A Cinderella Story

NOTE: Last chapter, it's revealed that Sasuke is an awesome guy – an honor student, a varsity jock, a musician and a dancer rolled into one.

CHAPTER 3: The Queen of Hell and Her Chores

The Big Friday approaches close, because it's only 3 days to that Big Friday. Girls are jittering, excited to wear their dresses and huge amounts of make-up. Boys are trying to find excuses NOT to go. It's the Konoha High Midnight Masquerade Ball.

This festivity involves girls wearing black dresses. Some of them have a touch of silver in it. The boys just wear tuxedos, with some of them wearing hats. To top it off, they wear masquerade masks.

Sakura just doesn't seem so glad about it…

5PM. Sakura and Hinata are hanging out at Sakura's room, watching movies, eating ice cream. Sakura's stepmother and stepsisters aren't home yet. Apparently, they'd be home by 5:30 from her [stepmother's] latest boobjob [yes, she's slut] and their [stpsisters'] latest nosejobs. [The sisters are trying to "have" Angelina Jolie's nose].

"Hinata", Sakura spoke with a bit of remorse, sitting on a chair near the door, "I can't go to the ball with you."

Hinata got up from Sakura. She squeaked sadly, "But you have to go!! I worked on our dresses for nearly a month. Besides, I promise you, our dresses will be awesome."

Sakura scooped in her spoon into the tub of mint-n-chips ice cream and said, "I don't know, Hinata. We don't have dates, and ¾ of the school barely know that I go to the school."

Hinata pleaded, enticing Sakura's mind about going to the ball, "Oh, come on. It's going to be exciting, wearing masks." Then, Hinata's tone became angrier and her speed in speech went faster, progressively, "If you go to the ball, boys will know the real you, not some bogus creature created by those crappy cliques who think they rule the school, when the actual and only thing they do is just be skanky, stupid, slutty, scumsucking roadwhores and plus—"

"HINATA!!" Sakura stopped Hinata.

Hinata stopped her speech and asked, "Yes?"

Sakura pointedout, "You should really breathe in between monologues."

"Bottom line: YOU'RE GOING TO THE BALL" Hinata concluded.

Sakura finished her tub of ice cream and suggested, "I'll see what I can do."

"I hope you do" Hinata got off the bed, and greeted Sakura goodbye and left. Sakura looked up at the clock. It was 5:15. Well, better prepare dinner for Her Royal Bitch-ness. Sakura thought to herself and left her room.

6PM. Dinner was actually done well. Sakura served a tray of crab puffs with tartar sauce, and last night's delivery of Quadruple Chocolate Cake: chocolate cake, chocolate filling, chocolate toppings, and chocolate icing.

Shikamaru lay in Sasuke's bed, waiting for dinner. Sasuke was reading his Algebra book, because he had a big Algebra test the next day.

Sasuke looked at his best friend and asked, "Shouldn't you be studying for your chemistry test tomorrow?"

"Oh…um…" Shikamaru sat up and said, "Hit me with a chemistry book, boy."

Sasuke grabbed his 4th Year Chemistry Book and threw it at Shikamaru, who caught it without the book flying past him.

Shikamaru held the hardbound book up in the air, proudly saying, "I've always had awesome dexterity."

As he put down the book, Shikamaru was hit on the face by a flying basketball and fell off the bed.

Sasuke laughed, "Awesome dexterity my ass."

Shikamaru recovered from the hit and threw the basketball at Sasuke's face, which also had a perfect hit. Sasuke fell from his chair and laughed really hard. So did Shikamaru.

It was the afternoon of the Big Night. All the students went home fast.

Sakura is cleaning the living room. She's polishing the gold and silverware, waxing the floor, and dusting whatever needed to be dusted. After doing these chores, Sakura was exhausted. After a few minutes, she took a shower and ran back to her room, getting ready for the ball. Hinata sent her dress by delivery, so that Sakura won't have to drive all the way there to Sakura's house.

Meanwhile, with Ino and Temari, they were getting ready for their ball. Ino and Temari were in their bathrobes, with their aloe vera facial scrub on their faces.

"Mother? Hello, mother." Ino and Temari greeted their mother, who was having a manicure and a face treatment.

Their mother, feeling relaxed spoke "Hello, my little girls. These ladies giving me my treatment are Arika, Mikiya, and Medusa. I'm thinking of having one of them as our new personal face treatment-people."

She referred to three ladies near her. Arika had black hair that's been tied to a bun, and she was treating the old lady's face. Mikiya has rich, auburn hair and she treated the feet. As for Medusa, she dealt with the face, and was a blond. All three ladies were wearing white, with white shoes and stockings to match.

Then she stopped speaking for a while, then continued on, "Is there anything you want?" Their mother was sounding and feeling relaxed. "Extra rings or bracelets, I presume?"

"Oh, it's about the prom." Ino continued, "and Sakura."

Their mother asked subconsciously, "Well, what's between the ball and Sakura?"

"I THINK SHE'S PLANNING TO GO, F.Y.I.!!" Temari yelled impatiently, as thought she was tired of Ino slowing things down right now.

Their mother told the treatment ladies to stop. "Medusa, take off these cucumbers from my face…"

Medusa took off the cucumber slices from stepmother's face. The stepmother said, "Oh no no no no no. That won't do."

Ino squealed overjoyed that she gets to bitch Sakura by stopping her from going to the ball. "Tell her to do my homework—"

"AHEM?!" Temari called Ino's attention.

"Okay, our homework."

"Okay, darlings. I will, and I'll add an extra teeny-weeny chore for her to do." their stepmother grinned.

………………………………………....few minutes later…………..…………………..……….

Sakura was nearly ready to take off her clothes and change into her gown from Hinata when suddenly, her door went open. In came a figure she knew was evil – her stepmother.

"Sakura, I have 2 jobs for you to do."

"But Hinata and I are going to the ball and I've done every chore that needs to be done—"

"Not."

Sakura was surprised. She wondered what those two could have been.

"My clothes, and my children's schoolwork."

Her stepmother grabbed Sakura's hand and dragged her through a long series of corridors [did I mention her stepmom lives in a mansion?] and led her to a room filled with clothes. These clothes, underwear and pants had stains, stains that were so repulsive to look at. It was as though these clothes hadn't been washed in years. Even worse, there are two stacks of these things.

"Oh God." was all Sakura could say.

Stepmother commanded, "These stains were so hard to remove, I kept them all here. I want you to clean all these clothes and make them look like clothes fit for a queen."

"Stepmother, I need probably a thousand boxes of detergent to remove the stains of probably ¼ of one stack over here." Sakura complained, dismayed.

Stepmother shot Sakura a glare full of warning, saying, "Don't you sass me, young lady. Now clean this all up—oh yes, I completely forgot. Open that closet." She pointed at a closet that seemed like it couldn't close due to over-consumption of space by certain objects.

Sakura reluctantly opened the closet and out came a flood of books, papers and other school stuff, causing Sakura to fall and suffer from the mass and weight of these things. Stepmother came closer to Sakura and said, "Finish the schoolwork of my children."

Sakura stood up and screamed, "BOTH?!"

"Yes, young lady, both children. Now, get to work." Her stepmother left the room and slammed the door.

Sakura put both her hands on her face and muttered, "Oh God." How is Sakura going to get out of this mess? It would take her all eternity to finish cleaning her stepmother's clothes and her stepsisters' schoolwork.

Sakura took out her cell phone and called Hinata. Few minutes later, Hinata picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Hinata, it's Sakura. I can't go to the ball. I have to do Ino and Hinata's school stuff. To make things worse, I have to clean my stepmother's clothes, the dirtiest clothes one can ever imagine of thinking."

"Are there bugs crawling in those stacks of clothes?"

"There are species of insects in there that are still yet unknown to Science. I have to go. I need to clean up these things." and Sakura dropped off.

++++++++++++++++++++ MONTAGE +++++++++++++++++

Sakura has her gasmask on, putting all the clothes into the washing machine. She placed the right amount of detergent, and cloth conditioner. She turned it on, and things went well. The only thing that went wrong now was… the washing machine broke down. The machine stopped, made crackly sounds and went boom.

Sakura was devastated and despairing. "Oh, no. God, no no no. Please."

MEANWHILE…

Ino and Temari were near the laundry room, where Sakura was. They were near the electrical box, and they caused the power in the laundry room to go off, which made it worse for Sakura.

"Great idea hindering Sakura by turning off the power in the laundry room, Temari." Ino complemented. "You deserve a gold star for that."

"I know." Temari said snobbishly and left for her room. Ino followed until she reached her room.

BACK TO SAKURA…

7PM. Ino, Temari and their stepmother left the house. Her stepmother said they'll be back at 12MN. Sakura only did 1/30 of the work. There was too much of all this. Was she now out of reach, beyond help, lost from salvation of getting out of that room?

These thoughts clouded Sakura's mind when suddenly, she heard knocking. Someone was knocking on the window. Sakura turned to the window and found her friends, Hinata and Naruto there. She walked to the window, opened it and hugged her friends. "Guys, what are you doing here? What about the ball?"

"Well, we came to redeem you. The junior varsity jocks are here and the freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior nerds who didn't attend the ball." Naruto said proudly.

Sakura shed a tear of joy, "You did this all for me?"

"Well," Hinata said, "couldn't have you miss the ball. The nerds will do all the schoolwork of Ino and Temari. The jocks are here to take the clothes. We'll load them into the truck and take them to the cleaners."

"What about the money?"

"Well, it'll come out from 1/8 of my savings and ¼ of Naruto's bank account." Hinata said.

Sakura complemented them, saying "You guys are geniuses."

Hinata nearly forgot one thing. "Oh yeah, get your dress on. I have an overcoat you can use for it."

"O…kay?" Sakura said. She ran out of the room and ran towards her room. She closed the door and took of her clothes.

She put on the dress by Hinata and took a look at the mirror. It was a black tango dress, bathed in dashes of silver and a bit of red. It had a red flower near her right chest. She took out a box from under her bed. It was her treasure box, where she kept to most valuable things. Sakura took out a masquerade mask from her mother. It was like a pair of wings, bathed in gold with a few studded rubies by the right. The right part of her mask had wings extending a few millimeters long. The bottom part of the "wings" curved downward to cover a little of Sakura's face, but not her mouth.

She took out her mother's 24K ruby, sapphire, topaz and emerald bracelet and put it on her left wrist. This bracelet had a pattern of ruby-sapphire-topaz-emerald that repeated twice and were connected by a golden ball, which served as a lock for the bracelet to stay in Sakura's wrist.

Sakura put on her black stilettos [3in.] and left her room, forgetting to close her box and putting it back under her bed.

She returned to the laundry room, ready to go to the ball. Naruto led Sakura to the ladder he and Hinata used to go up. Now, they were going down. Sakura asked where they were taking her stepmother's dirty clothes. Hinata said that there was a cleaning service that was a few blocks away. In fact, the laundry service was so big, they owned the entire block, plus, they were on 24hr. service, which gave Sakura her advantage. They said the mess will be done and delivered to her house by 11:45PM.

The nerds were scattered all over the house and they said all this homework will be done by 9PM, and they were smart enough to know where to put it – in Ino's and Temari's room.

Finally, it was time for Sakura to have the time of her life – to go to the Konoha High Midnight Masquerade Ball.

Well, that's it for chappie 3. I'm thinking of a bunch of ideas for chappie 4, so stay tuned with me, okay?

Remember, keep on RxR, please? :3