Happily Never After (A Snow White Story) (ON-HOLD)

Chapter 4: The feeling of fireworks

I turned to another story, again, 'Jack and the Beanstalk' which showed an illustration of a house and a giant beanstalk behind the house. I turned again, 'The Three Little Pigs'. There was an illustration of three houses, a straw, a stick and a brick house. On the porch of each house stood a little pig; just like in my dream.

I didn’t notice that my mom was already standing behind the sofa, looking at the stories that I was searching for. "How long have you been standing there, Mom?" I asked her.

"Since you went out to the library. It's a saturday. I'm trying to clean the whole house but what you're doing is far more interesting than cleaning so I decided to stop and look," she replied.

“Why would this strike as interesting to Mom?” I thought. But, I let go of the idea as soon as it came to me. "So, the last story was with the seven dwarves," I murmured.

“Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” my mom said.

“Of course!” I exclaimed. I turned to another story, 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves'. There was an illustration of a glass coffin filled with flowers. Lying on the flowers was a lady, who I assumed was Snow White. Around the coffin, seven little dwarves were standing. Not too far from them, a prince on a horse was staring at the coffin.

"We share the same name but we don't share the same face," I muttered, trying to make a joke.

My mom was silent. She was looking at the illustration very intently. "That's because this illustration is wrong. Whoever drew this hasn't seen Snow White,” she said suddenly to my surprise.

I was confused by what my mom said. What did she mean by that? Hasn’t seen Snow White? How could the illustrator see Snow White? Snow White's not real, right? Although, what she said was very weird, I didn't let it bother me much. I figured maybe she was just joking even with a very serious expression.

Then, I remembered about the rabbit with the vest and the pocket watch. I browsed the whole book but I found no such story involving the rabbit. Instead, I found the story of 'Peter Pan'.

When I came across the story, there was an illustration showing a shadow with a flat and pointed hat and pointy shoes. The shadow was standing beside a window, hiding from Peter Pan. I read the beginning of the story. Apparently, the shadow belonged to Peter Pan and it was hiding from him.

"So, will I be able to see Peter Pan, too?" I mumbled.

I was going to ask Mom if she knew anything about a rabbit in a vest but when I turned, she was gone. I assumed, she went back to the kitchen or she went upstairs. How was I not able to notice her go? She was just behind me, after all. She has been appearing and disappearing without me noticing. What’s up with that?

Later in the day, Seven texted me the invitation for his birthday party. "His party is tonight but he sent the invitation just now. Wow, Seven. Wow!" I thought to myself, as I read the invitation.

The message read, "Hello! Seven Dylan Ward here! Today is my birthday. There will be a small gathering tonight at my dad's place. I'm asking you to please be there. It's just a casual masquerade party so NO NEED to be in your formal attires. Masks will be given out before you enter the place. Thank you! I'll be expecting you!"

"For a small gathering, I think a casual masquerade party seems too much," I thought to myself. "Oh well, it's not my party anyway. Casual, huh?"

Inspired by the little red riding hood, I decided I would wear a white shirt, a red hoodie, a pair of black skinny jeans and then red sneakers.

"See you later, Mom!" I bid Mom goodbye, as I walked down the stairs.

"Be careful out there," Mom warned, which stroke me as weird because I was just going to a casual party, nothing more.