The Fairy Godmother Part 17

The muesli did take a lot of eating. Didn’t matter how much I chewed it just didn’t seem to take up the hazel nut milk and was proving difficult to swallow, but I persevered, a good Fairy Godmother leads by example. It seemed to keep him amused.

“Interesting,” he said standing up and heading out of the kitchen.

“Where do you think you are going?” I snapped, getting to the door before him and then having a coughing fit.

“I’m going back to bed,” he said. “All this getting up in the morning, it’s not me really. Might be an idea if you went to bed too,” he added. “Sounds like you are coming down with a nasty cold.”.

“Fairy Godmothers don’t get colds,” I snapped, but my efforts were wasted on him as I had a sneezing fit that sent me flying backwards out of the room and ended up with me sitting, rather uncomfortably, on the toilet. He took the opportunity to leg it into his bedroom and lock the door. I carefully stood up and made my way back to the kitchen and rang the Head Fairy.

“Tell me you have turned his life around and are heading back to the Council for extra Christmas duties,” said Enid as soon as she answered my call.

I tried to talk, but all I could do was cough.

“You have not got a cold,” Enid replied. “Fairy Godmothers do not get colds.” I sneezed, loudly and my ear drums went pop. “Have you disturbed a lot of dust?”

“Yes,” I croaked. “Difficult not to in here.”

“That’s why you are coughing and sneezing,” Enid assured me.

“So what do I do?” I asked.

“Well, go full steam ahead with getting the place clean and dust free,” she replied. “The sooner the dust is gone, the sooner you will stop all that noise. Get your human to help, he’s part of the cause of all this dust, where is he anyway?”

“He said he doesn’t do mornings and went back to bed after he’d eaten a bowel of muesli,” I said.

“Did he like the muesli?” she asked.

“He said it was interesting,” I said.

“What did you think?” she asked.

“Takes a lot of chewing,” I said.

“At least I’m not the only one who thinks that,” she muttered. “Did he wash the dishes?”

“No, he’s got a dishwasher,” I coughed.

“Did he put the bowels in it?” she asked.

“It was full of clean crockery,” I replied.

“And he didn’t hang around to empty it, just went to bed?” Enid asked.

“Went to bed and locked the door,” I replied.

“Hard love, that’s what you need to use,” said Enid.

“What?” I asked, my head felt as if someone had shoved a 13.5 tog double duvet in through one ear and was trying to pull it out through my nose.

“Simple, ring him up, he’s bound to have taken his mobile phone in there with him, and tell him that if he doesn’t come out and do some housework you are going to use that laser canon of yours to blow out his bedroom window,” Enid told me and then hung up.

“OK,” I thought ringing him up and repeating the message.

“You wouldn’t do that?” he asked.

“I don’t like coughing, I hate sneezing,” I paused for a sneezing fit and then paused again whilst I coughed my breakfast up, it still looked like muesli as it fell the 15 floors to the ground and landed on the person who had been doing something down at the bins. I wasn’t sure what, but I don’t think he was putting out the rubbish. He looked up and I was going to hiss at him, worked quite well when I was a tooth fairy and the family cat thought I was some sort of toy. That didn’t happen, I coughed up a load of bile green phlegm, it got caught by a gust of wind near the ground and hit him fair and square in the face. I honestly didn’t think he could run that fast.

“And this is not putting me in the best of moods,” I added, doing my best not to laugh at the look on the man’s face.

“OK, I get the picture,” he said. “You can come back in now.”

“I will see you in the kitchen,” I said and started coughing, which made it rather difficult to get back to the kitchen window, I still got there before him.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked smiling.

“The dishwasher needs emptying,” I said pointing at it with the laser canon.

“I’ve started emptying it, I got the bowels from there,” he said hopefully.

“So, you are happy for the dishes to accumulate whilst you are emptying it,” I said. “That isn’t going to happen.” I started coughing again. “This is not making me happy,” I said pointing the laser canon at him.

“OK,” he said emptying the dishwasher onto the kitchen table.

“Put them into the cupboards,” I shouted and then started coughing again.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to empty it onto the table first?” he asked, but the muzzle of the laser canon pushed against his nose stopped him from arguing and further.

“OK, OK, straight to the cupboards,” he said. “You did a good job of cleaning these,” he added.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” I replied and started sneezing, accidentally shooting a hole in the tea towel he was holding.

“Careful,” he muttered. “I don’t have that many tea towels.”

“Then get on with using it,” I said.

“OK,” he smiled.

It took nearly half an hour for him to empty the machine, I didn’t think they held that much, but then he was quite slow and meticulous with the drying.

“Now what?” he asked.

“When was the last time you cleaned that machine, back flushed the filter, topped up the salt and the rinse aid?” I asked.

“It’s domestic machinery,” he replied. “My girlfriend uses it.”

“She isn’t here, in case you’ve forgotten,” I replied. “But the mucky dishes will be.”

“I could live on a diet of take aways,” he said.

“And you could put on so much weight no girl would give you a second glance, let alone be prepared to take on your housework, even if you did pay them,” I said.

“You don’t think someone could do all that stuff for the joy of my company?” he asked, for once sounding a little uncertain.

“I have experienced your company for the last day and it isn’t anything I would cross the road for,” I replied.

“So why are you here?” he asked.

“You are a work in progress and a Fairy Godmother doesn’t leave a job half done,” I explained.

“And you are the ultimate professional,” he smiled.

“Tell that one to the Head of the Fairy Council,” I muttered.

“So that’s who you upset,” he laughed.

“If you are going to upset someone, you may as well make sure they are big,” I replied.

“So cleaning the dishwasher,” he said.

“The book that came with the dishwasher has all the instruction you need,” I replied pointing to a book on the kitchen table. “Read, inwardly digest and clean the dishwasher.”

“And if I don’t?” he asked.

“If you can’t be bothered to read the instructions then you wont be allowed to use the machine,” I replied.

“I can live with that,” he smiled.

“Can you live with washing the dishes by hand?” I asked. He picked up the book and started studying it.

“After you have done that you can read up about the washing machine,” I said, pointing to another book.

“Is there anything else you want me to study?” he asked.

“Probably,” I replied.

By Janice Nye © 2019