A Book of Fairy Tales
Hannah lifted her skirts high to avoid the puddles. “Not that it matters,” she muttered to herself, pushing wet strands of ginger hair from her face. “I look like a drowned cat.” With a sigh, Hannah let her skirts drop into the mud and walked even more slowly.
The streets were silent and empty, and it was nice to be alone, for once. Hannah took a long deep breath, filling her lungs with the cool, clean air. She thought ahead to her inevitable arrival at the shabby brick row house that was home. She tried to imagine it without the two sets of noisy, trouble-making twins who were always underfoot. Hannah had tripped over them more than once. Of course, it was always her fault.
With an impatient gesture Hannah yanked her dripping, muddy skirts to her knees and began to run. It was getting later and colder, and she would catch cold if she wasn’t careful.
Hannah lingered in front of the shabby building for a few minutes. She took several deep breaths and looked longingly down the wet empty streets. With a quick, backwards glance Hannah pushed open the familiar wood front door with its hideous green paint peeling off in long strips and stepped into the hot, crowded room.
As usual, just being smothered into that tiny room with nowhere to go made Hannah want to scream. She swallowed a sob and headed for her tiny cot, squashed in the corner by the only window. Suddenly, she stopped dead. “What did you do?!” Hannah screamed in horror. Her mattress was propped up against the dirty plaster wall, and the remains of what had once been Hannah’s most prized possession as scattered across the floor and grimy stone hearth. Caroline, one of the oldest of Hannah’s younger siblings, started guiltily and attempted to hide the wreckage behind her back.
“Caroline, you wicked, wicked girl! How could you?” Hannah cried. She grabbed her sister by the shoulders and shook her until the girl’s teeth rattled. “I’m not sorry,” Caroline said defiantly. “You think you’re better than us, just ‘cause you went to school. How come you got a book and I don’t? Anyway, it’s not good for nothing. You can’t eat it or sell it, and the pictures are dumb. Who wants to read about a stupid ole princess?”
Hannah slapped her.
She fell to her knees as she began to gather up the ruined pages with trembling hands. The beautiful illustrations had been scribbled over with thick black marker, and some of the pages had been torn out and stepped on with muddy bare feet. Most had been burned. Hannah’s heart throbbed as she stared into the flames and saw one of her favorite pictures -a dragon breathing fire at a knight in silver armor- only half-burned. Hannah plunged her hand into the fire, ignoring the pain, and grabbed the picture. It crumbled into ashes in her burned fingers.
She stared blankly at the few remaining pages still in the book. One was torn right down the middle, and another was crumpled and broken like a fragile white bird.
Hannah looked up at her sister and hated her as she had never hated anyone before. “I will never forgive you!” she screamed, and the room was suddenly quiet, quieter than it had ever been since the first set of twins had been born. “This was all I had of Daddy and you’ve ruined it! You’re a horrible, selfish, ignorant, stubborn brat, Caroline, and I pity you, but I will never, ever forgive or forget what you’ve done!”
Caroline glowered at her with stormy eyes. “I isn’t igna- igno- whatever it is you said, and I isn’t selfish either! School is for people who can’t work. Anyway, I’m not sorry,” she added triumphantly.
“Hannah, stop yelling at that poor child and make yourself useful!” called her mother from the kitchen. The noise level in the room rose suddenly and life went back to normal. Caroline raced away to fight over a broken, headless doll with two other twins.
“But mother, she ruined papa’s book! Look, the pages are-“
“Yes, I know what she did. It kept her quiet, so I let her. For pity’s sake, child, don’t cry! You ain’t a child no more, and we can’t afford such luxuries since your father died. I don’t know why you kept the useless thing so long, anyway. Now get an apron on and come help me with supper. I got some carrots that need slicing!”
“Mother, you don’t understand-“ Hannah started.
“I understand just fine, young lady. It was silly of you to keep something like that in the house if it was so important to you! Now get in here and help me with this chicken. I declare, tisn’t enough meat in this bird to feed a family of two, let alone six!
“Hannah, where are you going? Hannah?”
Sincerely,
A Writer
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