When one morning Wen found a grey bird on her windowsill, she was rather surprised, and even a bit scared - for things like that almost always happened in fairytales; and, as a rule, the princess - this time, Wen - was locked up in a tower, waiting for her prince to arrive when -
"I hate fairytales," was the first thing Wen said as she braided her hair in front of the window on which the curious grey animal was sitting. "The princesses can do nothing - or, they simply act like it. They just do silly things and mourn for their darlings to come and kiss them. And I wonder why such things are shown to little children! - so, no wonder they grow up to be eh." And I do, in fact, agree with our little heroine.
Then the girl licked her lips and jmped into her old grey dress, and walked up to the window. Again, Wen thought of how fairytales were so stupid. But the bird did not seem to mind; in fact, when the girl opened her windows to let the thing in, the bird jumped gladly to avoid being in the rain any longer.
"This shall turn out to be an assy day," said the girl, though she knew she weren't meant to say such things, and she thought that the word she'd used didn't quite exist. She was correct.
When Wen went downstairs to have breakfast, it was announced that Terry Dunton was coming over to stay for a week, being Wen's father's friend's son, who himself could not come for he was in Africa, but who kindly suggested his son and his wife. Also, he was to come in an hour - jolly sweet! Well, that got Wen madder than she had been in the past months, for she would have washed her hair and bothered to not get her a-line dress dirty; but, no - he should have showed up today!
And so she made a hole in her baggy, shapeless dress with her scissors, for why not have fun? And when she went upstairs to confess this all to her stuffed bear, it was realized that the grey bird had pooed all over the girl's windowsill.
"Pah!" and I cannot begin to describe how that sound came out of Wen, for it was deep and throaty and menacing all at once, but so very proper for a bad morning. And so, content, the girl sighed deeply and shooed away at the bird which flew off, feeling disgraced.
Well, miraculously, there, in the girl's wardrobe, proved to be a green broadcloth dress, all tattered and bent and shoved, lying underneath and the underwear and socks. Embarrased, Wen pulled at the creases and frowned, but nothing came of it, so she just put the thing on and let her straight, flaxen-blonde hair fall just to her shoulders. The girl had picked a moss-tinted headband, and it complimented the dress, though it weren't orange. Another pah.
"May I use your earrings, marm?" Wen asked from her mother, and the woman, looking at the dress of her simple little girl had clasped her hands together and nodded. But then shouted - "Remember, you ain't gettin' ready feh a dinnah pahty!" for the woman had a terrible toothache, and one way or another fancied that she couldn't speak quite properly.
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