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

  “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.

  I wake up to the sound of screaming.

  “My foot! Ouch, my foot! What happened to my foot?”

  I bolt upright to see Cinderella clutching her left foot and howling.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “My foot is wrong! Look at it!” She thrusts it in my face.

  I have never seen a foot quite like this.

  It is black.

  It is blue.

  Her toes are the size of marshmallows and the entire thing is bloated.

  Is it a foot or a balloon?

  “Is that from dropping the glass slipper on it?” Jonah asks.

  “No, it’s from playing the piano with my toes,” she replies sarcastically. “Of course it’s from dropping the glass slipper on it! It’s completely swollen. And it hurts!”

  I shake my head. “I knew we should have put ice on it.”

  She tries to stand up, but then grimaces and falls back down onto the straw. “How am I supposed to do my ch
ores? I can barely stand.”

  “Cinderella! Cinderella! Where are you? Are you still sleeping?” yells a voice from downstairs.

  “Oh, no,” Cinderella wails. “That’s Betty! My stepmother! I must have overslept! I have to make breakfast!”

  Excuse me for a second. Betty? Her stepmother’s name is Betty? That doesn’t sound right. Betty sounds like a nana. Or someone who bakes cakes. It doesn’t sound like an evil stepmother.

  Cinderella tries to stand up again, but she winces as she puts weight on her foot. “I need to get dressed. And you two need to get out of here. I’m not allowed to have guests.”

  “Where are we supposed to go?” I ask. “We have to find the mirror that takes us home.”

  “You tried all the mirrors here,” Cinderella says. “Go try other ones.”

  “But we don’t know where else to go!” I say. “If the mirrors here don’t work and the mirrors at the palace don’t work, which mirrors will?”

  Cinderella shakes her head. “I am not a mirror expert!” She hobbles over to the closet, opens the door, and stands behind it for privacy. When she closes it again, she’s wearing a long-sleeved gray dress. “Now where did I put my shoes?”

  “Your glass slipper?” Jonah asks.

  “No, my work shoes. There they are.” She spots a pair of loafer-like shoes at the door and limps toward them. She slides the right one on, no problem, and then tries to put on the left shoe. “Oh, crow, my foot is too swollen. I can’t get the shoe on. I’m going to have to go barefoot.”

  Uh-oh.

  I steal a look at the broken glass slipper that’s lying by the wall. It’s the right shoe.

  Which means the prince has the left shoe.

  If the loafer doesn’t fit her left foot, then the glass slipper won’t, either.

  Crumbs.

  If the glass slipper doesn’t fit Cinderella, she isn’t going to be able to prove she’s the girl the prince danced with at the ball. They won’t get married. She’ll be stuck here forever.

  I look at Jonah. He looks at me. He knows. He knows I know.

  We did it again. We landed in a fairy tale and we messed things up.

  Now what?

  “Uh-oh,” Jonah says. “Her foot is a basketball.”

  “Everyone shush!” I say. “I need to think. We need to fix this.”

  Cinderella waves her hand in the air. “Fix what? I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me here. Can you fill me in?”

  I really don’t want to.

  “Your foot isn’t going to fit the glass slipper,” Jonah blurts out.

  “It won’t fit today,” I say. “We’ll take her to a doctor. Or it could still heal in time. We don’t know when the prince is coming. Maybe he’s not coming for another week. Her foot won’t stay like this forever. It’ll heal. It’s probably not broken. It’s probably just a sprain.”

  “Abby,” Jonah calls out pointing to the wall. “It’s okay! Look!” He’s pointing at the slightly broken slipper on the shelf. “We can show the prince’s assistant that one. Cinderella will try it on her good foot and it will fit and our problem is solved.”

  Oh! Yay! “Jonah, you’re right! Shoe problem solved!”

  “Cinderella!” the voice from downstairs yells. It’s getting closer. “You missed breakfast! We had to butter our own bread and brew our own tea! Where are you?”

  “I’m coming!” Cinderella calls. “It’s my stepmother!” she hisses to us. “She can’t come in here! She’ll see you!”

  “Cinderella, I’m coming in,” the voice says.

  “Hide!” Cinderella whispers to us, her eyes wide with fear.

  I look around the room. Hide where? There is nowhere to hide! There is just straw! No beds! No curtains! No nothing.

  Oh, wait. There’s the closet. We can hide in there. We’ll be super quiet. She won’t even notice us! We’ll be invisible! Like mice! Instead of bothering to motion to Jonah, I jump up, grab his arm, and hustle toward the closet.

  We can make it! We can make it!

  The door to Cinderella’s room swings opens just as Jonah and I are scrambling into the closet. I’m about to close the closet door behind us when — Bam! Jonah bumps his head into my back, I lose my balance, I fall against the wall, I extend out my arms try to stop myself from crashing to the floor, I knock over the tin bucket that’s sitting on the shelf — and clang! Smash!

  The tin bucket knocks over the only-slightly broken glass slipper. The only-slightly broken glass slipper crashes to the floor and smashes into a million pieces. It’s now a VERY broken glass slipper.

  Crumbs.

  Shoe problem unsolved.

  Cinderella, what are you doing —” Betty stops in mid-sentence. “Excuse me! Young man! Young lady in the Floom flag! Who are you people?”

  She’s taller than I expected. Taller than Kayla. And scarier. She’s wearing a long brown skirt and a tucked-in green blouse. She has thick straight gray hair that falls past her shoulders, straight bangs across her forehead, a narrow nose, thin lips, and beady brown eyes.

  Betty definitely does not look like a Betty. A Betty would smile at me and offer me milk and cookies. Or maybe some brownies. A Betty would never glare at me like I was some sort of cockroach dashing across her floor.

  Think fast, Abby, think fast. Why are we here? I know! When in doubt, be polite! “Hi,” I say. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

  “It is?” Jonah and Cinderella both ask.

  “Jinx,” Jonah calls.

  Betty takes a step closer to me. “Who are you?”

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

  “We’re from Smithville,” Jonah adds.

  Betty frowns. “And you are here, why?”

  “Be-because …” Hmm. Long-lost cousins? I glance back at the bucket that unsolved my shoe problem and get an idea. “We’re Cinderella’s replacements!”

  Betty clicks her tongue. “Do tell, why are we replacing Cinderella? Is she going somewhere?”

  “As a matter of fact I am,” Cinderella says haughtily. “I am going to —”

  Oh, no! She can’t mention the prince! “She’s going to need help —” I interject while pinching Cinderella’s arm.

  “Ow!”

  “— since she busted her foot. We’re not really replacements,” I add. “We’re more like helpers.”

  Betty’s beady brown eyes nearly bug out of her head at the sight of the overstuffed toes. “How did that happen?”

  “Well,” Cinderella begins. “Last night I dropped a glass sl —”

  Nooooooo! “Sled,” I interject, pinching her again. “She dropped a glass sled on her foot.” Oops. That just came out.

  “What is a glass sled?” Betty asks.

  “You know,” I say, stalling. “A sled. For sledding?”

  “Down a hill!” Jonah adds. “I love sleds! We have one at home! It’s wood, though. But I bet glass ones are slippier.”

  “Yes,” I say. “Exactly. Much slippier.” I really can’t believe the words that are coming out of my mouth.

  “But there’s no snow outside. Where was she using a sled?” Betty asks. “And where did she get it?”

  Right. Good points. “She found it in the neighbor’s trash,” I say. “Now we know why they were throwing it away. Dangerous things, these glass sleds. Especially when used down staircases.”

  Betty stares at me.

  “Obviously she would have used it outside if there’d been snow,” I add. “But there isn’t.” That kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?

  Do I sound as ridiculous as I think I do? Cinderella is bright red. Jonah is twisting his bottom lip. So yeah, I probably do.

  Betty scans the attic. “Then where is said sled now?”

  She’s got me there. No. No, no, no. I will not let her win this! Where is the glass sled now? I know! “After it busted Cinderella’s foot, I had to throw it out. Like the neighbors did. Wise people, those neighbors.”


  Jonah wags his finger like he’s talking to a dog. “Bad sled. Bad, bad sled.”

  “But how did you two end up here?” Betty asks.

  How did we end up here? Good question. I’m guessing that the magic mirror explanation isn’t something I should share.

  “She delivered the newspaper,” Cinderella offers.

  Way to go, Cindy! “Yes!” I cheer. “I was delivering the newspaper. Exactly. And I heard Cinderella scream when she landed at the bottom of the staircase.”

  “That makes no sense. Why is her foot swollen? You don’t get swollen feet from falling down the stairs. You get a broken back or a concussion or —”

  “Um, because when she picked up the sled to throw it out, she dropped it on her foot.” There. Whew. “And then she screamed a second time, and I came running in. Your door was unlocked, by the way. Not a safe practice.” Oh, I’m good! “She told me she had chores to do, so I offered to help her until she gets better.”

  Betty looks at me suspiciously. “Where are the rest of the newspapers?”

  “We gave them out,” I say quickly. “And then we came back.”

  Betty throws up her hands. “But why are you helping her? What’s she giving you in return?”

  “We’re helping her because we’re nice,” Jonah says. “We don’t mind. That’s what nice people do. They help each other.”

  Betty’s beady brown eyes narrow. She’s not buying it. She doesn’t understand what nice is! I need to speak her language. “Also,” I add, “she’s teaching us to speak English.”

  Betty raises an overly penciled-in and slightly uneven eyebrow. “It sounds to me like you already know how to speak English.”

  “She’s teaching us to speak gooder,” Jonah pipes up.

  “Cinderella is a … a … a … dortun jombi,” I say. “That’s means ‘good teacher’ in Smithvillian. That’s the language we speak in Smithville. Also —”

  “Okay, I don’t care,” Betty says, looking bored. “If you want to help Cinderella while her foot is out of commission, knock yourself out. We’re going to be busy, anyway. Since you delivered the paper, I assume you’ve all read the news?”

  “Absolutely,” I say, nodding. “Can you just remind us what it says?”

  “Only that the prince has announced that he will marry whoever fits the glass slipper he found at the ball. His assistant will begin to visit all the households in the kingdom later today. So you three had better get started cleaning the house. Start in here. There’s glass all over the floor.”