Manicures for
Snow-White and Red-Rose
by Megan Pockrus
White Roses and Red Roses
It was
a slow day in the salon, and all of the
stylists were bored.
"We sure have had some
interesting characters come in the last couple
of days!" said Kathy.
"I couldn't have said it
better myself," Sheridan responded.
"Yeah, who would've
thought
two princesses in two days?" said Heather.
Then, two young women
entered the salon. Both of them were
beautiful. One of them had beautiful ivory skin, red lips and
dark hair. The other had ivory skin, rose-colored lips, and light
hair. Kathy approached them and asked them what she could help
them with.
"Well," said the
dark-headed woman, "We've done hard cleaning for our mother for
years.
We've decided that it's time for our nails to get manicures, and our
husbands told us to go
out and do just that."
"I believe you've heard
right," Kathy said with a smile on her
face. She asked the two young women their names and they told her
Snow White and Red Rose. Kathy put the two women on the schedule
book and asked them to hold on for a minute. She walked over to
two manicurists and they returned to the front with her. The
manicurists introduced themselves as Jessica and Lora and told the
women to follow them. They did. The manicurists sat at
manicure tables that were side by side. They started on their
nails and then Jessica said, "So tell us about yourselves." The
two women looked at each other.
"You tell them," Snow
White said.
"Okay. Well,
obviously we are sisters. We are the daughters
of a poor widow. Because it was just the three of us, we were a
very
close family. We did everything for our mother, and we would
not take back one minute of it," Red Rose began.
"Hold on! Are you both
princesses?" Kathy asked.
Everyone looked at her
like they could not believe that she would ask a
question like that.
"What? It's not like
we haven't seen a couple lately," Kathy said.
"As a matter of fact, we
just became princesses," Red Rose said.
"You have to tell us all
about it," said Kathy.
Apparently everyone else
in the salon agreed, because they turned their
attention to the two women.
"It all started one night
when mother was reading us a tale before
bed. All of a sudden, there was a loud pounding on the
door. I opened the door thinking it was a neighbor, but to my
surprise it was a bear," Red Rose said.
"How terrifying!" Jessica
said.
"Yes, we were all
horrified. He told us he would not harm
us. It's just that he was freezing, and needed a place to keep
warm.
Our mother told us not to be afraid, because he was telling
the truth. We helped him to get dried off, and then we all went
to
bed. The next day Snow White and I let him out. Then, he
returned to our home every night after. He came to be a good
family friend," Red Rose continued.
"Ahh..."the audience
responded.
"Yes, and then the bear
broke Snow White's heart," Red Rose said.
"He did not, Rose," Snow
White chimed in.
"He told us he was going
to be gone all winter. It did
make her very sad, but we knew we'd see him again someday," said
Red Rose.
"How long was it until you
saw him again?" Lora asked.
Snow White said, "I guess
I'll continue from here. One day our
mother asked us to go out, and get some sticks. We did as we were
told and while we were out we noticed a dwarf who had his face half
stuck in a tree. He screamed at us to help him, but we didn't
know what to do. We told him that we would go get help, and he
cursed
us under his breath. Before we left, Red Rose cut off his beard
to
see if that would free him up any. It did. He grabbed a bag
of
gold
that he had been reaching for up in the tree, and ran off."
"Scoundrel!" said Kathy.
"Yes, he really is.
Then, later that day, Red Rose and I were
trying to catch some fish for dinner that night and we saw him
again. We tried to catch him, but he disappeared out of our
reach. A couple days later our mother sent us on another errand,
and we ran into the dwarf again. This time he was being attacked
by a bird, and we knew no better than to help him. After we
helped him, he scurried away, without thanking us, into his home under
fthe rocks. On our
way back home, we noticed he had not closed the entrance to his cave,
and so we
peeked in. This angered him greatly, but all of a sudden there
was a loud bear screech. Then, we saw a huge black bear running
towards us," said Snow White.
"Uh-oh!" said Jessica.
"Yes! Even worse:
the dwarf sacrificed us. He told the bear
to eat Red Rose and me in order to save himself. We started
running and then the bear called our names. I turned, recognizing
his voice. I ran towards him. As I neared him, his bear
skin
fell off and, by the time I reached him, a beautiful man stood beside
me.
He told me he was a prince who had been cursed by that evil
dwarf. He was cursed to roam as a bear until he found someone
who could love him. I loved him, and so now the dwarf is the one
that is
cursed. He and I soon married. Then, Red Rose married his
brother. We divided the treasure of the dwarves and our mother
still lives
with us. However, now we have people who help us do some of the
work. That is why we decided to come and get out nails done,"
Snow White concluded.
Everyone came back to
reality. It didn't seem anyone
could believe that Snow White had fallen in love with a bear.
Snow White and Red Rose
Author's Note: I retold the story of Snow-White and
Red-Rose from Andrew Lang's Blue Fair Book. I kept a lot of the
story the same. I did have to cut out some of the details in
order to make the story shorter. I still had the story set in the
salon, and so that changed how the story was told. I had the two
sisters both tell part of the story, because I thought it would be nice
to develop both of their characters while they were in the salon.
I did not go in to as much detail about how close they were to their
mother, but I tried to make it clear that the three of them were very
close. I had the bear go away in the winter instead of the
spring, just because I wanted to. Then, I really had to shorten
the interaction between the dwarfs and the girls. However, I
think that I got his character developed decently enough. I tried
to keep my retelling similar to the original story, but I threw in some
new details. I also left some old details out. I hope that
my reader is able to enjoy this version of the story, and I hope that I
did a descent job retelling it.
Bibliography:
Lang, Andrew. "Snow-White and Red-Rose." The Blue Fairy
Book, 1889.
Web Source:
Snow-White and Red-Rose
Back
to Coverpage...
Introduction
An
Up-Do for Cinderella
A
Make Over for Sleeping Beauty
A Trim for Beauty
Web Source: White
Roses and Red Roses
Web Source: Snow
White and Red Rose