Eleanor: A Tale of Love and Pickles

At first it had seemed like a good idea, and then it didn’t; but it was too late now to back out, so Alex took a deep breath and started putting on the costume. He didn’t care what anyone thought about him. He wasn’t going to another ball and they couldn’t force him.

Slowly, dressed as a sweep, Alex drifted into the streets of Gwinn. He watched as all the girls in town appeared in their expensive dresses. What make their mothers think that he was such a catch? Just because he was a prince didn’t mean he was without bad habits. Alex was, in fact, addicted to pickles. That, he doubted, his parents had put into their proclamation.

As the sun set and everyone in town was rushed to the palace in their carriages from Coaches ‘R’ Us, Alex lingered in the town, munching on a pickle he had stolen when the brine had been abandoned.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light and a fairy appeared in front of him with a vacuum cleaner in hand. “Did somebody rent a fairy godmother?” she beamed.

“Who are you?” asked Alex, frightened.

“Didn’t you order a fairy godmother?”

“No.”

“Oh dear.” She pulled out a piece of paper and began mumbling, “Did I turn left at Maple?”

“Who are you looking for?” Alex asked.

“You probably don’t know her. Her name’s Eleanor.”

Alex shrugged and munched on his pickle. “Can’t help you.”

“Wait!” She snatched the pickle out of his hand.

“Hey! I was eating that!”

“It’s stamped ‘Brine Incorporated’.”

“So?”

“Eleanor’s letter was soaked in brine. Where did you get this pickle?”

“Over there.” He pointed.

The fairy grabbed the vacuum and his arm and rushed over. There, seated on the floor of the pickle shop sat a girl with her hair and clothes soaked in brine.

“What are your worries?” the fairy godmother asked.

The girl looked up, “You’re Sandy, the fairy godmother, right?”

Sandy nodded.

“I want to— wait, you’re Prince Alex! Um… you want a pickle?”

He seized it and took a bite. “Hey! You want come to the palace with me?”

“Sure!”

Sandy then stepped up. “I’ll make you a gown and all that, but first, put something on your feet.”

The girl snatched the first things she saw, two pickle jars, and put her feet inside.

Sandy waved her magic vacuum cleaner and instantly, Alex and Eleanor were transported to the palace, both dressed finely. As they entered, however, with everyone watching, Eleanor’s slipper cracked and a piece of glass pierced her foot. The slippers had been made of glass!

Immediately, she was rushed off the hospital, leaving a glass slipper (separated from her foot, it transformed back into a pickle jar), on the steps. The ball was then dismissed as Alex told his parents that he must marry Eleanor.

Unfortunately, however, Eleanor was a very popular name. I’m not kidding either, 98% of all the girls in town were named Eleanor.

So, Alex went to the hospital and tried the pickle jar on the foot of every maiden that was named Eleanor (in other words, all of them). Finally, he tried the shoe on the foot of the last maiden and it didn’t fit.

He looked up at the girl’s face.

“It’s me!” she shouted, “I had to get surgery and now my foot is swollen!”

Ah! So that was why. The pickle jar proved to be irrelevant and Alex and Eleanor faked a marriage to get Alex’s parents to stop annoying him about it.