Part 20 of 29

Angel's Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, on the magical island of Puerto Rico, there lived a little girl who was sure if she hoped and dreamed hard enough she would become a beautiful princess. Sadly, while the little girl's father was a prince among men, he was not a king and while her mother was beloved of her neighborhood there was no royalty in her bloodline either.

The little girl grew to be an avid reader, and by the time she was eight years old had read every fairy tale to be found in her school library. When she had read every fairy tale in her local library she begged paper and pencil from her teachers and started to write her own fairy tales.

Naturally, her first efforts were quite simple. A lonely little girl found a frog and kissed it; and the handsome prince married the little girl and she became a beautiful queen. By the time she was twelve her teachers had somehow found a way to get the Wizard of Oz books and the Chronicles of Narnia into the school library and the not-so-little girl eagerly read her way through these classic series.

In time the school library gained access to the Internet and a whole world of imagination and fantasy lay at her fingertips. The Brothers Grimm, Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, Lewis Carroll, Hans Christian Anderson, Anne McCaffrey, Christopher Paolini. Her small, impoverished world grew and expanded when her mind flew between the pages of a book.

In her mind, she became the slim, beautiful blonde princess, tall and regal in bearing and wise enough to rule over her blessed country. However, when she looked in the mirror, the reflection was of a more typical Puerto Rican girl, dark hair, rounded body, ample bosom and a generous figure.

Her neighbors saw a beautiful woman-in-making, but her mind only saw that she was not a fairy tale princess. Then there were her glasses. The girl was very nearsighted and her brothers teased her mercilessly saying she had to have glasses because she read too many books. Her uncle called them 'Coke bottle glasses' which she didn't understand because for her Coke came in aluminum cans.

Finally he brought an old-fashioned bottle of Coca-Cola to the house and she saw the thick glass at the bottom of the bottle and understood at last. It didn't make her happy, though. Princesses did not wear big, thick glasses.

Body shaming we would call it now, but the shame existed only in her mind, not among her family or her friends.

Above all, the little girl loved Mary Poppins. Her Magical Umbrella could whisk the children away to great adventures, taking them far away from the humdrum existence they otherwise knew. For many years she treasured an old, broken down umbrella as her favorite toy, playing with it for hours. As with all things, the umbrella finally became unusable and with a sigh the little girl told herself that she was growing up and must put away the fantasies of youth.

Not that she ever completely believed it deep in her heart.
 

In Puerto Rico, as in many Spanish speaking countries, a girl's fifteenth birthday is very special. Friends and neighbors gather, there is a special service in the church, and there is singing and dancing until the wee hours of the morning.

And then there is the dress. The Quinceanera dress is extravagant in the extreme, clothing the newly-made woman in external beauty to match the beauty of her soul. The skirt is full and layered by many petticoats. For some the bustline is daring, strapless, inviting the fifteen year old boys to fervently hope the elastic will fail during the dancing. For the more modest, even a high neckline will leave no doubt of the femininity of the girl under the dress. Then there is the embroidery and detailing. Again there is no extravagance too prodigal, cross-stitch, applique, sequins, anything goes.

The girl's family was poor in money but rich in love, and it was said that her mother had magic in her fingers when she sat down at her sewing machine. Thus when it came to be the girl's fifteenth birthday, the day a girl becomes a woman, her mother was determined to have her daughter shine above any other fifteen-year-old girl on the island.

The family scrimped and saved, borrowed from friends and neighbors, begged from relatives and the little girl's mother crafted a Quinceanera dress that would be the envy of all who beheld it. The little girl appreciated the dress, but somewhere in her heart-of-hearts she still longed to be that blonde European waif of a princess.

What the little girl didn't know was that, late in the evening when she was asleep, her mother had another project to complete. Starting with a simple parasol found in a secondhand shop, the mother let the magic flow from her fingers into the umbrella, creating a work of art to compliment the dress without the little girl being aware of it.
 

The day finally came and the little girl proudly wore her new dress to the church, where the priest blessed her as she crossed into womanhood. To the surprise of the assembled friends and family, the priest drew the parasol from it's concealment and blessed it before handing it to the woman who stood before the congregation.

The newly-made woman could hardly believe it, she opened the parasol and twirled it around, where it practically lifted her from the floor. The parasol swirling above her, the woman walked down the aisle and through the wide-thrown double doors of the church into the bright morning. With visions of Mary Poppins in her head, the woman commanded the parasol to take her on an adventure.

Suddenly, a cloud blew in front of the sun, a wind sprang up and the parasol lifted the woman high into the air, her figure growing smaller and smaller before the amazed crowd as she vanished into the new morning sky.
 

Larisa, for that was her name, gazed in wonder at the clouds below her. Now she was a woman she would no longer be be known 'that little girl' but but be known by her given name.

At first she allowed the winds to take her where they willed, marveling at all that unfolded below her. There were the fish in the sea and the boats on the water. After a time she spied some islands below her and wished to see them. Calling to her marvelous parasol she asked to go lower to examine the islands and she felt herself gently descend until her feet brushed the treetops.

"May we go to the beach?" she asked the magic parasol, and they drifted to the white sands where she settled lightly just above the swells of the ocean.

"Thank you," she spoke to the parasol as she delicately folded it up. The parasol made a marvelous walking stick as she explored the island. The sun was shining high in the sky when she had finished her explorations and she was beginning to get hungry, after all her magic parasol had taken her away before she could partake of the Quinceanera feast.

No sooner had she had this thought than the parasol unfolded itself and flew upside down to the sea, dipping into the swells and returning with a fish flopping inside concave surface. Clapping her hands with joy, Larisa collected firewood from the woods and carefully set it into a pile for a fire, but realized she had no matches.

All at once inspiration struck and she removed her glasses and held them just so to focus the sun's rays on the wood. Soon the campfire was burning merrily and Larisa was roasting the fish on the end of a green stick.

Refreshed by her meal, Larisa wrapped the remaining pieces of fish in her shawl, for she was a woman who had been trained to waste nothing. She shook out her magic parasol and politely asked it to continue her adventure. It obligingly rose into the sky, heading eastward so that the sun would not be in her eyes.

But there was a lot of ocean ahead and after a while Larisa began to tire of holding on to the parasol. In the distance she saw great geysers of water rising into the sky, so she asked the parasol to go toward them so she could investigate. They turned out to be a pod of spouting whales, and as she passed over them, Larisa politely hailed the whales and they began to dance with joy.

"Mr Whale," she cried, "I am getting tired and would appreciate it if you would let me rest upon your strong back."

"Of course," replied the whale. "We don't get much company here in the middle of the ocean."

This made Larisa sad, so she settled down upon the back of one of the whales and began to sing for the pod. As the night fell, she ate her fish, then the pod and Larisa sang together until she fell gently to sleep.
 

When the sun rose in the morning Larisa was again hungry, so the parasol once again caught a fish for her. This time there was no wood for a fire, and of course she wouldn't start a fire on the back of the friendly whale. Then she had an idea. She asked the whales if they could provide her with some seaweed, which of course they were happy to do. She made a deep pile of seaweed on the back of the whale and placed the fish at the top. Taking off her glasses she again focused the sun's rays on the seaweed and soon had a delectable meal of steamed fish and seaweed.

When her meal was finished, the whales informed her it was time for them to catch a northward current, so they bid each other farewell and Larisa once again flew eastward with her magic parasol. Approaching the Canary Islands, Larisa thought it was time for lunch, so the magic Parasol began to descend, setting her down in front of the amazed patrons of a lovely little tapas bar.

Recognizing her exquisite Quinceanera dress, she was invited to share their meal as she told them of her marvelous adventures. Although their version of Spanish was quite different from that spoken in Puerto Rico, they were able to understand each other and she was gifted with a small basket of provisions that could be hung from the crook of her magic parasol. After sharing their siesta she was refreshed and continued on her journey.

The scenery as she floated over the mountains was truly spectacular, and after a while she spied a wonderful castle in the distance. 'Maybe they are in need of a new princess at the castle,' she said to herself, so she asked the parasol to take her to the castle.

As she settled in the courtyard of the castle she was surrounded by a flood of amazed citizens. She, in turn, was amazed that most of them had a distinct resemblance to Peter Sellers. Larisa found herself in the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, a country even smaller than her own island. The magnificence of her Quinceanera dress caused all the assembled multitude to conclude she must be visiting Royalty, so she was immediately invited to a feast in her honor and guested with the resident princesses of the castle for some days.

Sadly, the Royal Family had a full roster of princesses, so she eventually bade farewell to her hosts and the magic parasol once again floated her into the sky.

The parasol took her on a tour of all the marvelous kingdoms it could locate: Anatruria, Andalasia, Caledonia, Ducklovia, Estrovia, Franistan, Glenraven, Hazelrink, Karlova, Klugenstein, Lutha, Marshovia, Moronica, Pottsylvania, Rongovia, Urzikstan, Vulgaria and even Wakanda. There she met and found friendship with a multitude of Princes and Princesses, who gladly accepted her as one of them because of her lovely Quinceanera dress and the gracious and loving attitude she had learned growing up in her family.

At last the parasol brought her to the grandest kingdom of them all: The Marvelous Land of Oz. There she was befriended by Princess Ozma, whose wise council confirmed what she had already learned on her journey.

Princesses came in all kinds, shapes and colors. A princess need not be tall or have skin as pale as milk or long golden hair. A princess must have grace in her heart and a love of her people in her soul.

After sharing a final afternoon tea with Ozma, Larisa once again took up her magic parasol and remembered the Dorothy's message from the movie: There's no place like home!

With Ozma and all the little people waving, Larisa once again soared into the sky and came down in her own front yard. A joyous cry of "I'm home!" escaped her lips and she was soon surrounded by her family.

From that day forward, Larisa knew the key to being a princess was to treat everyone she met as a prince or princess, and to share the love in her heart with all she met. And she truly did live happily ever after!
 

I was pleased to get an appreciative silence when I finished. No wild applause like Lula, but a whole host of smiling faces - just what I had been aiming for. I may just have to take up creative writing if I can get results like this.

Mary Ann gave me a big kiss, and Eve later told me it raised a few eyebrows. We had been careful not to make any Public Displays of Affection (Hey - it wasn't that long since we were in high school) when we were at the Liar's Club, but now we were officially engaged it would be silly to hide our love. I'm afraid we both waved our rings at anyone we could during the snack break.

Afterwards, Grandpa and Eve took all four of us out for a snack (really a meal - remember we are college kids) and I think our friends really enjoyed the company. I think Mary Ann and I are well on our way to settling in to the college life.