They called it the trial of the century. It was all over the news. The media just couldn't get enough of it, of course we were just little kids back then, but we got the drift of what was going on.
Our group had always been friends since the day we met in first grade. When we first saw the trial on the news, we were all eight years old, but by the time it was over, and every lawyer, witness, and judge had seen the case we were all about the ripe old age of twelve. It was me, Johnny, Frank, Susie, Lisa, Chuck, and Kris. Yeah, that was us alright.
We can still remember it like it was yesterday. We all came home from playing softball out in the old parking lot on Baker's Street. My mom was in the living room watching the news. I was surprised. Usually when my mom heard our steps on the front porch, she raced into the kitchen to make something for us to eat, but today she seemed to be glued to the TV.
"Uh....Hi mom. I'm...uh...home, I think?"
This was really unusual. My mom was sort of the clingy type. Wherever I went, she had to know who, what, where, when, and how.
We ran up to my room and took off our pads and helmets and dirty shoes. We were baffled. We absolutely had to know what my mom was watching. We turned on the TV and turned the news on. Normally if we saw the news we would scream in terror, but today was different.
When the news came on, it wasn't the normal news, with the news caster and the panning to places like Washington, D.C. and Europe. No, it was just a big room with lots of people yelling and a big man sitting at a big desk banging a really cool hammer. There was an invisible voice on the TV that spoke to us.
"Welcome back folks as we return to the trial of the century between Cinderella's stepmother and The King and Prince themselves, King Joesph Kong and Prince Erik Kong! As we have seen in this trial so far, Cinderella's stepmother claims to have paid Cinderella for her services and when the Prince showed up, she just up and left with him."
Now, everybody knows the story of Cinderella and her evil stepmother and her three mean stepsisters and so did we, but who knew they were real people? As we learned later on, King Joseph was the king of Greenland. The invisible news caster continued, "Cinderella's stepmother has come here today to reclaim her stepdaughter. She has been very upset that her daughter and her paid employee had run off. Let's return to the trial."
For the next six hours we watched the trial and they were right it was the trial of the century and it wasn't even that big of a problem! At first the judge came out and then a bald guy came out dressed in a really nice suit and sat down next to this old lady with glasses. The invisible man said the bald man was the king and the lady he was sitting next to was his sister, Lady Camille. Next came out this guy with a really hard and distraught face. He had orange hair and didn't even sit down, he stood right next to the judge. He seemed to be the prince's lawyer. Next, came out the Prince who looked really handsome and laid back. He sat right up front and seemed to think nothing could go wrong. Then, came out a little fidgity man with glasses and looked as if he were Cinderella's stepmother's lawyer.
Then, she came out. Now I could see why Cinderella was so scared of her, just by looking at her she was scary. She sat down in the far right corner of the roo,. It seemed at if one half of the room was in dark and the other was in light.
We seemed to have missed the beginning of the trial because as soon as the judge sat down, the king's lawyer stood up and said,
"I would like to call to the stand today Mr. Steven Moscoff!"
A man entered the room with horrible sideburns down the side of his face. He sat down next to the judge and a man who had been hiding in the dark came out and stood next to him and began to speak. At the sound of his voice, the sideburns man jumped.
"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
"I...I...do..."
The king's lawyer came up and stood in front of Steven,
"Mr.Moscoff! Is it true that you were there the night that Prince Erik and Cinderella danced together at the ball?"
Steven seemed to be debating what to say in his mind,"Yes...s"
"And is it also true that you saw this woman," he pointed to Cinderella's stepmother,"Ms. JoAnn Cross, willingly let Cinderella go off with the Prince as soon as he found the shoe fit?"
"Well...."
"It's a yes or no question Mr.Moscoff!!!!",yelled the lawyer.
Steven jumped at least five feet in the air,"Yes,sir."
He turned to a group of people on the far left side of the room and said,"I rest my case."
None of us could figure out what he meant by that but we assumed it meant that he was done, and before the judge could speak the little fidgety man jumped up and said,"No further questions at this time your honor!"
We didn't know the judge was a king too.
The trial lasted hours. The only exciting part of the next two days was at noon the next day when everybody in the "group" showed up at my house to watch the trial again. At noon the next day the king's lawyer was questioning a man who was supposedly a guest at the Prince's ball. He seemed to be bad mouthing Ms.Cross about how she obviously wanted to ruin Cinderella's life. He said some words that were so bad that my mom tried to close all our ears with anything from cups to books.
The trial seemed to last forever, but at anytime we could, we watched it right up to the end of the night. It at first lasted for hours, then days, then weeks, then months, and then years. When we were about twelve we all shoed up at Kris' house to watch what the commercials had said would be the turn out of the trial. We had been watching the case for so long, we understood every court term they used. Sometimes, if one of us was motivated enough, we would yell at the TV.
The last day of the trial wasn't all that exciting. The only really cool part was that the beautiful Cinderella showed up for the second time in five years. They questioned her and she answered as sweetly as possible. The judge told the jury they would have a six hour recess to decide the verdict. We all headed up to Kris' room to debate whether poor Cinderella would have to go back to cleaning.
Six hours later we rushed downstairs to see the verdict. The jury all came filing in and sat down. The King, the Prince, Cinderella, Ms.Cross, the Stepsisters, the lawyers, and the judge all came out.
"Has the jury come to a final decision?",asked the judge.
"Yes we have your honor.",said the spokesman for the jury.
"We the jury, believe that Ms.Cross should be prosecuted with the charge of lying in court of law as we have all read Cinderella before and she was never paid for her services, but that is to be dealt with on another day."
Then the judge slammed down his gavel and shouted,"Case dismissed!"
There were bursts of applause in Kris' living room.
So that was the trial of the century, not a really big deal but we got into it. We're all alot older now and most of us are married with kids, but whenever we occasionally get together we always talk about the trial of Cinderella.