A Cinderella Story

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, lived a little girl named Pug. That wasn't her real name, of course, but that's what she was often called, for her button nose, her plump cheeks and tomboy-ish ways reminded some of a puppy, clue-less to the ways of the world, yet eager to please.

Pug grew up in a house with five other children, one boy and three other girls, all far more beautiful than she. Her three sisters were loving and kind, but being older and quite popular with boys and girls alike, they had little time for sturdy little Pug to be trailing at their heels. Her brother - being a boy, of course - was the bane of her existence, and never tired of pointing out the buttonness of her nose or the plumpness of her cheeks. So, Pug spent most of her time in the woods, climbing trees and building forts, or curled up in a shady thicket where she would sit silently for hours, watching the squirrels and the birds and the butterflies go about their business, all the while pretending that she was one of them - a shy fawn, perhaps, waiting for her mother to come back from foraging in the meadow.

Pug lived in a world of make-believe, you see, a world aided by the books she simply couldn't stop reading: heroic fables of King Arthur and the Round Table, fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, spine-tingling stories by Edgar Allen Poe. Books were the solace of her childhood, but as all children do, Pug eventually grew up. Still lost in the world of fairy tales, she was quite surprised when, as an adult, her Prince Charming turned out to be a toad, and her happily-ever-after turned out to be a unhappily-here-and-now, but ever determined - much as that pugnacious little puppy she was once compared to - Pug persevered. She stopped waiting for her dreams to come true on their own, and decided to make them come true.

And here is the result:
The little girl who once hid in the bushes reading stories of other worlds and other places, now writes stories of other worlds and other places, and is lucky enough to share them with the world.

She has beautiful, wonderful friends who write them as well, and once a year, she gets together with as many of them as she can, and lives out the dream of being a butterfly instead of clumsy little puppy. She laughs and she dances and she enjoys the here-and-now with a true Prince Charming who (after 18 years) has yet to sprout warts or to croak her back into the shade of the forest.

And she never, ever forgets the little girl who lived inside her head when she was small, wearing her older sisters' hand-me-downs and playing alone in the forest, hoping all the while that others will enjoy the world she's created in her stories.

And, as in most fairy tales, they all lived happily-ever-after.