Ella Enchanted

chapter 9

WE PASSED through rich farmland on the final day of our journey to Jenn, the town where our finishing school was located. The day was hazy and warm, and I was almost too hot to be hungry. Hattie had energy for only one command: to fan her.

"Fan me too," Olive said. She had worked out that if Hattie told me to do something, I would do it, and if she directed me to do the same thing, I would do that too. Hattie hadn't explained my obedience to her. She didn't bother to explain much to the slow-thinking Olive, and she must have enjoyed keeping the delicious secret to herself.

My arms ached. My stomach rumbled. I stared out the window at a flock of sheep and wished for a diversion that would take my mind away from lamb and lentil salad. My wish was granted instantly as the coach took off in a mad gallop.

"Ogres!" the coachman yelled. A cloud of dust hid the road behind us. Through it I made out a band of ogres, kicking up the dust as they chased us.

But we were outdistancing them. The cloud was receding.

"Why do you run from your friends?" one of them called. It was the sweetest voice I had ever heard. "We bear gifts of your hearts' desires. Riches, love, eternal life..."

Heart's desire. Mother! The ogres would bring her back from death. Why were we tearing away from everything we most wanted?

"Slow down," Hattie ordered unnecessarily. The coachman had already reined in the horses.

The ogres were only yards behind. Untouched by their magic, the sheep were baa-ing and bleating their fear. Briefly their noise covered the honeyed words and the spell broke. I remembered that the ogres couldn't revive Mother. The horses were again whipped to a gallop.

But the ogres would be beyond the sheep in a minute and we'd be at their mercy again. I shouted to Hattie and Olive and to the coachman and footmen.

"Yell so you can't hear them."

The coachman understood first and joined my voice with his, shouting words I'd never heard before. Then Hattie began. "Eat me last! Eat me last!" she shrieked.

But it was Olive who saved us. Her wordless roar drowned out thought. I don't know how she drew breath; the sound was unending. It continued as we passed the outlying homes of jenn, while the ogres faded from sight and while I recovered from my fright.

"Quiet, Ollie," Hattie said. "Nobody is going to be eaten. You're giving me a headache."

But Olive didn't hush until the coachman stopped the carriage, came inside with us, and slapped her smartly across the face.

"Sorry, miss," he said, and popped back out. Finishing school was in an ordinary wooden house. Except for its enormous ornamental shrubs pruned into the shapes of wide-skirted maidens, it might have been the home of any not-so-prosperous merchant.

I hoped the lunch portions were generous.

The door opened as we drove up, and an erect, gray-haired lady strutted down the walkway to our carriage.

"Welcome, young ladies." She swept into the smoothest curtsy I'd ever seen. We curtsied in return.

She waved a hand at me. "But who is this?"

I spoke quickly, before Hattie could explain me in a way I didn't want to be explained.

"I'm Ella, madam. My father is Sir Peter of Frell. He wrote a letter." From my carpetbag I extracted Father's letter and the purse he'd given me.

She tucked the letter and the purse (after weighing it expertly in her palm) into her apron pocket.

"What a lovely surprise. I am Madame Edith, headmistress of your new home.

Welcome to our humble establishment." She curtsied again.

I wished she'd stop. My right knee cracked when I went down.

"We just had lunch."

So much for generous portions.

"And we are sitting down to our embroidery. The young ladies are anxious to meet you, and it's never too soon to start being finished."

She ushered us into a large sunny room. "Young ladies," she announced, "here are three new friends for you.

A roomful of maidens rose, curtsied, then resumed their seats. Each one wore a pink gown with a yellow hair ribbon. My gown was stained and wrinkled from the journey, and my hair was probably limp and unkempt.

"Back to work, ladies," Madame Edith said. "Sewing Mistress will help the new pupils."

I lowered myself into a chair near the door and stared defiantly at the elegance around me. I met the eyes of a girl about my age. She smiled hesitantly. Maybe my look softened, because her smile grew and she winked.

Sewing Mistress approached, bearing a needle, an assortment of colored thread, and a round of white linen marked with a design of flowers. I was to follow the outline and stitch the flowers in thread. The cloth could then cover a pillow or the back of a chair.

After she explained what to do, Sewing Mistress left me, assuming I would know how to do it. But I had never before held a needle. Although I watched the other girls, I could not thread it. I struggled for a quarter hour till Sewing Mistress rushed to my side. "The child has been raised by ogres or worse!" she exclaimed, snatching it away from me. "Hold it delicately. It's not a spear. One brings the thread to it." She threaded the needle with green thread and returned it to me.

I held it delicately, as ordered.

She left my side, and I stared stupidly at my task. Then I stuck the needle into the outline of a rose. My head ached from lack of food.

"You have to knot the end of the thread and start underneath." The speaker was the lass who had winked at me. She had pulled her chair next to mine.

"And Sewing Mistress will ridicule you if you sew a green rose. Roses have to be red or pink, or yellow if you're daring."

A pink gown similar to the one she wore was spread across her lap. She bent her head over it to make a tiny stitch.

Her dark hair was plaited into many braids that were gathered and woven into a knot high on her head. Her skin was the color of cinnamon with a tint of raspberry in her cheeks (I couldn't help thinking of food). Her lips curved up naturally, giving her a pleased and contented air.

Her name was Areida, and her family lived in Amonta, a city just over the border in Ayortha. She spoke with an Ayorthaian accent, smacking her lips after the letter m and pronouncing her l's as y's.

"Abensa utyu anja ubensu." I hoped this was Ayorthaian for "I'm pleased to meet you." I had learned it from a parrot.

She smiled at me ecstatically. "Ubensu ockommo Ayortha?"

"I only know a few words," I confessed.

She was miserably disappointed. "It would have been so nice to have someone to talk to in my language."

"You could teach me."

"Your accent is good," she said doubtfully. "But Writing Mistress teaches Ayorthaian to everyone, and no one has picked it up at all."

"I have a knack for languages."

She started to teach me right then. Once heard, always remembered is the way with languages and me. By the end of an hour I was forming short sentences.

Areida was delighted.

"Utyu ubensu evtame oyjento?" I asked. ("Do you like finishing school?") She shrugged.

"You don't? Is it terrible?" I asked, reverting to Kyrrian.

A shadow fell across my neglected sewing. Sewing Mistress picked up my pillow cover and announced dramatically, "Three stitches in all this time. Three vast, messy stitches. Like three teeth in a toothless gum. Go to your room and stay there until it is time for bed. No supper for you tonight"

My stomach growled so loudly that the whole room must have heard it. Hattie smirked at me. She couldn't have planned better herself.

I wouldn't add to her pleasure. "I'm not hungry," I announced.

"Then you may do without breakfast as well, for your impertinence."