I would have preferred it if she'd slapped me across the face, and laughed at me, so I could hate her. I didn't want to be the good fairy in her story, scattering blessings on her hearth. Where did all those fairies come from, and how rich could they be in joy to spend their days flitting around to more-or-less deserving girls and bestowing wishes on them? The lonely old woman next door who died unlamented and left an empty house to rob, with a flock of chickens and a linen chest full of dresses to make over: that's the only kind of fairy godmother I believed in.