Finally a Princess | Teen Ink

Finally a Princess MAG

September 26, 2014
By Emily Spjut BRONZE, Cypress, Texas
Emily Spjut BRONZE, Cypress, Texas
3 articles 0 photos 0 comments

From a very early age, I grew up on a diet of Disney. My big sister, MiMi, and I spent hours watching Disney movies on our VHS player at home, and later fought over who got to be the princess du jour. “I want to be the princess! You’re always the princess!” I would wail. Sadly, big sister always won. Rank has its privileges, after all.

When I was about five, our mother brought home a Disney movie I’d never seen before. MiMi and I were quickly swept away by “Mulan.” One of the most exciting scenes was the moment when Mulan decided to disguise herself as a boy and join the army. She cut her hair with her father’s sword and tied it up in a bun so that the other soldiers wouldn’t know she was a girl.

After the movie, my sister and I were, of course, eager to play Mulan. My hair was long like hers – almost down to my waist. With an odd gleam in her eye, my sister fetched the forbidden scissors from my mother’s sewing basket and bestowed on me the great honor of finally getting to be the princess.

Swept away in the moment, I thought, Yes! Yes! I will bring honor to us all!

With a snip, snip, snip, my transformation into a noble Chinese soldier at the hands of my sister had begun. A big pile of light brown hair encircled me. My ears and neck felt strangely cool and light. My sister said, “Uh-oh. We can’t let Mom see this.” Where’s a lucky cricket when you need one?

Thinking like the brilliant five-year-old I was, I figured that if my mother couldn’t see the hair on the ground, she would never know what we’d done. We quickly began hiding my hair throughout the house: under the sofa, behind the TV, even in our big Barbie dollhouse.

In the middle of our crime scene cover-up, our mother walked in, took one look at me, and screamed. I mustered up some quick tears, and MiMi vacated the premises like a Hun in retreat. My mother took me to Visible Changes for a damage control haircut. After all was said and done, I had, indeed, visibly changed. I sported an unfortunate bob with one-inch bangs and looked like a very nice little boy for a long time.

After the Mulan incident, my sister and I were grounded from Disney – and scissors – for life. To this day, I can’t cut anything properly, having lacked essential practice in my youth … and I’m still haunted by the moment every time I find a little piece of hair I hid so many years ago.



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