Flowers for a Grimm

Say Cheese

Penelope Boots sat in her office at the top of the BEN tower trying to decided if she wanted to yell at her assistant. There was no cause for her to yell at Tina. That was the frustrating aspect of her exercise. Everything in Penelope's world was running smoother than gold through a goose except for the fact that Tina had a ridiculous hairstyle that irritated Penelope to no end.

Penelope Wysteria Boots was a household name in Fablehaven. She was the superstar news personality at the Broken Egg Network. The only television station in Bean worth watching. If you asked Penelope. If there was a better station she would be working there.

Since the day she was born Penelope knew she wanted to be famous. No she knew she was destined to be famous. Her sisters didn't have the stomach for the hard work and dedication to a craft that Penelope had. They were content to let dear old dad and mum arrange neat little marriages for them with dumpy dukes or barons in other countries. Penelope was not interested in being someone else's trophy. While her sisters went to finishing school to learn how to properly curtsey when they met they queen Penelope actually went to school to learn. Oh how she loved school. Especially going alone. It wasn't easy growing up the the middle cat in the Duke of Spindle's household.

Penelope wasn't exceptionally pretty like her twin sisters Prudence and Phoebe. She wasn't naturally gifted in a creative art like you little sister Parker, the violin prodigy, and she certainly wasn't the lovable kitten that Patience was. She was the middle of the pack academically, she always hated to admit that, but what she lacked in other departments she more than made up for with tenacity and drive.

Penelope was going to make a name for herself if it killed her.

She got her first big break with an internship at the BEN. Her father had to call in a lot of favors to get the post. Penelope had balked at her father's intrusions into her career. She didn't want to be the sort of person people made fun of at the water cooler. After showing up for her first day of work however cured her of any ill will toward her dad. She had been assigned as the Assistant Historian in the Archives Department. Her supervisor was a cankerous old maid with perfume de cigar hanging about her.

Penelope spent two years of her life down in that pit. She would have cursed the day she picked up her BEN badge, but Mrs. Kitsune allowed her to watch the old footage on her breaks. It was her snooping that got her out of the basement and onto the top floor. Well not the top floor. That was Mr. Dumpty's floor, but she was right under him.

Her name had been splashed across several media outlets for uncovering the long going scandal financial scandal perpetrated by the Duchess of Emerald City. It had rocked the country on epic proportions. Boots was an overnight success.

That had been ten years ago.

Penelope was the sort of cat that people loved to hate and hated to love. Oh they scorned her for her unrelenting drive to unmask those shadowy figures of society, but they still turned in for her nightly news broadcast and her afternoon talk show.

She had the best ratings in the business. A spot she ruthlessly protected. She was a Boots after all.

Penelope sat at her desk tapping a quill against the top. Her office overlooked the Queen's Square. Simple put it was the best view in the city, well other than the royal family's but Penelope liked to say, "Its better to be looking at the seat of power than sitting it in. Then you might have to deal with me." It always got a healthy smarting of laughter at parties and on dates.

She heard Tina's bubbly giggles from her chair. She really wanted to find something to yell at her for. The half pixie, half dwarf assistant was actually the best one she had had. Penelope tended to go through a lot of assistants. She didn't suffer folls lightly and many of the bobble headed girls only wanted to be her assistant as their ticket to fame.