Free Seeing Cinderella by Jenny Lundquist

entire student body of Pacificview. They’re not as nice as God.”
    “Maybe,” Ana said. “But I think you are too scared sometimes. Like with the paint crew last week.”
    Last week, the paint crew started working on set pieces, beginning with the pumpkin patch near Cinderella’s cottage. Most students dove right in with the orange paint. Their pumpkins looked like ginormous tangerines. I hung back, mixing the orange and white and brown paints until I had a perfect pumpkin shade. Ana watched me, and after a few minutes she whispered, “Show the others.” But I kept quiet, until Gretchen Baxter glanced over and said, “Hey everyone, look at Callie.” Since then, the crew regularly asked me how to mix colors, fix splatters, and paint shadows—all the things I learned from my dad.
    “Maybe you’re right,” I said finally.
    Back home, I took orders from Ana. I chopped onions until my eyes stung, and diced garlic until my hands reeked. Ana was amazing. She fried sesame seeds, toasted almonds, crushed tomatoes with her bare hands, and melted chocolate. After a while we had a large pot of red bubbly sauce that smelled sharp and sweet at the same time. Maybe I’d been wrong about peppers and cinnamon sticksnot belonging together. Maybe in the right environment, they were just what the other one needed.
    Ana told me her uncle really appreciated Mexican home cooking. I asked if she ever cooked like this for the Garcias.
    Ana shrugged. “Tío says the more I cook and save money on food, the more money he can send to my parents.”
    That sounded weird to me. Mom was always complaining about money lately. But that didn’t mean I got stuck cooking every night.
    But when I said that to Ana, she replied, “I think maybe my family is different from yours. My list is a little longer.” Then she pointed to the Post-it note of chores my mother had left for me by the phone.
    “Oh, okay.” I guessed Ana was right—her family was different from mine. There was a lot about her, and her culture, that I didn’t understand. So I decided to change the subject.
    “I wonder where Ellen is?” I asked, looking at the clock above the kitchen table. Her club meetings had to have ended by now.
    Ana glanced up at the clock too, and her eyes widened. “Four fifty?” Quickly, she wiped her hands off on a towel. “I have to go.”
    “Go? You’re not eating with us? You’ve done most of the work.”
    “I was supposed to make dinner for everyone tonight.”
    Ana headed for the door and I called, “Wait. What if we split the mole sauce? It’s almost done anyway, and there’s a ton. You take half and I’ll take half.”
    Ana paused, and I could see relief in her eyes. “Okay. Gracias , thank you.”
    As soon as I put a lid on Ana’s half of the sauce she scooped up the plastic container, calling “Gracias” again over her shoulder and streaking out the kitchen door.
    After Ana left I decided to call Ellen and find out why she’d never shown up. A giggling voice picked up on the other line.
    “Hello?” It was Ellen.
    “Hey, it’s me. When are you coming over?”
    “Um . . .” There were hushed whispers on the other line, and a bubbling laugh I was sure belonged to Stacy.
    “For dinner, remember? My extra-credit project?”
    “Oh, Callie, I’m so totally sorry.” Ellen’s voice sounded sugary sweet. “When I got home, Tara was here. She flew home a few days early for the weekend. She said we could go with her to the mall. We thought it would be fun.”
    “Who is we?” I asked, but I was pretty sure I knew.
    “Me and Tara,” Ellen said quickly. “We.”
    Deciding to perform an experiment, I reached for my tote bag and slipped on my glasses. I held the phone out in front of me and asked in a loud, clear voice, “So you can’t come over tonight because you and Tara are hanging out? Just the two of you?”
    I stared at the receiver as Ellen hesitated. But no screen appeared when she said, “Yeah, that’s right.