"Hey, Mom, check out that rose garden over there! Let's have a rose picking contest!" Chuck called out to his mom.
Donna replied, "Good thing this isn't a nose picking contest, or you would definitely win. HA!"
The pair entered the garden and were instantly freaked out. The ground started to rumble and the sky became filled with dark storm clouds. An incredibly tall and stately lady walked into the garden. "How dare you enter my garden!" she screamed. "You, cool mom, you better fast walk away from here, and you, average-looking guy, you better not follow her."
If there was one thing Chuck and Donna were good at, it was following instructions. Donna left as quickly as she could while following the guidelines for power walking (exaggerated but controlled swinging of the arms and never allowing both feet to be off the ground at once). Chuck was left alone with the huge lady. "What do you want from me?" he asked while craning his neck to look her in the eye.
The huge lady didn't answer. She just walked away and left Chuck to wander through the rose garden and into the castle on his own. He found that everything inside of the castle was enchanted. He just had to think something, and it would appear. Also, all the dishes, clocks, lamps, and everything else could talk! He quickly became friends with them, and he slowly became friends with the huge lady who would drop in to talk to him almost every day.
After almost a month living in the strange castle, Chuck went out to the rose garden for a casual fast walk. He missed his mom, of course, and it was weird being trapped in a house with a giantess and talking teacups, but he was really enjoying his time here for the most part. As he was swinging his arms and enjoying the beautiful roses, he came upon the huge lady prostrate before him.
Seeing her lying there on the ground, he suddenly realized how much he had come to care for her! He cried out, "Are you hurt? Please don't be dead! If you're dead then I'll never get to tell you how much I love you!" With those words, the huge lady grew even taller. Chuck was astounded. He couldn't understand what was happening.
The extra huge lady stood up and said, "You may now leave my garden and my castle. Long ago, I put a spell on myself in order to grow into the huge and tall lady that I always wanted to be. Every time a man professes his love for me, I continue to grow. Because it became increasingly difficult to live in the every day world with my huge size, I've now resorted to trapping people until they fall in love with me. You've served your purpose. I do not love you back, and now I would like you to leave."
Chuck was devastated. He had truly loved the huge lady, but he also realized that starting a relationship while being held prisoner was probably not a recipe for success. He began to power walk in the direction of home, and more importantly, his cool mom, Donna.
Author's note: I wanted to take the well-known beauty and the beast story and do something a little different with it. This version of Beauty and the Beast was very similar to the Disney movie. It was just a little simpler and with less singing. Beauty is traded as a prisoner for her father's freedom, and she eventually falls in love with the Beast. This breaks the spell and turns him back into a handsome man. They live happily ever after.
I decided to make the originally male characters female and the originally female characters male in order to give the story a different feel. I didn't think it made much sense for Beauty and the Beast to end up happily together since he had originally kept her against her will, so I changed up the ending quite a bit. I really liked how important roses are in the original, so I chose to keep that aspect with a rose garden playing a large role in the story.
I also wanted to make the story more lighthearted. This was the first time I've done a storytelling post on a story that I originally knew as a Disney movie, so I wanted to include the more magical aspects such as talking plates, clocks, and lamps that weren't in the original story that I read for class.
I decided to make the originally male characters female and the originally female characters male in order to give the story a different feel. I didn't think it made much sense for Beauty and the Beast to end up happily together since he had originally kept her against her will, so I changed up the ending quite a bit. I really liked how important roses are in the original, so I chose to keep that aspect with a rose garden playing a large role in the story.
I also wanted to make the story more lighthearted. This was the first time I've done a storytelling post on a story that I originally knew as a Disney movie, so I wanted to include the more magical aspects such as talking plates, clocks, and lamps that weren't in the original story that I read for class.
Bibliography: This story is based on Beauty and the Beast from Europa's Fairy Book by Joseph Jacobs and illustrated by John Batten (1916).
