.
He was brought to the prince, who thought him even more charming than ever after learning of his story. The price confessed to Zarbon that he couldn't marry a woman, although his father had appointed many doctors and psychics to cleanse his mind, he was only attracted to men. Zarbon listened intensively to the princes woes. When the prince lowered his head in sadness Zarbon couldn't help but grasp his large pink hands and clutch them to his chest; ''I feel the same way''.
After hearing of his sisters behaviour Prince Dodoria forbade Zarbon from returning home and offered him a fine room in the palace instead. The 2 spent the days together, soon growing closer. Just a few weeks later whilst walking together in the palace gardens the prince stopped Zarbon and confessed he had fallen quite in love with him, and asked if he might consider marrying him. Zarbon couldn't stop the smile from forming on his lips or the tears from pooling in his eyes as he happily embraced the prince and agreed at once that he'd marry him. The very next week the now 2 princes were married in a lavish ceremony, and they lived together happily ever after.