T is for The Golden Flip-Flop: A Cinderella Story (Part One)
Authors Note: This was originally supposed to be a short, sort of silly story that my husband and I made up on the fly one night recently after he gave me a gold flip flop necklace for our anniversary. When I sat down to write it for T, it took a mind of its own and isn’t quite a short as I thought it was going to be. So please enjoy Part One of The Golden Flip-Flop: A Cinderella Story. Part Two will be along soon.
Once upon a time, on the edge of a faraway beach lived a girl. While this was no ordinary girl, she was living a relatively ordinary life.
This girl wanted nothing more than to become the queen of the waves, a surfer girl. But alas, her lot in life was to care for her stepmother and stepsisters.
She awoke every morning to the sound of the surf pounding on the land below and through the tiny window in her top attic bedroom she watched the sun sink over the horizon, dancing its last light on the waves.
Hidden away from the prying eyes of her stepsisters, in a small shed with peeling gray paint, held together with moss and a few nails, was her pride and joy. The surfboard her mother had won her last competition on. This wasn’t the best place to store her board, but in order to keep in secret, she had no choice.
On the rare occasions her stepsisters and stepmother were away from the house, she would rush through her chores and race to the shed. Today was one of those days. She had five glorious hours to herself. She hurriedly vacuumed the downstairs and mopped the floors. Ran the duster over the shelves and threw a load of laundry into the washing machine.
Fifteen minutes later she left the house, locking the front door behind her. She followed the stone path along the wooded path that led to the shed. Her heart beat faster as she neared the shed.
The door of the shed was stuck, as usual, boards swelled from the fog that rolled in at night off the waves. She wrenched it open, the door groaning as wood scraped on wood. Luckily the only thing around to hear were the seagulls flitting over the bluffs.
Pulling the bag containing her board safely out of the shed. She lay it on the grass, unzipping the edge and sliding the board out. From her pocket, she took a container of board wax and a rag and began wiping the board down. When she had finished, she tucked the bag and board wax into the shed and pulled out her wetsuit. Slipping it on in the shed, she folded her clothes and left them on her board bag.
She slipped her feet back into her beat up athletic shoes, grabbed her board and a towel and headed down the trail to the sandy beach below the house. The trail was steep in places and she nearly slipped, nearly losing her grip on the board. The slope gradually lowered until it widened onto the soft tan sand of the beach.
At the base of the trail, she dropped her towel and shoes next to a large log that the sea had tossed up to the base of the cliff during the winter storms. She glanced up and down the beach, noting its emptiness except the occasional seagull and sandpiper flitting the edge of the waves eating sand fleas.
She waded in the water. As much as she didn’t like to surf alone. Knowing the danger of it, what could happen if she was rolled by a rogue wave or dragged out by an unknown undertow. She pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind and opened her mind to the vastness of the ocean and the connection she had to the waves. To the what made her very soul sing.
