Fractured Fairytale

1. Cinderalle
By Trevor Hendy
Once upon a time, there lived a girl named Cinderalle. Now
you probably know about Cinderella. Well, Cinderalle was her
younger sister. They both had to do work for their stepmother
and two stepsisters.
Other than that, though, they were very different. While
Cinderella was beautiful, Cinderalle was not. She had pimples,
her hair was mess, and she got the jobs worse than Cinderella.
She liked things Cinderella did not, such as lemonade.
Although they were different, Cinderalle loved her sister
very much. Cinderella thought Cinderalle was OK. She could be
annoying, and she wasn't too good looking. Cinderella could
sometimes not believe she was actually her sister. So when
she went to the ball with the help of her fairy godmother, she
forgot to take Cinderalle. By the time she came back from the
ball, Cinderalle was asleep and didn't hear anything during her
sleep of the Prince visiting with the glass slipper.
Cinderella went off with the Prince, and completely forgot
about her sister, who had never made a big impact on her life
anyway. But Cinderalle missed Cinderella. Now she had
nobody and now had to do all the work.
So a few weeks later on a particularly tiring morning of
dusting the whole house, cleaning the floor, making breakfast,
cleaning up after breakfast, washing the windows, cleaning the
floors again, and cutting the grass with some old scissors, her
current job, she decided she'd had enough. She snuck back
inside, quickly packed her things, and jumped on the back of a
passing vegetable cart.
"If my sister can find herself a prince, so can I, despite that
I'm not as pretty as her," thought Cinderalle. She asked the
cart owner where he was going, and he said to a neighboring
kingdom where he lived on a vegetable farm. She paid him
97¢ to let her ride, half of her coins collected from the streets.
By dusk, they had entered the neighboring kingdom. Two

2. days later, they were at the capital city. The cart owner
dropped her off at an inn and left.
It was very different from the kingdom she came from.
There were lots of blinking lights, people wore weird clothing,
it was noisy, and people seemed to be traveling around in
metal things on wheels that didn't need to be pulled. She
asked the innkeeper if there was a prince in this land she could
marry.
"Yes," he answered. "I think he's having a party or... er, a
ball you'd call it from where you come from. I doubt he'll
marry you of all people, though." Cinderalle ignored this last
part and ran back up to her room, the attic, which the
innkeeper had let her have for free. She smiled to herself and
settled down on her bed and went to sleep.
The next evening, Cinderalle was trying to decide which of
her rag gowns to wear to the ball. She sighed. Even if she got
a beautiful dress, her bad-looking self would make her look
bad anyway. If only her fairy godmother were here to help her
like she did for her sister. She would be able to - POOF!
Suddenly, in a cloud of sparkling dust, Cinderalle's fairy
godmother was standing right in front of her.
"Hello! What can I do for you, sweet?" she asked. She had
long, curly brown hair, was wearing a beautiful white dress,
had silver,
half-transparent wings, and bright, blue eyes.
"I need a dress to wear to the ball," said Cinderalle.
"OK!" said her fairy godmother. "But it's not called a ball
around here. It's a party, and they don't wear dresses." She
snapped her fingers and Cinderalle's rags turned into the
strange clothes she'd seen people around the city wearing. She
snapped again and some sneakers appeared. Cinderalle put
them on.
"They're not fussy about shoes around here," the fairy
godmother said. "I don't know if the people around here care

3. about looks, but better to be safe than sorry." She snapped
her fingers one last time and Cinderalle suddenly looked
beautiful.
"OK. Come with me and I'll get you a taxi. Oh! And make
sure to get home before midnight, when the spell will wear
off." She hailed a cab and Cinderalle climbed in.
"Here's money to pay," said her fairy godmother. "Have fun,
honey!"
Ten minutes later, they arrived at the castle. Cinderalle paid
the taxi driver and walked in. It was nothing like she'd ever
seen. Music was booming from some boxes and people were
out in the middle of the room dancing in a way she'd never
seen. The room was large with a few small windows. There
were lights up on the ceiling, but they were only giving off a
faint light.
Suddenly, someone tapped her on the shoulder. She
jumped around, and was surprised to see a young, handsome
man.
"Hello," he said. "I'm Prince Charmein."
"Hello, said Cinderalle.
"Would you like to dance?" he asked.
"Sure," she answered. They walked out into the center of
the room by a large group of people. Cinderalle grabbed his
hands.
"No, no! he laughed. "You're not from around here are
you?" She shook her head. "Well, you just kind of move your
body around. Yeah, like that!" Cinderalle danced, with or
without the prince, until the clock struck midnight.
DONG! DONG! DONG!
"Oh, no!" cried Cinderalle. She hurried out of the castle.

4. "Wait!" shouted Prince Charmein. He ran after her. Outside,
she was nowhere in sight, on her way back to the inn. But, in
her hurry she had dropped a sneaker...
The next morning, the prince set out, trying the sneaker on
everyone. He knew if it fit, that the girl was his love. The
kingdom hadn't made 4½ sized shoes in over 200 years
because a queen had once died while trying on shoes of that
very size. He eventually reached the inn Cinderalle was staying
at. He told the innkeeper of his quest, who obligingly went
upstairs to get all of the young girls.
Of course, none of their feet fit well. Cinderalle was last. It,
of course, fit perfectly. She smiled. He smiled back.
"He loves that ugly thing?!?" shrieked one of the girls.
"Well I don't want to marry him if that's his taste!" another
shouted.
"I don't care what you look like," said the prince. "I love
you. That's what matters. Will you marry me?"
"Yes," she said. "I will."
So Cinderalle found her prince, and they lived happily ever
after.