The Truth Behind Fairy Tales

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

One day in the present time, a confident, little girl named Charmaine was skipping down the road about to eat her sizzling bacon sandwich and her steaming mince pie. It was near Christmas and the air was cold and damp. The snow she trod in wasn’t melting even though it had snowed three days ago; it was still frosty and icy. Charmaine had to be really careful of not slipping and hurting herself.  Her mother had padded her up with lots of layers so Charmaine wouldn’t catch a cold when she took her walk. Her flowing, chestnut hair was tied back in a messy bun underneath her Christmas colored, wooly hat. Her face was pale and her dad made a joke about her blending in with the white snow like a chameleon. She hated it when he said that. Her gloves had frayed holes and were not in a very good condition. She was wearing her thick, puffy, winter coat that was a light shade of turquoise. To complete her outfit she was wearing her bright pink snow boots. She looked very colorful and to the public she probably looked ridiculous but she didn’t care. She only cared about being warm, that’s what mattered.

Charmaine was about to take a big bite out of her sandwich when she looked into the distance. There was a tired, poor, old lady trudging slowly down the icy path towards her. She was wearing old, ragged clothes that were grey and torn at places (a bit like Charmaine’s gloves). Her clothes didn’t look very warm which made Charmaine shiver. She also looked very skinny and hungry. A huge, tan colored sack was being tugged by the old woman. She reminded Charmaine of Santa Claus a bit although she felt sorrier for the woman than him. The sack looked incredibly heavy because of the objects inside it. It contained lots of rusty, old things such as dirty plates, steel cutlery, small chipped sculptures, mirrors and vases. Charmaine thought of how she must feel on a cold, winter day and took pity on her. She straightened her wooly hat and walked up to the poor woman.

“Excuse me, Madame,” Charmaine said, louder than she intended. The woman looked startled and was curious of why the girl stopped her. Charmaine carried on. “I couldn’t help but notice that your sack looks awfully heavy and you must be very hungry from carrying it. Um… so I was wondering if you would like this bacon sandwich. Would you, Madame?” Charmaine showed her the sandwich. The lady gulped and cleared her throat.

          “Why, that’s very kind of you but it’s your lunch, isn’t it? Don’t you want it?” She asked with a croaky voice.

She pulled the enormous sack off her back and it thumped to the ground. She looked longingly at Charmaine’s sandwich.

          “I … umm… am not very hungry, please take it.” Charmaine handed the old lady the tempting bacon sandwich. “At least I have still got my mince pie,” she thought to herself. The woman’s face glowed and raised her eyebrows.

          “Why thank you, darling! You have such a generous heart. Please take one of my items in return for being most kind,” she answered, accepting the sandwich.

          “Well… thank you Madame. You are very kind too!” Charmaine said, smiling and taking a glance at all the items in the lady’s sack. She looked for quite a while trying to decide what she wanted. But none of them looked very appealing to her. Then she randomly took out a rusty and dusty mirror. She examined it then said, “Yep this is the thing!”

          “Alright then. Thank you again for the sandwich, you are the nicest person I have met. You made my day so you have a pleasant day too!” The old lady smiled showing two rows of unnaturally yellow teeth. She then trotted on her way, gobbling up Charmaine’s ex sandwich.

          “If I’m the nicest person she has met then she must have not met a lot of nice people,” Charmaine thought, taking a big chunk out of her still steaming mince pie.

On her way home, she decided not to show her mum or dad or annoying little brother her mirror incase they might get suspicious as to where she got it.

When Charmaine got back home to her cozy little cottage, she went to the kitchen and opened the bottom cupboard next to the sink. It was clogged up with all kinds of things that were useless: a broken can opener, a twisted knife, a miniature wooden troll that her brother used to play with when he was three and the weirdest thing she found was a grubby sock which had the word ‘Tellytubbies’ faintly printed on the ankle part. “It must have been my brother’s sock that he wore when he was a baby,” she thought. “But why is that in there?” She then pushed aside all the wacky objects stored in there and at the very back she pulled out silver polish and a red and white checkered cloth. Then she grabbed a chocolate chip cookie from the cookie jar, took the mirror, sat down on the sofa in front of the warm log fire and started polishing the unattractive mirror. She scrubbed it strongly to get it to look spic and span. She succeeded; it was beautiful. It was completely golden and there were three dazzling, small gems embedded in it, one ruby, one diamond and one emerald.

          “Wow!” Charmaine gasped, admiring its beauty. “Maybe meeting the old lady was a good idea. It is amazing!”

Just as she said that, the whole mirror glowed and glittered. Lots of minute sparks were spraying out of the gems and fluttered around her. Charmaine was so shocked that she gasped and dropped the mirror! But luckily it fell into Chestnut’s dog bed which was really soft and bouncy so the mirror didn’t break.

Chestnut was Charmaine’s dog that was given to her as a puppy when Charmaine was five years old. He was a very good dog and always did as he was told. He was a very cuddly dog and he also very much liked lying in his dog bed which was in front of the sofa. The reason for it being put in front of the sofa was because he was a very friendly and sociable creature and always wanted to be around people and most of the time we were in the living room sitting on the sofa.

Charmaine just could not believe her eyes; she was astonished. She blinked a few times then rubbed her eyes, just to make sure that she didn’t see it wrong. But she was right before; she didn’t see it wrong. It really was happening. Charmaine calmed herself down and carefully picked up the strange mirror. She still couldn’t make herself believe what she had just seen. But she was intrigued to know how and why that had happened. She gazed into the mirror to see if she could see her reflection but she didn’t, instead it looked all misty and cloudy. Charmaine wiped it but it didn’t make any difference. But then, another strange thing happened. In the mirror, as well as it being cloudy, some silhouettes of thin, twiggy trees appeared and stood there. A bunch of them at one side and a bunch at the other. Then again something else appeared in the middle of the trees, some curvy writing saying “THE TRUTH BEHIND FAIRY TALES.”