If the Shoe Fits (Whatever After #2) (4 page)

W
e follow her for the next thirty minutes, all the way to her house. It’s a good thing there’s a full moon because this town doesn’t have any streetlights.

We keep a safe distance. We only whisper. We duck into the shadows whenever Cinderella turns around. We’re really good at this sneaky thing. I bet we could be spies when we grow up. We’d be the cool brother-and-sister team that gets to go to exotic places like New York or Japan to steal nuclear power secrets. They’ll make a movie about us! It’ll be called —

“WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE FOLLOWING ME?”

Oops.

Cinderella is glaring at us from her porch, her hands on her hips.

“We’re not following you,” I squeak.

“Um, yes you are. You followed me all the way from the palace.”

“No, we —” I stop in mid-sentence. We
are
following her. I’m not sure what to say.

“We need to use your house,” Jonah says.

“There’s a public bathroom three blocks over,” Cinderella says.

“No, so we can go home,” I say.

“What? Who are you?”

“I’m Abby, and this is my brother, Jonah.”

“Don’t you have your own house?” she asks.

“We do, but we need to use yours to get back to it.”

“I don’t understand,” she says. “Anyway, I can’t let you in. My stepmother is really strict, and if I don’t listen to her, I get into trouble.”

“Your stepmother is still at the ball,” I say. “We’ll be in and out before she gets home.”

“Yeah,” Jonah pipes up, “but even if you did get into trouble, it won’t be for long ’cause you’re going to marry the prince!”

Her eyes widen. “Excuse me?”

Uh-oh. “Jonah, no!”

Jonah turns to me, cheeks reddening. “What? Was I not supposed to tell her?”

Cinderella steps down from the porch. “Why would you say I was going to marry the prince?”

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Jonah says to me. “Why shouldn’t she know her future?” He grins at Cinderella. “You were at the ball, right? You danced with the prince and he thinks you’re the prettiest girl around. You’re going to get married.”

“But — but I don’t understand!” she sputters. “How would he find me? He’ll never recognize me! Even my own stepmother and stepsisters didn’t recognize me!”

I sigh. Since the cat is out of the bag, I guess there’s no reason to keep it all a secret. “You dropped your shoe, right? He picked it up. Tomorrow he’s going to make an announcement that he’s going to marry the person who fits the shoe. He sends his assistant to make every girl in the kingdom try it on. It only fits you.”

A slow smile spreads across Cinderella’s face. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” I say. “You’re going to be a princess — and then you’ll get married and be his queen. Well, at first you’ll just be a princess, but eventually you’ll get to be queen once his dad …
you know.” No need to be morbid. “Anyway, my point is that even if your stepmother is ticked off at you for a few days, it won’t matter in the long run.”

“Squee!” Cinderella squeals. “That is absolutely the best news ever. I can’t believe the prince picked up my slipper!”

“It was lucky,” I say. It probably would have been luckier if the prince had caught up with her, but who am I to judge?

One day I’ll be a judge. But not yet.

“It’s also lucky that it only fits you,” Jonah says.

“They’re perfectly molded to my feet.” She lifts the remaining shoe so that it’s eye level. “See?”

And there it is. Right in front of me. The infamous glass slipper. “Can I hold it?” I ask breathlessly.

“Sure,” she says, and passes it to me.

Whoa. It’s heavier than I thought. And it’s really made of glass. Completely see-through. It feels like I’m holding one of my parents’ for-company-only wineglasses. But it’s a shoe. A really high-heeled shoe. I’m not sure how she even walked in them. And they’re tiny, too. For an adult. Or an almost-adult, anyway — I’m guessing she’s about sixteen. The weird thing about the shoe? There are toe marks where the toes go. This shoe was perfectly molded to fit Cinderella’s foot. I guess that makes sense
for the story — if they were just a size five, then other girls with size-five feet could fit in them, too.

I hand it back. I really don’t want to drop it by accident.

“Why didn’t the glass slipper disappear like the rest of the stuff?” Jonah asks.

“My fairy godmother changed the dress and coach and horses from something else,” Cinderella explains. “But she gave me the shoes as a gift. The slippers are made just for me, you know.”

“High heels,” I say.

“What?”

I wave my hand. Never mind.

“Anyway, how do you know what’s going to happen to me?” Cinderella asks. “Are you some type of fairy?”

“No,” Jonah says. “But we’re in a fairy tale.”

She scrunches her nose. “Does that mean a fairy told you what happens to me?”

“Well … kind of,” I say. A fairy
tale
told us what happened. Close enough. “Can we come in? We don’t have much time. We need to get moving before your family gets home.”

“All right,” Cinderella says, and unlocks the door.

We step into a fancy foyer. Not as fancy as the palace, but still fancy. The tiles on the floor are checkerboard, black and
white. There’s a big couch, a love seat, chairs, a fireplace, and a wood grandfather clock up against the wall.

There’s a lit chandelier above us, and a big rectangular mirror right by the entranceway.

“Let’s try it,” I say. “Cinderella, stand back. We definitely can’t take you home with us. That would mess up your life for sure.”

Jonah knocks. Once. Twice. Thrice! Nothing.

Boo. “How many other mirrors do you have in the house?”

“My stepmother has one in her room, and my stepsisters have two. That’s it. But why do you need to use a mirror to get home? Where do you live? I don’t understand.”

“Neither do we,” I say. “But that’s the way the magic works. Why do we need a mirror to get home? Why did you have to leave the ball by midnight?”

“Magic is weird,” she says. “Let’s go.”

On the second floor, there are two rooms and another staircase.

“Where’s your room?” I ask Cinderella.

She points up. “The attic. Let’s start in my stepmother’s room.” She throws the door open and motions to the large mirror by her bed.

I knock. Once. Twice. Thrice!

Nothing.

“Argh!” I say.

There’s a noise outside. It’s a carriage.

“Look who it is,” Cinderella says with a smirk. “My stepmother and stepsisters returning from the ball. Wait until I tell them what you told me.”

My mouth goes dry. “No, no, no. You can’t say anything to them!”

“Why not? You said it’s going to happen! Were you not telling me the truth?”

“I was telling you the truth, but who knows what will happen if you say something? What if they try to stop it? What if they mess something up? You have to keep it a secret! Promise me you’ll keep it a secret!”

“Okay, okay,” she grumbles. “If you think I have to.”

“
We
have to hurry,” Jonah says. “We don’t want them to see us, right?”

“Let’s go. To the stepsisters’ room! One of those mirrors had better work.”

“Abby, what if they don’t? How will we get home?”

“I don’t know!”

Last chance. Here we go.

I
can see in the moonlight that the room is all pink. Two pink beds, two pink carpets, two pink desks, two pink wardrobes, and two pink pillows — one embroidered with the name
Kayla
, the other with the name
Beatrice
.

But best of all: two full-sized pink-framed mirrors.

I have a good feeling about these mirrors, I really do.

Jonah runs straight to Kayla’s mirror. “Maybe they both work. We each get our own portal, how cool is that?”

“Do you really think I’d let you walk into a mirror by yourself?” I say. “What if you actually end up on Mars or something? Not happening. Let’s just choose one and go for it.”

Cinderella is looking out the window. “Hurry! They’re getting out of the coach! They won’t like this one bit! Last month they caught me napping in here and they locked me in their closet for two hours!”

I shiver. They sound awful. I take Jonah’s hand and knock. “One … two …”

And now for the final knock …

“Three!”

Nothing.

“Cinderella, are you awake?” cries a voice from downstairs. “Where are you? Make us some tea!”

Oh, no! They’re home!

And we’re still here.

I hear the
clomp-clomp-clomp
ing of their walking around downstairs.

“I have to go,” Cinderella whispers urgently, and turns to leave the room. “You guys have to get out of here!”

“We will,” I say with more optimism than I feel. “There’s still another mirror.”

“Bye, Cinderella!” Jonah says.

“It was nice to meet you,” I add.

I grab Jonah’s hand. “This mirror is going to work. It has to. Ready? One … two …”

And now for another final knock …

“Three!”

Still nothing.

This is NOT good. Not good at all.

I hear more clomping.
Clomp-clomp-clomp
coming up the stairs.

The sisters are going to walk into their room any moment. We need to
do
something.

We need to hide.

I signal to Jonah for him to slide under the bed. It looks like I’m waving at him.

“Huh?” he says.

“Shh! And don’t say huh. Say excuse me.”

“Excuse me, what are you doing with your hand?”

Clomp-clomp-clomp.

“I’m trying to motion you to — Oh, forget it! Just slide under the bed!”

He nods and does it. Finally. I slide under Kayla’s bed. The bed skirt reaches the floor, so unless they look for us, they won’t catch us. Ouch! I just scraped the top of my arm.

What if they see us? What will we say? What will happen to us? Will they call the fairy tale police? Will we go to fairy tale jail?

The room is suddenly lit up.

“Cinderella, were you in our room?” someone asks in a high nasal voice. “Our door is open.”

“Yes,” Cinderella calls back. “I was, um, cleaning up.” I hear footsteps coming closer — not the
clomp-clomp-clomp
kind, but the dainty kind. Cinderella’s footsteps.

“Is that what you did all night?” the same person says.

“No. I was pretty busy,” Cinderella says. I hear a smile in her voice.

At least she’s not telling them the truth.

I hear the window opening and feel a flush of cool air. “So, tell me all about the ball,” Cinderella says, and I detect a little bit of an edge to her voice. “Did either of you get to talk with Prince Jordan this time?”

Hmm. That wasn’t very nice. She knows neither of them got to talk to the prince. She danced with him the whole time. Is Cinderella rubbing it in?

“Kayla got to talk to him,” the same person — must be Beatrice — says.

“Really?” Cinderella says. “I didn’t … I mean, that’s nice. So what happened?”

“The beautiful stranger showed up again and interrupted them,” Beatrice says.

“Really?” Cinderella says again.

“I heard she was a princess,” Kayla says.

“She wasn’t a princess,” Beatrice says. “We’d have heard about her if she was a princess. I bet she was an heiress. Those clothes were expensive.”

“The prince danced with her the rest of the night,” Kayla says. “Again. I was really hoping she wouldn’t show tonight.”

“
Reeealllly?
The prince danced with the beautiful stranger? And that’s why he stopped talking to you? How sad for you!”

I put two and two together and realize that the ordinary-looking girl we saw talking to the prince was Kayla. Also, is it just me, or is Cinderella being mean?

“Yes,” Kayla says, “it was pretty sad.” She sits down on her bed, and the mattress sags so that it’s an inch from my face.

Uh-oh.

If she bounces, she’s going to break my nose. DO NOT BOUNCE, KAYLA. DO NOT BOUNCE.

I hope she’s not a bed jumper. I think back to all the times Jonah and I have jumped on our beds. What if there were kids from other dimensions hiding under our bed skirts and I had no idea?

My nose tingles.

Do not sneeze. Abby, whatever you do, DO NOT SNEEZE.

“Prince Jordan was
obsessed
with the beautiful stranger,” Beatrice says. “He’s in love with her, surely. How could he not be? She’s gorgeous.”

Ah-ah-ah —

Don’t-don’t-don’t
… I squeak a sneeze.

“Did you hear something?” Beatrice asks. “We better not have another mouse problem. Anyway, guess what happened at the end of the night?”

“I have no idea,” Cinderella says. “Did Prince Jordan ask Kayla to dance?”

I can practically see Cinderella batting her eyelashes all fake-innocently.

“No,” Kayla squeaks.

“Did he ask you to dance, Beatrice?”

“No,” Beatrice huffs.

“I give up,” Cinderella says.

“When the clock struck midnight, the beautiful stranger made a run for it. And no one could find her.”

“No way,” Cinderella drawls.

Way.

“The prince ran after her and found her glass slipper! It fell off while she was running, surely.”

“Yes, it did,” Cinderella says. Then she clears her throat. “It did?”

“Yes,” Beatrice says, “And the prince is determined to find her. He’ll be able to, surely.”

Surely, surely, surely. She’s such a know-it-all.

“I think I’ll let you guys go to sleep,” Cinderella says. “Or maybe you’re not that tired. It doesn’t sound like you did much dancing.”

Yup, that was definitely mean.

She closes the door behind her. Uh-oh. She thinks we made it through the mirror. She thinks we’re gone. And now we’re stuck in the stepsisters’ room! Argh!

I hear some shuffling on the bed above me. And then I hear … crying?

Why is one of the evil stepsisters crying? They’re supposed to be evil, not sad.

The crying is coming from directly on top of me. It must be Kayla. The one who was talking with the prince.

“What on earth is wrong with you?” Beatrice asks.

“I just thought … I thought the prince might have liked me. I thought we had a connection.”

“Oh, please. What did you expect? You can’t compete with a girl like that. Get real. You’re just not pretty enough.”

My stomach hurts, and it’s not from the pigs/dogs-in-a-blanket. I can’t help but feel bad for Kayla. I know she’s supposed to be evil and all, but she seems to really like Prince Jordan. And no one wants to like someone who doesn’t like them back.

“Just go to sleep,” Beatrice says, and the lights go back out.

Okay, at least they’re going to sleep. Once they’re out cold, Jonah and I can sneak out. They must be exhausted. It’s well after midnight, their time at least. I have no idea what time it is at home, which is a little bit scary. I’m hoping time works the same way it did in
Snow White
— about one fairy tale day for every hour at home. Which means it’s only about twelve thirty at home.

We just have to get home before Mom and Dad wake up, around seven.

Nothing I can do now. Nothing but wait.

And wait some more. When I finally hear not one but three sets of snoring, I decide it’s safe to make a move.

I pull myself out from under the bed with my elbows and crawl over to Jonah. “Come on,” I whisper. When he doesn’t answer I give him a poke.

“What?” He jumps and hits his head on the mattress. “Ouch.”

I shush him. When the sisters don’t react, I motion to Jonah to follow me out the door.

I make the motion very, very clear.

He lifts his eyebrows, not getting it.

“Just follow me,” I whisper, and roll my eyes. I carefully open the door.
Creeeak
.

We step into the hallway. Phewf!

The stepmom’s door is closed. Guess she’s asleep. How mean — she didn’t even say good night to her daughters. I might be running out of underwear, but no matter how busy my parents are, they always come into our rooms to say good night.

“What do we do now?” Jonah whispers.

“I guess we go to sleep,” I say. “Maybe Cinderella can help us find the right mirror tomorrow.”

“But where will we sleep?”

I point to the winding stairs. “The attic. Cinderella’s room.”

When we reach the door, Jonah asks, “Should we knock?”

“Um, yeah.” Now if he’d only knock on
my
door at home.

“But what if she gets scared?”

“She’s probably already asleep,” I say. “Hopefully, she has a couch up there we can curl up on. So I won’t knock.”

I turn the handle and quietly open the door. Cinderella is standing in the middle of the room, admiring the glass slipper.

“Hi,” I say. “Glad you’re still up.”

Startled, she jumps. As she jumps, the glass slipper slips from her hands and drops directly onto her left foot.

“OWW!” she screams. “Ow, ow, ow!”

“Are you okay?” I ask, hurrying over to her.

“Do I look okay?” she snarls, holding onto her foot and hobbling over to a chair. “That really killed. You guys scared me. I thought you were gone!”

“The mirror didn’t work,” I say.

“Ow, ow, ow. That landed right on my foot.”

“I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “Do you want some ice?”

“It’ll be okay. Just give me a sec. Ouch.” She closes her eyes. “Only another day or so and then I’m outta here, right?”

“Right,” I say. “Again, sorry.”

“Can you bring me the slipper? Did it break?”

I look for the slipper on the ground and gulp when I see it. The heel has cracked off. In one hand, I’m holding a four-inch heel, in the other a flat glass boat. “It doesn’t look so good,” I admit.

Her eyes fly open. “Oh, boo,” Cinderella says. “That isn’t going to mess anything up, is it? The shoe being broken?”

“It shouldn’t,” I say, but I’m not so sure. “No — you have to try on the shoe the guy brings — at least, that’s the way I remember it.”

“The way you remember what the fairy told you?”

“Um, yeah. Right.” I look around the room for a safe place to put the slightly broken shoe and rest it on top of the only shelf next to a tin bucket.

“Oh well.” She closes her eyes again. “I’m really tired. And my foot really hurts. Like
really
hurts.”

“It will feel better in the morning,” Jonah says with a yawn. “That’s what my mom always says.”

“Then let’s go to sleep,” Cinderella says. “I have to be up in a few hours to make breakfast.”

“Where’s your bed?”

“I don’t have one — I just sleep on the straw on the floor.”

“That stinks,” Jonah says. “You really need a mattress.”

“I’ll get one when I’m a princess,” she says with a sigh.

“You’ll get as many as you want when you’re a princess,” I tell her. “You can have a whole stack of them. Like
The Princess and the Pea
!”

“The who and the what?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Never mind.”

“I hate peas,” she adds.

“Forget I even mentioned them.”

“Tomorrow,” Cinderella says wistfully, “I’ll be a princess.”

“And we’ll find our way home,” Jonah adds.

“Everything will work out tomorrow,” I say.

We each gather up some straw and mold it into beds. It’s a little scratchy. Actually, a lot scratchy.

Well, at least I’m already in my pajamas.