The Little Ash Girl: what lies beneath the story of Cinderella

I remember this recorded version of Cinderella much more vividly than the Disney movie. For one thing, it's strung together by the music from Prokofiev's ballet, one of my favorite orchestral pieces. It's weird, because the music must have made an impression on me in my childhood - as much as the story, at least - but it sort of faded out of my mind until a couple of decades ago, when I stumbled on the ballet music again and felt my scalp prickle from the stirring of memory.

This record, or records (two 78 rpms) gracefully incorporated the quirkily gorgeous Prokofiev ballet score. The narrator might as well have shut up and let the music tell the story. Listening to it as an adult, there is a certain edge, a pleasing tartness in the music that cuts the sweetness, and a real sense of irony, of tongue-in-cheek. Cinderella is almost - not quite, but almost - a madcap figure, a sort of puppet acting out her fate because "that's how the story goes". Then there are those stepsisters, nasty spinsters spinning their nasty webs. In a TV version of the ballet, one of the stepsisters was around 180 pounds, twice the size of the standard ballerina, and took her pratfalls with good humor (though it was obvious she was a very good dancer). In contrast, the other stepsister was a menacing rack of bones.

Once you start digging into the deeper layers of fairy tales, you find yourself gasping and floundering. There is just too damn much "meaning", too many layers, and some versions are wildly conflicting. The earliest Cinderella story was some Sumerian thing from the Fourth Dynasty (or whatever), and the story involved fish. It took place on boats and in tombs. How could the two be linked? I was also surprised to find that the Grimm brothers, known for telling stories too gory and disturbing for children, were known to sanitize these primal folk tales to make them more palatable (and sell more books). But even their cleaned-up versions are so shocking they are almost in poor taste, at least for children.

With Cinderella, the Grimms were somehow connecting us to a stranger, older and darker story (and much longer - each of these fairy tales would fill a  book) than the stereotypical and sugary version we have today. A fairy godmother? Not a chance. That would make it too easy. Here is how Aschenputtel (Cinderella in German, which literally translates as the nasty nickname The Ash Fool) gets her gold-and-silver ball gown:

As no one was now at home, Cinderella went to her mother's grave beneath the hazel-tree, and cried,

"Shiver and quiver, little tree,
Silver and gold throw down over me."

Then the bird threw a gold and silver dress down to her, and slippers embroidered with silk and silver. She put on the dress with all speed, and went to the wedding. Her step-sisters and the step-mother however did not know her, and thought she must be a foreign princess, for she looked so beautiful in the golden dress. They never once thought of Cinderella, and believed that she was sitting at home in the dirt, picking lentils out of the ashes. The prince approached her, took her by the hand and danced with her. He would dance with no other maiden, and never let loose of her hand, and if any one else came to invite her, he said, "This is my partner."

Right away, I think of My Fair Lady, and how no one recognized the "draggletailed guttersnipe" Eliza Doolittle because Henry Higgins passed her off as a Hungarian princess. It's such a direct hit that it makes me shiver. G. B. Shaw was no fool, knew his fairy tales, and knew how to hit a nerve.

So is the Ash Girl's ball gown a disguise, or something else? Perhaps her grimy sackcloth was some kind of veil, and the shimmering gown she took from her mother's grave a reflection of her deeper self. It literally turns her into someone else, or back into the person she was meant to be - someone even her family doesn't recognize. The storyteller plays with identity here in a way which is downright spooky.

There's no stroke-of-midnight in the story, but Aschenputtel must beat a hasty retreat after the ball. She hides in a pigeon-house or something - what an odd place to hide! In this strange version there is more than one ball - one version claims, "the Prince had three balls", which I thought was pretty funny. So she must return to the graveyard for a new dress each night.

Cinderella's dead mother figures large in this story, as do those enigmatic white birds. Where Disney got all those mice is anyone's guess. I could find no pumpkins here either. There is a controversy around the slippers, whether they were made of glass or not (the Grimms seemed to think not), and some versions even suggest they were made from fur. It's hard for us to picture our heroine clomping around in comfy bedroom slippers at the ball. But let's press on.

Next morning, he went with it to the father, and said to him, no one shall be my wife but she whose foot this golden slipper fits. Then were the two sisters glad, for they had pretty feet. The eldest went with the shoe into her room and wanted to try it on, and her mother stood by. But she could not get her big toe into it, and the shoe was too small for her. Then her mother gave her a knife and said, "Cut the toe off, when you are queen you will have no more need to go on foot." The maiden cut the toe off, forced the foot into the shoe, swallowed the pain, and went out to the king's son. Then he took her on his his horse as his bride and rode away with her. They were obliged, however, to pass the grave, and there, on the hazel-tree, sat the two pigeons and cried,

"Turn and peep, turn and peep,
there's blood within the shoe,
the shoe it is too small for her,
the true bride waits for you."

Then he looked at her foot and saw how the blood was trickling from it. He turned his horse round and took the false bride home again, and said she was not the true one, and that the other sister was to put the shoe on. Then this one went into her chamber and got her toes safely into the shoe, but her heel was too large. So her mother gave her a knife and said, "Cut a bit off your heel, when you are queen you will have no more need to go on foot." The maiden cut a bit off her heel, forced her foot into the shoe, swallowed the pain, and went out to the king's son. He took her on his horse as his bride, and rode away with her, but when they passed by the hazel-tree, the two pigeons sat on it and cried,

"Turn and peep, turn and peep,
there's blood within the shoe,
the shoe it is too small for her,
the true bride waits for you."

The repetition of rhymes, incantations and spells is an indispensible part of this kind of storytelling, usually in threes (the "turn and peep" shows up three times). Characters come and go as if through a revolving door, in and out of reality. The mystical significance of birds can't be overemphasized in this version, particularly the two white pigeons, who play a more active role than many of the humans. 

All sorts of analysts have tried to figure out the slippers. Some say they are representative of female genitalia, which I don't really get (though they do get bloody in a way which suggests the female fertility cycle). Shoes allow one to walk in public, be mobile, go forth. Dance. In contrast to the slippers (whatever they're made of), there are also big heavy wooden clogs, low-status peasant shoes,  made for those who toil in the dirt.

Walk a mile in my shoes. The old woman who lived in a shoe. If the shoe fits. . .

He looked down at her foot and saw how the blood was running out of her shoe, and how it had stained her white stocking quite red. Then he turned his horse and took the false bride home again. "This also is not the right one," said he, "have you no other daughter." "No," said the man, "there is still a little stunted kitchen-wench which my late wife left behind her, but she cannot possibly be the bride." The king's son said he was to send her up to him, but the mother answered, oh, no, she is much too dirty, she cannot show herself. But he absolutely insisted on it, and Cinderella had to be called.

I can't help but feel this is a reference to virginity, an absolute must for marriage, particularly to nobility. To marry, and particularly to "marry up", one absolutely had to be pure. The mother seems to be saying in so many words that her daughter is too "dirty" to be considered. And her own father is calling her a "little stunted kitchen-wench", a mere leftover from his first marriage - "wench" being a term for a "loose woman". Is this why white doves swirl and flutter around the story as proof of Aschenputtel's unassailable virginity?

She first washed her hands and face clean, and then went and bowed down before the king's son, who gave her the golden shoe. Then she seated herself on a stool, drew her foot out of the heavy wooden shoe, and put it into the slipper, which fitted like a glove. And when she rose up and the king's son looked at her face he recognized the beautiful maiden who had danced with him and cried, "That is the true bride." The step-mother and the two sisters were horrified and became pale with rage, he, however, took Cinderella on his horse and rode away with her. As they passed by the hazel-tree, the two white doves cried,

"Turn and peep, turn and peep,
no blood is in the shoe,
the shoe is not too small for her,
the true bride rides with you."

There's so much here that I can't begin to get into it!  Bloody shoes, false brides, hazel trees and white pigeons which have somehow, mysteriously, become doves. And dead mothers, and a maiden's tears having the magical power of  healing and summoning. Sliding her foot into that slipper does have a sexual feel to it - the perfect fit - casting off virginity and stepping across the threshhold into womanhood. Of course this version is a translation from the more stolid German, so some expressions may have been extensively reworked. The magic incantations were probably quite altered, as they had to rhyme, scan and make sense. But all those bleeding, chopped-up feet - . Isn't this a desperation to escape one's station in life, to move on up or social-climb, even at the cost of being able to walk? Only Aschenputtel has the grace to hold off and allow the Prince to recognize her face. Yes, her face - not her foot.

I skipped the part where the Prince sets a trap for the Little Ash Girl by spreading pitch on the stairs of the ballroom (so at least one of her furry slippers will get stuck). I skipped the nastiness of the stepmother throwing lentils into the ashes on the floor, each grain of which Aschenputtel must pluck out by hand (probably digging into the skin on her knees). And when did ashes become cinders? Cinders are almost like live coals, not quite burned out, and quite dangerous. Don't get a cinder in your eye.

I also stumbled on a version in which the stepsisters were actually beautiful, but deadly. In other words, they were beautiful to look at but had nasty personalities. I've always had a lot of trouble telling little girls that "ugly" characters in fairy tales are "bad", and "beautiful" ones are "good". Just what does that mean? How much effect does it have on the average impressionable girl?

At any rate, my beloved 78 rpm version has no amputated toes, nor does Prokofiev's. But the ending of the Grimm version is a killer. The magical doves have alerted the Prince to Aschenputtel's true identity:

"Turn and peep, turn and peep,
no blood is in the shoe,
the shoe is not too small for her,
the true bride rides with you."

And when they had cried that, the two came flying down and placed themselves on Cinderella's shoulders, one on the right, the other on the left, and remained sitting there. When the wedding with the king's son was to be celebrated, the two false sisters came and wanted to get into favor with Cinderella and share her good fortune. When the betrothed couple went to church, the elder was at the right side and the younger at the left, and the pigeons pecked out one eye from each of them. Afterwards as they came back the elder was at the left, and the younger at the right, and then the pigeons pecked out the other eye from each. And thus, for their wickedness and falsehood, they were punished with blindness all their days.

Yoicks! Blindness all their days! This isn't very merciful, is it? Very forgiving? But it interests me that the Little Ash Girl doesn't have to do any of the dirtywork - the white doves are her unlikely agents of revenge. Even a symbol of peace is full of hidden menace.

Though we often hear that these stories are too ancient to trace down to their roots, somebody must have thought of them, started them at some point in antiquity. Versions swirled around and were added to and (obviously) sanitized, but then it all sort of hardened, like the glass slipper. So even this relatively-modern Grimm tale of blindness and bleeding feet is about as far away from the Disney version as it gets.

FOOTNOTE! More on the glass/fur controversy:

The illustrated Antique Fairy Tales book sums up the argument in a footnote:

“There is no doubt that in the medieval versions of this ancient tale Cinderella was given pantoufles de vair – i.e. [slippers of] fur … probably [from] a grey squirrel. Long before the seventeenth century, the word vair had passed out of use… Thus the pantoufles de vair of the fairy tale became, in the oral tradition, the homonymous pantoufles de verre, or glass slippers.”

Wendy and the Ice Monsters

Wendy and the Ice Monsters (a Grandma tale)

Chapter One: WHERE’S SANTA?

Once there was an eight-year-old girl with red hair and lots of freckles. Her name was Wendy, and she was very independent and liked to have her own way. She didn’t care what the other kids thought of her, even if they called her names like Carrot Hair or Orange Crush or Wednesday.

One night Wendy was trying to sleep. But she couldn’t sleep because it was Christmas Eve, and who can sleep on Christmas Eve?! She wanted to stay awake so she could see Santa bringing presents for everyone.

So she decided to stay awake, but Santa didn’t come, and Wendy was very ticked off. It seemed like hours were going by. “Ill bet Santa will never come,” she said.

But just then. . .
CRASH!

WENDY FELL THROUGH 

THE FLOOR!

She fell and fell. She fell and fell and fell and fell and fell!

“Help!” screamed Wendy. “I’m falling!”

Then suddenly. . .

She fell some more. She fell and fell and fell and fell and fell.

“Rats,” said Wednesday. She was getting used to falling by now, and wasn’t afraid. Well, she was a little bit afraid.

She thought she might land on a rock or go THUD on the ice. But when she finally landed, she felt light as a feather. But she didn’t land on feathers. It was frost, like you see on the tree branches and leaves in the winter.

“Yikes! This is cold on the bum!” yelled Wendy.

It was very very dark and cold.  She didn’t know where she was. Some kind of ice cave? Talk about scary! Wendy was a brave girl. Most of the time. But this time she wasn’t too sure.

“I want my Mummy,” she said, and began to cry.

POOF!

Chapter Two: Hello, Frost Man!

Something or someone appeared in front of her. He was nine feet tall and BLUE! He was all covered with blue and silver frost.

“You look cool!” said Wendy.

“Thank you, little girl. I am cool. I have to be, or I would melt. By the way, who are you?”

“Who am I?” Wendy cried. “Who am I?? I’m normal! I’m a little girl. You’re the monster, aren’t you?”

When she said this, Frost man began to cry. She had hurt his feelings. Wendy suddenly felt very bad about what she had called him.

As he cried, water ran down his face.

“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, Frost Man. You’d better stop crying, or you’ll melt,” Wendy said.

“But I’m frightened.”

“Of me?”

“No. You’re not as brave as you say you are, or you wouldn’t make fun of other people.” Wendy felt embarrassed, because he was telling the truth.

“So who are you frightened of?”

“I’m afraid of the Ice Monsters. I can see their shadows moving around in the distance.”

(Oh no, it gets worse, Wendy thought to herself.)

“Listen, Frost Man, I don’t know who or what you are, but I like you. I’ll help you beat those Ice Monsters. We’ll do it together. As a team.”

Frost Man gave her a quavery smile. He really wasn’t sure a little girl could help him with something as scary and powerful as the Ice Monsters. But he was glad to have a friend. There weren’t too many Frost People around in this strange hidden world.
Then, all of a sudden –

BLAM!!

Everything exploded into ice cubes! Wendy was amazed to see that everything around her was made of ice crystals.

“Is this Ice Land?” Wendy asked. She had heard about it in geography. It was a country that sounded very cold.

“No. It’s the Land of the Ice Monsters.”

“So where did all the other Frost People go?”

“They’re hiding. When the ice explodes like that, it means. . . THEY’RE COMING!”

“OK then!” Wendy had made her mind up. “Let’s go

deal with those monsters!”

They made their way through chunks and hunks of ice. Wendy couldn’t see any Ice Monsters. The place seemed deserted. Then. . . What was THAT??

Something was appearing in the mist. It looked like an ice cloud. Then it got bigger and bigger!

It was an ICE MONSTER!

Chapter Three: The Land of the Ice Monsters

“Aeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh,” screamed Frost Man. He started to run away. “Don’t you dare run away,” said Wendy. “You must confront your fears.”

“What does that mean?”

“You can’t run away.”

“Oh.”

The Ice Monster looked terrible. He looked worse than anything Wendy had ever seen. He had awful eyes. He had awful hair, like big splinters of ice sticking out of his head.  He looked like the Abdominal Snow Man, or Bigfoot with white fur, only a lot meaner. He looked ten feet tall!

“I know how to deal with this guy,” Wendy said.

“HOW??”

“He’s an Ice Monster, isn’t he? We can melt him.”

Frost Man looked doubtful.

“There’s no electricity down here. We don’t have any blow driers or anything like that.”

Wendy thought and thought. She had no idea how to melt the Ice Monster. But it got worse! Just then she saw another TEN Ice Monsters coming up behind him! They looked awful! They looked scary!

YUCK!!

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!” screamed Wendy and the Frost Man.

But then she had an idea. “It’s Christmas Eve, a magic time. Maybe that will give me magic powers!

The Frost Man looked doubtful. “Are you sure?”

“No. But do you have any other ideas?”

“Uh, no. Let’s go for the magic powers.”

She pointed her finger at the Ice Monster. “ZAP-A-DOODLE!” she screamed. A lightning bolt shot out of the end of her finger and hit the Ice Monster!

“Ow,” he said.

“He’s melting!” cried Frost Man..

“Zap!” yelled Wendy. “Zap-a-doodle-doo!”

Chapter Four: VICTORY!

Bolts of lightning were flying everywhere! All the Ice Monsters began to melt like icing on a hot day.

The Ice Monster began to turn into slush as he screamed and ran away. “He turned out to be a big coward,” Frost Man said in surprise.

“We won, we won!” said Wendy. “He’s just a puddle now.”

 “Yay,” said Frost Man.

“But wait a minute. It’s Christmas Eve! I’m supposed to be in my bed, waiting for Santa.”

Frost Man looked at her. “Remember, this is a magic night.”

“It is?” Wendy wondered if she had used up all her magic zapping the Ice Monster.

“Of course it is.”

ZAP-ZAP-ZAZZLE!

All at once, the dark ice cave vanished, and Wendy was miraculously back in her bed.

“Wow!” she said. “It’s so good to be home. Nobody’s going to believe what happened to me.” Then she thought of something. “But I miss Frost Man. He was such a good friend to me.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Even if he comes back, how am I going to be friends with a person who has to stay frozen all the time? I wonder if I can keep him in the freezer.” She was very discouraged.

Then she heard a sound outside her window. A sort of sparkly, tinkly sound like ice crystals hitting a pane of glass.

Slowly a pattern formed on her window. It was a face! A face made of frost and starlight. And not just any face, but one she knew very well.

“It’s you! I knew you’d come back.”

“Merry Christmas, Wendy.”

“Merry Christmas, Frost Man. Well, it’s not quite Christmas yet. So Merry Christmas Eve. How did you get here?”

“This is a magic night, remember? So here I am.  Every Christmas Eve, just look out your window and make a wish, and I’ll be there.”
POOF! The Frost Man disappeared, as Wendy watched in wonder.

When Wendy woke up the next day, she shook her head. “I’ve never had a dream like that before. It was a doozy.” Then she noticed a strange sort of pattern on the window.

The sun was shining through it and it was all glittering blue and silver, almost like diamonds.

“Pretty,” she said, and ran downstairs to see what Santa had brought her.

THE END

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Fifty Shades of Irony

There Once was an Ugly Duckling

There once was an ugly duckling, with feathers all stubby and brown.

When he was very young, something happened to his Mom and Dad. Perhaps someone had adopted them and put them in a duck pond somewhere. He only knew that he hadn’t seen them in a very long time, so he had no one to protect him. He was all on his own.

All the other ducklings, who were fuzzy and yellow and didn’t look like him at all, made fun of him and gave him a hard time.

  

They pecked at him. They quacked at him. They made fun of the fact that he didn’t have a Mom and Dad. They thought his short brown feathers looked stupid and named him Stubby. They wouldn’t let him dabble in the slime in his favourite slime-pond.

One duckling in particular didn’t like him. His name was Wakwak and he quacked at him in a very mean way. “Wakwak,” he said, “we’re better than you, wakwak.”

When the ugly duckling asked why, Wakwak just said, “Because we’re fuzzy and yellow. And you’re not.”

That didn’t make much sense to Stubby, because he knew it didn’t matter what you looked like on the outside. But the other ducks disagreed with him and picked on him all the time.

Still, he was lucky because he did have one very good friend. It was another duckling who looked even uglier than he did, all lumpy and grey like mildew. “Let’s stick together,” Tuffy said to him.

He was called Tuffy because he was so tough. When the yellow ducklings quacked at him, he honked right back at them and sometimes scared them away.

Tuffy said to his friend, “You need someone to protect you.” So Tuffy

began to scare the yellow ducklings away when they were mean. Stubby managed to avoid the darting blows of the tiny little orange bills for a while.

They had such wonderful times together in the duck pond! Stubby was so glad that he had finally found a friend.

But then one day Tuffy said:

“You know, Stubs, I’ve been asked to go swim with those guys over there.”

"You mean those yellow ducklings? After what they did to us?”

 
“Ah, they’re not so bad. They want me to protect them from those mean geese over there.”

Stubby wondered how the geese could be any meaner than the yellow ducklings.

“When will you be back?”

“Oh, maybe next year when we’re all grown up. But don’t worry, the time will fly by.”

But the time didn’t fly by, and Stubby got very discouraged and lonely

and one day decided to leave this unfriendly flock and go somewhere
where he could at last find some peace.

He walked for seventeen miles on a dirt road until he realized he could

swim a lot faster to where he wanted to go (as far away as possible!), so he found a nearby lake and swam and swam and swam and swam and swam.

He finally found a quiet cove where he could be alone and peaceful. But then he heard something. A croak. A really loud croak. It sounded like a frog. The biggest frog in the world!

Soon he found the lake was anything but peaceful: there were bullfrogs everywhere!

There were so many bullfrogs croaking that he felt like he was in a field of cows!

“I am the Bullfrog King, ribbit ribbit”, said a big fat bullfrog.

“Ah shaddap. I’m the Bullfrog Queen and I’m a lot bigger and smarter

than you.”

The two bullfrogs began to arm-wrestle each other with their slimy green arms and try to poke at each other’s bulging bullfrog eyes. Stubby was  shocked! He had never seen anything so mean in his life. This was worse than being pecked at by those little yellow beaks.

“Stop!” Stubby cried to the two wrestling frogs. Don’t you know it’s wrong to hurt another person?” he cried.

“We’re not people. We’re frogs. Who are you anyways?”

“I’m Stubby, the Ugly Duckling, with feathers all stubby and brown.”

“Well, I’m the Frog King and I’m all slimy and green. RIBBIT!” He and the girl frog went right on fighting and throwing clumps of slime at each other.

Stubby was failing in his role as a peacekeeper. It was very discouraging. Even the dragonflies were hissing at each other. Was anybody really getting along in this lake? Why was everyone so mean to each other?

 The days grew shorter and colder. Soon Stubby realized his wings were still too small for him to fly, so he couldn’t join all the grownup ducks as they migrated south to keep warm for the winter.  He could hear them quacking above him as they flew in a v-formation across the sky.

“I wonder if my Mom and Dad are in that flock,” he sighed. Then suddenly he realized something. The first few flakes of snow were beginning to fall and settle on his stubby brown feathers. He had to find some way to keep warm – and soon!   So he had some quick thinking to do. “If I can’t migrate,” he said, “maybe I can hibernate instead.”

“Hibernate” means you sleep all winter, so you have to do it in a warm

place. He began to dig a hole in the ground with his bill, but the ground was full of icky worms.

He began to look for a cave, and found a nice warm cozy one, but all of a sudden a giant grizzly bear roared at him, and he waddled quickly away going wakwakwakwakwakwakwakwakwakwakwakwaaaaaaaaaaak!

Finally he found a hollow log and nestled down in it for the winter, hoping he would be warm enough and stay asleep so he wouldn’t be hungry.

But it wasn’t very warm in the hollow log. In fact it wasn’t warm at all.

Soon he began to shiver. How could he ever get through the winter in a freezing cold place like this?

But then: he heard something.

A familiar sort of honking noise.

He couldn’t believe it! It was Tuffy!

“Tuffy! What are YOU doing here?”

“Those other ducklings weren’t so friendly. You were right. They just wanted to make fun of me ‘cause I’m grey and lumpy. Hey, you’re taking my log.”

“No, Tuffy. Nobody’s going to bully me this time. I’m staying. Besides, we can snuggle up together and keep each other warm.”

“Aw, all right, move over. And don’t take the best spot.”

As the weather grew colder and colder, the two ducklings spent more and more time sleeping. Soon they were in a deep sleep and were so still, they looked like two statues.

But then the first rays of spring began to penetrate the holes in the top of the hollow log. Stubby blinked his shiny little eyes and nudged Tuffy with his wing.

 “Get up, it’s spring,” he said.

“Oh man, I feel like I slept for three months!”

“You did.”

But then Tuffy noticed something, and Stubby noticed something. Over the winter, they had changed. They had grown up, and now they looked completely different.

Stubby looked magnificent, with a shiny green head, a copper-colored

chest, soft silver feathers on his tummy, and a white ring around his
neck.   He had grown into a beautiful mallard drake. He tried out his
quack a few times and was very happy with it.

  

But Tuffy. . . well, he wasn’t so lucky. He looked sort of weird: stringy grey feathers were poking through the moldy-looking grey fuzz on his back. His neck was very long and bent. His beak looked funny too, very long, and bluish-black.

“Tuff, I don’t know how to tell you this, but. . .”

Tuffy ran to the lake and jumped in. He bent his long neck and looked at his reflection.

“Ay, ay, ay, ay,” he said. “What a mess!”

“Oh, it’s not so bad, Tuff. Maybe you’re becoming a stork or something.”

“This is the limit. Sorry friend, I’m running away before the duck police catch up with me.”

Tuffy waddled away very quickly, hiding his head under his wing, and

Stubby realized he was alone again.

In fact, he had never been this lonely before or felt so sad. He realized
that being handsome didn’t mean his problems were over.

  

But just when he thought he’d be alone for the rest of his life, he heard something from far away.

A sort of wakwak sound.

He looked over towards the far side of the lake and saw a whole flock of ducks  swimming toward him. He remembered how mean those ducklings had been and wondered whether he should try to stand up to them, or just run away.

But then he noticed something: these ducks looked just like him! They

had shiny green heads and rings around their necks and nice fat squatty bodies. They wack-wacked in a friendly manner.

Taking a deep breath, he jumped into the lake.

Just then a very pretty girl duck with ruffly golden-brown feathers swam up to him. “Hey! Aren’t you that duck they used to call Stubby?”

“Oh. Um. No. Well, yes. But that was a long time ago.”

“I used to see those other ducklings giving you a hard time, but my Mom didn’t want me to swim away from our flock to defend you.”

“That’s OK, my friend Tuffy defended me. That is, until he ran away.”

“You know, Stubby, you’re a legend among the ducks. Everyone admires the way you refused to be nasty to those mean ducklings. They bullied you, but you wouldn’t bully them back.”

If a duck could blush, Stubby would have blushed at that moment.

“By the way,” he asked, “whatever happened to all those fuzzy yellow ducklings?”

“Look over there.”

He saw a flock of very ordinary-looking ducks dabbling around in the water. Really, they weren’t any better-looking than he had been, with his feathers all stubby and brown. He thought he saw Wakwak in the flock, but when he tried to catch his eye, he swam away.

“They were much cuter as fuzzy yellow ducklings.”  

“Too bad they didn’t stay that way,” his new friend said.

“But it doesn’t matter what you look like,” Stubby said.

The girl ducked looked at him. “No, you’re right. That’s not important.”

Stubby didn’t know how to act around girl ducks. He told himself that

she was a girl, and she was his friend, but she wasn’t his “girl friend”.
But he liked her so much that one day he decided that maybe she was, after all.

Ducks get married just like people do, and they stay together for always.

So the two ducks decided to spend the rest of their lives together, have a family of their own and be happy.

 And that might be the end of the story, except. . . wait a minute, what happened to Tuffy?

 What happened to that weird-looking duckling with all the ugly grey feathers and the geeky long neck? 

Well, one day he saw a flock of swans gliding around in the water. Swans!

Everyone knew they didn’t like outsiders. They were proud and thought they owned the lake.                  

In a panic Tuffy looked around for a place to hide. But by then he was

too big to hide in the marsh grass, and they saw him.

“Ay, ay, ay, ay,” he said. “The jig is up.”

 But then something truly amazing happened. One of them waved his giant white wing and said, “C’mon, brother, we need a big swan to swim at the end of the line.”

“Why are you asking me? I’m all grey and lumpy.  I’d ruin your colour scheme.”

The swan laughed (honk, honk, honk!). “Haven’t you looked in the mirror lately?”

Tuffy bent his head – it was easy to do, since he had such a long curvy neck – and saw that he had grown up to be a beautiful swan!

Now he saw why swans were so proud! He bent his bill to kiss his

reflection in the water. “I’m gorgeous!” he said.

He was very pleased with himself. But he was still a bit confused.

“How come somebody has to swim at the back of the flock?”

“We need a wingman. Swans get hunted, so we have to watch out all the time.  And people are always trying to capture us and put us

in parks and stuff. ”

“That doesn’t sound like much fun.”

“It isn’t. But we’re gorgeous, so we try to make the best of it.”

So Tuffy, whose new name was Sebastian Swan, swam over to the flock and took up his position in the rear. He was never captured and put in a park, but he found out that the life of a swan can be harder than he thought. Being beautiful doesn’t guarantee an easy life.

  

Meanwhile, Stubby (whose name was now Montgomery Mallard, Monty for short) settled down with Melinda Mallard, and they had a very large family of ducklings whose feathers were all stubby and brown. Once in a while he saw Tuffy (Sebastian Swan) gliding around in the lake with his family of cygnets (baby swans), who were lumpy and grey like Tuffy used to be.

But Monty Mallard told all his duckling children never to make fun of the cygnets. “They can’t help it if they’re swans,” he said. “Not everybody gets to be beautiful brown ducklings, like you.”

 




Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book



    It took me years to write, will you take a look
















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