The Fairy Godmother Part 1

“And you are a Fairy Godmother?” I was asked for what felt like the millionth time. I would have thought the wings were a bit of a give away, but this particular human seemed to be a bit on the dense side.

“Yes,” I smiled. Well, I tried to smile, but it had been a long day, at least forty-eight hours if my internal clock was right.

“Have you always been a Fairy Godmother?” he asked, ushering me past the door that said he was a psychiatrist and towards a couch. I sat cautiously on the edge.

“Please relax, lie back if it helps,” he smiled and I thought of crocodiles and their teeth.

“No one starts off as a Fairy Godmother,” I explained. He was obviously simple.

“How did you start?” he asked.

I decided to skip the biology class, if he didn’t know that sort of thing by now, it was probably best that he stay ignorant about it.

“Well, first I was a cherub,” I explained.

“A cherub,” he wrote in his note book. Somehow it was reassuring that he was putting it all down on paper, easier to destroy the evidence later on.

“And what exactly did you do, as a cherub?” he asked.

“The idea was to flutter round cribs looking angelic,” I explained. He stifled a laugh. “I wasn’t too good as a cherub. Hard to look angelic with black spiky hair.”

“I did wonder,” he smiled.

“I tried a wig of the standard blond curly variety, battered and pinned my hair down so that I could put the wig on. Five minutes later the hair had escaped and the wig was sitting at the end of the spikes like some sort of hat or a frightened guinea pig,” I explained. He couldn’t stop himself laughing this time. Had problems not to laugh myself. “Had problems getting all the copies of the photo’s off the internet. The good fairy helped with that.”

“It got on the internet!” he said.

“Fortunately most people were more interested in the photos of the bad fairy,” I replied.

“Bad fairy!” he parroted.

“She’d got herself worked up, convinced they’d slighted her, rather than just had a bit of a cock-up with the invites. No one knew the Queen was expecting, not even the Queen, right up to the moment when she went into labour, so they were bound to miss a few people out, most of them had the sense to turn up anyway, they weren’t exactly turning old friends away,” I explained.

“So the bad fairy made a fuss?” he asked.

“A fuss! She put a curse on the poor little thing,” I explained. “Something to do with pricking her finger on a spinning wheel and dying. I’m not quite sure how it works but the good fairy turned dying into sleeping for a hundred years and the court asked to sleep with her. I’m not sure how they were organising it, but the good fairy hurried the cherubs out of the place and then cleared up the photos from the internet.”

“I’ve never seen any photos like that,” he said.

“She did a good job,” I said.

“What happened after that?” he asked.

“I took a sideways move into being a tooth fairy,” I replied.

“I don’t suppose the black hair isn’t such a problem as a tooth fairy,” he mused.

“Well, no, if anything it helps you blend into the background,” I agreed.

“So how did it go?” he asked.

“Not too good,” I admitted. “Life as a tooth fairy isn’t as simple as some people think. Most kids are good and go to sleep so you don’t have to hide in the shadows waiting, but I seemed to get the awkward ones. I’d get a list of at least twenty teeth to collect each night, but if you get one who wont go to sleep till the early hours it puts the schedule all to pot.”

“And that causes problems?” he asked. I was beginning to wonder where he was when they handed the brains out, not where the brains were being handed out that was obvious.

“The longer you hide somewhere, the more likely you are to be caught,” I tried to explain. He looked blank. “And of course, if you are delayed at the first house, there is a knock on effect on all the others and you have to get all the teeth collected and the money left before sun up. It’s not so hard in the winter, but as the days get longer, there’s less time to fit all the kiddies in. I think the thing that put the tin lid on that job was when I got cornered by a cat one night, had to nip into a hamster cage to hide. Very talkative things hamsters, the sun was rising by the time I got away and that was nineteen uncollected teeth. So I took another sideways move into being a fairy godmother.”

“How’s that going?” he asked.

“Not so good, truth told,” I sighed.

“What went wrong?” he asked.

“To start off with, there was Fairy Godmother college,” I said.

“You have to go to college?” he asked.

“It’s a responsible job,” I explained. “You have to get it right, peoples futures depend on you.”

“So how did you do at the college?” he asked.

“The fairy in charge didn’t like me,” I said. “She had it in for me from the moment I landed on the roof. Well tried to land on the roof, missed my footing slightly, the tiles were wet, it had been raining.”

“And?” he smiled.

“I fell down the chimney and landed in the main hall in a cloud of soot. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but they were showing some big wigs around the place, I drooped in when they were standing around the fireplace, I don’t think their clothes were helped with a fairly heavy layer of soot or their complexions. Their tempers definitely could have done with something after that,” I explained.

“I can see that that wouldn’t make a good impression,” he said, once he had stopped laughing.

“Things went from bad to worse there, I thought I was going to fail totally, but I scrapped a pass. I don’t think she want me to come back,” I sighed.

“Would you have liked to go back there?” he asked.

“Only if I could burn the dump down and sack the old biddy,” I replied. “The way they taught, it’s amazing that anyone came out of that place sane.”

I think he bit his tongue at that point, there was a very odd expression on his face.

“Have you done much work as a fairy godmother?” he asked.

“I’ve had a few jobs,” I replied.

“And how did they go?” he asked.

“Mixed,” I admitted. “I mean I thought I’d done OK, but they didn’t like my methods and I didn’t produce the results that they wanted.”

“So everyone didn’t end up happy ever after?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t say that,” I replied defensively. “It’s just they were happy with the wrong people that’s all.”

“I think this calls for a bit more detail,” he said sucking the end of his pen.

“This calls for a speedy exit,” I thought as I heard some rather odd footsteps on the stairs. The creature had three legs and was finding the co-ordination a bit difficult as they hadn’t been like that for long. Listening to it swearing as it fell down the stairs for the fourth time, I got the impression he wasn’t going to be prepared to listen to my explanation.

The end came of the psychiatrists pen came off in his mouth and the biro ink was very biter. Coughing and cursing he dashed to the sink. With a click of my fingers I flung open the window, spread my wings and flew out.

“Perhaps she is a Fairy Godmother,” he muttered. “Or perhaps I should speak to one of my colleagues.”

At that moment the door was flung open by the three legged creature who had finally got to the top of the stairs.

“Where is she?” he croaked. The psychiatrist pointed to the window, dilute blue ink dribbling down his chin and staining the front of his shirt.

“OK,” he sighed. “But if you see her around, tell her I’m not amused.” With that he turned around and fell down the stairs, bouncing and cursing with each step.

By Janice Nye © 2019