Cinderella was practically vibrating with excitement as her carriage swept into view of the castle. Her silken gold hair was elaborately coifed into a heavenly updo. Her makeup was beautifully applied in such a way that it was almost imperceptible, yet still highlighted her delicately beautiful features. Her dress was stunning and floated about her like a chorus of butterflies. And her slippers! Her glass slippers, so perfectly molded to her feet, every contour matching spectacularly. She looked…

“Perfect!” she exclaimed, happily admiring herself in the window. She sighed contentedly and leaned glamorously back on the plush seat of the carriage. “Oh, I am going to dance with the prince all night! I mean, of course he’ll notice me! I’m going to be the belle of the ball!”

As the carriage grinded to a halt and her footman graciously opened the door, she flounced happily out of the carriage, up the grand steps of the castle’s courtyard, and excitedly into the breathtaking castle entryway. She glided along the flow of ballgoers into the most splendid ballroom to ever grace her dainty blue eyes.

“Oh my goodness!” she gasped in awe, overwhelmed by the sheer grandeur of the space she had just entered. The ballroom was cavernous and decorated to gilded perfection. The high, arching ceiling was adorned with spectacular murals of fair ladies and benevolent lords joining hands in graceful waltz and powerful kings adorned in unfathomable wealth.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” The unexpected voice startled Cinderella, and she whirled around in surprise, only to accidentally come across the one person she had hoped to find: Prince Charming.

“Oh, my great heavens, Prince Ch—“ She stopped herself from declaring his name in awe like some unfortunate peasant. “Yes, it’s nice,” she remarked coolly.

The prince grinned, clearly noticing her little outburst, but seemingly paying it no mind. “Oh, yes, it’s definitely nice.”

“Oh, of course.”

“But not as nice as me, it seems.”

Cinderella blushed, feeling a clammy warmth creep up the back of her neck and push its way behind the apples of her cheeks. She hadn’t meant to sound so silly! She had wanted to seem nonchalant and relaxed, comfortable in the presence of royalty, aloof and mysterious, and she had made a fool of herself in the first five seconds of meeting the prince of her dreams! “Oh, I was, well, really just a bit surprised…I mean I didn’t—well, I didn’t expect you to come up behind me like that.”

The prince chuckled in a very princely way. “I must apologize! I didn’t mean to scare you so! And I must say, you were much calmer than those ditzy girls that are always loitering around the castle hoping to catch a glimpse of me!”

“Yes, I really hope I haven’t cemented myself in your mind as one of those foolish girls!” she exclaimed, knowing that she was exactly like those “foolish girls.”

“Of course not! I mean, would I ever ask a foolish girl to dance?”

“Well, I’m not quite sure, I—“

“The answer to that question is no, I would not. Now, would you dance with me?”

“Yes, I would be delighted!”

The night passed in a blur of dance and drink and conversation. Prince Charming was an excellent dance partner, sweeping Cinderella across the ballroom with ease and grace. Cinderella laughed easily at the prince’s jokes and remarks as all of the other girls at the ball cast her disgusted looks laced with jealousy.

All too soon, midnight crept upon Cinderella like a sneaking cat upon a minuscule mouse. She couldn’t let her godmother’s spell vanish into thin air in front of the prince!

“Well, I must be going now! My parents have quite a strict curfew imposed upon me! It’s very annoying, really, but what can you do?”

“Oh, please don’t go! You’ve been such a fantastic dance partner!”

“Don’t worry, I will readily attend any balls you feel like holding, but for now I must get home! I do not feel like facing my father’s wrath, and I’m quite sure you don’t, either!”

“Well…”

Before he could finish his sentence, Cinderella broke away from him and dashed toward the ballroom doors. She flew through the entry hall and had just began her descent down the stairway when the prince reached the doorway. “Wait! Please, at least just say goodnight!”

“So sorry!” Cinderella called. “I’m sure I’ll see you later!”

“Just tell me where you live! Or at least tell me your name!”

Cinderella looked back as she reached the last step, and in doing so she stumbled a bit, just enough to knock her glass slipper off of her foot.

“Your shoe!”

“Oh, it’s no bother! I have plenty, just keep it!” And with that, she threw open the door of her carriage and jumped in, yelling for her mice-turned-drivers to get her home as quick as they possibly could.

The next morning, Cinderella awoke with a smile upon her face. She slid out of her terribly uncomfortable bed with its straw-stuffed mattress and skipped joyfully to the kitchen. She whistled while she prepared eggs and bread for her atrocious stepfamily and grinned as she served them.

“Could you stop smiling like that, Cinderella?” her witch of a stepmother groaned. “The light is reflecting off of your teeth, and it’s giving me a headache!”

“What do you have to be so happy about, anyway?” her stepsister, Henrietta, wondered.

“Yeah, you were at home cleaning all night while we danced the night away with Prince Charming!” her other stepsister, Caroline, gloated.

“Really? You danced with Prince Charming?” Cinderella asked with feigned shock, knowing she hadn’t so much as grazed Prince Charming’s pinky finger.

Caroline hesitated. “Well…no… He was busy dancing with this…princess all night!”

“Oh!” Henrietta sat up at the mention of the princess. “Have you heard? The princess left her glass slipper at the castle last night! He’s traveling the kingdom to find the owner of the slipper, and he’s going to ask for her hand in marriage!”

“Really?” Cinderella asked, her heart creeping into her throat.

“Yeah, it’s actually— Why do you care?” Henrietta scoffed. “It’s not like it affects you in any way!”

“Oh, no reason,” Cinderella remarked lightly. “You’re right, it doesn’t affect me at all!”

“Yeah, I know. Anyways, I’ve finished my breakfast, so go take my plate to the kitchen.”

Cinderella swept Henrietta’s plate up, but the plate was slippery from the generous amount of vanilla body lotion Henrietta slathered onto her body ever morning, and the plate slipped out of her hand and shattered on the cold, blank tile.

“Cinderella, clean that up!”

“I will, just let me go put on my slippers. I don’t want to cut my feet on the glass!”

She hurried to her room and went to slide her feet into her battered house slippers, but…they didn’t fit. “What the…?” She tried to shove her feet into the boots she wore for yard work, convinced her slippers had just shrunk somehow, but her feet didn’t fit into her boots, either.

Finally, she turned toward her single glass slipper, and hesitantly approached it. She lifted it up cautiously and, after a moment, tried to shove it onto her foot. No matter what angle she tried, she couldn’t squeeze her foot into the dainty slipper. Her feet had somehow grown two sizes overnight!

“No, no, no! Are you kidding me?” she whispered angrily. In her anger, she threw the slipper against the wall, and it shattered into even more pieces than the plate had. “Oh, wait!” Cinderella shrieked under her breath. In the frenzied anger of the moment, she had just broken her last connection to the prince.

“Cinderella, what’s taking so long?”

“Nothing! I’ll be right there!”

As she swept the shards of glass off of the floor in her bare feet, she felt like she was going to explode. Her mind raced, searching for a way to get the prince to realize who she was. There had to be something she had told him at the ball that she could use to prove her identity to him. But there was nothing. She should have just told him her name, or where she lived, or anything about herself, but she hadn’t.

Cinderella was lying in her bed, staring dejectedly at the water-stained ceiling when the prince and his entourage arrived. She slipped into the sitting room and watched with satisfaction as her stepsisters tried and failed to slide their feet. She felt significantly less satisfaction as she did the same.

“Wait!” she yelled, stopping the prince in his tracks. “It’s me, I’m the girl you danced with last night, I promise!”

He scrutinized her. “Um…”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Cinderella!” her stepmother interjected. “You’re not nearly as beautiful as that girl at the ball, I saw her! And besides, you don’t fit the slipper, and you weren’t even at the ball! You were at home cleaning!” She cast the prince an apologetic glance. “Cinderella loves to make up stories, as you can tell.”

The prince chuckled. “Well, Cinderella, you seem like a very nice girl, but that girl at the ball was, well, my soulmate. I have to continue searching for her!”

Cinderella’s stepsisters pretended to tear up at the prince’s declaration of love, letting out choruses of “aww” and “how cuuute”.

And then the prince slipped out of the door, unknowingly bringing Cinderella’s hopes and dreams with him.