hoodlum teenagers did back before street corners were invented.
While I worked I sent whispered pleading messages to Chrissy and worried that my parents were panicked about my disappearance. She never answered.
The second day was worse. Not only did I have the same chores, but I also had to clean the garderobes, which is a fancy way of saying outhouses. I couldn’t bathe—and trust me, I needed to after cleaning the garderobes—because unfortunately no one had had the 81/431
sense to invent indoor plumbing yet. All I had was a bowl of water, a rag, and a hard, scratchy, foul-smelling block of something that they told me was soap, but it didn’t resemble any soap I’d ever seen. They gave me a threadbare dress to wear and a pair of flimsy leather boots that didn’t fit and smelled as though their last owner had died while wearing them.
I learned that I lived in a land called Pampovilla and that my stepsisters were named Matilda and Hildegard.
When they weren’t burning things they spent most of their time ordering me around. I hoped that one of the king’s footmen would show up with the announcement of a ball. I counted on it, but no one visited.
Day three went about the same. The cook yelled at me as much as, if not more than, my stepfamily did—something, I might add, which has totally been overlooked in Grimm’s version of the fairy tale. It should have been a story about the wicked stepmother, ugly pyromaniac stepsisters, and a trollish-looking, short-tempered cook.
Day four was only made interesting by the fact that Matilda—the brunette one—accidentally set her hair on fire. It involved a great deal of screaming on Matilda’s part, and it could have led to serious injury if I hadn’t been nearby with a bucket of pig slop. I threw it over her head to douse the flames. As usual, she didn’t appreciate 82/431
my efforts on her behalf. I spent the night in my room without supper.
More days came and went by in a blur of chores. My back and arms ached from the workload. Where they weren’t blistered, my hands became dry and chapped. I wanted to cry every morning when I woke up, stiff and itchy from my straw mattress.
By the third week, I missed my home, my parents, and my friends so intently that it felt like a thick stone had wedged itself in my chest. I longed for a hot bath. Electricity. American food. I even missed little things that I’d taken for granted before. Carpet. Clear drinking water.
Cold milk. My tennis shoes.
As I worked, I kept my mind on all the things my life had been in Virgina, trying to hold onto them. Even Hunter seemed almost like a dream now. And when he didn’t—when I was washing clothes and the lines of his face suddenly forced their way into my mind—I tried to scrub them away along with the dirt and the grime. He didn’t deserve a place in my memory. I refused to think of Jane or him at all, refused to wonder if either one of them missed me.
Where was my fairy? When was that stupid ball?
I had tried to ask about the ball in roundabout ways before, but no one seemed to know anything about it.
One day as I was in my stepsisters’ room braiding 83/431
Hildegard’s hair, I asked if she wouldn’t like to visit the palace for a dance. Hildegard just sighed wistfully and said, “I do hope Prince Edmond throws one now that he’s done putting down that peasant rebellion.”
“Peasant rebellion?” I repeated.
Matilda said, “The peasants are always asking for too much. If it’s not lower taxes from their lords, it’s the right to leave their manors. As though they should be able to leave when there’s work to be done.” She sat across the room supposedly doing needlework, but I had yet to see her take a stitch. Mostly she was cleaning her fingernails with the needle.
I stopped braiding Hildegard’s hair. “What exactly do you mean when you say he put down a peasant rebellion?”
“It wasn’t a real rebellion,” Hildegard said, as though proud of this
While I worked I sent whispered pleading messages to Chrissy and worried that my parents were panicked about my disappearance. She never answered.
The second day was worse. Not only did I have the same chores, but I also had to clean the garderobes, which is a fancy way of saying outhouses. I couldn’t bathe—and trust me, I needed to after cleaning the garderobes—because unfortunately no one had had the 81/431
sense to invent indoor plumbing yet. All I had was a bowl of water, a rag, and a hard, scratchy, foul-smelling block of something that they told me was soap, but it didn’t resemble any soap I’d ever seen. They gave me a threadbare dress to wear and a pair of flimsy leather boots that didn’t fit and smelled as though their last owner had died while wearing them.
I learned that I lived in a land called Pampovilla and that my stepsisters were named Matilda and Hildegard.
When they weren’t burning things they spent most of their time ordering me around. I hoped that one of the king’s footmen would show up with the announcement of a ball. I counted on it, but no one visited.
Day three went about the same. The cook yelled at me as much as, if not more than, my stepfamily did—something, I might add, which has totally been overlooked in Grimm’s version of the fairy tale. It should have been a story about the wicked stepmother, ugly pyromaniac stepsisters, and a trollish-looking, short-tempered cook.
Day four was only made interesting by the fact that Matilda—the brunette one—accidentally set her hair on fire. It involved a great deal of screaming on Matilda’s part, and it could have led to serious injury if I hadn’t been nearby with a bucket of pig slop. I threw it over her head to douse the flames. As usual, she didn’t appreciate 82/431
my efforts on her behalf. I spent the night in my room without supper.
More days came and went by in a blur of chores. My back and arms ached from the workload. Where they weren’t blistered, my hands became dry and chapped. I wanted to cry every morning when I woke up, stiff and itchy from my straw mattress.
By the third week, I missed my home, my parents, and my friends so intently that it felt like a thick stone had wedged itself in my chest. I longed for a hot bath. Electricity. American food. I even missed little things that I’d taken for granted before. Carpet. Clear drinking water.
Cold milk. My tennis shoes.
As I worked, I kept my mind on all the things my life had been in Virgina, trying to hold onto them. Even Hunter seemed almost like a dream now. And when he didn’t—when I was washing clothes and the lines of his face suddenly forced their way into my mind—I tried to scrub them away along with the dirt and the grime. He didn’t deserve a place in my memory. I refused to think of Jane or him at all, refused to wonder if either one of them missed me.
Where was my fairy? When was that stupid ball?
I had tried to ask about the ball in roundabout ways before, but no one seemed to know anything about it.
One day as I was in my stepsisters’ room braiding 83/431
Hildegard’s hair, I asked if she wouldn’t like to visit the palace for a dance. Hildegard just sighed wistfully and said, “I do hope Prince Edmond throws one now that he’s done putting down that peasant rebellion.”
“Peasant rebellion?” I repeated.
Matilda said, “The peasants are always asking for too much. If it’s not lower taxes from their lords, it’s the right to leave their manors. As though they should be able to leave when there’s work to be done.” She sat across the room supposedly doing needlework, but I had yet to see her take a stitch. Mostly she was cleaning her fingernails with the needle.
I stopped braiding Hildegard’s hair. “What exactly do you mean when you say he put down a peasant rebellion?”
“It wasn’t a real rebellion,” Hildegard said, as though proud of this
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