Leaping Beauty: And Other Animal Fairy Tales (11 page)

“I wanted to go to the ball,” said Cinder-Elephant. “But I didn’t make any pumpkin pies.”

“So who needs pumpkin pies tonight?” said the kangaroo doctor. “They’re having fresh fruit and yogurt at the ball, very healthy and low in calories. Why don’t you just go?”

“I have no gown,” said Cinder-Elephant.

“Well, I’m no fairy godmother,” said the kangaroo doctor, “but I happen to have in my pouch a couple of hospital robes. And I’ve had a lot of experience stitching up wounds, so I could quickly stitch up a gown. Will that help?”

“You’re so kind,” said Cinder-Elephant. “But how shall I get there?”

“Look at that pumpkin,” said the kangaroo doctor. “I’m no fairy godmother, but I happen to have in my pouch some spare axles and four huge wheels. I do auto repair in my spare time.

It’s not all that different from surgery. Could we affix the pumpkin to these wheels? Then we could hitch it to the horses tied up out front.”

“I thought the horses took my stepmother and stepsisters to the ball,” said Cinder-Elephant.

“They had to walk. The horses couldn’t drag all three of them,” said the kangaroo doctor.

“The horses would have keeled over with cardiac arrest. But they could manage pulling
you
.

Though you need to exercise more, dearie. Lose a few pounds. Dance up a storm tonight.”

“I have no shoes!” cried Cinder-Elephant suddenly.

“Do I have to think of everything?” said the kangaroo doctor. “I want to be helpful, but there’s a limit. Do you think I carry a full line of Italian footware in my pouch? Use your noggin, my dearie. You’re a bright girl.”

Cinder-Elephant looked around the room. She found two of the glass pie plates she had been about to use for pumpkin pies. They were just about the same size as her feet.

“Perfect! Glass slippers!” cried the kangaroo doctor. “You’ll have to dance carefully, my dear, or I’ll be pulling slivers of glass out of your heel from now till dawn. Now off you go to the ball. One word of advice, though. Leave by the stroke of midnight. Nothing much will happen if you don’t, except that the pumpkin carriage will start to rot after a while. You don’t want the prince to see you leaving his fancy party in a coach smelling of decaying vegetable matter.” Cinder-Elephant kissed the kangaroo doctor and jumped in the pumpkin carriage. Off she rode to the ball.

By the time Cinder-Elephant arrived at the castle, the party was in full swing. There was a forty-piece band playing sambas and polkas. On the buffet tables was lots of fresh fruit, and not a pie in sight. And the prince, standing in a bored manner behind the throne picking a shred of orange from between his two front teeth, was the most handsome thing Cinder-Elephant had ever seen.

Cinder-Elephant came through the door into the ballroom. All eyes glanced up at her.

“Who’s that ravishing beauty?” said the king. “What a big healthy girl!”

“Look at that exquisite nose!” said the queen. “How marvelous!”

“That vamp! Now I see that white is the best color for a gown, not cherry or emerald!” cried Mildew.

“That hussy! Those glass slippers are to
die
for!” cried Mayhem.

“Girls, keep your voices down; you sound shrill and vain,” said their mother.

Cinder-Elephant descended the main staircase slowly, elegantly, taking care not to crush the pie plates. In one bound the prince cleared the ballroom and knelt at the foot of the stairs.

“May I have the honor of this dance?” he cried.

He swept her in his arms—or as much of her as he could hold. Around the dance floor they swirled.

Mildew turned green with envy, matching her gown. Mayhem blushed cherry with rage, matching her gown. Their stepmother nibbled on a slice of melon and wished the castle kitchens were serving pie.

All night long the prince danced with Cinder-Elephant. He had eyes for no other. Beyond that, he was actually an interesting guy. He had a comic book collection second to none in the kingdom, and he knew a lot about music. “Do you like soccer play-offs?” he murmured into Cinder-Elephant’s ear. “I have tickets to the royal box.” Too soon, the clock struck twelve. Cinder-Elephant, remembering the kangaroo doctor’s warning, tore herself away from the prince’s fond embrace and lumbered to the doorway. “Wait!

Come back! I didn’t get your phone number!” cried the prince. But Cinder-Elephant had already begun to ascend the stairs, and she found it hard to change direction once she had got herself going.

The kangaroo doctor’s advice had been sound. The pumpkin coach was already beginning to sag on its chassis. “Hi, ho, and away!” cried Cinder-Elephant, and the carriage rumbled away, leaving a trail of pumpkin seeds behind. Cinder-Elephant was halfway home when she realized that in her haste, she had lost one of her glass pie plates.

The prince, meanwhile, had followed his beloved as quickly as he could. He saw a huge pumpkin trundling off into the distance, which was surprise enough. But when he saw the pie plate on the castle steps, he knew he had a clue to the identity of his sweetheart.

The next day the prince issued a proclamation. He would search the kingdom over and find the one whose foot fit into a glass pie plate.

Back at their home, Mildew and Mayhem tittered with hope. They had stuffed themselves with so much pie in the previous weeks that their feet were swollen. With a little care, one of them might yet nab that handsome prince as a hubby!

Within the hour the prince was hot on the chase. All he had to do was follow the trail of pumpkin seeds. It led straight to the house of the stepmother, stepsisters, and Cinder-Elephant.

“May I see if the feet of any females present fit into this pie plate?” asked the prince. “I know it’s a rude thing to ask, but I’m looking for someone to be my bride. In between fittings, I promise to wipe the pie plate clean with this cloth.”

The stepmother went first. Her foot looked a little bit like a blanched cod in the dish. Its toes flopped out over the lip of the pie plate. “No, I think not,” said the prince.

Mayhem went next. Her foot spread to either side of the pie plate, but her toe and heels were short of the rim by an inch or more. Unless she applied a strong glue, there was no way this pie plate would ever stay on her foot.

“Sorry,” said the prince. “Not that you haven’t got a lovely foot, in a ploppy sort of way.” Mildew went last. She had pounded her own foot with a hammer to make the arch fall and to make her foot swell with purple bruises. Her foot almost fit. Her sister and her mother held their breaths. The prince looked confused. “I don’t remember your foot so purple,” he said, trying to buy time to think.

“I danced with you for so long last night,” said Mildew cleverly. “I have experienced a

little discomfort today. Nothing serious.”

“Shall I call the doctor?” said the prince. “I wouldn’t want my bride-to-be to suffer.”

“No need to call, here I am,” said the kangaroo doctor, bounding through the open window with a single leap. “My, that’s a nasty foot. I’ll have to amputate.” And she took out a surgical saw from her pouch.

Mildew withdrew her foot from the pie plate and she sat on her foot. “You’ll do no such thing, you beast!” she cried.

Just then a smell of pumpkin pie came wafting from the kitchen. “Is there someone else in the house?” said the prince. “Someone you may have forgotten about?”

“No,” said the stepmother. “Nobody.”

“Some servant girl?”

“Nope. Not a soul,” said Mayhem.

“Some visiting friend? Some beggar woman in the kitchen, gnawing on a bone that in your charity you’ve thrown her?”

“Fat chance,” said Mildew. “Any bones that need gnawing on, we gnaw ourselves.”

“Then whence the smell of pumpkin pie?” cried the prince.

“That’s your cue, dolly, if ever I heard one!” called the kangaroo doctor.

And because Cinder-Elephant had such good ears, she had heard every word being said in the parlor above. She appeared in the doorway dressed in hospital-robe white, wearing a pie plate on one foot and carrying a pumpkin pie with her trunk. She traipsed delicately across the parlor floor and set her naked foot into the other pie plate. It fit perfectly.

“My darling!” cried the prince.

“And I can cook, too,” said Cinder-Elephant.

“Let me take you away from all this!” cried the prince.

“I have a forgiving heart,” said Cinder-Elephant as she turned to say good-bye to her stepsisters and stepmother. “I forgive you all. But I am an elephant. I
never forget
.” The prince took Cinder-Elephant off to the castle, where he introduced her to his parents.

They got married and opened a bakery in the basement of the castle. Once a week Cinder-Elephant and the prince went to the symphony or the soccer matches.

And that’s the end of the story, except that it turned out that Cinder-Elephant’s father, who had been presumed to be lost at sea when he drove his Number 72 bus off a cliff, had actually floated away to an island. When a passing tugboat agreed to tow his bus back to the mainland, he accepted the offer. After the kangaroo doctor repaired the engine, the bus driver took up his old habits again, driving his bus wherever he chose. One day, since he was still nearly blind, he accidentally drove over the feet of his former wife and Mildew and Mayhem, who were standing with their toes too far off the curb. At last their feet really
did
fit in glass pie plates. But by then it was too late.

D
own by the old mill stream, there stood a mill. In the mill there worked a miller. He was a sheep named Bubba.

Now Bubba had a beautiful daughter named Norma Jean. Her fleece was as yellow as a field of dandelions. Furthermore it was naturally curly. When she went for a drink in the millpond, she tossed her flaxen locks and admired herself in a mirror. “How like a movie star I am!” she said. “If only I could be discovered!”

Norma Jean never helped her father at the mill at all. She took to sipping sodas at the local five-and-dime. She wore tight little knitted sweaters from the wool of a lesser breed. It made a nice contrast. She changed her name from Norma Jean to Beauty.

One day the king of the country came by the mill. He was a noble stag, with a rack of antlers nine feet across. “Yes, sure, I’m king,” he said to the miller, “but I make movies in my spare time. I’m an auteur. I’m looking for locations to shoot a new film. I think I might just use your mill, if you let me. The sun on the water of the millpond would look very nice in the opening credits.”

“What’s the movie called?” asked the miller.

“It’s a horror movie,” said the king stag. “It’s called
Beauty Ate the Beast
.” Just then Beauty came gamboling into the room. When she saw the king stag, she began to amble in an attractive way. “I loved your last film!” she breathed in a deep voice, as if she had the flu. “The critics didn’t know what they were talking about! It was a masterpiece of the genre!”

“You mean
Jack the Giant Killer
?” said the king stag. “Nobody understood it.”

“I lived it. I loved it. It made me laugh. It made me cry,” said Beauty. “It made me glad to be a sheep.”

“Everybody said it was too bloody,” said the king stag. “Gee, you know a lot about films.”