Cinderella fled the house, the rags that had just been a party dress fluttering at every step. She collapsed in the garden, her arms on a stone bench with her head buried in them and wept. And then—a flash of light! She lifted her head to see—
Me, lighting a cigar. What, fairy godmothers can’t enjoy a smoke now and then? Anyway, it was Cuban; you don’t waste those. The girl blinked once or twice, and I saw that she was actually pretty, in that soft golden hair, big blue eyes, round red lips kind of way. I got the feeling she had been expecting something else, so I took one last drag on the cigar and let it vanish.
“Ahem,” I said.
“Who are you?” she said.
I looked down at myself. Yep, poofy blue dress, wand, even the darned little wings were all in place. How hard was this to figure out? “Your fairy godmother,” I explained, wondering—not for the first time—how I had ended up with this particular assignment. Oh, I know, I told Maggie I’d cover for her, but I thought she meant the little stuff, morning dew or frost or something like that. There’s a reason Management pulled me off regular human-contact cases, not that I didn’t relish the chance to show them what I could do.
She took in a deep breath and clasped her hands dramatically to her heart. “Oh!” she cried.
I rolled my eyes. Why was it always something like “Oh!” never “Bless you, kind lady,” never “Thank you so very much I hope you didn’t have plans tonight.” Which I did, of course. The girls and I had a poker tournament going, and I had been in the lead until Maggie trumped me last night with a full house (I had a pair of aces, not a bad hand if I do say so myself) and I offered to take her assignment the next night in exchange for still being in the game. So there I stood, uniform and all, wondering how best to deal with the little bit of fairy-tale fluff before me.
“Listen, you want to go to this ball thing, right?” I asked.
“Oh, more than anything in the world,” she breathed.
I gave a humph sound. What I wanted more than anything in the world was to get in on the game before Janice got too drunk to deal. I examined the situation. “We’ll need transportation,” I said, thinking aloud.
“But my stepmother and stepsisters have taken the coach already,” she explained.
There were tears glistening in those exquisite blue eyes, but I could see she was trying her hardest to hold them back, so I said, as kindly as I could, “No worries there. Got a pumpkin?” I normally prefer watermelons for such jobs, but this wasn’t the right time of year for them and probably not even the right hemisphere.
“Oh, yes!” She dashed off, quick as you like, and I gave a little approving smile. At least this one might not be totally useless. I would still be the one doing all the hard work here, but at least she would have the satisfaction of knowing that on this, the most important night of her life, she had at least fetched the pumpkin.
She was soon back, rolling the lumpy orange vegetable along—she couldn’t even lift the thing! It was a bit smaller than I would have liked, but I rolled up my sleeves and put a little extra effort into making the wheels fancy, just because it was her. Not that I’m going soft, you understand, but it doesn’t hurt—much—to be a little nice now and then. I stopped short of changing the color—the mental image of that exquisite creature surrounded by vibrant, nauseating pumpkin orange was too delicious a vision to resist.
Next, for horses, I used four mice—another difficult one, but I knew Management would get a report, so I thought it wouldn’t be a bad thing to show off a little. I was top of my class in transformation, you know. Okay, third in my class, but who’s counting? I used the dog for a footman (dogs are seldom useful for much else, even when you make them human) and the skinny old nag in the barn for a coachman (who better than a horse to know how to handle a coach?). Now, you understand that after a sum total of seven transformations, two of them involving the temporary creation of humans, I might have been a bit tired. But does little Cinder-what’s-her-name give me a moment of rest? Of course not.
“Oh, but my dress,” she said, holding the rags and looking pathetic.
“You are the epitome of what is currently considered perfect physical beauty!” I wanted to shout at her. I didn’t think this prince of hers would care much if she arrived in a flour sack—so long as it was still blonde, blue-eyed beauty underneath. And girls like this think they need our help? But I worked the spell anyway (clothes are ever so much easier) and there she stood, pretty as a…well, as a fairy tale in a glittering, pale blue dress that matched her eyes perfectly. And just to stick it to the Management, I made the shoes of glass. Let’s see Maggie try that one.
I bustled her into the coach—I was right, the orange did look deliciously disgusting surrounding her sparkly, beaming self—rattled off the rules (back by last stroke of midnight, everything will revert, blah blah blah), and gave one of the horses a slap on the rump to get the whole thing moving. I watched the carriage rattle off into the night for a minute, allowing myself to imagine what the girl must have been imagining—dreams of princes and castles and happily-ever-afters.
I sighed. None of them ever figured it out. It took so much more than a pretty dress and some magic to make something like that work out. It was a rare “Prince Charming” who turned out as wonderful as his name implied, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if the pitiful thing in the glass shoes would need our help again someday, this time abandoned, not by an evil stepfamily, but the one who was supposed to protect her. Thinking for the hundredth time that night how glad I was not to be human, I gave my wand a flick and sent myself back to my warm parlor and the lively poker game.
Never did hear how her story turned out.
It caught my eye because I myself am doing my own twist to Cinderella. Though not from the godmother's point of view.
) wasn't going to work. The premise for this piece had a lot of potential to come off as hackneyed or trite, but I think you really pulled it off well.
