How to Fracture a Fairy Tale by Jane Yolen

Author:Jane Yolen [Yolen, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B07D3XLX56
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published: 2018-09-20T16:00:00+00:00

Sleeping Ugly

PRINCESS MISERELLA WAS A beautiful princess if you counted her eyes and nose and mouth and all the way down to her toes. But inside, where it was hard to see, she was the meanest, wickedest, and most worthless princess around. She liked stepping on dogs. She kicked kittens. She threw pies in the cook’s face. And she never—not even once—said thank you or please. And besides, she told lies.

In that very same kingdom, in the middle of the woods, lived a poor orphan named Plain Jane. She certainly was. Her hair was short and turned down. Her nose was long and turned up. And even if they had been the other way round, she would not have been a great beauty. But she loved animals, and she was always kind to strange old ladies.

One day Princess Miserella rode out of the palace in a huff. (A huff is not a kind of carriage. It is a kind of temper tantrum. Her usual kind.) She rode and rode and rode, looking beautiful as always, even with her hair in tangles. She rode right into the middle of the woods and was soon lost. She got off her horse and slapped it sharply for losing the way. The horse said nothing, but ran right back home. It had known the way back all the time, but it was not about to tell Miserella.

So there was the princess, lost in a dark wood. It made her look even prettier.

Suddenly, Princess Miserella tripped over a little old lady asleep under a tree.

Now, little old ladies who sleep under trees deep in the dark wood are almost always fairies in disguise. Miserella guessed who the little old lady was, but she didn’t care. She kicked the old lady on the bottoms of her feet. “Get up and take me home,” said the princess.

So the old lady got to her feet very slowly—for the bottoms now hurt. She took Miserella by the hand. (She used only her thumb and second finger to hold Miserella’s hand. Fairies know quite a bit about that kind of princess.) They walked and walked even deeper into the wood. There they found a little house. It was Plain Jane’s house. It was dreary. The floors sank. The walls stank. The roof leaked even on sunny days. But Jane made the best of it. She planted roses around the door. And little animals and birds made their home with her. (That may be why the floors sank and the walls stank, but no one complained.)

“This is not my home,” said Miserella with a sniff.

“Nor mine,” said the fairy.

They walked in without knocking, and there was Jane.

“It is mine,” she said.

The princess looked at Jane, down and up, up and down.

“Take me home,” said Miserella, “and as a reward I will make you my maid.”

Plain Jane smiled a thin little smile. It did not improve her looks or the princess’s mood.

“Some reward,” said the fairy to herself. Out loud she said, “If you could take both of us home, I could probably squeeze out a wish or two.

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