Chapter 3: A Touch of Magic

(Thank you to everyone who's so much as glanced at the title--it's something. Hopefully, I'll add random chapters here and there to the story in a semi-timely manner. But, between play rehearsal, piano lessons, voice lessons, student council, key club, science club, and the like, I have a lot on my plate. Whatever, though. Enjoy, read, review. -Lella)

Cinderella pushed Amelia aside as she ran up the walk to her house.

"Miss, what are you hurrying about?" she called out, not expecting an answer and quickly forgiving Cinderella's rudeness to get indoors.

She ran up the wooden stairs and into her room where she shut the door behind her. Plopping on her feather bed, she read the ad over and over agian. What a great idea!

(Two hours later.)

"What a horrible idea!" her mother shouted from across the kitchen table. "Why on God's great Earth would you want to be a maid? And much less for the royals! I just knew that your father and I did something wrong when we were raising you! Maybe we should have sent you to boarding school instead of that nearby one! How could we have been so ignorant? Now you're corrupted, and it's all my fault. I can't believe this..."

Her mother paced around the entrance of the kitchen, throwing her hands into the air with each new thought that suddenly found its way to her mouth. Cinderella rolled her eyes and leaned back into the chair that she had knocked down the day before. Noticing a small chip on its edge, she rubbed her finger nail back and forth on it to ease her stress and the sharpness of the splintered wood. Her mother glanced her way in the middle of the rant and realized that Cinderella was paying little to no attention to her.

"Cinderella! Are you listening to me?!" her mother yelled while walking over to her.

Cinderella rolled her eyes agian before looking up at her mother (who seemed way to close for comfort). "Mother, I stoped listening to you once you reached the second word of that rant." She quickly stood up, brushed her mother aside, and walked to her room where she slammed the door. While leaning agaisnt the door, she closed her eyes, then opened them quickly when a she heard a mysterious tapping on the wood floor infront of her. Standing there was her grandfather.

"Gr...Grandfather? What are you doing here?" Cinderella asked in shock.

Her grandfather smiled, "I heard that conversation down there."

Cinderella sat on her bed and was followed by Grandfather. "I was pretty cruel, wasn't I?"

He patted her back before answering. "Everyone thinks that they are right when they have a big idea. Obviously, both you and your mother thought she new what was right for you."

"Yes, I know," she mumbled, "But it's my life."

"Well then, maybe you need to go live your life."

Cinderella faced her grandfather and tipped her head to the side, "What do you mean?"

Her grandfather sighed in a slightly annoyed fashion before standing up and crossing to the other side of the bed. In the time it took him to snap his fingers, a magical current ran around him and transformed his average clothes to those fit for a king, changed his balding grey hair to a luminous (and full headed) white, and his wrinkles and laugh-lines dissapeared. Cinderella gasped as she looked at her grandfather...who now appeared thirty years younger and rich.

"What... what is...?" she stumbled over her words as she stood then fell back onto the bed. "Who... are you?!"

Her grandfather bowed and smiled, "Why, I'm your fairy godfather."

"You... what?"

"Your fairy godfather. You simply make a wish, and I will grant it with the power I have. Easy enough, if I do say so myself," he laughed kindly and took a folded wand out of his pocket. Unfolding it, he tapped it twice, and a spirt of magic leaped out like a sparkler.

"But, what happened to my grandfather?!" Cinderella asked in almost panic. This can't be my grandfather! This man isn't even old enough to be my father! This is ridiculous! Cinderella suddenly paused in the middle of her thoughts. But he could grant my wish...

"Yes, I could grant your wish--if only you would commit it to words."

"Don't do that! Play with someone else's head!" Cinderella half joked.

He smiled quickly and tapped his wand against her bed, transforming her quilt into a plush blanket stuffed with swan's feathers. It was fit for a queen in a second, and Cinderella couldn't help but stay seated as she thought of how to ask her wish. "You wish?" he asked to see if she would actually respond.

"Please! Give me a moment! I'm trying to fix my two wishes into one," she replied quietly, with her finger to her lips in thought.

"I can grant more than one wish," he said.

Cinderella looked up with surprise, "Really?"

"Yes, of course!"

"Well then," Cinderella rose and blurted out without putting any of her thought into it, "I want my life to be exciting! I want to be a maid in the castle, working for royals! I don't want to be average or boring! I wish...that my life was how I've always wanted it to be."

Her fairy grandfather stepped forward and tapped his wand on her head.

"Ow!" Cinderella broke out in surprise rather than actual pain. She stood there, looking around her room for a minute, and realized that nothing had changed. "When is this magic of yours going to present itself to me?" she asked.

Her grandfather suddenly folded up the wand, snapped his fingers, and quickly appeared old and wrinkled again, "Sleep on it."

With that, he walked out of the room, leaving Cinderella standing with her mouth open in shock, surprise, and utter confussion.