Dad said if I didn't lose weight he was not going to take me to the Ball. He'd take someone else. Some pretty girl from the scullery, maybe, or one of the footmen's slender sisters. He'd say she was his daughter. He'd give her dancing lessons, buy her a red dress and let her wear mother's rubies. He might even let her keep the rubies. Of course, he said, he would rather take me, his real daughter, instead of spending all that money on a total stranger. But, Dad sighed, look at you. Princess, stop eating for a second and look at you.

I put down my fork, picked up the mirror, rubbed the grease off it with my sleeve, and looked. I saw what I usually saw. No big deal.

You're fat, Dad said. You could live off your own fat for a year, he said, like an Eskimo. He rose to go. At the door to my tower he turned and pointed his finger. Lose weight, he commanded. I don't care how you do it. But do it. The lock clicked behind him.

I sat on by the barred window and thought about Eskimos. I knew they chewed blubber. But that was whale blubber. Did they chew their own blubber too? How? I unlaced my bodice and examined my belly. It reminded me of pudding with a few little raisins sprinkled here and there. It looked delicious. But no way was I cutting into it. There must be another way. I felt something stuck between my teeth and tongued out a meaty morsel that looked good as new; a second banquet was probably stowed in my back molars alone. My arms and shoulders were red from stretching them out through the bars toward the sunshine and I saw that my sunburn was starting to peel. The peel looked like thin sugar crisps. I pulled off a small strip and put it in my mouth. Yum. Not sugary, not salty, sort of tangy, with a chewy elastic texture I hadn't expected. I probably had enough peel for one meal, maybe more.

So that's how it started. First I just ate floss finds and peel. I found if I tugged my sunburn too hard, little drops of rich coppery tomato-y blood bubbled out. I lapped as much of it as I could out of the places I could reach and when my period came a few days later, well, what can I say, it was payday in a bucket. Dandruff turned out to be bland as ricotta cheese but fingernail shards added texture. Tooth tartar was another white food but I thought oh well what can it hurt and scraped it up anyway. Toffee tasting earwax made a decent dessert. I had long since stopped bribing my guards for treats. I was a treat! My nose alone was a cornucopia of goodies, a veritable soda fountain, bakery, and butcher shop all in one. It gave me thick milk shakes first thing in the morning and then as the day went on and my phlegm crisped up, little protein-packed nuggets appeared, sometimes with clear noodles of mucus that slipped down my throat sweet as fresh oysters. Scabs were chewy, toe jam gooey. Pimples, popped, yielded globs of thick cream sprinkled with blackheads tiny as poppy seeds. My vagina, I discovered, packed a rich yellow curd and I could either lick it off my forefinger warm and unsalted, straight from the source, or take it salted with one or two drops of fresh tears. I drank plenty of pee for hydration, of course, and though at first I hesitated to eat my own excrement I found that formed into patties and grilled in the hearth it was really no worse than venison, and greased on both sides with underarm sweat and served with a little blood ketchup and a few skin peel crisps it was actually pretty good.

Needless to say, I was losing weight like mad and when Dad came back to check on me the week before the Ball he was blown away. At last, he said, I have a daughter I can be proud of. He threw open the tower doors and led me downstairs to the dressmakers and hairdressers and shoemakers and when I was finally gowned in royal red and covered in rubies we went off to the Ball. I met the Prince that night and the rest is happily-ever-after, except I did pay the historians to leave out the part where the Prince and I put Dad on the ice floe. "It's what the Eskimos do," we explained as we gave the floe a hearty push out to sea and waved goodbye.