Tomella and the Clothes For Talking With

There was once a young woman named Tomella who hated wearing women’s clothing or dressing in anything pink or frilly.

She always wore trousers instead of a skirt and a shirt instead of a blouse and flat shoes instead of high heels; she never wore any make up and her hair was always cut short just like a boys.

One day, however, while she was in the forest, climbing a tree and picking apples; a witch, mistaking her for a handsome young boy made advances to her and when she spurned the witch’s advances, because the witch thought she was a boy, the witch got so angry that she turned Tomella into an ugly green skinned ogre.

“And until someone recognises you for what you are you will never be human again”, said the witch.

So, sadly, after that, Tomella had to wander about trying to find someone who would believe that she was human.

“If only I can get them to see that I’m a woman, not an ogre”, she thought, “The witch’s spell will be broken”.

Unfortunately, whenever she approached anyone to talk to them, they would only see her monstrous appearance, her green scaly skin, her red eyes and the little horns upon her head and, terrified, would run away and so, eventually, after trying and failing at least a hundred times, the poor girl gave up and hid herself away in a cave for years.

But then, one day, when she was out looking for food, Tomella passed by a pretty cottage that belonged to a woman and she noticed that the door was unlocked and open and looking inside she saw that no one was at home.

So Tomella went inside because, living in a cave for so long, she missed being in a human house and, in the house, she saw a wardrobe in which lots of dresses were hung up and a make-up table upon which there was make up and even a curly wig and, because she longed to look more like a woman than an ogre, she put on one of the dresses and put make up on her face and the wig upon her head.

But when she saw herself in her reflection, she started to cry.

“I’m so ugly”, she said, “I’ll never look like a girl again, never”.

But then as Tomella was sitting on a bed and crying the woman who owned the cottage came home.

“Poor dear”, said the woman, seeing Tomella, “Why are you crying?”.

Tomella, looked up, surprised.

“Aren’t you afraid of me?”, she asked, “Aren’t you going to run away?”.

“Afraid of you? Why would I be afraid of you?”, asked the woman, “You’re just a girl”.

And, looking in the mirror upon the wall of the room, Tomella saw that the woman was right, the witch’s spell had been lifted; her green scaly ogre skin had returned to soft human flesh and her bright red eyes had become hazel brown.

“You realised that I was a girl and not an ogre”, said Tomella, astonished, to the woman, “And I didn’t even need to explain”.

“Well that’s because you look like a girl”, replied the woman, confused.

Tomella hugged the woman and, after that day, she didn’t mind wearing women’s clothes anymore, in fact, she grew to like them.

“I’d always thought of women’s clothes as a barrier”, she told the woman, who became her closest and dearest friend, “But now I realise that they can break down barriers; that clothes aren’t just for wearing, they’re for talking with”.