week 14 story "the twins"

Jewels

Once there was a lady that was very ugly, in spirit and appearance, that gave birth to a pair of twins both girls. Their father had passed away during the girl's second year of life and the mother had to raise both by herself.

As they grew older, one of the girls, Evelyn, became the spitting image of her mom, and the other, Flor, became the spitting image of her father. Unfortunately for Evelyn, this meant that she developed the same ugly character that her mother possessed. Flor grew to be a very beautiful and charming child just like her father. Because of this both her mother and Evelyn grew to be very envious of Flor and treated her poorly.

Her mother instructed her to do all the household chores while Evelyn got to go hang out with her friends. One day while Flor was mowing the lawn her mother told her to take out the trash immediately. She grabbed the trash bags and took them down the street to the local garbage bin where she met an old lady asking for change. Flor gave the old lady the only 20 dollar bill she had to her name and wished she could give her more but it was all she had. The old lady smiled wide and told Flor that she was a fairy in disguised that came to test Flor's character. Because Flor had given the fairy the only money she owned, she told Flor that she would cast a spell on her so that every time she put her hand in her pocket she would find a pocket full of jewels.

When Flor went home and stuck her hand in her pocket she grabbed a handful of rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. The mom saw this and snatched them from Flor asking her where she had gotten such precious stones. Flor explained to the mom what happened and reached into her pockets again pulling out another fistful of the most beautiful jewels. The mother called for Evelyn and told her what happened to Flor. The mom wished that Evelyn would be even more blessed by the fairy and gave her a 100 dollar bill and instructed her to give it to the poor lady begging at the garbage bin.

When Evelyn reached the garbage bin she did not find any poorly dressed old lady instead a beautiful lady dressed in rich clothing approached her and asked Evelyn if she had any change to spare. Evelyn, jealous of the lady's looks and clothing, felt as if the lady was mocking her and said that she did have some. Then Evelyn reached inside the garbage bin and pulled out the smelliest bag of trash and hurled it at the lady covering her in stinky trash. The lady then said that she was a fairy in disguise that came to test Evelyn's character. Since she was so rotten the fairy cursed her so that every time Evelyn put her hands in her pockets she would pull out rotten eggs to remind her of the time she threw rotten trash at the fairy. When Evelyn went home her mom was excited to see what fortune Evelyn would pull out from her pockets but instead, Evelyn pulled out a handful of rotten eggs which immediately made the house stink.

The mother was enraged and ran both daughters away from her house. She was very envious of Flor and couldn't bear the thought of seeing her prosper so she told her to leave. She couldn't take the smell of rotten eggs so she told Evelyn to leave as well.

Flor became an entrepreneur and established the largest jewelry chain in the world. Evelyn figured out that as long as she doesn't wear clothes with pockets she can't pull rotten eggs out of them so she only wears dresses now and lives a humble life full of good deeds since she's scared she'll come across another fairy.

Authors Notes:

This story is based on the story "Toads and Diamonds" The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford (1889).

I didn't change much from the original story. In the original story; they met the fairy at their water well not a garbage bin, they weren't twins just sisters, the younger sister was the pretty one and the fairy made it so that every time she talked she would spit out jewels, the older daughter was the mean one and the fairy made it so that every time she talked she would spit out toads and snakes.

In the original story, the younger daughter marries a kind and the older daughter dies in a forest from loneliness. I changed the time in the story so that it is more like the present. I also changed it so that the stuff would come out of their pockets instead of their mouths because I thought that was weird. Finally, I changed the ending so that Flor becomes rich whether or not she gets married to a man is irrelevant to me. I also made it so that Evelyn doesn't die because that's mean and tried to give a reason as to why she changed her way of life.