Disenchanted by Heide Goody & Iain Grant

Author:Heide Goody & Iain Grant [Goody, Heide]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Humor, Comedy, fairy godmother, dwarf, Humour, fairytale
ISBN: 9780993365584
Publisher: Pigeon Park Press
Published: 2017-05-05T07:00:00+00:00

The scale of the dining table made her gasp in shock and quickly check her surroundings to be sure that she was still a full-sized human.

“Good evening,” came a voice from the distance. Ella looked to her right and could just about make out the end of the table, where a huge figure sat.

“Do make yourself comfortable,” directed the figure.

Ella saw that the only available chair was in front of her, in the middle of the table. She looked left, to the other end of the table, and saw someone hunched in a chair. Was that her father? She walked towards him. A discreet cough behind her made her turn and she saw Cheeky indicate the vacant chair with a meaningful nod.

Ella gave him her most pleasant ‘fuck you’ smile and continued to the end of the table.

Her heart both leapt and sank at the sight of her father. Gavin Hannaford, the fifty-something bon viveur she knew, casually incompetent dad and weekend alcoholic, had been replaced with a tired red-faced little man. The look on his face was that of a rabbit caught in the headlights, a rabbit that had just seen its own daughter behind the wheel.

“Dad,” she said, reaching out for him.

He half rose, stopped and then, frozen, clutched her outstretched hand.

“Oh, Ella love, what are you doing here?”

“I came to find you. I have so much to tell you.”

“You can’t be here!” he hissed, giving her hand a squeeze.

“But I just arrived.”

“You have to go.”

“Why?” she asked.

“They’re about to serve the soup.”

“What the…”

A servant stepped towards her. “We are about to serve the soup, miss,” he said. He had the same exotic accent as Cheeky and had a hook for a hand.

“Manners are very important to Mr Dainty,” said her dad.

Ella considered the hook-handed man and her situation. She decided to ignore the possibility that all of the household staff were battle-scarred henchmen and instead chose to believe that Mr Dainty made a special effort to employ individuals who had suffered life-altering injuries. ‘Help for Heroes’ sounded better than ‘hired henchmen’.

It took a full thirty seconds to walk back to her seat. The table could easily have seated a couple of hundred people. She saw more servants carrying food — there was one with a metal plate screwed to his forehead, another with an eyepatch — and realised that the table was so long that it required a series of different doors to service different parts of the table.

As she sat down, a bowl of soup was placed before her.

Ella wondered what level of etiquette this situation demanded. She didn’t want to start eating before her dining companions, particularly if her dad lived in fear of Dainty’s manners, but she could hardly see them, let alone tell whether they were wielding cutlery. Perhaps there would be some sort of verbal cue. She waited.

“Excellent soup!” boomed the figure to her right.

Ella’s soup was whisked away. She reached after it with a spoon but it was gone.

A main course was set before her, delicate slices of something that might have been turkey.

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