Read Online Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix - Free Book Online

like giving up. The only problem was, I didn’t know anyone willing to pay to have their children educated.
    Maybe I could meet someone at the ball.
    That decided, I felt much better and resumed digging through the trunk.

11
    Over the next two weeks, I planned my strategy with more forethought than some kings put into entire wars. I took in my mother’s dress, sewing late at night by the light of a precious candle. I considered reshaping it somehow, to match the current beruffled, bespangled fashions I saw in the books Griselda and Corimunde had begun poring over endlessly. But I had so little faith in my dressmaking skills, and such great fear of ruining one of the few things I had of my mother’s, that I dared not cut into the fabric at all. So I was sure my upper body would look like a stick with breasts above the great tulip flower of the skirt. My waist had shrunk to such a degree that I could practically circle it with my own hands. But that could not be helped.
    I’d also found long, elegant gloves in my mother’s trunk—a stroke of good fortune, since my hands were rough and chapped and cracked from the constant work. With gloves, no one would ever know. Not that it mattered, unless I did find a potential employer at the ball.
    For a long time I was stymied on the matter of shoes, since my mother’s wedding slippers flapped on my small feet like sailboats. My sole footwear was a pair of old boots of my father’s, which I laced high up on my legs just to keep them on. They would hardly do. I had practically decided to go barefoot, and just keep my feet out of sight, when I happened to pass the glassblower’s shop one day on my way to the market. Jonas, the village glassblower, was a pompous fellow, and that day he was out in the street bragging of the quality of his work.
    â€œI can make anything,” he boasted to his neighbor, the cartwright. “Name an item, any item, and I wager I can make it.”
    â€œGlass slippers I can walk in without breaking them,” I said, slipping between them.
    The cartwright, Harold, looked from Jonas to me.
    â€œAye,” Harold said. “I’d put some money on that.”
    Jonas looked startled, and I saw a flash of uncertainty cross his face. Then the greed took over.
    â€œHow much?” he asked.
    Harold and Jonas began haggling. I could tell each was confident. They pushed the wager to ten pounds.
    â€œHow long will it take?” I asked. Lucille had been watching me more closely than ever now. I think she suspected something. If I took a minute more than my allotted hour for marketing, she’d be screaming at me as soon as I walked in the door.
    â€œHalf an hour,” Jonas said. “Then another fifteen minutes for them to fully cool.”
    â€œI’ll be back, then,” I said, though I longed to stay and watch. Glassblowing had always fascinated me. What if Jonas needed an apprentice? All the way to the market, I toyed with the idea of asking him. But, as much fun as the work might be, I didn’t relish the notion of working with someone as arrogant as him. And I’d never heard of any of the craftsmen in the village apprenticing girls. Just boys. No, I’d stick with the tutoring plan. After the ball.
    I rushed through the shopping, taking even less care than usual sorting through the turnips and rutabagas. It was spring, and fresh greens were available out in the meadows, so the shopkeepers were trying to get rid of last autumn’s leftovers at practically any price. But I didn’t want to think about feeding the Step-Evils when there were glass slippers to be had. I stuffed vegetables into my sack without looking at them.
    â€œAh, the girl who will win me ten pounds,” Jonas proclaimed as I returned to his shop. He presented the slippers to me on a velvet pillow. They were stunning, catching the sunlight from every angle. To my untrained eyes, they looked like diamonds. Jonas