Ella Enchanted - By Gail Carson Levine Page 0,59

I asked if he knew whether she was safe.

When I said her name, one of the knights called out, "The ogre tamer. What ever happened to her?"

The prince was quiet for so long after my question that I worried I'd offended him. But when he spoke, he didn't seem angry.

"You were her friend?" he asked. "You liked her?"

I told him Ella was the best friend I ever had. He paused again, and I feared he would say she had died. But he finally answered that he believed her to be well and married to a rich gentleman. He added "She is happy, I think. She is rich, so she is happy."

Without thinking, I blurted, "Ella doesn't care about riches." Then I realized I'd contradicted a prince!

"How do you know?" he said.

I answered, "At school everyone hated me because I wasn't wealthy and because I spoke with an accent. She was the only one who was kind."

"Perhaps she's changed," he said.

"I don't think so, your Highness." I contradicted him twice.

That was the end of our conversation, and I shall remember it forever. I watched him all evening, before and after we talked. Before, he had talked and joked with his men. After, he spoke no more.

Married! How could it be? I wish I could see her again.

I wished I could see Areida. I wished I could have seen Char's face when she defended me, but no illustrations accompanied her journal.

* * *

DECEMBER 12, the day of the first ball, dawned clear and mild, but by noon clouds had gathered and the wind had become sharp and cold.

My gowns hung in Mandy's wardrobe. The glass slippers Char and I had found were safely buried at the bottom of my carpetbag. Since they'd be hidden under my petticoats, there was little likelihood that Char would see and identify them.

Hattie's preparations began after breakfast and continued endlessly.

"It's not tight enough, Ella. Pull harder."

"Will that do?" My fingers were striped red and white from tugging at her laces.

If she could still breathe, I wasn't to blame.

"Let me see." She curtsied at herself in the mirror and rose, panting and smiling. "I shall be desolate if you don't remember me, Prince," she cooed at her reflection. Then she spoke over her shoulder. "Am I not magnificent, Ella?

Don't you wish you could look as I do and go to the ball?"

"Magnificent, ravishing. Yes, I wish I could." Anything to make her go.

"Pearls would set my hair off to advantage. Fetch them, there's a good girl."

Two hours later, after Mum Olga called her three times and threatened to leave without her, she declared herself perfect and departed.

At last I was free to bathe and dress. Instead of the kitchen soap I usually used, I helped myself to Hattie's store of bath oils and fragrant soaps. Mandy produced a fleecy towel and a fine scrub brush.

"Tonight I'll be your lady-in-waiting," she said, pouring steaming water into the tub.

When your servant is your fairy godmother, you're never scalded, and your water never gets cold. You become sparkling clean, but the water never gets dirty.

I soaked away a year of cinders and grime and Mum Olga's orders and Hattie's edicts and Olive's demands. When I rose from the bath and stepped into the robe Mandy held for me, I was no longer a scullery maid but the equal of anyone at Char's ball.

My gown was a spring green embroidered with leaves of darker green and plump yellow buds. Mandy had done her work well. In accordance with the latest fashion, my waist tapered to a narrow point, and my train trailed two feet behind me. In the glass, I saw Mandy curtsy.

"You're lovely, Lady." She seemed close to tears. I hugged her. She squeezed me tight, and I inhaled the sweet smell of freshly baked bread.

I turned back to the glass and raised my mask, which covered most of my forehead and half of my cheeks, with small holes for my eyes. With half my head hidden, my mouth appeared strange and unknown even to me. The transformation was thorough. With the mask, I was not Ella.

Nor was I perfectly dressed. I had no jewels. My throat was unfashionably bare.

But it would have to do. I didn't have to be the most elegant creature at the ball; I only had to see Char.

When I ran down to our front door, I discovered that icy rain was falling in sheets. If I walked the quarter mile to the castle, I would be