Oliver set the book down for a moment and thought. The diary was right. He was free. He didn’t know what to do, though, and he would need to think about that. But first there was another thought nagging at him.

Would he have run away if he hadn’t read Cinderella, but some other story? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe, because he wouldn’t have wanted to be captured with his book anyway. But maybe he could have hidden instead.

Maybe he wouldn’t have, though. Maybe reading about some girl that, like him, had been an orphan and had been in a life she hated but had made things better had given him the idea somewhere in his subconcious.

Of course there were many differences:
Oliver never knew his parents and so didn’t miss them.
He’d been an orphan in an orphanage, didn’t have a step mother.
He didn’t have a fairy godmother, he’d run away himself.
He didn’t have a perfect life to go to, he was on the streets now.

But still. She had a bad life, he had a bad life. She made it better. Maybe he could, too.