Helen and the Zucchini

Once upon a time there was a girl who lived with her stepmother and her two ugly stepsisters, Roberta and Georgia. The girl’s name was Helen but no one called her that. They all called her Cinderella, because she always had soot on her face from cleaning the fireplace every day. Helen also did the rest of the chores around the house, including cleaning the pet cages, because her stepfamily was too lazy to do them. She didn’t complain. Helen had a plan.

Her plan was this:

1)Go to the senior prom at the end of the year looking absolutely fabulous and get a boyfriend.

2)After graduation, move in with said boyfriend and then marry him within the next few months.

3)Live happily ever after.

That was the plan, anyways. But Helen was not the smartest girl in the world. In fact, she was several fries short of a Happy Meal, so to speak. She had not thought about how she would get to the prom or, if she did get there, how she would get a boyfriend. She also hadn’t thought about what to wear or where she and her boyfriend would live after graduation. Helen was a dreamer, not a doer.

The senior prom was in May. In April, Roberta and Georgia went looking for dresses. They took Helen with them. Even if she wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, Helen had fashion sense, something both her stepsisters lacked. She helped them pick out dresses but didn’t have any money to buy something for herself.

On the day of the prom, Helen helped her stepsisters do their hair and make-up, then watched as they drove away in a white limousine with their dates, two clunky boys from the football team. Helen’s stepmother was out for the night as well. Helen went back inside and sat down by the fireplace. She began to cry.

“I want to go to prom!” She raised her hands over her head, calling out to whoever was listening. Not that she expected anyone to answer. No one was around to hear her. Or so she thought. A moment later there was a loud crash from the fireplace. A plump woman in a frilly pink dress with pink wings landed in the ashes. She scrambled out, holding up a bent stick with a silver star on the end. She tried to unbend the stick as Helen stared at her.

“Who are you?”

“I’m your fairy godmother, hon,” said the woman, still trying to unbend the stick. She was chewing gum. After she spoke she blew a large bubble, then popped it. Helen stared at her. “What? Were you expecting something better?”

“No,” said Helen quickly. In fact, she hadn’t even thought about fairy godmothers before. She didn’t know she had one.

“Well then stop standing there like a doofus and come outside with me,” said the fairy godmother. “And grab those rodents, the rat and the hamster. We’ll need ‘em.”

Helen picked up the cages that held Roberta’s rat and Georgia’s hamster. Then she followed the fairy godmother out to the garden.

The fairy godmother stared at Helen for a long time. “Hmm,” she said at last. “I think I know what to do. Go inside and find me a long, skinny vegetable. Anything’ll do.”

Helen went back inside. She opened the refrigerator. There were several vegetables inside, tomatoes, potatoes, squash, and one long, skinny, green zucchini. Helen grabbed it and ran back outside. She handed it to the fairy godmother.

“Here you go,” she said.

“Thanks, hon. Now stand back.”

The fairy godmother placed the zucchini on the sidewalk. She walked around it in a circle, first clockwise, then counterclockwise. Then she pointed her still-bent stick at it and said, “Gloophenheimer!”

The zucchini swelled. It stretched. It grew to the size of a car, then stretched some more. Soon it was a long, green limousine. Helen clapped her hands in delight. The fairy godmother held up a hand.

“I’m not done yet,” she said. “You need a driver. Which one do you like better, the rat or the hamster?”

Helen hated the rat, which bit her a lot and tried to escape. She pointed to the hamster. “That one,” she said.

The fairy godmother walked around to the other side of the limousine and opened the driver’s door. She came back and took the hamster out of the cage. “You better stand back again, hon,” she said. “This one could get messy.”

Helen backed up until she was standing against the garage door. The fairy godmother twirled around twice, stuck out her tongue, waved her stick at the hamster on the driver’s seat and said, “Arglifoo-snookentoot!”

A man appeared in the driver’s seat. He looked like a human hamster, which he was. The fairy godmother came around the side of the limousine again. She stared at Helen some more. Then she grabbed the girl by the arm and dragged her none too gently to the center of the driveway.

“Hold still, hon,” she said. “If you move, this’ll never work.”

Helen tried to imagine that she was a statue. It didn’t work very well, because Helen had very little imagination to begin with. The fairy godmother circled her three times, hopped on her left foot, wrinkled her nose, and waved her wand. Helen closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was wearing a slinky red dress and silver sandals with tall stiletto heels. She wobbled slightly.

“There you go,” said the fairy godmother. “You’re ready for prom. Get in the limo, go, have fun, find yourself a nice boyfriend, and get outta there by midnight.”

“What happens at midnight?” asked Helen.

“Two things. One, the dance is over, and two, all the stuff I made for you turns back into what it originally was. If you leave a little early no one will notice and you can make it home before you’re riding on a zucchini instead of in a limo. Now beat it!”

She pushed Helen into the limousine and slammed the door. As the hamster driver took off, the fairy godmother went back inside and climbed back up the chimney.

The prom that year was being held in a ballroom in the city. The theme was fairy tale endings but you couldn’t really tell. Although it was a ballroom, it was dark and there were colored lights around. The only hint of the theme was the fact that it was written on a banner on one of the walls. When Helen got there the music was blaring and people were dancing. She expected the music to stop when she walked in. She wanted everyone to stare at her and think how beautiful she was. But the music just kept going and only a few people stared, including her stepsisters. Georgia was dancing but Roberta rushed over to her.

“Cinderella! How’d you get here?”

“I rode in a zucchini,” said Helen. “My fairy godmother helped me.”

Roberta rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure. I believe you.” She snorted. “Rode in a zucchini.”

She walked away again. Helen quickly put the confrontation out of her mind and went looking for her Prince Charming.

One thing Helen forgot about prom is that there are never very many boys who come there without dates. Most boys come with their girlfriends, or with friends who are girls. Not that Helen wouldn’t have stooped to stealing someone’s date if she had to. She wasn’t looking for boys without dates. She was looking for the handsomest boy in the room. She found him half an hour later.

Zach Thomas was tall with dark hair and eyes. He looked almost like the prince in the Disney Cinderella movie. He was walking away from the refreshment table with two glasses of punch, one for him and one for his date. Helen walked up to him and took one of the glasses.

“Thank you so much,” she said, taking a sip. “You didn’t have to get a drink for me.”

“I didn’t,” said Zach. “I got it for—”

Helen didn’t let him finish. She set the glass down on the table and took his away. Then she grabbed his hands and dragged him to the dance floor. “Let’s dance,” she said.

Zach tried to look at his girlfriend but it was impossible. Helen was wrapping herself around him, twirling so much that he only ever saw her. He tried to think of something really, really nice to say to make her leave. Luckily, his girlfriend came over and saved him before he had to say anything.

Melanie Garber was not the prettiest girl in school. She had brown hair and brown eyes and she was a little on the plump side. Her hair was up in a soft bun tonight, with two curls framing her face. Her dress was purple. She looked very pretty, but her face was set in a frown as she marched over to Zach and Helen. She and Zach had been going out long enough that she knew he wouldn’t cheat on her, especially with a girl like Helen. So when she came over, it was Helen she started yelling at, not Zach.

“Get off my boyfriend,” she said, grabbing Helen’s arms and peeling them off Zach’s neck. “You can’t do something like that, especially not at prom.”

Zach gave Melanie a grateful smile. Helen walked off in a huff and sulked at a table. She didn’t even realize the time until everyone started leaving. Then she got to her feet and ran as fast as she could in those silver stilettos. At the door she realized she still had one chance. She bent down, took off one of her shoes, and dropped it by the door. Then she took the other one off and ran for the green limo.

She managed to get home before the magic wore off but her stepfamily was waiting for her. She had to explain why she had snuck out of the house and why Roberta had picked up one of her shoes by the hotel door. As a result of her disobedience, she was sent to her room for the whole day and forced to do all the chores twice.

Helen didn’t have a very happy ending. She never did get the rest of her plan into action. But it was her own fault. She could have done things right, if she had only remembered one of the most important rules of prom: don’t steal other people’s boyfriends.