User:Maddiemac800/A Cinderella Story

plot summary
Sam Montgomery lives in the San Fernando Valley in California, with her widower father Hal, who runs a popular, sports-themed diner. Hal meets and marries a spiteful woman named Fiona who has two daughters of her own, Brianna and Gabriella. When the 1994 Northridge earthquake strikes the valley, Hal is killed. Fiona receives all of his assets, including the diner, the family home, and custody of Sam.

Eight years later, Sam is employed at the diner and tormented by Fiona and her two daughters. Sam struggles to fit in at North Valley High School, where the popular students mock her and call her "Diner Girl." Sam confides anonymously in her online pen pal "Nomad," who shares her dream to attend Princeton University. Nomad's true identity is Austin Ames, the popular - yet unhappy - quarterback of the school's football team, and boyfriend of the head cheerleader, Shelby Cummings. Nomad messages Sam asking her to meet him on the dance floor at the school's halloween dance.

On the night of the dance, Fiona forces Sam to work the night shift at the diner, and explicitly forbids her from attending the dance. Carter and Rhonda, Sam's amiable co-worker at the diner, persuade Sam to go to the dance to meet her pen pal, they give her a gown to wear and ride to the dance. Sam, wearing a mask, meets "Nomad" at the dance and is surprised to learn that he is Austin. After sharing a romantic dance together, Sam's cell phone alarm goes off, warning her to return to the diner before Fiona comes back at midnight. She leaves without revealing her identity to Austin, and drops her phone on her way out. Austin picks it up and begins a search to figure out who his "Cinderella" really is.

Later, Brianna and Gabriella discover Sam's emails to Austin and realizes that Sam is the mysterious "Cinderella" from the dance. The sisters present the emails to Shelby and convince her that Sam persuaded Austin to leave Shelby in order to to be with her. To retaliate, Shelby, Brianna and Gabriella perform a mean-spirited skit at a school Pep rally where the emails are read aloud and Sam's identity is revealed to Austin. Sam, who (like Austin) had been accepted to Princeton University, was then duped by Fiona into believing she was rejected. Shortly after, frustrated with Fiona's persistent emotional abuse and her school-wide humiliation, Sam quits her job at the diner and moves out to live with Rhonda.

Before a school football game, Sam confronts Austin about his cowardice in front of his whole team. Before the final play of the game, Austin sees Sam making her way out of the stands and leaves in the final moments of the game to run and apologize to her. She accepts his apology and they share a kiss as rain falls over the drought-plagued valley. Soon after, Sam finds Hal's will hidden in her childhood fairytale book, which stated that all of his belongings would go to her. Sam sells her stepfamily's fancy cars so that she can pay for college, and Fiona, who signed the will as a witness, is taken in for questioning. Fiona and her daughters are made to work at the diner, which is restored to the way it was before Hal's death by its new owners, Sam and Rhonda. Sam and Austin begin a relationship and attend Princeton together.