FICTION

CINDERELLA II

Geraldine - Wisc.

I was hosing out the inside of the barbecue when out of the corner of my eye I saw a slight figure floating gracefully toward me from the gate at the lower end of our garden. My sudden visitor was colorfully dressed in a paisley shirt and lemon-yellow silk pants and was preceded by an odor of spring flowers borne on the evening breeze. "Helloo," my caller greeted me throatily, "and what are you doing?"

"Oh it's you, Wendell," I answered disgustedly. "And how are things with the other third?"

My uninvited caller giggled idiotically for a few seconds, then gushed, "You have the most delicious sense of humor.”

"I'll bet you say that to all the boys."

"You have a point there," he agreed, arching one carefully plucked eybrow. "But you didn't answer my question - did your wicked step- mother go to the ball and leave you to sweep the hearth and carry out out the clinkers?"

"Hey!" I said, "that wasn't bad not bad at all. As a matter of fact, that's just about what happened. She took away my motorcycle until 1 got this mess cleaned up out here. That luau the other night was kind of messy especially after someone threw the suckling pig down the chim- ney."

"You have an interesting group of friends," Wendell agreed. “So young, so lively . . ." He sighed for a moment. Wendell sighed an awful lot.

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