No Slipper for Cinderella

Meriel Chapin could hardly claim that her new stepmother, Sara, was wicked, but she was often tempted to say uncharitable things about Zachary Bancroft, her critical stepbrother. Zachary, for his part, might have reasonably thought she was in dire need of a fairy godmother, for intellect came first with Meriel, and it certainly helped her to forget that she was overweight, too tall, wore glasses and size ten shoes. On the brink of college, Meriel had great plans for the glorification of her intellect, particularly to become a member of Intellect, Inc., a television quiz show featuring college students. Her plans had not included the strenuous bicycle expeditions that Zachary proposed or Sara's exclusion of pie a la mode and blueberry muffins from their meals. And the last thing she had in mind was to replace her glasses -- broken by Zachary -- with contact lenses. Meriel found that it was hard to achieve what she wanted by mere brain power and just as difficult to resist the efforts of Sara and Zachary to make her appear the attractive girl they knew she could be.