Cindercow

Once upon a time, there was a young heifer named Cindercow. She lived in a grassy meadow with a kind owner who gave her bread and never made her do any work. Then, one day, Cindercow was sold to a farmer. The farmer made her live in a smelly barn with sheep and pigs. He never gave her bread. Worst of all, he made her muck out the barn.

"Slop the pigs!" he yelled. "Sheer the sheep!"

It was practically impossible. After all, she was a cow. No opposable thumbs.

One day, Cindercow overheard the farmer talking to his two stepdaughters.

"The Royal Family is holding a ball," he said. "All the eligible maidens in the kingdom are invited. The prince is going to pick one to be his wife!"

"I bet he'll choose me," the oldest daughter said. "I'm totally beautiful."

The younger daughter flipped her hair. "Fat chance! I'm the beautiful one. You look like a cow."

Cindercow thought cows were pretty attractive, personally, but she wasn't listening. Her brain whirled. The prince was a well-known animal rights activist.

"He would never make me clean the barn," she thought, "but the farmer will never let me go to the ball."

Nevertheless, she resolved to ask. The next day, after she had mucked out the barn, she ambled up to the farmer, fluttered her lashes, and murmured, "The barn is clean, the pigs are fed, and I knitted you a lovely warm sweater out of all the sheep's wool. Can't I please go to the ball?"

The farmer's face turned beet-red.

"No!" he shouted. "Whoever heard of a cow going to a royal ball? You'd trample all over the other guests."

That was just untrue. Cindercow considered herself a graceful dancer who would never have the bad manners to trample people. She trotted back to the barn and cried into a hay bale. Then a voice said, "Don't cry. You shall go to the ball."

Cindercow lifted her head to see a hen with glossy black feathers standing on the hay bale. Wiping her eyes on a hoof, Cindercow asked, "Who are you?"

The hen fluttered to the ground.

"Why, I am your Fairy Godchicken! With one flap of my wings, I will have you dressed in such finery that you will be the envy of every lady at the ball."

She flapped her glossy wings. Suddenly, Cindercow found herself wearing a diamond-studded halter and a pair of silver horns.

"Be warned," the Fairy Godchicken said, "the magic will fade at midnight. You must return by then or everyone will see you for what you are: an ordinary milk cow who feeds the pigs and sheers the sheep."

Cindercow barely heard her. She had caught a glimpse of herself in the water trough, and she looked magnificent.

"Oh, thank you!" she cried, and she galloped off to the palace.

Everyone looked up when she arrived. Her diamond-encrusted halter sparkled; her silver horns glowed. She was so beautiful that the farmer and his stepdaughters didn't recognize her.

"What a splendid cow," the farmer remarked. "We should find out who she belongs to and buy her."

The prince caught sight of Cindercow across the room. His jaw dropped at the sight of the beautiful cow. Ignoring the young ladies who crowded the ballroom, he bent down on one knee and said, "You are the loveliest creature I have ever seen. Will you marry me?"

Cindercow was so astonished that all she could say was, "Moo."

Suddenly, the clock began to chime midnight. Cindercow had forgotten all about the Fairy Godchicken's warning! She fled, but her head brushed against the doorway as she ran out of the ballroom. One of her silver horns fell to the floor, gleaming in the lamplight.

The prince picked it up gently.

"The creature whose head fits this silver horn is the only one for me," he announced.

The next day, a Royal Decree went out that the prince was searching for the beautiful creature he'd fallen in love with. Every maiden in the kingdom would try on the silver horn until he found the one who fit it.

When the prince arrived at their house, the farmer called his stepdaughters into the barn to try on the silver horn.

"You stay out of the way," he warned Cindercow. "Otherwise, there will be even more chores for you to do!"

Cindercow tried to stay hidden. She really did. But the two daughters looked so ridiculous! The horn wouldn't fit over their ears. When they tried to stick it on their foreheads, it fell off. The older daughter tried to pull it over her nose, instead, and that was when Cindercow really lost it. She tried to hold it in, but she shook with silent giggles. Then the horn got stuck to the end of the daughter's nose.

"Are you sure that's how you were wearing it at the ball?" the prince said doubtfully.

"Oh, yes," the daughter lied. Her voice was pinched and nasally. "In fact, I always wear it this way."

Well, that did it. Cindercow burst forth into peels of bovine laughter.

"What's this?" cried the prince. "Another young maiden?"

"That's just our cow, Cinder," the farmer said hastily. "She wasn't even at the ball, so there's no reason to--"

"Nonsense," the prince interrupted. He tugged the silver horn off the stepdaughter's nose, polished it on his sleeve, and placed it atop Cindercow's head. It fit perfectly.

"My love!" cried the prince. "Will you marry me?"

"I prefer being single," said Cindercow, thinking she wouldn't want to marry him anyway. He wasn't exactly the sharpest pitchfork in the barn. "But maybe you could point me to a nice meadow?"

The prince took Cindercow to a lovely meadow far away from the farmer and his stepdaughters. The stepdaughters had to muck out the barn all by themselves, but Cindercow lived happily ever after.