Why Cinderella Skipped the Ball

By Zoe Cannon

The thing about fairy godmothers is that they always have an agenda.

 

Take Cinderella's. She's dead-set on stuffing Cinderella into a pouffy dress and shoving her off to the ball to make kissy faces at some prince. If Cinderella becomes queen, that puts the fairy godmother in line for all the royal favors she could ever ask for.

 

Cinderella would rather slay the dragon that's been eating all the kingdom's sheep. She likes mutton, she likes wool, and she really likes the thought of her grand deeds immortalized in song. The problem is, she's no dragonslayer. She can't win that fight without her fairy godmother's help, and her fairy godmother isn't biting.

But if Cinderella plays her cards right, maybe they can both get what they want.

 

This short story is 7000 words long. It is also available in Not Your Heroine, a fantasy short story collection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zoe Cannon
• Release date: Feb 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215822753

Book preview

Why Cinderella Skipped the Ball

Zoe Cannon

© 2023 Zoe Cannon

http://www.zoecannon.com

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Why Cinderella Skipped the Ball

The thing about fairy godmothers is that they always have an agenda.

Mine, for instance, was dead-set on convincing me to go to the ball and win the heart of the prince. And was it any wonder? If I married a prince, someday I would be queen. Someday not too long in the future, judging by the state of the king’s health. When that happened, I would be both very powerful and very grateful to her for making it all happen. Not only that, I would always know that what her magic had given me, her magic could take away. That was a lot of incentive to give her all the royal favors she could ever ask for.

But your stepsisters are both going! she protested, standing smack in the middle of the exact section of floor I was trying to scrub. As we speak, your stepmother is measuring them for dresses. She has a plan to sneak them into the palace so they can pass themselves off as noble ladies long enough to charm the prince. All so she can take advantage of her position someday as the mother of the queen!

You, on the other hand, would never dream of such coldhearted scheming, I muttered. I waved to the side with my washrag, sending droplets of muddy water across the floor. Move over, will you?

Do you really want to risk one of your stepsisters becoming queen instead of you? she demanded. She still didn’t move her feet.

I shrugged. Sure, why not? If one of them is off living in the palace, that means she’s not here, bossing me around. If I’m lucky, maybe they’ll all move in with her, and I’ll be free of all three of them. I swiped the muddy rag perilously close to her pristine silver boots, hoping she would get the hint. "If