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Because this is ul ti ma t el y a fairy tale, and because it is sacrilege not to begin all fairy tales with four simple words, and because I can think of no better words than these four to start off this particular fairy tale, because of all this we begin Once Upon a Time. Once Upon a Time there lived a girl named Sophie. Now, Sophie was a rather peculiar flower being that she never left her home between the ages of five and twenty-one. Not once. Never. The various details of why this unusual upbringing occurred were shrouded in some mystery, even to Sophie, yet explained perfectly clearly, though in mysterious pretence, by her caretaker and surrogate father, Mr. Tiktok. As far as it could be understood, Sophie had been left at Number Four Danube Street Flat Four, London SW3 when she was but a little babe wrapped in a blankie and set sound asleep in a wicker luncheon basket; a simple eight word note accompanied reading, Her name is Sophie. Dont look at her. It all seemed a bit absurd to Mr. Trinity, the kindly man who originally occupied Number Four Danube Street Flat Four, London SW3, who discovered the parcel one crisp new morning. And yet he took in sweet little Sophie, even daring so far as to gaze into her dazzling blue eyes and shimmering blonde hair. But Mr. Trinity was an elderly gentleman, and even though hed employed Mr. Tiktok to care for him (and now this new addition to Number Four Danube Street Flat Four, London SW3), it was all just too much for an aged soul. Mr. Trinity died a year later. Perhaps he looked too closely at Sophie. Mr. Tiktok could not be classified as a superstitious man,

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and yet the idea of caring for a potentially cursed child did give him pause, although this pause lasted little more than the single beat of a heart as Mr. Tiktok had been born in Kiev, malnourished and blind. How could I fear Sophie, he thought to himself, if I myself cant even glance upon her? And thus the old immigrant raised young Sophie as his own. Sophie began her rudimentary kindergarten lessons at the age of five. Being an only child parented by an old, friendless man, she rarely before had ample opportunity to mix amongst her peers. But this seemed to matter not as the children found themselves magnetically drawn to this little princess: there was something inherently charming about herinherently unique, and yet something mysterious and opaque. There was one little boy, however, who didnt like her at all. This little boy, who was granted the snide name of Lord Percy Higgenstooth Snogbottom (he was deemed a Lord on his fourth birthday after delighting the silly crowds wearing their silly hats and silly morning coats at Ascot), kept a sadistic maleficence of hatred inside his tiny heart which manifested itself as nuisance behaviour: dunking her hair in ink, stealing her pencils, pulling her pigtails. But Sophie was a calm and resolute child, easily equipped with the sound psychological intelligence to see through Lord Snogbottoms sinister games and into his own stifled heart: a place so deserted, Lord Snogbottom himself had never even ventured there. She confronted him one afternoon as lessons were let out after he raised a Burberry clad leg to Sophies own stockinged appendage. The sun blinded her eyes and left her in a haze and she failed to see Lord Snogbottoms ploy, awkwardly falling to the ground, her books scattering through the corridors. Well this is too much, she thought to herself, Ill take no more! Lord Snogbottom, she began, you fool no one but yourself with these trivial games, when it is well known to all but yourself that it is not hatred you feel towards me, but Love. Stop these silly games of avoidance and speak the truth! My God, he gasped to himself, shes right! I think I Love her! It all rushed to him in an instant and he quickly realised the error of his ways. He should be honest, he thought, tell her his truthful beliefs, rather than procure torment. And he did. He looked her right in those eyes. Those gorgeous blue eyes. Opened his mouth.

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Heart full of Love. And he said Nothing! Instead, Lord Snogbottom turned to stone. Marble, to be exact. A marble Lord Snogbottom. (Although his parents were quite displeased to lose their little Lord, they were quite happy to have a new statue for their garden all the other marble statues were so very old!)

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Sophie was terrified. The transformation occurred right before her own eyes. She rushed home to Mr. Tiktok. The news shattered him. And it was then that he was forced to tell Sophie all that he knew, all that he had uncovered in secret over the past five years. He had hoped the legend he had revealed would prove falsebut the incident of that afternoon had given him no other option save the truth, the truth of Sophies past