Story Sampler

STORY SAMPLER

Here's a changing sample of my short stories. The stories printed here are all under copyright and can not be used without permission.

Cinder-elephant

There was once a lovely big girl who lived with her father in a large house near the king's park.

Her mother had been called Pleasingly Plump. Her grandmother had been called Round and Rosie. Her great grandmother had been called Sunny and Solid. And her great great grandmother had been called Fat!

But though she was bigger than most, the girl had a sweet face,

a loving heart, a kind disposition and big feet.

Her name was Eleanor.

Her father called her Elly.

Now Elly and her father did everything together. They rambled and scrambled over the rolling hills. They bird-watched and dish-washed and trout-fished, and star-wished together.In fact they were happy for a long long time.

But one day Elly's father grew lonely for someone his own age; someone who laughed at the same jokes; someone who knew the words to the same songs; someone who knew the steps to dances like the turkey trot and the mashed potato and didn't think those were just food groups.

So he married again, a woman so thin it took her three tries to throw a shadow. She had two skinny daughters. One was as skinny as a straw. One was as skinny as a reed. They had thin smiles, too. And thin names: Reen and Rhee. And hearts so thin, you could read a magazine through them.

Reen and Rhee smiled their thin smiles all through the wedding and the very next morning they made Elly their maid.

They made her do the dishes. They made her make the beds. They even made her sit in the fireplace where she got covered with soot and cinders.

To make matters worse they called her names:

Elly, Elly,

big fat belly,

Cinder Elephant.

So Elly cried.

But crying only made things worse. It made the soot into mudpies

and the cinders into bogs. So Elly stopped crying.

Elly may have been big, but she wasn't stupid. She did the sisters' work without complaining, and she did it very well. And in her spare time

--which meant long after her stepmother and the skinnies were asleep--she read books. Books about football and baseball, books about tennis and golf. It was how she preferred to get her exercise.

One day as Elly worked in the kitchen, two little bluebirds peeked in the window.

Elly guessed they were hungry so she gave them each a crumb of bread.

Just then in came the skinnies, Reen and Rhee, one thin as a reed, one thin as a straw.

"Mama, Mama," they screamed in their thin little voices. "Look what Cinder Elephant has done!"

Their skinny mother came quickly in her best running shoes, size five and a half, narrow. (Very narrow.)

She took the bread crumbs away, saying: "Cinder Elephant, this is all

you will get for your dinner. Dieting will do you a world of good and you will thank me for it later."

Then she turned to her skinny daughters. "I have great news.

Prince Junior is home from school."

"The p*r*i*n*c*e!" Reen and Rhee squealed for of course they had heard of him. He wore great clothes. He had straight teeth, which in the days before dentists, took a lot of doing. And he was sure to inherit the kingdom.

The sisters smiled their thin smiles and ran to their bedrooms to pick out their prettiest dresses to wear in case they should bump into him.

Elly stayed on in the kitchen pretending to cry. But as soon as the skinnies were gone, she gave her bread crumb dinner to the bluebirds anyway.

They ate it in one gulp each, singing:

'"The bigger the heart,

The greater the prize.

You will be perfect

In somebody's eyes."

Fairy tale birds always sing like this. It's annoying to everyone

except the heroine.

Meanwhile in the palace, Prince Junior had just had a serious talk

with his father, the king.

"Time to get married," said the king. "Time to grow up. Time to run the kingdom." The king always spoke that way to his son: short and to the point. Pointed remarks were his specialty.

"I am not in love," said Prince Junior.

"Doesn't matter," said the king.

"I am not even in like," said Prince Junior.

"Doesn't matter," said the king.

"I don't even know any girls," said Prince Junior.

"That matters," said the king. "Time to think about it." So, the king began to think.

It took hours.

It took days.

It took help!

At last the king came up with a plan. "Time for a ball," said the king.

Prince Junior was pleased. "Oh good," he said. "I like balls." He meant he liked footballs and baseballs and tennis balls. (Though he wasn't terribly fond of moth balls. They stank something fierce.)

"Your father means a fancy dress drinking-champagne-from-slippers ball," said his mother, the queen.

Prince Junior groaned. He really preferred watching birds

to that kind of ball.

"Invite everyone in the kingdom," said the king, "as long as they are girls. Send them to very shop girl, cop girl, mop girl, prop girl

and champagne-in-the-slipper girl in the kingdom."

"And," added the queen, "no invitation--no admittance."

So invitations went out on creamy invitation paper and every girl in the kingdom was invited except for Elly because her skinny stepsisters tore up her invitation. Then they made Elly pick up the creamy pieces.

On the night of the royal ball the skinny stepsisters swept out of the house, in yellow gowns, skinny as straws and looking like brooms.

They rode to the castle.and their skinny mother went with them.

And to the castle as well went every shop girl, cop girl, mop girl, prop girl

and champagne-in-the-slipper girl in the kingdom.

But Elly stayed at home staring into the cinders. She had no invitation to the ball. Even worse--she had nothing to wear.

At ten o'clock there came a noise at the kitchen window. It was the bluebirds.

"You gave us something

Yummy to eat.

Now we are back

With a marvelous treat."

Elly threw open the window.

In flew the bluebirds with all their bird friends carrying a large gown made of feathers. Blue feathers from the bluebirds, gold feathers from the goldfinches, green feathers from the greenfinches, and brown feathers from the owls.

They slipped the gown over Elly's head before she could say a word.

"You look beautiful," sang the bluebirds.

"As trees in the fall

And now you can set off

For Prince Junior's ball."

Actually, with all those feathers, Elly looked more like a big fat hen.

And as much as she wanted to go to the royal dance, Elly knew a thing or two about balls herself. She knew she could not get in without a proper invitation. But she did not want to hurt the birds' feelings.

So instead she said: "I have no dancing slippers. Size nine-and-a-half wide." (Very wide.)

The birds flew away all a-twitter and did not return until eleven o'clock when they pecked excitedly at the kitchen window.

"Let us in, let us in,

We've come with a treat:

A pair of new shoes

To put on your feet."

(Please remember that the expression "bird brain" was invented by someone who knew quite a bit about birds.)

Elly opened the window and in flew the bluebirds with all their bird friends, carrying two big slippers made of twigs and grass which they slipped on to Elly's feet.

"How do I look?" Elly asked.

Actually she looked like a big fat hen sitting on a nest. But the birds all thought she looked beautiful and said so.

Elly did not want to hurt their feelings. But she still had no invitation.

So instead she said "I have no carriage to ride in. And if I walk to the palace, I will be too late for the ball."

"Here we are

Birds of a feather

And so we all

Must flock together, " the birds sang.

And before Elly could ask them what they meant, they had lifted her up and up and up.

The wind blew under the arms of the feather gown. And away Elly flew with the flock of birds to Prince Junior's fancy-dress ball.

By now, of course, it was nearly midnight.

Prince Junior was tired of talking about things he did not enjoy,

like the weather and the price of fancy dresses. He was slightly sick

from all that shoe champagne. So he went outside to the terrace for a breath of fresh air and to do a little bird watching.

He had just put his field glasses up to his eyes, when what should drop from the skies, but a giant hen on a nest.

Prince Junior was amazed. He stared at the hen's lovely round face

though his glasses. He checked his field guide.

There was no such hen among the chickens.

It was Elly, of course, come to the royal ball even though she had no invitation.

"Sorry to make an end run around the guards at the door," said Elly.

"You know football!" said the prince.

"And baseball," said Elly.

"What about tennis?" asked the prince.

"Adore it," she admitted. "Golf, too."

Prince Junior was not so sure about golf. So he asked slyly: "And moth balls?"

"Stink something fierce," said Elly.

"I think I love you," said the prince, smiling at Elly with his perfect teeth.

Just then a big wind blew across the terrace, lifting Elly in her feather dress back into the air.

One of her slippers fell off, landing in the undergrowth.

Then she was gone, blown back home before answering Prince Junior's declaration of love.

By the time she was dropped onto her own front porch the feather gown was a ruin. She put the remaining slipper on the windowsill over the kitchen sink and filled it with ferns.

Poor Elly.

Poor prince.

The skinny sisters came home in a twit. That is not a kind of carriage.

It is a kind of temper tantrum. They were so mad, they could barely talk.

So they yelled.

"PRINCE JUNIOR IS A LOON" yelled Reen.

"WHICH IS A KIND OF BIRD," yelled Rhee.

"HE IS IN LOVE WITH A FAT HEN," they yelled together.

Elly just smiled into the cinders. It was a happy smile and a sad smile, too. But she didn't tell them anything. Would you?

Prince Junior found the slipper the very next day, when he was out bird watching, which some people do to ease an aching heart. He thought the slipper was a nest and went to put it back in the tree.

But then he took a second look.

"I know what this is!" he said. (He was pretty smart for a prince.) And he picked up the slipper and ran inside.

"I want to marry the hen who fits this grass slipper," he told his parents.

"Glass slippers are more usual," said his mother.

"Princes marry swans--not hens," added his father.

Then they sighed.

But Prince Junior was adamant.

So he searched high. (Very high.)

He searched low. (Very low.)

In fact he searched the entire kingdom. But all the girls had small feet, tiny feet, five-to-seven narrow feet. (Very narrow.) The grass slipper fell off every one.

At last Prince Junior arrived at Elly's house, the very last house on the very last block, where Elly sat amongst the cinders.

The skinny sisters tried on the grass shoe. They wadded paper in at the toes and cotton at the heel. They put superglue on their insteps and duct tape on their ankles.

But still the shoe fell off. (It was, after all, a slipper, which is to say, it was slippery.)

And then it fell apart all over the kitchen floor. (It was, after all, only made of grass and twigs.)

"Oh no!" cried Prince Junior. "Now how will I find my own true love?"

The skinny sisters were furious. "Elly! Come clean up this mess," they demanded.

Then they swept out of the room with Prince Junior while Elly swept up the room by herself.

When she was done, Elly got the other slipper, from the windowsill.

She was about to put it on her big foot to show Prince Junior who she really was, when she noticed that the bluebirds had used the slipper as a nest. There were three little eggs hidden in the ferns. So she put the slipper back on the sill, and sat down again in the cinders.

Poor Elly.

Poor Prince.

And that would have been the end of that, except the bluebirds

came back to the nest and began to squawk and talk in bluebird.

Prince Junior heard their cries. He ran into the kitchen

with his field glasses.

"Bluebirds!" he cried, turning his glasses from the nest to Elly. Close up, he recognized her face.

"My dear hen!" he cried.

"My dear prince!" she answered.

Then they kissed, and all that nonsense about slippers--

glass, grass, or good sturdy leather--was forgotten.

Elly and Prince Junior were married of course. They named their children Blue, Green, Goldie, and Owl.

As for Reen and Rhee, and their skinny mother, they were often invited to the palace because Elly held no grudges. But they never came.

Their lips were too thin to ask forgiveness and their minds too mean to understand love.

Moral: If you love a waist, you waste a love.

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