A Cinderella Story

Chapter 3

"Lucy! LUCY!" Lucy snapped out of her daydream to her the unpleasant sound of her stepmother's shrill voice. "Lucy! Get our dinner up here now!" Crap the dinner! Lucy franticly heaved the smoking pot of vegetable soup of the fire. She plopped it on the table and hastily fanned the steaming pot with a cloth. "LUCY!!" "I'm coming now stepmother!" Lucy called up the stairs. She quickly ladled the soup into three bowls and flew up the stairs. She hoped it wasn't ruined.

"Here ma'am" she gasped, setting the bowls in front of her stepmother and stepsisters. "What took so long" her stepmother snapped at her. "Yeah I'm hungry, you selfish like brat! You were probably stealing some soup for you!" Beatrice shrieked at her. "You miserable, stupid, grubby little wench!" Claudia snarled. "Can't you do anything right!" she said and struck Lucy across the face. Lucy stumbled backwards with a cry of pain. Her stepmother stood up, her chair screeching on the wooden floorboards and stomped over to Lucy. She grabbed a fistful of Lucy's hair and wrenched her head back.

Lucy bit her lip to stop herself from crying out at the sharp pain that shot through her scalp. Little tears beaded in the corners of her eyes. "You useless piece of filth!" her stepmother screamed in her face. She threw Lucy onto the ground and kicked her in the side hard. "You're lucky we still put up with your lazy pitiful existence! Little worthless pieces of dirt like you should be dead!" She kicked Lucy again. Her stepsisters chortled in glee. "I don't want to see your ugly face for a while! Get out!" Then she stopped and placed a finger on her chin, reconsidering. "While you're gone, we might as well make some use from you little disease" she snapped. "Go collect the girl's new dresses from the shop. If there's even a speck of dirt on either of them I'll cut your fingers off. Now get out!" she roared. Lucy scampered out the door. "Try to get yourself killed! You'll be doing the world a favour!" her stepsister's voices came after her. Then came the loud laughter.

•••

The little bell tinkled overhead as Lucy left the dress shop. She sighed, as she walked along the street, being very careful to balance the two large packages in her arms. She could just barely see over them. Her face still stung a little from Claudia's slap. She sighed again. Surprisingly, occurrences like that were pretty common for her, daily almost. She was used to it by now. The town was even busier than normal today, because of the Summer Festival was in full flow (PS it's three days since Natsu and Lucy first met). It was a festival for the lower and middle classes, although mostly the lower. Only the poorest in the middle classes joined in.

The upper class had their own festival in the palace, in a few weeks. This festival here in town took place over a course of two days. There was the market today, which was taking place right now, when the locals and travellers were selling their new products, all sorts of little trinkets and clothes and jewellery. Their little stalls were set up at the sides of the street. Colourful flags had been strung up overhead in honour of the occasion. Tomorrow night was the dancing part, which took place in a huge field not far from the outskirts of town, when all the lower class got together and played guitars, violins, piano, banjos, flutes, basically any instrument anyone could play, and everyone had great fun dancing, and playing games. There were stalls selling food and drinks, and there was always a huge bonfire which everyone danced around. Usually the festivities lasted well into the night.

Unfortunately Lucy had never been able to attend. Her stepmother always made sure she had some horrible task to do. Lucy sighed again. Then her mind drifted back to the reason she had got in trouble, the reason why she almost burnt the soup. She'd been thinking about the pink haired man. She hadn't been able to get him out of her head for the past three days. She wished she knew his name. And that they would meet again.

As she was walking past the jewellery store when something caught her eye. She shifted the packages a little to the side and moved forward so she could see better. There were lots of different bracelets, earrings and necklaces on display, but there was one in particular that caught her eye. It was a necklace, with a fine silver chain that was holding a diamond heart. It glittered in the sunlight that was streaming through the glass window, a rainbow of colours danced across its surface. Her mouth dropped open. So beautiful... Of course there wasn't a hope in hell of her owning it. It was one million jewels. It must be made from real diamond. But she could still look.