Storytime, Part 2

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Rachel who loved ballet. She loved it so much that she didn't want to do anything else -- study her lessons at school, for instance. Even though her teachers and her parents urged her to pay attention in class, all she wanted was to be a ballerina.

One day, Rachel and her mommy went to the ballet costume store and saw a beautiful ballet dress of the palest pink, with a beautiful blue ribbon, and pink ballet shoes. Rachel immediately wanted it, and when the saleslady put it on her, it seemed as if it was made to fit her body. When she got home she danced and danced in the costume until it was time for bed. Then when she tried to take the dress off, she discovered that....it wouldn't come off. There was no way to get it off! Rachel woke up the next day and tried to get the dress off and just couldn't. Every day she danced in the dress, and it got more and more tattered, and dirty, and Rachel and her mommy tried to take off the dress but couldn't, even when they used scissors. They started getting more and more worried.

Finally they went back to the costume store to find the old saleslady who had sold them the dress....but she no longer worked for the store. So Rachel and her mommy went to find her. They finally found her house and knocked on the door, and she answered. When they explained the problem, the saleslady refused to talk to them. They came back the next day, but the house was gone so they looked all over town to find it...only to find that it had mysteriously moved to another part of town, far away at the edge of the town. They knocked on the door again and the saleslady opened it, finally.

She said, "Years ago, my daughter was just like you. All she wanted to do was dance. She loved dancing so much that she didn't pay attention in school and she left home and moved far away to join a dance company and I never heard from her again. So I made a dress that another girl who loved to dance would wear someday and would never be able to take off."

Rachel promised that she would pay attention in class, do her lessons, and still do ballet but she'd never abandon her mommy. So the saleslady said some words and un-did the spell she had put on the dress, and Rachel was finally able to take it off. She paid attention in class and eventually joined a ballet company and became famous, but she always came home to visit, just like she'd promised.

***

That was the story I told Rachel on Thursday as we were driving home from school. Her reaction?

"That was a GREAT STORY!" she sighed.