A rushed blaze of skirts and bags flashed through the crowd. “Gangway! Coming through, step aside!” a bossy soprano voice yelled. She left an empty swath of destruction behind her as trampled children staggered to their feet and dropped piles of goods were retrieved from the cobblestones. The usual marketplace chaos swallowed up the disruption and carried on mostly uninterrupted by the sprinting girl. Screeching to a halt in front of her next stop, she pounded on the door and danced on the balls of her feet while waiting for her customer to answer.

“Come on, come on, come on…,” the delivery girl chanted under her breath. The door moved inch by inch with a slow, groggy creak. After an eternity, the entrance opened to reveal an elderly woman still in her pajamas.

“Rosa, you’re early today, what in heaven’s name could be the rush?” the old lady yawned. Rosa felt a little bad because she knew that Mrs. Merriweather usually slept in until noon, but she couldn’t waste any time at all, not on a day like this.

The hurried redhead dropped all the baggage she had carried with her and ruffled through them with lightning speed, finding the correct package within five seconds flat. “Sorry, Mrs. Merriweather!” she apologized, thrusting the package, paperwork, and pen at the befuddled old woman. “I have to get ready for the ball this evening, meaning I need to do all deliveries in the morning, go shopping in the afternoon, get my hair and nails done, have my cousin do the makeup, I really don’t have time to talk, could you sign this please?”

Mrs. Merriweather slowly blinked, stunned at the words that had just been pelted at her in true machine-gunfire fashion. It took her a moment, but the last five words registered. “Oh yes, I can sign.”

She shakily took the pen and scrawled across the paperwork, hardly dotting the i and crossing the t before Rosa snatched the pen and paper out of her hand and gathered everything up again. “ThankyousomuchI’msosorry!” she called over her shoulder. The girl raced away, leaving Mrs. Merriweather shaking her head at Rosa’s youthful high spirits, perhaps remembering the days she was young enough to get so excited about a palace ball.

*********************************

Her messenger bags finally all emptied, Rosa sprinted faster than light itself to reach the post office and drop off all the papers people had signed. The fact that it was only noon lent her an extra burst of speed. Usually, it was three o’clock by the time she normally finished her route! Not even the sweat-soaked skirts sticking to her exhausted legs could dampen her spirits. She ran into the office and almost bumped into the incredibly amused postmaster general. His eyes laughed at the harried messenger girl, with her red, frizzy hair sticking out in all directions and layers of clothes awry from the heated exercise.

“I must say, I am impressed Ms. Escarlata,” he complimented as he flipped through the signed papers. “I have only ever had one person complete their route as fast as you did, and he had these wheel-like contraptions attached to his shoes. You have certainly earned this crown-”, at this he produced the much-coveted coin, “but I have another route for you to do before I give this to you. Tom called in sick and was unable to do it.”

The overworked delivery girl nearly cried. She was so tired, and the only thing that made all of her work worth it was her paycheck for the week, which was going to fund all of her ball preparations and activities. Everyone knew the rule though; no coin until your route was complete. If the boss heaped another load of work on someone, they had to take it with no complaints or they would be fired on the spot without pay. Her employer could afford to be that strict because there were always unemployed people in this town clamoring for a job.

Hoping for some sort of reprieve, she begged, “Please, Postmaster, I’ve already finished my route and I really need this afternoon to get ready for the ball tonight. Could you please give the route to someone else?”

The boss smiled wickedly. “Oh, are we complaining now? You know what happens to employees who whine.”

Rosa paled, her mild freckling turning into a mass of dark brown dots across her face. “No sir, I’ve no thoughts of complaining whatsoever, I just meant-”

“And now you are arguing with me. Such bad manners hurts me deeply.” The evil man let out a disappointed sigh of regret that would have made an actor proud. “Rosa Escarlata, you are relieved from your employment here at this post office. Turn in your messenger bags and be on your way.” He stalked out of the post office to run some sort of errand, the very picture of properly affronted dignity.

Rosa stared after him in shock. Her entire body was numb, not only from all the hard running she had done that morning, but also from the fact that it had all been for nothing. She would be the only one of her twelve siblings who couldn’t manage to raise the money for the ball. What was she going to do now? It was so unfair, the boss couldn’t just fire her like that! He said so himself, she was one of his fastest deliverers; that had to count for something. Rosa felt anger starting to break through the numbness. He had no right to deny her a week’s salary. She had done her job, and done it well.

Tearing off the messenger bags that were still strapped to her body, Rosa stormed over to the boss’s desk and slammed them down on top of it. Fire her, will he? She’ll see about that. The infuriated teenager went around to the front of the desk and opened the drawer. Quill pens, keys, ink, papers, nothing of any value. Of course he wouldn’t keep anything important in this desk, it wasn’t even locked.

Rosa scanned the walls and saw a slight discoloration on the far one. Not even thinking about what she was doing, she took a running start and kicked the plaster. The wall caved under her rage like styrofoam. Hidden behind it lay a safe. Excitedly, Rosa scrambled back towards the desk, opened the front drawer once more, and withdrew the keys. She tried each one of them in the safe lock, and sure enough, one of them clicked the door open.

The opened safe revealed a treasure trove of crowns. Upon seeing this, the girl paused for a moment. It was one thing to take what was her due; it was quite another to rob her employer. How much money did she really need?

She thought back to all of the other messengers in the past who had been fired without pay. That man had to be punished somehow. She swiped all of the coins, put them into her assortment of pockets, closed the safe, and returned the keys. Carrying a fortune within the folds of her clothes, she determinedly walked out of the store, not looking back once.