Read Online Not a Fairytale by Shaida Kazie Ali - Free Book Online Page A

teacher, Mrs Rutherford, an ancient thirty-five-year old with a permanent tic in her left cheek, is impressed with the improvement and asks me about my methods. I am vague and dismissive. They give me another group and a small increase.
    The following December they offer to send me on a crash course in teaching, but by then I have had enough of teaching, forever. Besides which, Jimmy has sold the family business for a huge profit and has embarked on a new computer venture involving the Internet. He’s suggested we move to the US for a while, says it’s better for his business, and I say, “Let’s go to Florida,” because I’m reading a novel set in Miami and the characters are always sweating, even in winter. Jimmy says Florida’s not the ideal American city for the business, but I tell him he can travel. I’m beginning to think that a long-distance relationship can only enhance one’s marriage – all those delectable reunions.

Lessons
    We had to leave; she wouldn’t stop teaching us things. First it was potty-training, then bathing daily, then table manners. She made us chew a hundred times before swallowing; my middle sister couldn’t even count past seven. Next we had to ask for the slop politely instead of grunting or swearing, as my littlest sister was fond of doing. She forced forks into our trotters and we were only allowed to eat what we could get on to the fork. We began to lose weight: we were starving!
    She told us we should keep ourselves as clean and pretty as Cinderella. I know my limitations: I’m a pig, and I will never be beautiful. She told us we should be like Beauty with her head in a book all the time. She forced us to learn to read and write. I studied, and I coped, but it was difficult for my siblings, and I knew I had to take charge before things got worse for them. What was wrong with our mother? Why did she so care about what the other creatures thought of us?
    I packed up our possessions, mostly hand-me-downs, and my sisters trotted off after me. She’d left us no choice. We travelled far and wide, foraging for food in the forest or begging at castle doors. At night we slept in fields, my sisters piling their bodies on top of mine, making it impossible for me to breathe freely. There were men with straw and sticks who agreed to build us houses for free, but we were reluctant to accept their offers: they seemed too good to be true.
    Then one day we saw a sign in the window of a brick building. HELP WANTED. ENQUIRE WITHIN . He had heavy dark fur, and yellow eyes as hard as pebbles.
    My baby sister asked, “Don’t you eat pigs?”
    “No,” he said, “I’m Muslim.”
    He said that provided we could cook and keep the business clean, he would be happy to employ us all. We could live in one of the storerooms out back. We said we’d accept on a trial basis, and he agreed.
    He was often away (he never told us what he did), but the business flourished under our care. My middle sister cooked, my baby sister served the customers, and I looked after the books. Whenever he returned, he would praise our management skills. After a few years he gave us one of the restaurants in his new franchise and helped us to buy a home, where we lived happily ever after. Which goes to show: you can’t believe all the gossip you hear.

Gated Living
    W E ’ VE BEEN IN S OUTH F LORIDA FOR A MONTH and I’m delighted with the weather and the place so far. Except when it comes to driving on the right-hand side of the road.
    Stay right. I can’t get the hang of this, dear God. The car seats nine people, designed for a huge family, but Jimmy thought it was the safest vehicle on the road. At least it’s automatic. And the windows are tinted for protection against the sun, so people can’t see me muttering to myself to stay right .
    Why did I decide to come out this early? I’m stuck in the early-morning high-school traffic, wondering why the hell these people give their sixteen-year-old children cars. Are they