Leila Baily's Wonderful Pair Of Slippers

• Zoe Le Marinel, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2016

“Leila, child, why can’t I find them…they were just…” I have lived with Fessy for 3 years now. I hate her. Fessy’s ancient silhouette crouched over her threadbare quilt. She opened her dusty drawers and searched her dusty cupboard, but what she was looking for I could not fathom.
“Aha! I’ve found them!” She produced two worn slippers from under my chair, and shook them in my face. They were black, shiny leather, with gold trimming and a soft interior of floral carpet.
“Take them,” Fessy said, “They don’t want me anymore, they want someone though,” she shrugged. “Might as well be you.” I took the slippers, and bent down to put them on. “Not here!” exclaimed Fessy hoarsely, “Do it later Leila.”
Back in my room I put them on. They were simply slippers, and Fessy was barking mad, just like Angelica (my grown up sister) had told me. But then I looked in the mirror and saw that my freckles had vanished! Mystified, I checked my arms and legs. Nothing, not one blemish.
I tore down the hallway, bursting in to Fessy’s room. She took one look at me and turned her wrinkled, hateful face to the wall.
The next day, my hair had grown an inch; it felt silky smooth, like the most gossamer and delicate of silken thread. My lashes darkened and lengthened, and my usually cracked lips filled and shaped themselves into an adorable cupid’s bow, with lovely creases at their edges. My fingernails grew, and paled, the skin around them healed. My mud brown eyes sharpened, soon it looked as if I had irises of glittering topaz. My hair kept growing and growing, soon it was down to my waist. I cut it back to my shoulders in desperation.
I looked at my school photos of last year. They are terrible! I’m ugly! Everyone is ugly! I realised after a while that the world around me was growing duller and blacker, while I only became more fair and lovely. I sat in my room and covered my perfect face with my perfect hands, and wished that the beauty of the world would come back. I tried everything. I sat in the sun for hours to try and ruin my skin, I bit my nails, I licked my lips, I neglected my hair, I didn’t wash. None of it worked. I was still beautiful, and the world around me still wasn’t.
I’m going to leave. The shoes have ruined my world forever. Fessy died this morning, not that I care. The doctors all had different opinions, but they all agreed on one thing…Fessy was mad, and died mad. Expect I will too.
Everything is ugly compared to me. I’ve packed my bag, its ugly. I stole Angelica’s credit card. It's ugly. I dressed. My clothes are ugly. This place is ugly. I opened the ugly door, walked down the ugly road, and began to trudge toward the ugly, ugly horizon.