Ella Enchanted - By Gail Carson Levine Page 0,9

were a portrait instead of a maiden?

"What shall I do with you?" he asked himself.

"Why must you do something with me?"

"I can't leave you to grow up a cook's helper. You must be educated." He changed the subject. "What did you think of Dame Olga's daughters?"

"They were not comforting," I said.

Father laughed, really laughed, head back, shoulders heaving.

What was so funny? I disliked being laughed at. It made me want to say something nice about the loathsome Hattie and Olive. "They meant well, I suppose."

Father wiped tears from his eyes. "They didn't mean well. The older one is an unpleasant conniver like her mother and the younger one is a simpleton. It never entered their heads to mean well." His voice became thoughtful. "Dame Olga is titled and rich."

What did that have to do with anything?

"Perhaps I should send you to finishing school with her daughters. You might learn how to walk like the slip of a thing you are and not like a small elephant."

Finishing school! I'd have to leave Mandy. And they'd tell me what to do all the time and I'd have to do it, whatever it was. They'd try to rid me of my clumsiness, but they wouldn't be able to. So they'd punish me, and I'd punish them back, and they'd punish me more.

"Why can't I just stay here?"

"I suppose you could be taught by a governess. If I could find someone..."

"I would much rather have a governess, Father. I would study very hard if I had a governess."

"But not otherwise?" His eyebrows rose, but I could tell he was amused. He stood and went to the desk where Mother used to work out our household accounts. "You may go now. I have work to do."

I left. On my way out, I said, "Perhaps small elephants cannot be admitted to finishing school. Perhaps small elephants cannot be finished. Perhaps they..." I stopped. He was laughing again.

5

THE NEXT NIGHT I had to dine with Father. I had trouble sitting down at the table because Bertha had made me wear a fashionable gown, and my petticoat was voluminous.

On Father's plate and mine was sparrowgrass covered with a tarragon-mustard sauce. In front of his plate was a many-faceted crystal goblet.

When I finally managed to settle in my chair, Father signaled to Nathan to pour wine into the goblet. "See how it catches the light, Eleanor." He raised it. "It makes the wine sparkle like a garnet."

"It's pretty."

"Is that all? Just pretty?"

"It's very pretty, I suppose." I refused to love it. He was going to sell it too.

"You may appreciate it more if you drink from it. Have you ever tasted wine?"

Mandy never let me. I reached for the goblet and trailed my balloon sleeves through the sparrowgrass sauce.

But the goblet was too far away. I had to stand. I stood on my skirts and lost my balance, pitching forward. To stop my fall, I brought my arm crashing down on the table and knocked into Father's elbow.

He dropped the goblet. It fell and broke neatly into two pieces, stem severed from body. A red stain spread across the tablecloth, and Father's doublet was dotted with wine.

I steeled myself for his rage, but he surprised me.

"That was stupid of me," he said, dabbing at his clothes with a napkin. "When you came in, I saw you couldn't manage yourself."

Nathan and a serving maid whisked away the tablecloth and broken glass.

"I apologize," I said.

"That won't put the crystal back together, will it?" he snapped, then collected himself. "Your apology is accepted. We will both change our clothes and begin our meal."

I returned in a quarter hour, in an everyday gown.

"It is my fault," Father said, cutting into a sparrowgrass spear. "I've let you grow up an oaf."

"I'm not an oaf!"

Mandy wasn't one to mince words, and she'd never called me that. Clumsy, bumbling, gawky -- but never an oaf. Blunderer, lumpkin, fumble-foot -- but never an oaf.

"But you're young enough to learn," Father went on. "Someday I may want to take you into civilized company."

"I don't like civilized company."

"I may need civilized company to like you. I've made up my mind. It's off to finishing school with you."

I couldn't go. I wouldn't!

"You said I could have a governess. Wouldn't that be less expensive than sending me away?"

A serving maid whisked away my uneaten sparrowgrass and replaced it with scallops and tomato aspic.

"How kind of you to worry. A governess would be much more expensive. And I haven't the time to