Written with my Thursday night group with the prompts: Evelyn was three years older, bingo, when the killing began, felt kinda sorry for her, dance with your eyes closed, brown shoes
“Did you know,” Evelyn began, “there was an error in the Grimm Brothers translation? They weren’t glass slippers,” she declared with a heavy emphasis on the word glass. “Who would be foolish enough to wear glass slippers? You could cut your foot while dancing!”
Maddie stared at her big sister. Evelyn was three years older and she just seems to know everything. Maddie kept waiting for this to happen to her too, for everything to suddenly appear inside her head. She was nine now. She’d caught up with Evelyn two or three times at least but it didn’t seem to matter. She couldn’t catch up.
“No,” Evelyn continued. “They most certainly were not glass. They were fur.”
“Fur?!!” Maddie exclaimed in shock. “Are you sure? Fur?”
“Oh, yes,” Evelyn said as she pulled Maddie’s own little brown house shoes out of their niche between the dresser and the closet door. “I know your slippers aren’t fur, but they’re fuzzy. And they’re the color of mink.”
“How do you know what color mink is?” Maddie demanded.
Evelyn rolled her eyes and didn’t answer. Maddie pressed her lips together in a tight knot. The eye roll—the universal don’t question my authority sign.
Evelyn sauntered out of the room and Maddie quietly followed.
“Don’t you think,” Evelyn began again with forced cheer, “that it would be so sweet to go to a dance in fur shoes?”
“Uh huh,” Maddie agreed obediently, but in reality Maddie thought this fur shoe business was an outrageous lie, and she felt kinda sorry for Evelyn that she believed it. Glass slippers would be so cool. They would clink on the sidewalk like champagne flutes. They would sparkle under the lights of a chandelier or maybe a mirrored glitter ball. She imagined herself dancing in shimmering glass slippers, so bright you’d have to close your eyes so you wouldn’t be blinded. In fact glass slippers might even serve as a cool weapon—in case the love story suddenly morphed into a spy thriller. Cinderella might be a secret agent or a super hero, and when the killing began, her shoes might blind the bad guys. She wouldn’t need a gun or a knife to protect herself; she’d just stab them in the heart with the heel of her glass shoe. And then—THEN!! She’d go home and put on some shoes made of fur. Maybe fur shoes would be okay. At the right time.
Evelyn wanted Maddie to play a game like Bingo or monopoly, a game where she got to be in charge. At least until Mom got home. But Maddie said no, not now. Mom told her it was okay to say no to Evelyn sometimes. She gave her permission. “I’m going to write in my journal,” Maddie said, and Evelyn was subdued.
“Okay,” Evelyn said as if it’d been her idea all along. “As l long as you’re quiet.”
Now it was Maddie’s turn to roll her eyes, though she didn’t let Evelyn see her do it. She opened her book and started a list: times when Cinderella would want glass shoes and times when she’d want fur shoes. It seemed extremely important.
Photo by Charisse Kenion on Unsplash
It’s easy to imagine that there was a mistake in the translation. I always thought it was funny to have such shatterable shoes. I thought silver or gold would have been more to my liking.
Long time ago I read that the shoes were actually fur. I have no idea if that’s true or not, but I thought two materials could hardly be more different than glass and fur!
If you wonder if a pair of slippers can make a difference, ask Cinderella!
She’s the expert!