When I got the magic mirror, I was very happy.
My name was Jennie. I lived with my parents in a small town near Paris. But I was not happy as my neighbours always laughed at me. They said that I was very ugly. Was I really ugly? I had no idea but I wanted so much to be pretty.
One day, An old man dropped his oranges on the road and I helped him pick them up. He thanked me for my help and when I was about to leave, he stopped me and granted me a wish. Then I realized that he was a magician. He asked me what I wanted to have. I said, “I want to have a mirror that can make me pretty.” The magician was worried but he still made the mirror. He gave the mirror to me and said, “Girl, every time you look in the mirror, you’ll get prettier, day by day. You should look in the mirror once a day. But be careful, if you look in it more often, your face will change so much that people will not recognize you!”
I was very excited about the magic mirror. I looked in it once a day and I found that I was getting prettier, little by little.
One day, I was so proud of how good I looked. “If I am pretty, does it matter whether people can recognize me?” So, I looked in the mirror twice a day. I was getting much prettier, but gradually no one could recognize who I was. When I wanted to show off to my neighbours, telling them that I could be pretty, they could not recognize me. I was sad but things just got worse.
When I went home.
“Mom! I’m home.”
“Who are you?”
“Mom, it’s me, Jennie.”
“My daughter does not look like that. You are not my Jennie. Get out of here.”
I was lonely, because nobody recognized me, not even my family members. I began to cry and thought, “I don’t want to be pretty anymore, I just want to go back to the old days. I just want my family and want to hang around with my friends.” My tears dropped onto the mirror. Suddenly the mirror was broken into pieces and surprisingly the magic was gone. I saw my original face on the debris.
The mirror let me know the secret. There are more important things than how pretty you look.