Leaping Beauty: And Other Animal Fairy Tales

by Gregory Maguire

  In a far-off land there lived a king and queen whose lives seemed perfect. They had a terrific castle filled with the latest conveniences. They had a royal box at the soccer matches. They had season tickets to the symphony. But none of this could make them happy.

  “If only I could have a child, my life would be fulfilled,” said the queen, sighing. “What good is a castle without the sound of children laughing with joy? What good is a royal box for the soccer games without the sound of children screaming with excitement? What good is a season ticket to the symphony without the sound of children snoring with boredom? Besides, all those violins, they make me feel seasick.”

  “You have been looking pale lately,” said the king. “You should see a doctor.”

  The queen went to the outpatient clinic. The doctor was a kindly kangaroo. “So what seems to be the problem?” she asked.

  “I want to have a child,” said the queen. “And so does the king.”

  “You have too much stress in your life,” said the kangaroo doctor. “It’s not easy being a queen. Put your feet up. Get out more. Go to the symphony or something.”

  “I hate the symphony,” said the queen, and started to weep.

  “There, there,” said the kangaroo doctor. “I have just the thing. A little tea brewed just for you.” She bustled about her office and made a nice pot of hot tea. She served the tea in a cup shaped like an elephant head, with a handle formed out of the curving trunk.

  “All will be well,” said the kangaroo doctor. “You’ll see. Here’s my card. Call me if you’ve any news.”

  “I will,” said the queen, feeling better, and she took a cab home.

  In time the queen found herself growing a little stouter. At first she thought it was because she had stopped going to the symphony and the soccer games. She wasn’t getting much exercise. But when the king said, “My dear, you’re glowing with health,” the queen finally realized the reason.

  “We’re going to have a baby!” she cried. So she sent the kangaroo doctor a little note of thanks, and a box of chocolates besides.

  For many months the queen grew larger and larger. In fact, she grew a good deal larger than anyone expected. The kangaroo doctor had to make a house call—that is, a castle call. “Looks like you’re going to have about eight or ten little babies,” said the kangaroo doctor. “Either that, or one really big one.”

  “My goodness,” said the queen.

  “Well, you wanted a baby,” said the kangaroo doctor.

  “I shall love it—or them—all of them,” said the queen firmly. “I have never been happier.”

  The king said devotedly, “You have never looked lovelier.”

  The kangaroo doctor said, “You have never looked larger.”

  At last the baby was due. The queen’s maids-in-waiting and the kangaroo doctor came by to assist. They were surprised when they delivered a beautiful little baby elephant. Well, little for an elephant. When the queen saw her, she wept tears of joy. “I have a child at last, and I have never been happier!” she cried. Then—in that horrible ricocheting way of stories such as these—she died.

  The king went nearly blind with grief. The kangaroo doctor hopped away, too sad to speak. The maids-in-waiting called the baby Ella, put her in a cradle the size of a bathtub, and sang her to sleep.

  Now, the king mourned the loss of his beloved wife for many months. He found it painful to look at Ella, for she reminded him of his dead queen. In the end he quit his job as king and took a new job as a bus driver, which was pretty hard to do because he was mostly blind. But no one liked to criticize his driving because they knew of the sadness he had been through. His regular customers on the Number 72 bus found themselves miles away from where they wanted to be. They had to get new apartments and take new jobs on a regular basis.

  In time the bus driver married a new wife. She was not much to look at, but then he didn’t have much to look at her with. She had two daughters from a previous marriage. They were spiky and disagreeable sorts, but they were human beings, not elephants. They made fun of their new stepsister. They called her Cinder-Elephant, for they made Ella sleep in the cinders of the kitchen fire and do all the household chores besides.

  Cinder-Elephant was too devoted to her father to complain. Anyway, soon there was no father to complain to, because one day, by accident, her father drove his bus off an ocean cliff. His only passengers were seals, who fortunately could swim away to safety, but the Number 72 bus and her father drifted out of sight into the briny deep.

  “Humph!” said Cinder-Elephant’s stepmother when she heard the news. “Another husband takes the plunge. My first husband toppled into a well. Men are so clumsy. Well, Cinder-Elephant, no use weeping those huge tears; you’re making a mess on the floor. What’s done is done. Go downstairs to the kitchen and make some brownies, why don’t you. I always feel a powerful hunger when I lose a husband.”

  Cinder-Elephant went to the kitchen and made some brownies. Because her ears were large, she could hear her stepmother and stepsisters chatting in the parlor overhead.

  “I don’t like that Cinder-Elephant,” said the older stepsister, whose name was Mildew. “Those tusks give me the creeps.”

  “And that trunk!” shrieked the younger stepsister, whose name was Mayhem. “Talk about needing a nose job!”

  “She’ll never get a husband,” agreed the stepmother. “Which is lucky for us, as it’s nice to have our own private pastry chef. Now, my dears, listen to me. I know we’ve got to plan a memorial service for that sadly departed bus driver fellow. But first, the important things. The mail has arrived, and here is an envelope directed to ‘All the Fair Maiden Occupants’ at this address. It seems that the new king and queen, the ones who were hired to take over from the old ones, are having a ball. I hear through the grapevine that they have a son of marrying age. He is looking for a wife. I suggest the three of us go and present ourselves with our best foot forward.”

  “My feet are dainty,” said Mildew. “Your feet have fallen arches.”

  “My feet are dainty,” said Mayhem. “Your feet are smelly.”

  “Girls, don’t argue about the virtue of your feet,” said their mother. “In a beauty pageant my feet would stomp all over yours every time, but never mind about that. My dears, we must primp and preen. One of us must be the prince’s bride. I hope it will be me, as I am newly available. But if it is either of you, I demand the best room in the castle. I demand tickets to the soccer games. But I’ll skip the symphony, as I prefer yodeling to myself in the privacy of my own bathroom.”

  Cinder-Elephant wept bitter tears into the mixing bowl. She missed her father, and she feared that no prince would ever select her, even if she got to go to the ball. Which she doubted would happen.

  That evening she brought up the subject while she was clearing the table of soup bowls.

  “May I go to the ball with you?” she said.

  “You’ve been eavesdropping again, you nosy thing,” snarled Mildew.

  “Nosy! I’ll say nosy!” Mayhem pointed at Cinder-Elephant. “Look at the shnozzola on you! What prince would ever want to kiss you?”

  “These brownies are too salty,” said the stepmother. “Have you been weeping into the brownie batter again?”

  “I was sad today,” said Cinder-Elephant, nodding her huge head. “I miss my father. And I want to go to the ball.”

  “The only ball you’ll ever go to is the one you’ll balance on when I sell you to the circus!” cried the stepmother. She threw the brownies into the fireplace. “Now get back to the kitchen and bake us each a pecan pie! Pronto! We’re not leaving this table till we get some decent dessert!”

  “And if you cry into the batter this time, we’ll send you back until you get it right,” said Mayhem.

  “While we’re waiting, let’s plan our gowns for the ball,” said Mildew.

  Cinder-Elephant said, “If I make perfect pecan pies, may I go to the ball, please?”

  “We’ll se
e,” said the stepmother. “I can’t decide now; I’m having a sugar low.”

  Cinder-Elephant got out three glass pie dishes and molasses, sugar, and nuts. She slaved over the hot oven and made three pecan pies. But when she delivered them, her stepmother still refused to give an answer.

  “Tomorrow you can make us some mince pies. If they’re very good, I’ll decide then,” she said.

  In the days that followed, the stepmother and stepsisters chose fabric for their ball gowns. They engaged a zebra seamstress to cut and sew for them. Every night Cinder-Elephant presented new pies: deep-dish cherry pie, Boston creme pie, lemon chiffon pie, key lime pie, pear and ginger pie, peach and pineapple pie, and mock apple pie, made with Ritz crackers and a little lemon juice. However good the pies were, the stepmother decided they were never good enough. “You’ll never catch a man if you’re no good in the kitchen, Cinder-Elephant!” she cried. “Try again! Tomorrow we want blueberry-and-currant pie!”

  Once a week the zebra seamstress had to come and rip out the seams of the ball gowns. With all these pies, the stepsisters and stepmother were putting on a little weight.

  Finally the evening came for the ball. The stepmother had almost run out of ideas of pies to ask for. They’d had Georgie-Porgie-pudding-’n’-pie. They’d had Jack-Horner’s-thumb-in-the-Christmaspie. They’d had four-and-twenty-blackbirds-baked-in-a-pie. “Give us three good old pumpkin pies,” said the stepmother at last, waddling out of the kitchen. “If they are tasty enough, you may go to the ball. Though what you’ll wear I hardly dare think! Maybe you can sew the curtains into a dress! That’ll be large enough! Ha-ha-ha!”

  Cinder-Elephant had an enormous pumpkin delivered under the linden tree in the kitchen yard. She was sharpening a carving knife to cut it with when Mayhem and Mildew came thudding down the steps into the kitchen. The stepsisters got stuck in the kitchen doorway and then barreled through.

  “Oh la, Cinder-Elephant’s cooking again!” cried Mayhem. “Don’t I look elegant in my ball gown?” She spun around. Dressed in cherry-colored fabric, Mayhem looked a bit like a dancing sofa.

  “I look better!” shrieked Mildew. In emerald green, she resembled a cavorting refrigerator overgrown with moss.

  Mayhem picked up a jar of allspice from the table where Cinder-Elephant had put it, ready to use in her nightly baking. Mildew grabbed it from her and shook it in the air toward their stepsister. “Happy baking, you clot!” they chorused.

  Then looks of horror crossed their faces as they saw Cinder-Elephant’s eyes close and her nose twitch.

  “A sneeze!” cried Mayhem.

  “Oh please!” cried Mildew.

  “She’s going to blow!” cried their mother, looking down the steps into the kitchen. “Run for your lives, girls!”

  Elbowing past each other through the doorway, the stepsisters almost did each other in. Cinder-Elephant, her nose tickled by the dust of allspice, sneezed so massively that she fell against the fireplace and was knocked out cold.

  When the stepmother looked down a few minutes later, she said, “No pumpkin pies, I see, and lazy Cinder-Elephant is snoozing by the fire again. She doesn’t deserve to go to the ball with us. Come, daughters. Let us step lively and win ourselves a prince.”

  When Cinder-Elephant came to, she realized that the house was quiet and her stepfamily had deserted her. Though she didn’t believe in feeling sorry for herself, it was all too much this evening. First her mother had died in childbirth, and then her almost-blind father had driven his bus off a cliff into the sea. How much worse could life get?

  Still, there was work to be done. She would mind her manners until she was old enough to get her own flat in town. Maybe then she could open a bakery or something.

  Trying not to cry, she decided to carve up the pumpkin and remove the seeds. But she couldn’t help uttering one quiet sob. “Oh, if only someone kind could help me!”

  To her immense surprise, someone appeared. At first Cinder-Elephant thought it was a beautiful spirit, but then she realized it was a kangaroo wearing a stethoscope. She had bounded through the kitchen window.

  “I just happened to be wandering by,” said the kangaroo doctor, for it was she. “I attended your birth, dear girl, and though you never knew it, I have always made it my business to be sure you were all right. Why are you crying?”

  “I wanted to go to the ball,” said Cinder-Elephant. “But I didn’t make any pumpkin pies.”

  “So who needs pumpkin pies tonight?” said the kangaroo doctor. “They’re having fresh fruit and yogurt at the ball, very healthy and low in calories. Why don’t you just go?”

  “I have no gown,” said Cinder-Elephant.

  “Well, I’m no fairy godmother,” said the kangaroo doctor, “but I happen to have in my pouch a couple of hospital robes. And I’ve had a lot of experience stitching up wounds, so I could quickly stitch up a gown. Will that help?”

  “You’re so kind,” said Cinder-Elephant. “But how shall I get there?”

  “Look at that pumpkin,” said the kangaroo doctor. “I’m no fairy godmother, but I happen to have in my pouch some spare axles and four huge wheels. I do auto repair in my spare time. It’s not all that different from surgery. Could we affix the pumpkin to these wheels? Then we could hitch it to the horses tied up out front.”

  “I thought the horses took my stepmother and stepsisters to the ball,” said Cinder-Elephant.

  “They had to walk. The horses couldn’t drag all three of them,” said the kangaroo doctor. “The horses would have keeled over with cardiac arrest. But they could manage pulling you. Though you need to exercise more, dearie. Lose a few pounds. Dance up a storm tonight.”

  “I have no shoes!” cried Cinder-Elephant suddenly.

  “Do I have to think of everything?” said the kangaroo doctor. “I want to be helpful, but there’s a limit. Do you think I carry a full line of Italian footware in my pouch? Use your noggin, my dearie. You’re a bright girl.”

  Cinder-Elephant looked around the room. She found two of the glass pie plates she had been about to use for pumpkin pies. They were just about the same size as her feet.

  “Perfect! Glass slippers!” cried the kangaroo doctor. “You’ll have to dance carefully, my dear, or I’ll be pulling slivers of glass out of your heel from now till dawn. Now off you go to the ball. One word of advice, though. Leave by the stroke of midnight. Nothing much will happen if you don’t, except that the pumpkin carriage will start to rot after a while. You don’t want the prince to see you leaving his fancy party in a coach smelling of decaying vegetable matter.”

  Cinder-Elephant kissed the kangaroo doctor and jumped in the pumpkin carriage. Off she rode to the ball.

  By the time Cinder-Elephant arrived at the castle, the party was in full swing. There was a forty-piece band playing sambas and polkas. On the buffet tables was lots of fresh fruit, and not a pie in sight. And the prince, standing in a bored manner behind the throne picking a shred of orange from between his two front teeth, was the most handsome thing Cinder-Elephant had ever seen.

  Cinder-Elephant came through the door into the ballroom. All eyes glanced up at her.

  “Who’s that ravishing beauty?” said the king. “What a big healthy girl!”

  “Look at that exquisite nose!” said the queen. “How marvelous!”

  “That vamp! Now I see that white is the best color for a gown, not cherry or emerald!” cried Mildew.

  “That hussy! Those glass slippers are to die for!” cried Mayhem.

  “Girls, keep your voices down; you sound shrill and vain,” said their mother.

  Cinder-Elephant descended the main staircase slowly, elegantly, taking care not to crush the pie plates. In one bound the prince cleared the ballroom and knelt at the foot of the stairs. “May I have the honor of this dance?” he cried.

  He swept her in his arms—or as much of her as he could hold. Around the dance floor they swirled.

  Mildew turned green with envy, matching her gown
. Mayhem blushed cherry with rage, matching her gown. Their stepmother nibbled on a slice of melon and wished the castle kitchens were serving pie.

  All night long the prince danced with Cinder-Elephant. He had eyes for no other. Beyond that, he was actually an interesting guy. He had a comic book collection second to none in the kingdom, and he knew a lot about music. “Do you like soccer play-offs?” he murmured into Cinder-Elephant’s ear. “I have tickets to the royal box.”

  Too soon, the clock struck twelve. Cinder-Elephant, remembering the kangaroo doctor’s warning, tore herself away from the prince’s fond embrace and lumbered to the doorway. “Wait! Come back! I didn’t get your phone number!” cried the prince. But Cinder-Elephant had already begun to ascend the stairs, and she found it hard to change direction once she had got herself going.

  The kangaroo doctor’s advice had been sound. The pumpkin coach was already beginning to sag on its chassis. “Hi, ho, and away!” cried Cinder-Elephant, and the carriage rumbled away, leaving a trail of pumpkin seeds behind. Cinder-Elephant was halfway home when she realized that in her haste, she had lost one of her glass pie plates.

  The prince, meanwhile, had followed his beloved as quickly as he could. He saw a huge pumpkin trundling off into the distance, which was surprise enough. But when he saw the pie plate on the castle steps, he knew he had a clue to the identity of his sweetheart.

  The next day the prince issued a proclamation. He would search the kingdom over and find the one whose foot fit into a glass pie plate.

  Back at their home, Mildew and Mayhem tittered with hope. They had stuffed themselves with so much pie in the previous weeks that their feet were swollen. With a little care, one of them might yet nab that handsome prince as a hubby!

  Within the hour the prince was hot on the chase. All he had to do was follow the trail of pumpkin seeds. It led straight to the house of the stepmother, stepsisters, and Cinder-Elephant.

  “May I see if the feet of any females present fit into this pie plate?” asked the prince. “I know it’s a rude thing to ask, but I’m looking for someone to be my bride. In between fittings, I promise to wipe the pie plate clean with this cloth.”