As she arrived at the foot of the stairs, her mother called out. "Happy birthday Pumpkin!”

 

Her mother always calls her Pumpkin.

 

Cinderella is Bellasini’s favorite fairy tale princess.  As a young girl, she would steal little pumpkins from her mother’s pantry, to store in her room. Once there she would sit for hours, wishing for her Fairy Godmother to appear, and change her pumpkin into a beautiful horse drawn carriage, which could whisk her away to some far off adventure filled land.

 

Bellasini still idolizes Cinderella, believing her to be the most perfect fairy tale princess, there has ever been.

 

In fact, she still keeps a small pumpkin on her dresser.

 

She has never stopped wishing, that maybe one day, even if it was just for a day, she will be able to follow in the footsteps, of her beloved fairy tale princess.

 

Just as Bellasini was about to step through the kitchen door, a deafening bang and crash of plates, stopped her dead in her tracks.

 

As she peered in, her eyes were greeted with a very unfamiliar sight.

 

Her usually well organized, and spotlessly clean mother, was standing motionless in the middle of the kitchen, covered from head to toe, in a sticky combination of flour, eggs, milk, and chocolate.

 

The room was thick with flour dust, while the shelves, walls, ceilings, and floors, were covered with the same sticky goo and dust, that covered her mother.

 

There was not a square inch in the entire kitchen, which was not coated with this sweet smelling ooze.

 

“Mum!” uttered Bellasini, trying to hold back her laughter. “What… what happened?”

 

The ghostly flour-covered silhouette of her mother, fell back into one of the kitchen chairs. “It was supposed to be a surprise birthday breakfast Pumpkin,” she sighed. “It all started with the electric mixer. As soon as I put all the ingredients into the bowl, for no apparent reason, it just sped up and splattered them all over the walls. I couldn’t turn it off. I had to rip the plug out of the wall.

 

"So I decided to mix the ingredients by hand. That worked. But when I placed the muffins in the microwave, the plate at the bottom span so fast, it threw them out all over the place. So I tried just cooking your muffins in the oven. You’re not going to believe this, but when I put the muffins inside to cook, the oven fan suddenly started to spin a million miles per hour. Blowing the mixture all over the walls and ceiling. Everything, and I mean everything electrical, has suddenly gone crazy,” she concluded, throwing her hands up into the air, in disbelief.

 

As Bellasini’s eyes began to scan the room, the extent of this cooking disaster became obvious.

 

Cautiously tip toeing into the kitchen, trying to dodge the sticky drops of cake mix falling from the ceiling. Past the juicer, which had splattered its contents all over the walls, she reached over and turned off the howling coffee grinder. Then stepping over the electric can opener, which had fallen to the floor after spinning a full can of beans everywhere, she pulled the plug on the electric kettle, which was still spewing boiling water and steam throughout the room.

 

Desperately trying to hold back her laughter, as she caught the toast shot across the room by the toaster, she chuckled. “Mum! I really think you need to get dad to take a look at these appliances."

 

Still slumped in the kitchen chair, she explained that he was already at work. Apparently he had been called into the office urgently during the night, to fix some type of software glitch, which was crippling the computers of the bank where he worked.

 

“Well don’t you think we should at least call him?” continued Bellasini, tip toeing through the sticky mess. Trying not to touch anything.

 

Throwing her hands once more into the air in despair, her mother explained, the phone didn’t work either.

 

It appeared that everything electrical in the house, had developed some type of crazy technical glitch.

 

As she listened to her mother’s desperate explanation, Bellasini attempted to call her father from her mobile phone. However, it too had gone faulty.

 

“I would really love to stay and help you clean up mum,” explained Bellasini, scanning the enormous mess. “But I am already running very late for school.”

 

As she was hastily cramming the slices of toast she had caught earlier into her bag, she leaned forward, kissed her mother goodbye, and headed to school.