Once upon a time, there was a little princess who loved dancing with her friends in her beautiful room and the garden’s in her father’s castle. The little princess loved to dress up in beautiful dresses and shoes. Her favorite color was always pink. She loved the color so much that all her shoes and most of her dresses were pink. As the little princess grew up, her dance skills also continued to improve. However, her mother the queen thought that she would do better with training, and so she found the princess a tutor. The tutor was a stern and strict woman who always wanted things to be perfect. The princess always thought that the tutor was evil, and she would draw pictures of the evil dance tutor in her diary while in her beautiful room. One day the tutor found the princess drawing one of her images of her and became increasingly angry. With her, face all red and her body shaking with anger she shouted at the princess, ‘what do you think you are doing young lady? Why are you wasting time doodling instead of dancing?’ Angrily, the tutor snatched the diary from the hands of the princess and stormed out of the room with it. The princess laughed quietly because she had managed to anger the tutor.
‘Come now princess, let us stop wasting time and dance’, the tutor called from the stairs. ‘Yes madam, coming’, the princess said as she smothered her laughs with her little hand. The dance lessons were always boring according to the princess. The princess always wanted to dance to her own tune and rhythm, but the strict and evil tutor always wanted her to dance according to the music she assigned the princess. This became a source of conflict between the two because the tutor always accused the princess of failing to follow instructions. The princes, however, never changed the way she danced. She invented new moves with each different tune because she loved to dance.
‘Why do you always have to be so imperfect?’ the tutor would ask. The princess would answer; ‘my body gets carried away by the music. I do not mean to be disobedient madam; I just love to dance’. The tutor would become extremely angry, and shout to the princess, ‘be perfect, dance perfectly, let me see you dancing perfectly, perfect princess’. The princess would try to be perfect at the routine she was taught, but she always failed.
One day the princess was dancing so perfectly that it seemed like she was gliding in the air. The music increased in pace, and so did her movements. She swirled and swirled around the room with the tutor murmuring under her breath, ‘perfect, perfect, perfect’ until the princes tripped on something and fell. Her dancing had been so vigorous that she had damaged her shoe. The straps of one of her shoes had come and tripped her while she was dancing.
‘Oh my, I ruined by best dancing shoes. What am I going to do now? Oh my,’ the princess lamented. ‘You will need to find other dancing shoes princess, and then you will come meet me again in the dancing room so that we can perfect your technique. You are still not perfect princess. Go, hurry and replace those awful shoes and come back’, the tutor shouted pointing her finger at the damaged shoes.
The princess was extremely happy that she was going to get new shoes so soon. She loved her dresses and shoes, but she loved getting new ones even more. She skipped with joy down the hall to get her friend. ‘Monica, Monica, Monica!’ she called to her friend who lived in the castle, as well. Monica was the daughter of the princess’ waiting lady. The two girls had become tight friends since they were little and they had continued being good friends. The two always laughed at the tutor together. The princess always told her friend about the encounters with tutor in class, and they would make fun of her perfectionist nature and the way she got angry over little things.
The princess went to show Monica her broken shoe. ‘My shoe got damaged as I danced; will you take me to get another one?’ ‘Yes, of course I will, I love the smell of the shoe shop, let us go now’. The two girls were increasingly excited about the trip to the shop, and they skipped joyously down the road until they reached the shop. The shopkeeper was an extremely pleasant lady who always gave the girls treats once they went to visit her in the shop.
‘Hello their girls, what brings you to the shop today’ she asked with an infectious smile. ‘The princess damaged her dancing shoes in class today, and she will need new shoes’, Monica answered the shop lady with a smile. ‘Well, come on then. Let us look for the perfect shoes that will fit the princess’, the shop lady said. She paused in the doorway as she asked ‘what size are the little princess’ feet’. ‘Four’. The girls said together with excitement. ‘Come then, let us find you some shoes’, the shop lady said.
‘Oh my, what terrible luck, I seem to have run out of all number fours. What terrible luck, oh my’. The shop lady lamented. The two girls became extremely sad because they were so looking forward to new shoes. ‘Are you sure that you do not have dancing shoes her size?’ Monica asked. ‘Oh wait a minute’. The shop lady said as she went behind a curtain pulling back to reveal a room full of pink shoeboxes neatly arranged on counters. ‘What are these?’ the princess asked as she came near to inspect the peculiar sight. The shop lady did not reply but smiled as she pulled out the most beautiful pink shoes the princess had ever seen. The shoes were pink shinny with blinding and enchanting glitters, and they seemed magical.
‘Oh they are so beautiful’ the princess screamed ‘can I try them own please, please, please’ she squealed with joy jumping up and down. ‘Yes you can’ the shop lady say ‘but be extremely careful with them princess’. The princess immediately slipped her tiny feet into the beautiful shoes and held her friends hands as they inspected the shoes more closely. ‘They are beautiful, are they not Monica?’ Just as Monica was getting closer to inspect the shoes, a strange pink and glittery light started shone from the shoes and started circulating the princess’ feet faster and faster. The light was so beautiful such that the girls were fascinated by it rather than being scared. They, therefore, did not notice that they were being lifted slowly into the air and soon they disappeared from the shop.
‘Where are we?’ Monica soon realized that they were no longer in the shop. The princess stopped looking at her shoes and looked around. ‘Wow, it is so beautiful, where is this place?’ I do not know princess, but I do not think we are home, where is this place?’ Monica said. ‘Let us look around and find out where we are’ the princess said.
They walked for a few minutes and then started hearing the sounds music and people dancing. The princess was so excited that she pulled her Monica’s hand so hand that it hurt. ‘Let us go see who are the people dancing in the forest, the princess squealed with joy. They found a group of magical people dancing to the best tunes the princess had ever heard. The girls were so beautiful that they did not seem real. Their dresses could not be described by words. The boys too resembled magical creatures. It looked like everyone was dancing to different tunes. There were no rules; no tutor to call for perfectionism and everyone seemed to be enjoying the dance vehemently. As the two girls approached, they were immediately pulled into the crowd and encouraged to dance.
The princess had never been so happy. Here in this magical place she was allowed to dance her heart out. Her tutor was not here to command her to be perfect or to bark rules at her on how to dance. She was free to let the music guide her moves. When they finally came to a stop, the princess had danced to her heart’s fill, and she now knew that she would never listen to her tutor again to follow dance routines and rules, she would dance; however, she wanted, and she would let music guide her body movements. She looked down to her feet and smiled at her magical shoes. She knew that her pink shoes were magical and that they had brought her to this magical place to dance, and she was happy.