This is the story of a modern Cinderella Zawadi. Zawadi is the daughter of a wealthy man, but she is the maid. Her stepmother takes advantage of the fact that her father is not in the country to mistreat her. Her luck changed and she got an invite to Rafik’s party. Rafik is the most famous musician in the land, a prince among men. They have a spark but Zawadi like the fairytale Cinderella had to leave the ball at midnight. Zawadi goes to design school and she has finally graduated. Her secret has been discovered that she is the mystery princess who was at Rafik’s party. Find out what happens next. If you have not read the rest of the story here is where the story begins.
Zawadi stayed in the house for 3 days. It wasn’t that she was hiding, well yes she was, but she was strategizing on her next step. She had already decided to take the job in Europe. She would be able to get the exposure that she couldn’t get here. Also, she would be able to do some modelling which would take care of her expenses. She had been asked severally to model but because her stepmother expected her to be home every evening by 530 PM to cook she had not been able to take advantage of the opportunity.
Zawadi was thinking she needed to go to the village for a week or 2. She hadn’t been there since she came to the city. Madam Asila did not give her any time off. Even over the holidays, she was expected to be available to work. But now things would be different. She no longer had to work for that evil woman. She wanted to go see her childhood friends and see her mother’s and grandmothers graves.
The media had the last couple of days been trying to find out who she was. Zawadi saw her picture everywhere, on TV, in the daily newspapers, on the blogs and even in the gutter press. Everybody wondered who she was and why she was hiding her identity. The gutter press had some very disturbing theories about who she was.
Zawadi was bored of staying in the house. “When will I get my life back?” She asked herself. Then she remembered that she didn’t really have a life to go back to. She couldn’t go back to Madam Asila’s, not that she wanted to. She had her fashion diploma and she was going to go places. Where exactly is what? She was wondering.
Zawadi had spent the whole morning looking at fashion magazines and redesigning on her sketchpad some of the designs she had liked. At about 11 when she was taking a break she realized that she had left her phone upstairs. She went to get her phone and saw that she had 10 missed calls from her friends.
She called Angelica. Angelica asked “Zawadi I have been trying to reach you. Have you watched the news?”
Zawadi said, “no I haven’t. What is going on in the news?”
Angelica said “a reporter bribed somebody at the school to get your admission records and he got your dad’s address. He went to see Madam Asila. She has disowned you and said that you were a nobody. That you were a poor relative who they were paying school fees. She also said that you were their maid and that you had run off after winning! That you are an ungrateful person who took advantage of them and didn’t even say thank you for all the things they did for you. She also said you run off with some money.”
Angelica paused, “it’s awful. Everybody is talking about it. Most of them are not saying nice things.”
Zawadi didn’t know what to say. She was silent. She knew that one day her secret would come out but she hadn’t thought Madam Asila would be so cruel as to say that she was a thief. She was hurt and angry.
Angelica said, “don’t worry Zawadi. She won’t get away with it. That was the final straw. We will deal with her. We will talk about it when we get home. I have already talked with Zack.”
Zawadi went downstairs and switched on the TV. There in glorious technicolour was her evil stepmother. She was wearing a high power navy blue suit; her hair and makeup were flawless. Her fake smile that fooled everybody that she was a good person in place. She looked every part the successful lawyer everybody knew her to be. Who would believe Zawadi over her? Nobody. At that thought, Zawadi felt depressed. She sat on the floor and cried for an hour.
Then Zawadi got up, made herself a cup of tea, and composed herself. She was tired of being the victim, the one who was always stepped on. She thought aloud, “just because I am poor doesn’t mean I don’t have dignity. I am tired of being treated like dirt. I need to clear my name otherwise I will not be able to get a job in this town if everybody thinks I am dishonest. But what can I do?”
Find part 13 of the Cinderella story here.
