Sidnerella

Sidnerella was a pretty girl, who lived in a large house with her three older, ugly sisters, who all thought they looked like Mylie Kinogue, when in fact, they could scare off a pit bull terrier, just by looking at it. And if it had the dog damn misfortune to be paralyzed by fear, it would probably then die a slow and horrible death.

Besides the girls, the only other person in the house was Zip, who was her father’s manservant. He had remained in the house doing odd chores, even though her father no longer lived there. Before Zip had arrived to work in the house, there had been another manservant called Buttons, but unfortunately he died after having eaten a poisoned turnip. Buttons had befriended Sidners and felt sorry for her – secretly he was in love with her – but Zip couldn’t give a toss.

Sidners, as she was usually known, was forced to wear rags, while her sisters wore designer clothes. She had to do all the work around the house and by bedtime she was utterly knackered. Sidnerella’s dearest wish was to find a handsome prince and ask him to do the housework instead of her.

The second youngest sister’s name was Polyp and was so named because she looked like some sort of growth. She was also quite a bossy cow, demanding that Sidners made her endless cups of tea, which Sidners obligingly did, providing Polyp always put the kettle on first. There was actually a nursery rhyme named after this: Polyp ut the Kettle On (Polly Put the Kettle on). 

The third sister’s name was Baguette (or Baggy for short). Baggy was a lazy moo, prone to loafing around, thus her name suited her perfectly! She was neither pretty nor ugly but somewhere in between: pretty ugly, but of course just like her other two ugly sisters she thought she was the bees knees (Do bees actually have knees?)

The eldest sister was the worst of the lot. She was so ugly, she made the witches of MacBeth look like Miss World contestants. Every day the mirrors in the house shuddered when she went near. The eldest sister’s name was Shag, but she’d never had one and wasn’t likely to ever get one in a million years. Not only was Shag extremely ugly on the outside, she was also extremely ugly inside. You should have seen the state of her liver. It was offal!

The four sisters lived in a terraced house in East London. Their mum and dad had left the house long ago and went to the Other Side (West London). It was never a happy family. Ma and Pa had begat Shag and never quite recovered, however they were dumb enough to carry on procreating and so ended up with four daughters.

Sidners never went out but was kept to the house by her interminable list of chores. In contrast, her sisters went out every night looking for Mr. Right. They hadn’t found him yet, as he had been forewarned and so had succumbed to an urgent desire to conquer Mount Everest. The Mount Everest club began to wonder why there was a huge influx of new members from East London.

One day the postman put a leaflet through the door, advertising a Ball. The ugly sisters were not interested as they already had a ball (Sidner's Head, which they used to bounce against a wall or on to a cricket bat). It wasn’t until Sidners explained that this was a kind of posh get-together that included a buffet and lots of dancing with handsome men, that the other sisters became interested.

The three ugly sisters got excited and began plastering on make up, so they would be ready for the Ball in three weeks time. Sidners just sighed and knew without even asking, that she wouldn’t be allowed to go.

On the day of the Ball, Sidners moped around the house, feeling more than a little sorry for herself. She could just feel it in her bones that a handsome prince would be at the Ball and she got excited by the fact that he would probably have a large pumpkin and would wear a glass slipper. Poor Sidners was always getting her daydreams slightly muddled.

As the clock chimed six in the evening, Sidners three ugly sisters bade her goodbye and off they went into the night, dressed up like dogs’ dinners: The sort of dogs’ dinners that would make a dog very sick indeed.

Sidners wept, "Oh how I wish I could go the ball, too."

As those words were uttered, there was a sudden flash and Gary Godmother appeared. Gary Godmother was a bit like a Fairy Godmother only he happened to be a bloke in drag (Oh well, the same really then).

"Ooh, nice outfit," said Gary, eyeing Sidners rags with disdain. "I used something like that to clean my floor with yesterday. However, if you promise to close your eyes I will wave my magic wand and you’ll get a big surprise."

Sidners did as she was told and she opened her eyes to see that she was garbed in something she had coveted since she was a child. A gerbil? A pumpkin? No, it was a Little Black Dress, the staple of every woman’s wardrobe. There were diamonds round her neck and Manolo Blahniks on her feet, to complete this vision of delight.

"Now I can go to the ball," said Sidners, her eyes shining, "and meet the prince with the big pumpkin."

"You’ve got that a little confused," said Gary, "I’m the one whose going to meet the prince with the big pumpkin."

Off Sidners went in the stretch limousine that Gary had conjured from some vegetable or other, with a chauffeur magicked from next door’s rottweiler.

The chauffeur drove silently and dropped her off outside the venue where the Ball was held. As Sidners got out, the chauffeur (who even as a human, was an ugly sod) sneered at her, saying, "Remember, you’ve got to leave early so that you arrive home before midnight or the car will turn into a pumpkin and I’ll turn back into a rottweiler. And I’m going to bite your arse because I’ve wanted to do that for some time."

Damn, thought Sidners, I knew the pumpkin came into it somewhere. However, she was looking forward to the bite.

The Ball was crowded, but even so Sidners made a bit of an entrance. Heads turned, unlike stomachs, when her sisters had entered. She spotted her three sisters straight away and sneaked up near them, so that she might hear their conversation.

Shag appeared to be crying and the other two sisters consoling her.

"It was the cucumber sandwiches that did it," sobbed Shag. "They always give me wind. I just wish it hadn’t come out as the prince passed by. He’ll never ask me to dance now."

"He certainly won’t," said Baggy. Consolation was not her forte.

"Well, he won’t ask you either," said Polyp. "I noticed you biting your nails as he went past us and a piece of nail went right in his eye. It wouldn’t have been so bad if hadn’t been a toenail. How do you manage to get your foot in your mouth?"

Sidners laughed to herself, as she listened to her three ugly sisters bickering and then she went off to the buffet table to help herself to jelly and custard.

As she stood near the buffet table sucking up her strawberry jelly in one slurp, the prince noticed her and immediately went over to her and asked her to dance with him. He didn’t care that Sidners was a messy eater and that she was covered in jelly and custard.

"Do you come here often?" asked the prince.

What a brilliant conversationalist he is, thought Sidners.

"You look wonderful in that little black dress," said the prince, "and those diamonds match the glow in your eyes." He gazed at Sidners admiringly and wondered if he would get his end away.

Sidners noticed that everyone was gawping at them, including her three ugly sisters. They must have made a stunning looking couple.

"He’s got jelly all over his shirt," Baggy was saying, "and custard on his knob."

All too soon, Sidners glanced at her watch and saw that it was ten minutes to midnight. She panicked and rushed out of the hall, leaving the prince covered in confusion (as well as the jelly and the custard). In her haste, she left one of her Manolo Blahniks in the trifle, though God knows how it got there.

Half-way home, midnight chimed from some stupid clock and Sidners had to walk the remaining ten minutes home with a pumpkin on her head and a rottweiler attached to her arse.

Many months later when the episode with the prince had become so distant that Sidners thought it was a dream, when who should knock on the door with a Manolo Blahnik in his hand? Yes it was the milkman! (Just to add, that in his other hand he held a large pumpkin, for esoteric reasons known only to himself!)

"Aah," sighed Sidners sadly, "I thought you were the prince."

"I am the prince," smiled the milkman. "This is a clever disguise. Now, if you can get this shoe on, I’m going to make you my wife, you randy bitch."

Sadly, it seemed that the wetness of the trifle had stretched Sidner’s Manolo Blahnik. As the prince eased the shoe on Cinder’s foot, it just flipped and flopped and fell to the floor.

As the shoe fell to the floor with a soft flop, another soft flop appeared. It was Gary Godmother. He pounced on the shoe and it fitted him perfectly. Smugly, he turned to Sidners and said, "I told you I was going to get the prince with the big pumpkin didn’t I?"