If the Shoe Fits (Whatever After #2) (3 page)

I
study the prince to see how he reacts. First, he turns to look at his dad, the king, who motions to the door. I’m guessing that’s his royal order to Go Get the Stranger Princess. The prince nods and makes his way outside.

And the girl he was talking to? Her face falls. Aw. I can’t help but feel bad for her. But come on! How can a regular girl compete with Cinderella?

Cinderella! I’m going to see Cinderella!

The entire crowd drifts out the door to see.

Oh. My. Goodness.

First we see a gold coach. “That used to be a pumpkin!” I whisper to Jonah.

Then I motion to the six gray neighing horses. “Those were mice!”

Standing by the coach are six footmen and a plump coachman.

“What were those?” Jonah asks.

“The coachman was a rat, I think. But I forget what the footmen were. Spiders? No, lizards, maybe?”

Here she comes! First her foot. Her glass-slippered foot. The crowd oohs and aahs.

She steps out of the coach just like a movie star at a Hollywood premiere.

Everyone gasps.

I gasp. She really is gorgeous.

Her dress is gorgeous, too.

She looks just like she does on my jewelry box, in her ball gown. She’s so sophisticated. So stunning. So sparkly!

“She’s breathtaking,” a young man with thick black glasses says.

“But who is she?” a woman with bright pink lipstick asks. “Is she really a princess?”

“She’s not from around here, that’s for sure,” an older woman leaning against a cane says, then clucks her tongue. “Trust me. I would know. I know everyone.”

“Her dress is real silver!” pink-lipstick woman says.

“No, it’s platinum,” the older woman declares. “That’s better than silver. It’s even better than gold. Trust me.”

The dress glitters. Cinderella glitters. Her blond hair is pulled up and back in some sort of super-awesome knot, and her face is made up. Red lipstick. Blush. Silver eye shadow.

Or maybe it’s platinum.

You can see her blue eyes even from here. They’re practically glowing.

The prince appears beside her. “Hello,” he says gallantly. “Nice to see you again.”

“Hi,” she responds, batting her mascaraed eyelashes. “It’s nice to see you again, too.”

Huh? Again?

“I don’t get it,” Jonah says. “He knows her already?”

That is weird. How does he already know her? I tap the cane woman on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” I ask. “How does the prince know Cinder — I mean, the beautiful stranger princess?”

She rolls her eyes. “They met at the first ball.”

Oh! Right! There were a whole bunch of versions of
Cinderella
, and some of them had more than one ball. My nana is a literature professor and she used to read all the original fairy tales to me when we lived near her in Naperville.

I just don’t remember how many balls there were. Hmm. Probably three. Of course — everything in fairy tales happens in threes.

“So there are three balls?” I ask.

She clucks her tongue. “
Noooo.
Two. Yesterday’s and today’s. That’s it.”

I guess not
everything
happens in threes. I turn back to Cinderella. She looks so beautiful. He looks so handsome. They are a perfect fairy tale couple. “Isn’t it romantic?” I swoon. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“The other girl doesn’t think it’s so wonderful,” Jonah comments, pointing with his chin toward the girl who was talking to the prince before he dumped her for Cinderella.

The average-looking girl.

She does look kind of devastated. I don’t blame her — she was making the prince laugh before Cinderella showed up. If she would have asked me, I would have told her to back off — she was asking for heartbreak.

Really, everyone should consult me before making decisions. It’s for their own good.

“Abby, what now?” Jonah asks.

“One sec,” I say. I can’t help but follow Cinderella and the prince as they walk back into the ballroom. They’re magnetic. All the guests point and gasp. Even the music stops.

Everyone’s mesmerized. Everyone except my brother, but he’s a seven-year-old boy. He can’t be expected to appreciate epic romance.

The prince wraps his arm around Cinderella’s waist and takes her hand.

Sigh.

The music restarts. My heart soars. They begin to dance.

Rumors and whispers swirl.

“I heard she’s the heiress to a diamond dynasty!”

“I heard she’s the youngest princess in Roctavia!”

“I heard she’s turned down thirteen marriage proposals, but thinks our prince is the one!”

I cover my mouth so I don’t laugh.

“Abby,” Jonah whispers. “They’re wrong, right? Isn’t she just an ordinary girl whose fairy godmother made her look pretty to come to the ball?”

“She was always pretty,” I say. “But her mom died and then —”

“How come the mother always dies in fairy tales? Snow White’s mom died, too.”

“I don’t know, Jonah. I don’t write these things, I just read them. Where was I?”

“Dead mother.”

“Right. Her mom died and her dad remarried an evil stepmother.”

“Again with the evil stepmother!”

“Tell me about it.”

“But the evil stepmother had daughters?”

“Yes. Two. And they’re not as beautiful as Cinderella.”

“And why is she at the ball again?”

Luckily I paid attention to Nana’s stories 100 percent of the time. Jonah, about 30 percent.

“The stepmom was invited. She was planning to go with her stepdaughters, hoping that the prince would fall in love with one of them and make her a princess. Cinderella wanted to go, too, but her stepmom said no way. She made her sleep in the attic and do all the housework. Cinderella cried, and then presto, up popped her fairy godmother who said she was going to help her. She turned a bunch of animals into the coach and footmen, and
her rags into a beautiful dress. She gave Cinderella glass slippers. She’s an awesome stylist, this fairy godmother. Wish I had one. Anyway, she told Cinderella to leave the ball by midnight.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s when all the magic ends.”

“But if she’s a fairy godmother, why can’t she make it last longer?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. But what happens next — what happens now — is that Cinderella’s having so much fun that she nearly forgets it’s midnight. She runs and drops her shoe —”

“I thought there were two balls?” Jonah asks.

“Oh. Right. I don’t remember every single detail, but I think at the first ball Cinderella danced with the prince but then remembered to leave before midnight. But the final ball is when she loses track of time and then drops her shoe. Her dress turns back into rags, and the coachmen and the footmen and the coach turn back to mice and rats and lizards and a pumpkin. Meanwhile, the prince picks up the shoe and promises that whoever the shoe fits will be his wife. Over the next few days, his assistant goes around to all the households in the kingdom and makes the ladies try on the slipper. It fits Cinderella perfectly. She shows him the second shoe as proof and all is well. She gets
married to the prince and is rescued from her mean stepmother. And they live happily ever after.” Sigh. I love this story.

“What happens to the stepsisters?”

“In the classic version, I think it was written by some French guy, Perrault or Poutine or something, Cinderella forgives them. That’s the one Nana liked the best. In the others I think it’s kinda grosser.”

His eyes light up. “Tell me!”

My brother loves the gross parts.

“Well, in the Grimm brothers’ one, the stepsisters try to cut off their heels and toes to fit into the slipper. And then they die.”

“No way! Awesome!”

I roll my eyes.

“Snack?” a waiter interrupts us, waving a plate in front of us.

“Dogs-in-a-blanket!” Jonah cheers.

I roll my eyes again. But I take two.

Jonah takes three and stuffs them all in his mouth. “So what do we do now? Explore?”

“Can you swallow before talking, please? Where are your manners? We’re at a ball.”

“Why should I listen to you? You’re wearing pink pajamas with purple polka dots.”

Humph. “I think we should find the magic mirror that will take us home first so we’re not rushing around later.”

“Then we can explore?”

“Yeah. But let’s start with the mirror. It’s probably somewhere in the castle. Looking for it is exploring, right? Now’s our best chance anyway since the royal family and the staff are distracted by the ball. But we have to be careful not to get in Cinderella’s way. We can’t risk messing up the story!”

He wiggles his eyebrows. “You don’t want to say hi? Even quickly?”

“Of course I do, but we can’t. We learned our lesson with Snow White. We will NOT mess the story up this time around!” No way, no how, no thank you.

W
e find twelve mirrors in the castle:

The mirror in the queen’s room. The king’s room. The prince’s room. The guest rooms. The maids’ rooms. There are even two in the ballroom.

None of them work.

And knocking on them isn’t always easy, either.

There was a maid in the queen’s room. We told her that Her Majesty requested her presence downstairs so that we could continue “exploring.”

If we don’t stop exploring soon, we are definitely going to get caught.

“Now what? We’ve tried all of them!” Jonah huffs after we’ve visited every room — thrice.

“Maybe the magic mirror isn’t at the palace,” I say. “Maybe it’s at Cinderella’s house. Snow White lived in the palace before she had to run away. So maybe the portal is where the main character originally lives, before she gets to live happily ever after.”

“But we don’t even know where Cinderella lives!”

“We can follow her home,” I say. “
She
knows where she lives.”

“Do you think she’s still here?” Jonah asks.

“Wait, what time is it?” I glance down at my watch. Oh, no! I’m not wearing my watch! I took it off last night before bed. Not that my watch would tell me what time it is here. But it would tell me what time it is at home so we could get home before my parents wake up. And now I have no idea what time it is in Smithville!

ARGH.

Jonah follows me sneakily down the hallway back into the ballroom, and I spot a huge round clock hanging on the far wall.

It’s 11:55.

I scan the room for Cinderella and spot her dancing with the prince.

Now the clock says 11:56. Hmm. Does Cinderella not realize what time it is?

“It’s getting late,” Jonah says. “We should tell her to go. Doesn’t she turn into a pumpkin at twelve?”

“Her coach turns into a pumpkin, not her.” I grab hold of his sleeve. “But no, don’t do anything! We don’t want to mess anything up.”

We wait. We watch. 11:58. 11:59.

My heart thumps. What if our just being here messed things up? What if we don’t have to do anything but be here and the story changes anyway? What if she changes back into her rags right here and everyone gasps and freaks out and the prince doesn’t want to marry her after all?

Twelve!

Ding Dong! Ding Dong! Ding Dong!

Cinderella looks up at the clock. Her face pales when she sees the time. She looks at the prince, says good-bye, and then — sprints!

Like really fast!

She makes a mad dash right out of there.

She doesn’t look back, she just goes, goes, GOES!

Zoom! Rhymes with Floom!

“We have to follow her,” I order Jonah, and sprint right behind her. “If we lose her, we won’t know where she lives!”

“At least we didn’t mess up the story,” Jonah calls out.

We follow her outside. She’s running down the steps of the palace, and the prince is chasing after her. She’s in the front, Jonah and I are to her left, and the prince is behind us. We’re a triangle on the move.

On the bottom step, her glass slipper falls off, just like it’s supposed to. Yes! We didn’t mess anything up!

She glances back for a second, but sees the prince behind her and doesn’t stop moving.

She just goes, goes, GOES!

“Wait! Wait! WAIT!” the prince yells.

I look behind and see that he’s stopped. He bends down and picks up the slipper.

Jonah and I, however, keep on running.

Cinderella jumps into her coach and shouts, “Go, go, GO!”

The footmen and horses go, go, GO!

“Oh, no!” Jonah exclaims. “How are we going to keep up on foot?”

“Run,” I order. “Fast, fast, FAST!”

We chase the coach down the block. I’m huffing and puffing, and I really need to do more exercise because I am not in very good shape and —

I see a spark up ahead. Like someone is lighting a match.

The coach begins to glimmer. The horses are shaking. Something is happening.

Kabam!

The coach is shrinking! The horses are shrinking! The footmen are shrinking!

Poof!

Cinderella is sitting on her butt in the middle of the street next to a squashed pumpkin.

The horses are mice. The footmen are lizards. The coachman is a rat.

The whole transformation only took about two seconds. I wish I had my dad’s video camera so I could put it on YouTube.

Jonah is standing beside me with his jaw wide open. “Did anyone else see that? Someone else must have seen that!”

I look around the empty moonlit street. We’re the only witnesses.

“Oh well,” Cinderella says to herself. She looks nothing like the Cinderella of two minutes ago. No wonder her own family didn’t recognize her. Her hair hangs around her shoulders, and she’s no longer wearing any platinum eye shadow or red lipstick or any makeup at all. Her dress is plain brown. Her jewelry is gone, too. She stands up and brushes her dress off. She takes off her right glass slipper and starts walking barefoot.

“What do we do now?” Jonah asks.

Isn’t it obvious? “We follow her home.”