Once Upon a Hair Cut

14 Years Later....

     Once upon a time there was a lovely lady, and a handsome man. The lady had flowing locks of golden hair, with sparkling blue eyes. The man had wavy brown hair, with emerald green eyes. One day the man and lady had a child. An awkward looking baby girl. Yeah, that's me, Gwen. Gwendolyn Fisher to be precise. I don't have any flowing gold locks, or emerald green eyes, no none of that. I have blue hair with dull grey eyes, that in my opinion, look kind of lifeless.

So my fairy tale isn't ideal, whatever. It doesn't get any better either. When I was a newborn, my parents died in a car accident. Now I live with my Aunt Mary in her mansion on the heath. Now, you're probably thinking "What kind of fairy tale is this?", well let me offer this as a rebuttal. In the words of Aunt Mary, this isn't some fairy tale, it's life.

Our story begins on my 14th birthday. Like any other blurred morning I sat in front of my old wooden vanity table, trying to clip back all of the stray hairs sticking up off of my head. By the time I was done, my hair was sheathed with an assortment of rainbow coloured hair clips. I examined my hair in the mirror to make sure my hair didn't look too stupid. I could see my four poster bed behind me, and the large, stretched out triangle shaped window next to it. Suddenly I heard a loud smashing behind me. I turned around and saw my window swinging back and forth on it's hinges. Wind must have blown it open, guess I forgot to close the latch, I thought as I closed the window, sliding the latch back in place.

"GWENDOLYN! TIME FOR BREAKFAST," I heard my aunt yell. Throwing on my denim blue sweatshirt, I ran down the three flights of stairs that curved down the tower that was the hall that lead to my bed chamber. I quickly skipped over the lumps in the rugg, and flew into the dining room.

The dining room was big, crimson wallpaper with little curly golden designs on it covered the wall. The table was extremely long chestnut stained wood, with a green and gold table runner. Chairs lined the edges of the table, two giant chairs sat at both ends. Aunt Mary sat at the far right end of the table in her elegant chair. I walked over and sat in the tiny chair next to her. As I sipped my apple juice Jeffery, our cook, came in from the kitchen with a big plate of chocolate-chip pancakes.

"Happy 14th birthday, Gwen!" he said placing the giant plate in front of me. I grined, my braces reflecting the light onto the table, and thanked him. As I stuffed my face with the delicious pancakes, Aunt Mary looked up from her word search.

"Oh yes dear...happy birthday and all..."

"Thank you Aunt Mary," I said gulping down a mouthful of food.

As I finished up my food, I picked up my dishes and walked towards the kitchen.

"Gwendolyn, what are you doing? That is the maid's job!"

"Auntie, it's fine," I reassured her. I pushed open the swinging door that led to the kitchen. The lights were off so I fumbled around in my pocket to get my phone. Turning the flashlight setting on, I shown the light at the wall, found the light switch, and flicked it on. Suddenly the maids, and cooks jumped out from behind the counter. Jeffery held out a mini birthday cake, It was covered with pastel blue fondant, with pink, purple, and yellow fondant flowers on the top and sides. In the center "To Gwen, love the house staff" was written in dark purple icing.

"Thank you so much!" I said, blushing. I loved our house staff, they had always been so kind to me. On special occasions the maids sometimes left those little chocolates you'd find at a hotel on my bed covers, or the cooks would bake something extra special. But they'd never done something as nice as this. The head of the maids, Susan Hazelwood, walked over to me and handed me a package.

"Wait until you get back into your room, I wouldn't want the mistress to take it," she winked. By her tone of voice I couldn't tell if she was kidding or not.

A short while later, I sat on my bed with the curtains hanging from the top closed shut. I turned on my phone, and tapped the flashlight. Pointing it up to the ceiling of my bed, I inspected the package. It was wrapped with rough brown paper, tied with a piece of twine. I don't get it? Why can't Aunt Mary see this? It's just a paper box....I untied the twine, and ripped open the paper. It looked like a hat box. Turning the box around in my hands, I found a message written in curly black letters on the bottom of the box.

The ink was smudged but I could make out a few words. It read:

Rapunzel....14....mom

"..M..mom?" I slowly turned the box back around, and lifted the lid. Inside was a bag. It looked hand stitched, and was made out of a deep red leather. I was about to dump it out on the bed, but I heard my Aunt's shrill voice creeping up the stairs. I closed the box, and slid it underneath my bed. Quickly drawing the curtains back, I grabbed the book from my nightstand and pretended to read.

"Gwendolyn, get dressed, we're going out."

"Uhm.." I looked out at my clothes. "Auntie, I am dressed.."

"Dress into something nice then, a family just moved into the plot of land down the thoroughfare. It would be very impolite not to greet them."

"Well, I know that anything I pick out, you won't approve of," I rolled my eyes slightly. "So wouldn't be better, don't you think, if you just told me what to wear?" Aunt Mary looked at me with a perturbed expression, and gestured at her attire.

Her blonde hair was pinned back in a tight bun, that glistened in the little bit of light that poured through my window. Big, gold hoop earrings hung from her ears, almost touching her shoulders. Her gold necklace, and bracelet matched her earrings. Aunt Mary had on a tight grey dress, about down passed her knees, with a pure white button up coat. A grey hand bag with gold chain around the opening hung from her shoulder, completing her outfit. Great, she really means fancy....

As she walked back down the spiral stairs, I rummaged around through my wardrobe. Nothing but t-shirts, a few bright coloured long sleeves, and some rubbish jeans. I sighed in dismay, knowing that I would have to go to my other wardrobe. Ever since I was little I'd been scared of that old rickety thing. The doors would squeak when you opened them, and the whole entire thing would make an awful groan whenever the building shook. My room being at the top of a tower, the wind shook it around quite often.

I slowly got up, and inched my way towards the wardrobe. The doors squealed as I opened them, peering into the darkness inside. I spied a houndstooth patterned dress, with a red belt, and black coat. I grabbed the outfit's hanger, snapped my hand back, and slammed the door shut.

"GWENDOLYN WOULD YOU HURRY GIRL?"

"Coming Auntie!" I quickly threw on the dress, belt, and coat. I grabbed my black flats, and ran down stairs. When I got down into the study, Aunt Mary hurried me to the garage, and we drove off.