That Ella

That Ella. She never was a one to let the truth get in the way of a good story. I’ll warrant it does make a prettier tale the way she tells it, but it don’t take five minutes in her presence to know it didn’t happen the way she says it did.

Yep, I’m the mean old ugly step sister, can’t you tell? Course the step part is just something she made up and it about broke our poor sweet mama’s heart to hear her say it; mama never did no harm to no one. But Ella’d just stick that nose up in the air and announce to the walls that her real mama must have died in childbirth, and daddy found a new wife and took us in along with her, cause we was all just too ugly to be her relations.

And that’s the way she was. Never did no work at all, did Cinder-priss, if she could help it. Get those pretty hands dirty helping mop the floors? Hell no, not her. And she never slept in ashes in her life! No, that one slept on finer sheets than mama and daddy ever did. She had our daddy wrapped around her prissy little finger. She sure knew how to work it when there was men involved.

I’ll tell you how she really got that nickname. One night we decided to find out what she’d do if we smudged her face with ashes while she slept. Maybe it wasn’t the nicest thing to do, but we was so god-awful sick of her mean ways that we decided to do it anyway. Lord, you’d have thought we was trying to kill her, or worse, ruin her complexion, with the racket she set up once she woke up and saw what we’d done. Screamed that we was just jealous of her beauty and trying to turn her as ugly as us. Never heard such a commotion in my whole life. She told our daddy we was playing tricks on her, too, and he made us do her chores for a whole month. Not that she ever did ’em anyway. And that was the clincher. From that day on, she was “Cinders” to us. Wasn’t too long, neither, till it shortened down to just “Cin,” only we spelled it S-I-N, cause we knew where she was sneaking off to nights, even if our daddy never did.

That’s right. And then she got herself in trouble and didn’t even know whose it was, and so she decided she’d better find some poor sap to pawn it off on. Rode up on his white horse and carried her way? Shoot, it was more like the other way around, she chased that boy down so. I’ll wager he didn’t never know what hit him.

She found her man at a fancy dress coming-out party. And fairy godmother, my foot. I’d made that dress myself after saving up for months for the fabric, and she stole it right out of my closet.

So she went all primped and pressed and gussied up. She done her research too. Asked around, found a boy there with family money his way so she wouldn’t have to work a day in her life, made sure he was good and pliable, wouldn’t stand up to none of her talk, and then latched herself onto him like a leech on a catfish. Batted her eyes, flipped her skirts, and talked his ears off with stories about how horribly mistreated she was at that awful hovel she didn’t never want to go back to. And wasn’t he just a big, strong man who could take her away from all that misery and make her dreams come true, if he’d just sneak on off to the next town over with her and get married at the courthouse in the morning.

Which is exactly what he did, poor fool. And she made sure to make that night memorable for him so that when he came to his senses and tried to get out of the whole thing she told him that he’d best be looking after his own reputation. What would all them fancy society folk say about him if he up and deserted the poor, naive girl he’d swindled into running off with him and got in the family way the first night out?

Wasn’t two weeks after that sad little courthouse wedding that he, sure enough, came round looking for us, trying to get us to help him be rid of her. And we felt sorry for him and all, but we sure wasn’t gonna fix it so we had to live with the likes of her again. Plus, our daddy had a look about him that made that poor boy awful nervous, especially since daddy’s finger kept twitching on the barrel of that shotgun he had on his lap. Nobody was gonna run off with his youngest daughter and then just hand her back like nothing had ever happened. Didn’t help matters none that Ella’d already been round whispering in daddy’s ear about how she was just a poor, innocent thing who’d been swept off her feet by a worldly society man who should have known better than to do to her what he did.

And we haven’t seen that poor boy since. I guess he must think he’s a daddy by now, but we all know better. Happily ever after? Sure, didn’t Ella get just what she wanted? She’s been telling that made up story a hers up and down the river to anyone who’ll listen; that’s how it got back down to us. And she can tell it any way she likes, but it don’t make the truth of it no prettier. She puts the lie to it the first time she opens that mean old snaky mouth of hers. But I’ll tell you what – we’ve all been living happily ever after since she done run off.

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Wondering what this was all about? There’s a great short story contest going on over at Write Stuff right now and I decided I wanted to play! It’s a little bit of a departure from what I usually post on this blog. You might be surprised to find out that while I live in Southern California these days, underneath it all I’m a true southern girl, born and bred. Boy, did I ever let her loose with this story. Hope you enjoyed it!

 Make sure to stop by Write Stuff to read the other entries (and, while you’re at it, write and enter a story of your own!) and then make sure to cast a vote, between September 7th & 12th, for the one you like best.