The Urban Princesses: Cinderella

Chapter 2

I scrubbed away at the large heel scrape on the floor that Delia had made the other day, testing out shoes for prom.

Delia and Anya belted out lyrics to Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful", which sounded like cats scraping their claws on a chalkboard.

"Ztop, ztop, ztop!" Madam Ogilvie commanded in her French accent. "Anya, you are too low! Delia, that vas a G, not an F! Now, ve shall try something more simple, 'Sveet Nightingale", and zhis time, try not to break my eardrum."

They started belting out the old song my mom used to sing to me, I still had the music box.

I squeezed the sponged over the bucket, releasing a waterfall of murky brown water.

"Sing sweet nightingale, sing sweet nightingale." I sang quietly as I scrubbed the floor. Music always appealed to me. My singing seemed to drown out Delia and Anya, so I continued, looking into the colorful bubbles in the bucket, my reflection staring back at me. A girl, a broken girl that used to be filled with love and joy. A beautiful, free china doll now a broken china doll slave. I tried not to think of myself as a slave, but in some ways I was. I shook the thoughts out of my head. My stepmom cared for me, she gave me a place to eat, she gave me food... I guess that's it, but I could tell she cared sometimes.

I finished scrubbing the foyer and headed into the dining room to set the table, Anya and Delia still screeching in the other room.

This was going to be a long day.

****

Carmen's POV

"Dad, why can't I just go with Jeremy?"

"Carmen! Keep your voice down, I don't want your mother to stir."

"But dad, there is always next year-"

"Your mother might not be alive next year." Tears were gathering in his pale blue eyes. Mom had stage four lung cancer, he was right, she might not make it past my prom.

"I don't know what the big deal is." I flopped down on our leather couch.

"Carmen, your mother wants to see you grow up, be successful, fall in love." He let the word "love" hang in the air.

"What if I don't love anyone in my grade?" I didn't really have crushes, I just had my friends and I didn't want to grow up and have to deal with a catty girlfriend.

"You don't have to, just show your mom that you have a companion."

"I have a companion! Jeremy!"

"A female companion."

"Jeremy can act really girlish sometimes, like that time he found a spider in his locker, I could've sworn it was Chrissy screaming." Chrissy was my seven year old younger sister who was probably somewhere burning her Barbies' heads.

Dad narrowed his eyes at me. "You are going to go to prom and come back with a story about a girl for your mother, got it?"

"Got it," I grumbled.

***

Ella's POV

"Jack, it's fine, really, I don't care. Mia will have a blast without me."

He bickered through the phone.

My stepmom wasn't letting me go prom dress shopping because of chores, Jack had called her a few rude names and wasn't letting this go.

"Ella! The basement isn't going to clean itself!" My stepmother called.

"I gotta go, bye." Before he could say anything else, I hung up. Then I went downstairs where Anya, Delia, and my stepmother were all dressed up to go to a dinner party.