Seeing Cinderella

by Jenny Lundquist

The air shimmered, and the screen appeared by Mom. Inside, in fierce red writing, were her thoughts about Dad. They were full of words I wasn’t allowed to say. Mom looked up and glanced at my journal. The screen changed then and an image appeared of my dad holding a painting and talking excitedly to Mom while she spooned baby food into Sarah’s mouth with one hand, and scrambled eggs with the other.

  “Have you been writing in that thing again?” she asked.

  “Uh, no,” I said, and carefully set it down on a bookcase. Mom went back to grading papers and I said, “The carnival was fun last night.”

  “Oh?” Mom said it like she wanted to hear more, but when I looked back at the screen near her I knew her thoughts were drifting away from Dad, and from me, and back to where they usually were—her classroom. Did I schedule the math test for Tuesday or Wednesday? Where is my planner?

  “Yeah,” I said as Mom began rummaging through piles on her desk. “We ran into some boys from our drama class.”

  “Good. That’s good, honey.” But then she found her planner, and her to-do list, and her thoughts drifted even farther away: Grade the spelling test, ask Callie to do her chores, call the bank, ask Callie to do her chores, clean the bathroom …

  “Yeah,” I said, pushing on, “and I was wondering if—”

  “Have you unloaded the dishwasher?” Mom looked up.

  “What? No. I just got up, remember?”

  Mom closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. Maybe if I send Callie to the park with Sarah, I could get everything done. I might as well unload the dishes myself, anyway.

  “Look, I’m sorry about the dishes. I’ll do them in a minute, but I was wondering—”

  Mom leaned around me and hollered. “Sarah! Can you come in here?” Then she looked up at me and said, “I need you to—”

  “Take Sarah to the park so you can get some work done. Okay, fine.” I stomped out the door, passing Sarah in the hallway. If Mom wondered how I’d known what she was thinking, she never asked. She was too busy telling Sarah to get dressed.

  My favorite tree lives in the park by our house. Squished between a couple palms and a few other evergreens stood one tree that was actually changing colors. After I got Sarah settled on the swings I sat down on a bench and stared at my tree. I liked looking at the red and brown and gold leaves. It made my heart rise up with a warm, hopeful feeling. Kind of like Thanksgiving and Christmas and the last day of school all rolled together.

  Then I thought about Ellen and Stacy and my heart plunged like a broken elevator. It never bothered me before that I didn’t have a ton of friends. I had Ellen, and she was better than a hundred friends.

  But what if one day we weren’t friends anymore?

  I opened my backpack and pulled out my Cinderella script and my journal. If I couldn’t talk to someone, I’d do something even better. I’d write a story.

  Cinderella and Her New Friend

  One day Cinderella got tired of living with her Wicked Stepsisters, who always did things without her and never let her in on their inside jokes. So she decided to ditch her sorry-looking bed under the chimney and find another place to live.

  She ran far into the forest and found an abandoned cottage in a meadow. She lived there happily all summer, but eventually she became lonely. She even missed the friendly mice from her stepmother’s attic. Each day she’d stand outside her cottage and sing at the top of her voice—hoping someone would hear. Day after day she came and sang, and just when the meadow turned cold and brown and she was about to give up, another girl her age stepped into the clearing and began to sing the same song. They went inside and passed the winter together singing and telling stories.

  When I finished, I closed my journal. And I saw Ana.

  She didn’t see me as she herded the Garcia boys into the park. Anthony and Miguel started throwing sand at each other.

  “Anthony! Miguel! Stop it!” Ana said, followed by something in Spanish.

  The boys ignored her, and then, in English, Ana threatened to tell Mr. Garcia they weren’t behaving.

  “Go ahead and tell him,” Anthony said. Then he threw a fistful of sand, which barely missed Ana’s face. “See what he’ll do.”

  I expected Ana to yell at him or turn around and march them straight back home. That’s what I would’ve done, anyway, if Sarah acted like that. But Ana just got this really sad look on her face and said something to them in Spanish, and they skittered off to the play structure.

  “Hi, Ana,” I said.

  Ana jumped and turned around. She seemed a little embarrassed. “Hola,” she said, and sat down next to me.

  “Feeling better?” I asked.

  “Better?”

  “Yeah. Are you still sick?”

  “No,” Ana said quickly, a look of realization setting in. “I’m feeling much better.”

  We were silent, and I turned to watch Miguel and Sarah, who were over by the trees throwing leaves at each other. I think we both knew Ana was lying about being sick.

  But it looked like we were both going to just let it go.

  “Did you have fun at the carnival last night?” Ana asked quietly.

  “Yeah. We ran into Scott Fowler and Charlie Ferris.”

  “Scott. The boy with the ponytail, yes? The one you like?”

  I turned to Ana. “How did you know I like him?” I hadn’t ever talked to Ana about my crush on Scott. Actually, I hadn’t talked to Ellen about him either, at least not this year. The time just never seemed right. (Translation: Stacy was always hanging around hogging Ellen and the conversation.)

  “What is that expression Americans use?” Ana paused. Then she smiled, and made a show of rolling her eyes. “Duh.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  Ana put her thumb and pointer finger together. “Un poquito. A little bit.” She leaned over and pointed at my script. “Are you practicing with Ellen today?”

  “No. She’s busy.” I felt a stabbing sensation and wondered if right then Ellen was practicing her Cinderella lines with Stacy. A role she wouldn’t even have if it weren’t for me.

  “Want to share secrets?” I asked.

  When Ellen and I were younger, we made up a game called “Sharing Secrets.” Ellen would tell me a secret, and then I would tell her one. The first time we played, we huddled under a sleeping bag with our flashlights. Ellen confessed she overheard her parents wondering why she only got a B on her science project, because Tara always got A’s in science. I confessed that when I overheard my parents it was usually because they were shouting at each other.

  After I explained the game to Ana and told her I would go first, I said, “I was supposed to be Cinderella.” I told her how Mr. Angelo offered me the lead. How I’d turned it down and given it to Ellen instead, because I knew Ellen wanted it more—even though sometimes I thought Ellen wasn’t the greatest actress. And anyway, I knew I would just screw things up if I was Cinderella.

  After I finished, I expected Ana to tell me what a great friend I was, or something like that.

  But she didn’t. “I think you would be a good Cinderella. I hear you practice. I think you could do it.”

  “Oh,” I said, surprised. “Yeah, maybe.”

  I looked over toward the kids. Miguel careened down the slide. Anthony grabbed low-hanging twigs from a tree—my tree—and snapped them off from the branch, while Sarah tried to catch a butterfly.

  I looked back at Ana. “It’s your turn.”

  “What?”

  “It’s your turn to share a secret.”

  Ana stared at me silently. “I know I’m lucky to live here,” she began and paused. “My family is very lucky that Tío lets me live with him. But he said—” Ana cut herself off.” But there was something—”

  Sarah’s screams interrupted Ana. She flailed over to me, followed by Anthony, who, in my opinion, looked totally guilty.

  “Callie! He threw sand in my face!” Sarah jabbed her finger at Anthony.

  “Did not!”


  “Did too!”

  Ana began speaking to Anthony in Spanish, and I took the opportunity to grab my glasses from my backpack and read Anthony’s thoughts, which, thankfully, were all in English. He did throw sand in Sarah’s face, and was feeling pretty pleased with himself about it. He planned to throw more sand at Sarah, and had some hidden in his pocket. He was actually hoping he’d get caught so Ana would make them all go home. That way he could finish the video game he’d been playing.

  Miguel came up to Ana then, asking for a drink of water. While Ana answered him, I leaned over and whispered to Anthony, “You’d better empty out your pockets, because if you even think about throwing sand at my little sister again, I will make those precious little video games of yours go somewhere far, far away.”

  Anthony’s eyes widened and he furiously pitched sand from his pockets.

  “Good,” I said. Then I turned to Sarah. “Problem solved. Now both of you go back to the swings and play nice.” I shook my finger at Anthony. “And no more snapping twigs off the trees.”

  Anthony, Miguel, and Sarah all scampered away, and I turned back to Ana.

  “Okay, go on,” I said, taking off my glasses and polishing them with the hem of my T-shirt.

  “What?” Ana looked confused.

  “You didn’t finish sharing your secret.” I put my glasses back on.

  Ana stared at me steadily. Finally she shrugged and said, “My secret is sometimes I don’t like America.”

  There was more to it than that, I was sure of it. The air shimmered, and in the blue screen that appeared next to Ana, tons and tons of Spanish words scrolled across. But other than a few words like casa (house) and familia (family), I didn’t understand any of it. A few English words were mixed in there, too, but not enough to make sense of anything.

  I realized that Ana’s secret, even though it hovered right before me, would stay a secret. Unless one day she decided to share it with me.

  Chapter 13

  Super Freaky Glasses Rule #12

  It’s no use crying over spilled Red Hots. Plus, boys are stupid.

  EARLY MONDAY MORNING, I COULDN’T GET MY LOCKER open. A red piece of paper was jammed between the door and the frame. The tenth time I spun the combination dial, the door finally sprang open, sending a shower of textbooks and loose papers cascading to the ground.

  “What’s all this junk?”

  Behind me stood Raven. She wore a scowl, and a new dog collar—this one silver with black spikes.

  “I told you not to mess with my stuff.”

  “Sorry.” I started grabbing books and tossing them into our locker. “Something was jammed in the door.

  “What’s this?” I picked up a thick red envelope, stuffed with something squarelike inside. I flipped it over and realized it was addressed to me.

  “Is this from you?” I asked Raven as I tore open the envelope.

  Raven gave me a look that told me to get real, and started cleaning up.

  Inside the envelope was a box of Red Hots. A red Post-it was stuck to it with a short note that read:

  Enjoy! Try not to spill these ones!

  “Hey, Princess Four Eyes, could use a little help here,” Raven said, picking trash up off the ground.

  “So hire a maid and stop bugging me,” I snapped, and read the note a second time. Then out loud a third time. Raven just grunted in response and grabbed a couple of books from our locker. Then she stalked into the crowded hallway, calling over her shoulder, “Tell your loser boyfriend to keep his lame love notes out of my locker.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  I flipped the Post-it over, but the other side was blank.

  I looked up, dumbfounded. Did I have a secret admirer?

  “It was from Scott, I know it,” I said to Ana at lunch. “Él es muy estúpido!”

  “I think you mean atractivo, not estúpido,” Ana said, smiling. “You just said Scott is very stupid.”

  “Right, sorry. Él es muy, muy, muy atractivo. He is soooooo cute!”

  Ana kept trying to tutor me in Spanish. But I had more important subjects to discuss: Scott, Scott, and—wait for it—Scott!

  Those Red Hots came from Scott, I was sure of it. Which meant I finally had the proof I needed: Scott liked me back!

  “I know it was from him,” I said, tapping the box of Red Hots, which I’d reverently placed in the middle of our lunch table. “You should’ve seen the look on his face when he made me spill my Red Hots. Then he won me Scotty, my teddy bear.”

  “I don’t know, Callie. There’s something about him,” Ana said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know how to say it,” Ana paused. “I don’t like his smile. And I think he knows you think he’s cute.”

  “So what? I do think he’s cute. Do you think I should ask him to the Sadie Hawkins dance?”

  The Sadie Hawkins dance was scheduled for the same Saturday as the play, just a few hours later. I knew this only because I’d heard Stacy agonizing for weeks over who she should ask, while Ellen wondered if she could wear her Cinderella costume to the dance. I hadn’t paid much attention because I hadn’t planned on going. But that was about to change. Because of the note and the Red Hots, I, Callie Anderson, was ready to attend my first dance!

  “What should I say to him in drama? Should I ask him then? Maybe I could tell him how much I liked the poems he wrote in English last year. Here”—I shoved my lunch tray across the table to Ana, who had forgotten to bring her lunch—“take this. I’m so nervous I can’t even eat.”

  Ana picked up the cold slice of pizza and began eating it hungrily.

  “Do you think you’ll go to the dance?” From all the admiring glances she received, Ana could probably ask a handful of different boys and they’d all say yes.

  Ana swallowed a mouthful of pizza and said, “I don’t really like dances.” She paused and then added quickly, “And I don’t know if you should ask Scott to the dance. What did Ellen say when you showed her the note?”

  “I . . . I’ll talk to her in drama class,” I said, realizing I hadn’t shown the note to Ellen earlier. It wasn’t deliberate. By the time I finished putting everything back in my locker, math class had already started. And then after Mrs. Faber dismissed us, Ellen and I had just gone our separate ways.

  He still hadn’t looked at me.

  Scott spent the first half of drama class talking to Charlie while they sorted through a few trunks of props— without even one glance my way. Mr. Angelo had decreed today a work day and asked us to divide up into our backstage crews. But I had ditched Ana and the rest of the paint crew, who were working onstage, so I could hang out with Ellen and Stacy while they stitched sequins onto the Cinderella costume. Stacy had been chattering all period about her date for Sadie Hawkins, so I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Ellen about Scott.

  I’d opened the hallowed box of Red Hots and made a show of eating them. But Scott never noticed. The only person who had noticed was Ellen, who snapped that I’d better not get red stains all over “her” dress.

  I kept eating them anyway. They soothed my stomach, which felt queasy with a mixture of anticipation and dread. I really wanted to ask Scott to the dance, but what if he said no? Then again, why would he say no? He’d sent me the Red Hots in the first place, right?

  “He said he’d just been waiting forever for me to ask him,” Stacy was going on.

  “Ouch!” I’d been so busy looking at Scott, but trying not to look like I was looking at Scott, that I stuck myself with the needle. I shook my finger, and then stuck it in my mouth, swallowing the metallic taste of blood.

  “I told you not to get candy stains on my dress,” Ellen snapped, pointing to a red splotch on the white fabric.

  “That’s not candy, that’s blood,” I snapped back, showing her my finger. “And unless you take that needle and stitch me up yourself, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Sorry,” Ellen said, softening her tone. Then she glanced aga
in at my finger and smiled. “Hey—remember the time we both nicked ourselves with my mother’s sewing needles?” Ellen turned to an unsmiling Stacy. “We wanted to be blood sisters. But Callie tripped and practically took off a finger. We ran to my mom and told her—before she would even look at Callie’s finger she asked if we got blood on her carpet.”

  “Yeah,” I said, remembering. “Pinkies are a lot easier, don’t you think?” I held mine out. “Best friends forever.”

  Ellen started to raise her pinkie, and then hesitated, making me wish I’d put on my glasses. Before I could reach for them, Stacy butted in.

  “So, Ellen, did you tell Callie yet?” Stacy set down her needle and sequins.

  Ellen lowered her arm, and her eyes, and a flush spread across her cheeks. While Ellen remained silent, I slipped my glasses from my backpack and put them on. I figured this would be a spy-worthy conversation.

  “What’s up?”

  The air shimmered and the screen launched up next to Stacy: Ellen never called her! I guess I’m Ellen’s best friend now. Forget that stupid little pinkie squeeze.

  “Ellen likes someone,” Stacy said smugly.

  “Okay,” I said. “Who is it?” I felt hurt that Ellen had talked to Stacy first, but I also felt excited. Maybe we could both ask someone to the dance and all go together. Take that, Stacy, you prissy little best-friend stealer!

  Ellen looked up and said, “Scott Fowler. He’s totally cute.”

  “Scott Fowler?” I repeated. A numbing sensation began spreading through my chest. Had I heard wrong? Ellen thought Scott—and his ponytail—were scruffy. When did Scott stop being scruffy, and become cute? “Since when have you ever cared about Scott Fowler?” My voice sounded like Ellen had done something wrong, but I couldn’t help it. Scott Fowler had been my crush since forever. What right did Ellen have to him?

  It wasn’t fair. If Ellen really were Cinderella she wouldn’t even need a fairy godmother to help her snag the Prince. She was already pretty, and smart, and she made friends easily. Why should she get Scott, too?