Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page B

scrubbing floors, boiling laundry, and doing everything else that needed to be done since Lucille had dismissed all our servants as “an unnecessary expense,” even I could no longer discern the pattern in the dress’s threadbare weave.Even I was at pains to see how it could possibly be mended again, just to keep me decent. I had kept silent about it, making it a battle of wills: Would Lucille buy me something new before I was forced to go about in my underclothes? Maybe the ball would force her hand.
    â€œYou’ll buy ball gowns for Corimunde and Griselda,” I said. “So you shall buy one for me as well.”
    Lucille’s laughter swelled again.
    â€œWhy?” she said. “So I can be held responsible for forcing a beggar upon the prince? Never!”
    I turned on my heel, the laughter seeming to follow me down the hall. I did not get Lucille’s cool cloth—I wagered she’d forgotten it as well. But I was muttering, “I will go. I’ll show you. You’ll see.”
    So my plot began.
    In the attic, I knew, my mother’s wedding gown had lain untouched for years. The memories it evoked had been too painful for my father, too sacred for me. I don’t think any of the Step-Evils even knew it was there. (Had any of them ever stepped foot in the attic, with all its dust and spiders?) Late that night, after I knew they were all asleep, I crept up the stairs, pulled the gown out of the trunk, and tried it on. I had only moonlight to see by, and no mirror, but I could feel the elegance of the folds of satin against my skin. I felt like a different person—not Ella Brown, former tomboy and bookworm and current all-purpose drudge, not Cinders-Ella, as Corimunde and Griselda sometimes derisively called me—but an Eleanora, maybeeven a Princess Eleanora. Had my mother felt this elegant, walking down the aisle with my father? I tried to imagine it, taking halting, silent steps around the attic. But the sight of my dirty bare feet poking out from beneath the skirt ruined the effect. If I went to the ball, what would I do about shoes?
    I bent over the trunk to search for whatever footwear my mother had worn, and the dress slipped forward. I could feel it gaping open at the bodice. I looked down and could see clear to my thin, bare thighs. Of course. The dress was much too big on me. My mother had been well nourished and healthy, and I had been living for the past two years on whatever food I could pilfer from the kitchen without Lucille noticing. When was the last time I hadn’t been ordered to bed without supper?
    I resolved then and there that the ball was just a first step. Two years was more than enough time to serve as a slave in my own home. I had been holding on to my father’s memories and my father’s house, doing the work Lucille ordered me to do with enough insolence and back talk that I was sure she’d have to break down and admit I had rights of my own. But staring down at my emaciated rib cage, I realized suddenly that Lucille was winning. No—Lucille had won. She had reduced me—literally reduced me—to feeling that I didn’t deserve food or a new ball gown or a life.
    Dizzily I sat down and reviewed my choices. I could walk away. I could hire myself out as a servant—I certainly had enough experience. But I didn’t want to spend the restof my life hauling ashes. I could get married—the butcher’s boy was a willing candidate, if not a particularly desirable one. But I’d seen enough of loveless marriage to know that that wasn’t what I wanted. No, I’d wait for someone capable of making me swoon. That left only one possibility, and a slim one at that: Could I find work as a tutor of sorts for rich children? If I brushed up on my Latin and Greek, I was sure I could do that quite well. I could save my money and someday come back and buy the house from Lucille. That way, leaving wouldn’t be