She never knew how it had happened, but there was once a chair stuck on the back of a waitress.She jiggled, she jumped, she bucked and she kicked her heels like a wild horse in a rodeo show. Butnothing she did could help poor Marie get the chair off her back. She went to the best doctors,carpenters, detectives, mid-wives, and plumbers in all of Paris, but nobody could help her. The chairstuck on her back, and ev-eryone was afraid of tearing it off her back because she might die. After all, Marie was a small young woman, somewhat on the skinny side. You might even call her frail or fragile. Perhaps that was because she was always run-ning from table to table in the restaurant where she worked. Perhaps it was because she never had time to eat a good meal. Marie never thought about it. She just worked as hard as she could.

p.01The WaiTress

“Maybe something good will come of this,” Marie said to herself.

“Maybe if you dressed me up, you might learn a thing or two,” the chair said to her.

“You can talk!” Marie said with astonishment.

“You can walk,” the chair said.

“Of course I can,” the waitress said. “Anyone can.”

“Hey, that’s not true. Not anyone can. There are a lot of old people who can’t walk. What aboutbabies? What about people who have accidents? What about people who are born differently?”

“All right, all right,” Marie said. “I get your point.”

“Well, if you get my point,” the chair said. “Get me dressed and do something about it.”

“What would you like to wear?”

“Something with frills, and I like colors like aqua blue, jasmine green, fire red, and chartreuse.”

“Are you a girl?”

“Does it matter?”

The WaiTress

p.01