Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

My name is Brunhilda and in case that name does not ring a bell, I am one of the two ugly step-sisters from the classic tale called Cinderella. I was promised a happily ever after ending, but I got hoodwinked in the deal. I must admit things have gone downhill for me since she went skipping off with the handsome prince leaving me with no toes on my right foot when I tried to jam my big old foot into that glass slipper. Mom suggested that she cut off my toes so I could fit my foot into that tiny glass slipper. Hey, this is the Grimm Brothers’ version I had to go with, not the Disney one. Anyway, if you got a few minutes, I’d like to tell you the story from my point of view. I must admit there ain’t many people lined up to hear it, but here it goes.

My mother needed to marry a rich man to provide for me and my sister Gertrude. She met this guy with a beautiful daughter named Cindy. If truth be told, mom was an awful cook to begin with, but when she put arsenic into the stew, he was a goner who left her with a lot of money even though the estate lawyer felt something was wrong with the whole deal.

“Stew?” Mom offered the lawyer.

He declined which was a good thing for him.

She got all the money in her dead husband’s bank account plus the mansion he owned. According to mom, he was some big wig who worked for the king. She did not wish to spend a lot of money for domestic help so she turned to our step-sister.

“I shall call you Cinderella.” She told her after dinner one evening.

“My name is Cynthia.” She shook her pretty little head. “It was the name my father gave me when I was born.”

“I am afraid he is no longer around, now is he.” She smiled at the poor darling. “And I will call you what I wish, and have you do what I wish. And I wish you to clean this house from top to bottom.”

“You are mean.” Was all Cinderella could manage to say.

Me and her were about the same age and I must admit I felt sorry for her at first, but then I could have been chosen to clean the entire estate. I wasn’t what you call a neat-freak either. I was what you’d call a bit lazy. Alright, I was a lot lazy. I’m not proud of it, but the truth is the truth. Trudy, my sister, was no Martha Stewart either.

“Hey Brunda, why don’t we mess with her.” She suggested as she brushed her hair in the mirror. Now, I was told to be nice to other people by my grandma, but she ended up eating the stew when mom got married. Back then my sister was a lot meaner than I was. Heck, she was three years older and had a lot more practice at being mean. So, I went along with it.

When Cinderella mopped the floor, we’d come inside with our muddy shoes and track up the entire floor with mud. Mom would see the dirty floor, and she’d make Cinderella mop the whole thing all over again. At first I felt kind of guilty, but after a few times, I lost my sense of decency. Me and my sister had it easy, but poor Cinderella was always doing chores. After a while I didn’t even notice. It just was the way things were.

As I grew older and began noticing boys, I could not help but envy Cinderella beauty. Why are the privileged always the ones who must suffer? My nose was always too large for my face, and my eyes are the color of dirty dishwater. If I do not use perfume, I smell like the garbage cart the ragman pulls down the street. I would like to say my sister was graced with better features, but the fact is clear, neither one of us were beautiful.

“Maybe it’s because we are mean to her.” I suggested as we complained about our attractiveness.

“No, that’s not it at all.” Trudy laughed with that fog horn laugh of hers.

“Who knows?” She shrugged

The more it became obvious that Cinderella was beautiful and we were not, the more mom became determined to make her work harder hoping that hard work would make her plain like us. But as it turned out, this would not be the case. She sent us to the beauty parlor with the stipulation that we would return home raving beauties.

“Oh my.” The beautician remarked, “I see this will be a professional challenge.”

I heard her utter as I sat in the chair. This remark did not help my self-image in the least. It got worse as she used every lotion on her shelf to make me beautiful.

“I give up.” She shook her head as I was dismissed from her chair. Trudy was next, but she threw her hands up in surrender. There was nothing she could do to make us appear any more beautiful than we already were. When mom drove up in the carriage, she took one look at both of us and said she was going to refuse to pay.

“There must be a way to find a way to find the secret of her beauty.” Mom hissed, “I could get some help from some of my magic friends.”

“Who?” Trudy asked.

“There’s the Wicked Witch of the West.” She answered.

“But she is the ugliest person I know.” I whined.

“Perhaps, but her magic is the best.” Mom declared.

And so she rode her broom to our house. When mom explained what she wanted, the wicked witch shook her head and professed it can’t be done even with magic. I spent the rest of the day crying in my room while Cinderella cleaned the floors and washed the windows. There are over four hundred windows in the mansion.

I never used to be like this, you know. I was nice and never picked on anyone, but the more I watched what mom did to Cinderella, the more I justified my own treatment of her. I would look in the mirror and saw the wretched person I was becoming. At that moment in time, I should have realized what I was becoming. Not everyone is born beautiful, but that does not give a person the right to abuse someone because it has become accepted behavior.

Ugly isn’t just on the outside, you know, it can become part of what’s inside, too. Looking back on what was taking place, I see how we became ugly. It’s not something you take notice of when it’s happening, it’s something you notice when all is said and done, I’ve learned. A lot of people don’t realize it until it’s too late. Like a snowball rolling down hill, you watch it get bigger and bigger until it’s out of control and there’s no way to stop it. I guess that’s what me and Trudy did to poor Cinderella.

Mom kept texting the Wicked Witch, because mom knew that old witch could cast some spells on me and Trudy that would make us as beautiful as Cinderella, but that witch would text back about somethings will remain ugly no matter how much makeup you put on or how many magic spells are cast.

We would spend an entire day in a beauty salon with some guy name Jean-Paul and no matter what magic lotions he would apply, there was no noticeable improvement in either of us. He would shake his head and mutter, “C’est terrible.”

Mom would blame our diet. She would tell us that we needed to eat more fruit and vegetables, but no matter how much broccoli and apples we ate, not a single hair on our chins, not a single blemish, not a single thing changed in our appearance. The more we stayed the more unpleasant we remained, the madder mother got and the more she would harp on Cinderella.

“She deserves it.” Trudy would say as we listened to mom demand Cinderella to do this and that. At the start, I felt bad for her, but at least we didn’t have to do it. “She is so pretty, it makes me sick.”

“Maybe she can’t help it.” I would say.

“Brunhilda, after all we have done to make ourselves attractive and beautiful like her.” Trudy would sulk.

The turning point came when king sent out invitations to the Royal Ball where he hoped his son the prince would find someone suitable to wed. Mother went crazy trying to get each of us ready to dazzle the prince. Me and Trudy would spend hours with Jean-Paul who would throw his hands in the air in despair when he finished.

“I do not know what to do.” He would say almost in tears.

“We don’t have that much time.” Mother reminded him.

“I am a beautician, not a miracle worker.” He whined.

“You have not accentuated on single feature.” She stamped her foot.

“It’s not my fault. I have literally nothing to work with.” He also stamped his foot.

“I’ll have to call an old friend.” Mother pulled out her cell phone and dialed the Wicked Witch. “Yeah it’s me. I have an emergency and you’ll have to come right away. It’s the girls…yeah they are still as unattractive as ever.”

With a plume of smoke the Wicked Witch appeared, but she was not happy. She came over and looked at each of us.

“Hmmm, seems as if the situation is hopeless.” She put her green finger to her green chin.

“Don’t you have any magic that will help them?” Mother suggested.

“I will use one of my most potent spells.” She stepped back with her wand in between her crooked fingers, “Allla-Kazzzzaaaammm!”

There was a big puff of smoke, but when it cleared, her shoulder sagged.

“What happened?” Mother asked looking over the witch’s shoulder.

“Nothing. Not a thing.” She shook her head.

I looked a Trudy and she looked at me, confirming what the Wicked Witch had said.

“If you can’t do something, I will have your witch license revoked.” Mother was all red in the face, furious that the Wicked Witch had not been able to change our physical appearance. All she managed to do was set off the fire alarm with the smoke she had created. The sprinklers meanwhile began to rain all over us.

“My shop! It’s ruined.” Jean-Paul raged as we left his shop.

Me and Trudy got our dresses on. She would wear pink and I would wear a lavender pastel adorned with beads. The dresses were quite striking, but from the neck up we were still the ugly step-sisters. Most of the hair had been plucked from our chins, our mascara was artistically done and our lipstick had been applied skillfully, but our faces were still quite as ugly as when we walked into Jean-Paul’s Salon.

By the time the carriage arrived to take us to the castle, I felt as if I had been suffocated in scented powder. Sitting next to Trudy, I was nearly made carriage sick by her perfume and powder or maybe it was me as we were both doused heavily in fragrance.

“I am so excited.” She declared.

“Me too.” I squealed.

“You smell exquisite.” She smiled waving her fan in front of her face.

“As do you.” I copied her as I waved my fan in front of my face. Mother suggested we take a fan so we could hide our faces behind it if the prince should happen our way.

I felt my corset pink my belly. It took Cinderella nearly thirty minutes to squeeze me into this corset, but it was worth every bit of effort as I now looked much slimmer than I had in a long time. When the carriage stopped, our driver, Jacques yelled, “We have arrived.”

The footman opened the door, and I took his hand to assist me out of the carriage. As I stepped daintily from the open door, my corset gave up the fight. It sounded like a balloon popping at first, but the minute he looked at me, I knew what he was thinking.

“Oh Heavens no, that wasn’t me.” I batted my eyes as my feet came in contact with the walkway. He remained silent, but I’m sure he rolled his eyes as I stepped away from the carriage.

There were quite a few people from the kingdom waiting in a line flapping their invitations in front of their face on the warm evening. Looking down, I saw my belly sagging in front of me as my corset fell to my ankles. Things were not going as planned so I used by fan to hide my embarrassment.

“Are you alright?” My sister asked me as I fanned.

“I seem to have lost my corset.” I explained.

“Oh my.” She fanned herself harder.

Trumpets sounded as the king stepped into his balcony overlooking the gathering crowd.

“Hear ye. Hear ye.” He spoke, “I am elated to see all my subjects gathered for this royal ball. I hope you all have a wonderful time. Here is my son, the prince.”

We all applauded as the prince stepped forward. He was as handsome as I had imagined. Just then a pumpkin pulled up to the curb with four snow white stallions pulling it. When the footman opened the carriage door out stepped on of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She was wearing a long light blue gown with her hair set in a beehive atop her head and on her feet were two glass slippers. She was stunning.

“Who is that?” Trudy asked mesmerized by her appearance.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was our step-sister, Cinderella.” I gasped.

“Nonsense, she was covered with cinders the last time I saw her when we were leaving.” She scowled, “But still I see a strong resemblance.”

I could hear the crowd ahead of us chattering about the late arrival as she stood at the end of the line. Then I saw the prince still in the balcony point to her as he spoke to his father the king.

You know how the rest of the evening turned out. I am sure you are familiar with the story by now. I must say I am not charmed by the Grimm Brothers’ rendition. Bad enough I blow out my corset, but to lose my toes as well? That is clearly too much. I know many people will say that it was a just ending and be that as it may, I don’t feel as though it reflects our intent.

You must remember, Cinderella was aided by her Fairy Godmother where my sister and I were helped by a Wicked Witch. I would much prefer a Fairy Godmother if I had my say.

I did eventually marry though, but the story does not seem too concerned with the outcome. Brutus is a good man by all accounts. He’s the best blacksmith in the kingdom. My sister Trudy married a leather worker who often smells of cow urine. Of course, you are aware Prince Charming married my stepsister Cinderella after her dainty foot slid into her lost glass slipper.

I guess the thing is, if you get the happily ever after be joyful, because most people don’t and you have to learn to be happy with however the story turns out, right?