…And then, he turned it on.

I was speechless. All the burn marks, all the scars, all the tan lines and freckles and grease stains, they were completely gone.

“Wow, you really weren’t kidding!” I said.

“I’m a genius,” Rod agreed.

My eyes were now blue instead of brown. My face was more shapely. My hair was silvery white. All totally flawless.

“It’s… it’s even better than I imagined,” I said, looking at my clean, white, perfect hands.

“Just don’t get too much in love with the prince,” he said, winking.

“Don’t worry, Rod, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

I arrived at the party wearing my new dress. The holographic disguise made it change colors subtly depending on the ambient lighting; right now it was light blue.

My silvery hair was in a loose bun, and I had put a string of real pearls in it. I was also wearing my favourite necklace – it had been my mother’s.

I quickly spotted my stepmother in the crowd. She was next to a chocolate fountain, talking to a fat nobleman with a snooty face and impressively large sideburns. I looked around for Sta and Fri, my stepsisters, but I couldn’t see them.

This place had a large round floor and several smaller rooms around the edges, and a huge glass domed ceiling which had a really great view of the galaxy. I couldn’t help but stare at everything. The walls were covered in silver, and the floor had a beautiful geometrical design made of white and green stone inlaid with polished copper. It was the fanciest space station I’d ever seen. The angular beams in the ceiling were gilded with pure rhodium!

In the very center of the floor stood the prince – prince Cli, the only son of King Fer and Queen Mar. All the girls my age were swamping him like a cloud of belligerent butterflies. I must say, he was handling the attention pretty well.

And then he looked at me.

All the eyes in the room were suddenly fixed right on me. I wasn’t used to being looked at this much! I was usually more of a background girl. The kind who repaired spaceships while the owners were having fun in the cantina.

I just smiled and descended the steps onto the floor, acting as if nobody was watching. (“Pay no attention to all the attention,” Rod had told me.) I made toward the edge of the crowd of girls, but they all seemed to part in front of me, and then the prince was bowing to me, and I curtsied, exposing my glass shoes.

The one thing Rod hadn’t been able to figure out was how to disguise my shoes. So he had made me real ones instead, out of solid titanium silicate. Very strong and glittery like diamonds. I couldn’t believe he had gone to all this trouble just for a silly dare. A prank, really.

And then the prince and I were shaking hands, and he asked me if I wanted to dance, and naturally I did. He didn’t even ask me my name, he just gazed into my startlingly blue eyes. I pretended to gaze into his, but I was really focusing on his slightly asymmetrical nose.

And then the music started up and we were dancing. I couldn’t believe it had worked! I had won the bet.

See, I knew my stepmom and sisters were going to this party, but I was just planning to stay home and work on my vintage StarCruiser 560. Until Sta had mentioned offhandedly that I could probably come if I washed all the grease stains off my arms. Then Fri had dared me to. In fact, she dared me to dance with the prince, and I simply couldn’t pass up a challenge like that! Also, Rod needed something to test his experimental holographic disguiser on.

It was about 22:30 when I showed up. I had timed it so I would get there a little before the dancing started, and it had worked flawlessly. The prince had eyes for nobody else. He remarked on the lovely shade of my hair, my lovely skin, my lovely dress (which was now light pink). He remarked on how the deep blue of my eyes complimented the deep blue of space. I just batted my perfect eyelashes and told him how much I appreciated the compliments.

While we were dancing, I caught a glance of Sta and Fri whispering to each other. They didn’t even recognize me!

After the first dance, I was blessedly relieved of the prince’s embrace, but then another guy (I think he was a Duke or something) snagged me and I was forced to endure another dance. And other men kept cutting in and snagging me the whole time. The prince had the exact same situation with the girls. We passed each other once and our eyes met, but I was whisked away a moment later.

Five dances later, my feet were getting sore (I didn’t usually wear high heels), and I really wanted to go home. But before I could get away, I was caught by the prince again. He really wanted to know more about me. There was no way I could get away.

I suggested we sit by the fountain and talk. It was a heart-shaped fountain with a statue of a cherub playing a harp in the middle. The top of the heart was just the right place for two people to sit and admire the view out the windows.

The prince wasn’t expressing the slightest interest in anyone else. This was going to get pretty bad when I left. I was too perfect for my own good. At least I’m not dancing anymore, I thought, rubbing my ankles.

Somehow, amidst the talk of the night and the fine view out the window, we ended up talking about my shoes. He seemed fascinated that they were made of glass. It was evidently quite the novelty. And indeed, nobody at the party was wearing sparklier shoes. They had made quite the splash. Almost everyone I danced with had complimented me on them. They stuck out as brightly as the flames of a RinzaBlaze engine.

He asked to see one, and I obligingly took one off and handed it to him. He turned it over in his hands, appraising it like he might a fine jewel. There were a couple of minor scratches from all the dancing, but it was still just as strong as ever. The titanium silicate had done its job admirably well. “Who made this?” he asked.

It was half an hour before midnight, and it was looking as if I was going to have to stay there all night if I didn’t get out of there quick.

“Your highness, I regret to inform you that I will no longer be available this evening, due to a prior engagement.”

He looked up at me, surprised. “You’re leaving? What a shame! Why can’t you stay?”

“I do regret incurring your displeasure. I assure you that it pains me much more than it pains you.” (All those “Speaking to Royalty” lessons in school were really paying off.)

“Well, if you have to go… how about a little kiss?” he whispered.

There were about fifty girls looking at us, including my own stepsisters and stepmom.

“I… unfortunately, I must leave immediately.” I took off my other shoe and walked away, barefoot, across the floor.

He wasn’t to be deterred that easily. He grabbed my arm and pulled me close. I could feel his breath on my face. “My sweet darling. You little angel. You’re the prettiest girl I ever saw.”

I pulled away from him, afraid that he would feel the rough surface of my skin underneath the holographic disguise. I really didn’t want to embarrass myself just then.

I’ve never been particularly good at goodbyes, but that night was one of my worst.

I ran.

Everyone seemed to collectively gasp. The prince just stood there in shock. Nobody said or did anything as I sped across the dance floor and out the entrance doors.

As I jumped into Rod’s SpaceFlyer and slammed the door, I could hear the footsteps and shouts of everybody running after me. Rod sped away before I could even buckle my seat harness, leaving everybody coughing in the smoke from the engines. I looked back and saw the prince standing on the very edge of the platform, vainly trying to reach after me.

“So… how did it go?” Rod asked.

“A little… too well,” I said.

. . .

When Rod turned off the holographic disguise, I got a mild shock. I looked so… so normal. So much like me. My starburned face, the freckles all over my nose. My slightly-too-large chin. It was so familiar it was weird.

As I combed out my shaggy, greasy brown hair, Rod asked me where my other shoe was.

“I gave it to the prince.” I told him how I had ran away.

“That’s too bad. I was planning to keep them. Good thing we still have one.”

“I think I ruined the party,” I said, looking at my freckled, scarred hands. They contrasted nicely with the spotless white dress I was still wearing.

“Well, at least we know the holographic disguise works.”

“Yeah, but next time, I think you should make it a little less… perfect.”

-EPILOGUE-

The prince offered up a bounty for the first person who correctly identified the shoe. It ended up going to some girl who lived on the other side of the galaxy who looked a lot like me. (Or rather, she looked the way I did at the party. Incidentally, she was the daughter of that fat nobleman with the huge sideburns.) She and the prince made a nice pair. I was there at the wedding, with my stepmom and sisters. They had no idea why I was grinning the whole time. And I certainly wasn’t telling.