Aerin and Cindy
By Sana Sood
Sana’s character — Aerin the elf — meets Cindy in this retelling of Cinderella, as they both find in each other the warmth of friendship and the comfort of family.
Aerin shifted uncomfortably in her sleep. Her slumbering mind replayed her most vivid memory — the memory that changed her life. A younger, teary-eyed Aerin writing a farewell note to her parents, her friends, her species, explaining in the note that she had to go out into the human world — and she would come back someday to prove that the Elvish race should not stay in hiding any longer. She ran without seeing, tears blurring her eyes. When she couldn’t move any longer, she sat, but she couldn’t stop shaking, shaking…
Cindy was shaking Aerin’s shoulder. “Aerin, you’ve got to get out of here! We missed the alarm. Wake up!”
Sighing, Aerin climbed out of the window that faced the woods behind the house. She swung onto the tree outside. Immediately, you could see she was in her element. “I’ll see you after school, Cindy. I’ll be in your room unless your step-mother comes back.” “Ugh. Don’t call her that!” came the reply, “And be careful.”
That evening, Cindy walked into the woods holding two peanut butter sandwiches carefully wrapped up in aluminium foil. She hopped over a fallen log that served as a little boundary and sat down next to Aerin on a boulder. “Hey, how was –” Aerin was interrupted by Cindy’s ringtone. Shooting Cindy an irritated look, she grabbed a sandwich and began to munch. When Cindy got up and walked away from her, Aerin became suspicious. Since the two girls had met in the woods the day Aerin left home, they had become close. They didn’t have much to hide from each other… so where was she going?
Cindy ran back to the boulder and saw two missing sandwiches and one annoyed elf. “So… that was my brother. He’s turning twenty-one next Friday.” “What did he say?” asked Aerin. Cindy hesitated. “He’s asking me to go stay with him. He has his own apartment and he’s moving in soon. Aerin, you know how much I miss him…” “Cindy. You don’t have to justify yourself to me. I get it. But I have one condition… if you’re going, I’m coming with you.”
They began to formulate a plan. Cindy’s high school was having a party in the gymnasium. Cindy and her foster siblings would all be attending, and Cindy was sure that they wouldn’t notice or care if she wasn’t at the party. It was decided… when Cindy’s foster mother dropped them all off at school, Aerin would pack them a bag. Then Cindy would sneak out of school once her foster mother left for work — and the girls would be free.
Cindy scrubbed away at a stubborn stain. Once again, she was left with nearly all the chores while the rest of the children in the house were relaxing. She seethed silently at her foster mother. Cindy had always been treated differently — the woman had not wanted a fifth child. So the unwanted daughter was stuck in the dusty attic full of unwanted relics. But not for long — soon she would be with her brother… it was his birthday today! She willed her tears away — thoughts of her family had brought back memories of her mother. Her mother: a beautiful, kind, strong woman who had lost her life to cancer. And as usual, thinking of her mother brought up a simmering anger that always lay just beneath the surface. She was angry at having to leave her brother, she was angry at being stuck in a ‘family’ where no one cared about her, she was angry at the world. Cindy awoke from her thoughts when she heard a crash. She looked down and saw that she had dropped the plate she was holding. Her foster mother stormed in, fuming.
Aerin heard Cindy’s muffled tears through her window. She could not go in — the other people in the house would hear her. She wanted to comfort Cindy, but how much comfort can you offer through a layer of glass? The best she could do was think of a way to fix it. She looked at her friend with an expression of concern, but that soon faded away to a look of confidence. She knew how to fix this.
It was the day of the party. Cindy, once again, was crying — and Aerin listened to her muffled tears through the window. But this time, she did not have to watch silently through the glass. Cindy’s foster family was not at home — the house was empty. Aerin swung herself through the window and shook Cindy’s shoulder. “Hey, you don’t need to cry. We’re going to see your brother.” With this, she pulled out a suitcase from under the bed and a dress from the closet. “Your gown, milady,” said Aerin, “We’re going to the ball.” Cindy sat up with her puffy eyes and her red nose. “What on earth are you saying? How can we go anywhere?” Aerin laughed, “You forgot — we still have the bus tickets. All we need to do is leave the house now and we’ll still catch it on time. I even packed the suitcase to save time!” Cindy leaped up from her bed and pulled Aerin into a hug. “Thank you,” she said.
A few hours later, the doors of the bus hissed open and two girls ran out. One girl ran straight into the arms of a young man waiting nearby, while the other laughed and dragged the suitcase towards her friend.
Two siblings stood together in a graveyard, Charles holding a bouquet of fresh flowers to place at the gravestone, and Cindy wiping the fresh tears off her face. “We love you, mom.” She whispered.
He placed the bouquet on the ground where the brightness of the flowers stood out against the moonlit dirt. “Come on Cindy, let’s go home. Aerin will be waiting, and she’s going to finish all the peanut butter if we don’t get there in time.”
Two figures walked away arm in arm, laughing, finally with family.
Sana Sood, 13 years old, Bangalore: I like to read because reading lets you look at stories the way you want to. Movies and TV shows still tell you stories, but those are from other people’s points of view. Reading lets you imagine and picture things your own way, and I love doing that. I don’t have a favourite book. I read lots of different books, and I’ve never been able to pick one, because I like different books for different reasons.
