It's Not about the Pumpkin! Read online

  Text copyright © 2010 by Veronika Martenova Charles

  Illustrations copyright © 2010 by David Parkins

  Published in Canada by Tundra Books,

  75 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2P9

  Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York,

  P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2009938445

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher–or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency–is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Charles, Veronika Martenova

  It’s not about the pumpkin! / Veronika Martenova Charles;

  illustrated by David Parkins.

  (Easy-to-read wonder tales)

  eISBN: 978-1-77049-218-9

  1. Fairy tales. 2. Children’s stories, Canadian (English).

  I. Parkins, David II. Title. III. Series: Charles, Veronika Martenova. Easy-to-read wonder tales.

  PS8555.H422421877 2010 jC813′.54 C2009-905861-8

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

  v3.1

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Pumpkin Part 1

  Ash Girl

  (Cinderella from Europe)

  Fish Bones

  (Cinderella from China)

  The Black Cow

  (Cinderella from India)

  The Pumpkin Part 2

  About the Stories

  THE PUMPKIN PART 1

  On Monday afternoon

  Lily and Ben went to Jake’s house.

  “What are you doing?”

  asked Lily.

  “I have to make a picture

  for school,” said Jake.

  “We’re working on

  the Cinderella story.”

  “What will you draw?” asked Ben.

  “I don’t know yet,” Jake answered.

  “You could draw Cinderella

  in her pretty dress,” said Lily.

  “No way! That’s boring.

  I think I’ll draw

  a giant pumpkin,” Jake said.

  “There is no pumpkin

  in Cinderella,” Lily told him.

  “There is so,” said Jake.

  “The fairy godmother

  gives it to Cinderella,

  and she goes to the ball in it.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” said Lily.

  “My mom read Cinderella to me,

  and that’s not how it goes.”

  “Then how does it go?” asked Jake.

  “Cinderella’s coach

  comes out of a hazel tree,”

  Lily answered.

  “What’s a hazel tree?” asked Ben.

  “It’s a nut tree,” said Lily.

  “Listen! I’ll tell you

  the story I know.”

  ASH GIRL

  (Cinderella from Europe)

  Once there was a rich man

  who had a wife and a daughter.

  One winter, when snow

  covered the ground, the wife

  got sick and died. A year later,

  the father married a widow

  with two daughters.

  They were beautiful,

  but evil in their hearts.

  They took away his daughter’s

  pretty dresses and made her

  their kitchen maid.

  She did all the work and slept

  on the dusty kitchen floor.

  They called her Ash Girl.

  Every day, Ash Girl went

  to her mother’s grave and wept.

  She planted a branch there

  and her tears watered it. It grew

  into a hazel tree. A white bird

  made the tree its home.

  One day, the king announced

  there would be a masked ball

  that was to last for three nights.

  “What shall we wear, Mother?”

  The two daughters talked

  about dresses all day.

  When her father suggested

  that Ash Girl should have

  a dress too, the sisters said,

  “What? Is Ash Girl going with us?

  Just look at how dirty she is!

  She would disgrace us all.”

  So the father said nothing.

  The night of the ball, Ash Girl

  helped her sisters dress

  and watched her family drive off.

  She went to her mother’s grave.

  “Oh, I wish I could go,” she sighed.

  The bird on the tree sang,

  “Shake the tree, shake the tree,

  open the first nut that you see.”

  Ash Girl shook the tree

  and opened the nut that fell.

  A golden dress and shoes were inside.

  After she had dressed herself,

  the hazel tree opened, and from it

  came a coach with horses.

  As Ash Girl rode away,

  the white bird called:

  “Be home before midnight!”

  When Ash Girl entered the palace,

  everyone looked at her in wonder.

  The king danced only with her.

  As midnight neared, Ash Girl

  remembered the bird’s warning.

  She slipped away and rode home.

  The next day, the sisters spoke

  of nothing but the lovely dancer

  and her beautiful dress.

  “Don’t you wish you’d been there?”

  they teased Ash Girl.

  The next night was like the first.

  But on the third night,

  Ash Girl forgot to watch the time.

  When the clock struck midnight,

  she hurried away

  and lost a shoe on the steps.

  The king picked it up,

  and the next day he started

  to look for its owner.

  “Whoever the shoe fits,” he said,

  “will become my queen.”

  When he arrived at the house

  of Ash Girl’s father, he asked

  the girls who lived there

  to try on the shoe.

  The eldest daughter tried

  the shoe on in her room.

  It was too small.

  “Cut off your toe!” her mother said,

  “Once you’re the queen,

  you’ll never have to walk again.”

  The daughter cut off her toe,

  squeezed her foot into the shoe,

  and went to show the king.

  The king took her to the palace.

  As they rode by the graveyard,

  the bird on the hazel tree sang,

  “Look at the blood on her shoe,

  she is not the bride for you.”

  The king took the girl

  back to her home.

  Then he asked the mother,

  “Do you have another daughter?”

  The second sister tried the shoe,


  but her foot was too big.

  She cut her toe off too,

  but again, the bird sang,

  and again, the king returned her.

  “Have you any other daughters?”

  the king asked.

  “Just one more!” the father said.

  “But that shoe can’t be hers!”

  the stepsisters cried.

  “Bring her here,” said the king.

  Ash Girl was brought in,

  and the shoe fit perfectly.

  So, Ash Girl became the queen.

  The sisters limped to the wedding,

  and they had to limp

  for the rest of their lives.

  “You know what?” said Ben,

  “I know another Cinderella story.

  It doesn’t have

  a pumpkin in it, either.”

  “Tell us your story,” said Jake.

  “Okay. It goes like this.”

  FISH BONES

  (Cinderella from China)

  Once, there was a girl called Lin.

  When her mother died,

  Lin’s father married again.

  The new wife also had a daughter.

  A while later, the father died.

  Lin was left to live

  with a stepmother who hated her

  for being bright and gentle.

  She sent Lin to dangerous places

  to collect firewood

  and fetch water from deep pools.

  Once, Lin caught a tiny fish

  with golden eyes.

  She took it home with her

  and put it in a bowl of water.

  The fish grew very fast.

  Soon it was so big that Lin

  had to put the fish in a pond.

  Every day she fed the fish

  with bits of her own dinner.

  The fish became her friend.

  The stepsister spied on Lin

  and saw her feeding the fish.

  She went and told her mother

  who said, “What?

  Lin is playing with a fish,

  instead of working?”

  The next day,

  the stepmother sent Lin

  far away to collect wood.

  “Leave your coat at home,

  and I will patch the holes in it,”

  the stepmother told her.

  After Lin left, the woman

  put on the girl’s coat,

  hid a sharp knife in the sleeve,

  and went to the pond.

  The fish thought Lin had come

  with food and stuck its head out.

  The stepmother killed the fish,

  cooked it, and ate it.

  It tasted much better

  than an ordinary fish.

  When Lin went

  to feed her fish the next day,

  it was not there.

  Lin was very sad.

  Suddenly, an old man

  appeared in front of her.

  “Don’t cry,” he told her.

  “Your stepmother killed the fish,

  but it still has magic powers.

  Gather its bones and hide them.

  Whenever you need something,

  just ask the fish bones for it.”

  It was spring festival time.

  The stepmother and her daughter

  put on their finest clothes

  to go to the feast.

  “Can I come, too?” asked Lin.

  “No!” said the stepmother.

  “You must tend the garden.”

  After they left,

  Lin asked the fish bones

  for nice clothes to wear.

  At once, she was dressed in a

  feather gown and golden shoes.

  “I will return everything,”

  she promised, before she left.

  Everyone stared when Lin

  arrived at the festival,

  “Who is that girl?” they asked.

  The stepsister stared too,

  and whispered to her mother,

  “Look! Could that be Lin?”

  Lin heard her and panicked.

  She ran home so fast,

  she lost her shoe on the way.

  When the stepmother

  and her daughter returned,

  they saw Lin asleep in the garden.

  They thought no more about it.

  The following day,

  a villager found the golden shoe,

  and he sold it to the emperor.

  The emperor admired the shoe

  for its beauty and wondered,

  Whose shoe is this?

  He put the shoe on display

  and asked all the women

  in the land to come and try it.

  But the shoe didn’t fit anyone.

  One night, Lin snuck away

  to take the shoe

  and return it to the fish bones.

  The emperor’s soldiers caught her

  and brought her before him.

  When the emperor saw her tiny feet

  he said, “She must try the shoe.”

  Lin put it on. It fit perfectly,

  and her rags changed

  into the feather gown.

  The emperor gazed at Lin,

  and he fell in love.

  He asked her to marry him.

  The stepmother and stepsister

  set off to see the wedding,

  but on the way,

  they were killed by falling rocks.

  People buried them

  in a grave of stones.

  “Why is it always about a girl

  who gets married

  at the end?” asked Lily.

  “I know a boy Cinderella story,”

  said Jake.

  “Do you want to hear it?”

  “Tell us,” Lily and Ben said.

  THE BLACK COW

  (Cinderella from India)

  Anil lived with his parents

  in a mountain village.

  After his mother died,

  his father married a woman

  who had a daughter Anil’s age.

  Every day, Anil and his stepsister

  took their cows to the forest.

  In the evenings, the stepmother

  would feed her daughter

  fine cakes with meat,

  but she gave Anil cakes of mud

  with a bit of flour on top.

  Anil didn’t complain

  because he was afraid of her.

  But he was very hungry,

  and as he walked in the forest

  with the cows, he would cry.

  One black cow noticed

  and asked, “Why are you crying?”