The Color Of Her Panties by Piers Anthony

wept.  That was of course a giant yes, yes of a no-no, and gave her an ogre-sized headache.  She fled the hall-only to collide with Great Auntie Fanny.
    “Why ogrette, whatever's the matter?” Fanny inquired.
    A male ogre child was an ogret, and a female an ogrette, of course, not that anyone cared.  Well, maybe the goblins cared, but only because they had goblets and goblettes.
    “ They ruined my birthday party!” Okra cried.
    “Oh, is that the occasion!  I thought it was a routine food fight.”
    “It is now.”
    “Well, then, there will surely be other birthdays!  How old are you?“
    “Thirteen today, Auntie,” Okra replied, beginning to feel less worse.
    “Great gobs of gook!“ Auntie exclaimed politely.  “ Petard and brimstone!  You are overdue for marriage!  You're so small it never occurred to me-but I will speak to my husband, Bareface Von Wryneck, at once.  We will check the grapevine to see which first cousin ogres are available.”
    “But-” Okra tried to protest.
    “Let's see.  There's young Crawling Banks.  He's so stupid that if he had dynamite for brains, he could not clear one hairy nostril.  He's ideal!  But I think another ogress has her eye and maybe a ham hand on him already.  There's the twins Slow Comb and Fast Comb, but it's too hard to choose between them because each one's duller than the other.
    Well, you'll probably have to wed the widower Zoltan Dread Locks.”
    That name was unfamiliar.  “Who?”
    Auntie poked her head through the door, because it happened to be closed.  The wood splintered.  It was the door's own fault for being in the way.  She pointed a ham finger.
    “See that dirty old ogre dressed in animal-skin slippers and the mask of the black death?  That's him.  Yes, I think he's the one.  You know, my first, second, and third husbands were widowers when I wed them, so I can recommend the type.  An ogre doesn't get to be a widower unless he treats his ogress pretty roughly, it stands to reason.  So he'll be fine for you.”
    Okra backed away and stared around her, petrified with a little loathing and a lot of fear.  Just before she fainted she had a vision of a great gray city crowded with gargoyles made of stone.
    Fortunately Auntie Fanny thought she must have knocked Okra out with an accidental sweep of her ham hand and didn't realize how unogreishly sensitive and weak she really was.  Fanny proceeded forthwith setting up the marriage.  However, none of the top prospects was interested in Okra; they pointed out with some justice that she was too small and scrawny to stand up to much punishment, and her looks were so plain as to be disgusting, and there was even an ugly suspicion that she wasn't as stupid as she pretended to be.  Her parents finally gave up and turned her over to her more understanding grandparents, and the search began anew.
    So it was another year before a suitable prospect was lined up:
    Smithereen, an ogre from the far Ogre-Fen-Ogre Fen who had never seen Okra so didn't know her liabilities.  He started down to meet her, but there were distractions along the way, such as trees that had not been twisted into pretzels and small dragons who had not learned fear.
    Thus his progress was slow, for of course he was doing what it was in an ogre's nature to do:  setting the world along his route into ogreish order.  When he arrived, he would do the same for Okra, everyone fondly hoped, for her need was obviously great.
    When the blood was on the moon shortly after Okra's fourteenth birthday-there was no party, because she was getting entirely too long in the tooth for marriage, as if her faults weren't already bad enough-the third big ugly event in Okra's life occurred.  Her kindly (for ogres) grandparents disappeared, leaving her in the charge of her uncle Marzipana Giganta la Cabezudos fen Ogre, and his toady henchmen Numb Nuts and Big Blue Nose.  Marzipana was a fine specimen of an ogre; he liked to stick pins into living