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A Fairy Tale (download A Fairy Tale as a Word document, 34K)
by Elizabeth Pinckney

Once upon a time, there was a little girl fairy named Lucinda. She lived in a tulip plant in a field next to a huge forest. Lucinda was the youngest in her family, and was a rather spoiled and self-absorbed little personage. She was also very cute, which was to her advantage in most situations.

One day, a great spring breeze whipped down through the field where Lucinda lived in the tulip with her family. Lucinda was picking berries by herself, and had wandered into the flowers behind her tulip, so she had no one at all to help her when the breeze suddenly became so strong that she was whisked into the air. This is not an unusual happening. In fact, this very thing had happened to Lucinda’s own father when he was a young fairy. Lucinda’s mother had a habit of thanking her lucky stars whenever anyone brought up this subject, because she would never have met Lucinda’s father had he not dropped out of the air when she was nineteen.

Lucinda had time to think about this as she blew along over the field. Being somewhat confident in herself, she felt that, as long as she landed somewhere in the field, she would either be able to find her way home, or, one of the many fairies who considered themselves her friend would take her back where she belonged. Lucinda’s ease of mind began to fade away suddenly however, as she saw that she was being swept toward the far end of the field at an alarming speed.

As Lucinda got closer and closer to the field’s edge, she turned around for one last look at the big wood and the place where she thought her tulip was, just in case she never saw it again. It really was a lovely day, she thought as a big tear rolled down her cheek. Of course, she had never known how pretty it was from this view before; but then she was only a little fairy and had not done many very exciting things in her life anyway. One thing Lucinda got more and more excited about as she lost all sight of her field was that she would definitely be doing a lot of new things soon. After all, everyone knew that most fairies who blew away almost never came back home, except for visits maybe when they were much older. She sure hoped that whatever she was doing next would be really exciting.

The strong breeze eventually died down, over an area that Lucinda (of course) had never seen before. Rushing along below her and to the left was what she thought was a stream. She had heard about those, but to her previous disappointment, had never seen any. She kind of liked the little yellow flowers that grew on the bank above the stream. As Lucinda thought about how she’d like to land in them, she dropped out of the wind onto the ground, but not on the flowers. She landed with an “oof!” that made her stand up quickly to make sure no one was looking.

To her dismay, a tall, stern-looking fairy guard had been looking, and stood up from his post in the flowers and cleared his throat at her. She ventured a throat-clearing back at him, just in case he hadn’t planned to be nice to her. Then he said, “Little girl, come with me,” just like that, without even asking her name. She told him, “I’m Lucinda,” just as she decided to “come with him” after all, which she did mostly because she suddenly felt like being agreeable to him.

The guard didn’t seem to be very impressed that her name was Lucinda, but he smiled a little at her, just to be decent, she supposed, and told her where she was. “You are in the realm of King Lucius, lord of hill and stream. As a Foundfairy, you will be assigned the job of servant or maid in his hall. That is your appropriate position until one: you are claimed, two: you come of age and responsibility to be eligible for citizenship, or three: you are needed elsewhere. You shall be assigned a room and a particular area of work. If you are found suitable, you perhaps will serve the noblefairies or even the king in due time.” As Lucinda listened in astonishment and indignation, they walked and came to a hole in the ground where another guard met them and let them pass.

Lucinda felt sure that she had never heard of anything like this before. How rude—not even asking her how her ride was or where she came from, before taking over her life for the next who-knows-how-long! She had hoped for at least an offer of a nice family to stay with, as was the custom at home.

As she was thinking all this, the guard brought her down the tunnel (as it turned out to be), and they entered a well-lit hall, where many fairies of all sorts rushed about. The guard took her down the hall to the kitchen, where Lucinda saw another Foundfairy (she assumed) bending over a huge tub filled with dirty dishes. As they walked in, Lucinda continued to look at the fairy boy doing the dishes, while a voice behind her talked with the guard. Lucinda was filled with disgust. Surely they didn’t expect her to like doing that! She turned around. The guard had left, and she stood next to a plump fairy lady who was obviously in charge of the kitchen. The lady told her a bunch of stuff about her new job. Lucinda realized with only a little satisfaction that, as usual, she had been right—they didn’t expect her to like doing that, but then she realized she had been wrong, too, because she assumed they cared about what she liked. Lucinda was told that she would begin working now, and that the aprons were right over there.

Lucinda got to work. The fairy boy turned out to be pretty nice. He showed her how to scrub the dishes, and then he showed her how to rinse and dry them. They talked some, and Lucinda was shocked to realize that he might turn out to be a good friend, even though he was just a servant boy. Lucinda also saw that he was happy, which didn’t make sense to her since he was still just a servant boy. Even though she was glad that he could be her friend, she didn’t feel comfortable because she didn’t think anybody doing this kind of work should be happy. She would have to think about that, and see what else he was like.

That night Lucinda was assigned a room, just like the guard had said. She was a little irritated because it wasn’t near as airy as her tulip room had been, but she saw that it wasn’t going to help if she said anything, so she was quiet. She was so quiet that she didn’t even say thank-you, like her mother always said to. Just before Lucinda finally got to sleep, she thought a little more about being happy even when you have to wash lots of dishes, and she even thought about maybe trying to be nicer to people.

In the morning (Lucinda thought it was night still), someone made such a big banging noise on her door that she finally had to get up and stick her head out to tell them to be quiet. The banging fairy was actually Robert, the fairy who was nice to her about dishes. She told him to hush, but Robert said that Lucinda had to get up now, and also that he had been banging a very long time. He said it in a nice way, though, so she didn’t feel too embarrassed. When Lucinda finally made it to the kitchen, the director lady gave her a look that made Lucinda wish she had heard the banging earlier. After Lucinda ate some gross food, she had to help Robert with dishes again. They did dishes until lunchtime, when Lucinda was allowed to take a break. Lucinda had to go to the bathroom really bad, too, so it was a good thing the break came when it did. Before she left, though, Robert told her which way she could go to get outside. He said he couldn’t come out, though, because he had to go and mop up a spill. After lunch, they had to do dishes again, and Robert told Lucinda that she was the only other Foundfairy in the whole hall since he had gotten there, and that was two years ago. Lucinda thought that maybe it was a good thing she came, because now she could be Robert’s friend.

Later on, Lucinda learned something that made her feel like she would definitely start being nicer to people. Robert was gone helping somebody carry stuff, and Lucinda overheard a cook talking about how “that new girl was supposed to clean up the big spill, but she was outside and Robert did it instead.” Lucinda knew that Robert was trying to make her work easier, and she realized that he probably even knew that she had never worked like that before.

Lucinda slept well that night because she was more exhausted than she had ever been in her life, and she planned to get up earlier to be ready on time. She did not want anybody to have to knock on her door a lot. This time, just before she fell asleep, Lucinda thought about her family. She missed her mom. She missed her dad. She missed her little sister, and she even sort of missed her older brother, whom she usually found exceedingly irritating. People were usually nicer to him than her, even though she was a whole lot cuter than he was. Recently, she had begun to think maybe it was because he was such a nice guy. Then she fell asleep and stayed that way until early the next morning when there was another big racket outside that got her up on time.

Instead of being happy that she was on time, though, she was in a grumpy mood. Her back hurt. Her hands hurt. Her neck hurt. Lucinda was just plain sick of washing dishes! How did Robert ever survive as long as he did?! Lucinda knew that she was supposed to be being nice to people, especially Robert, who was so nice to her, but she could hardly stand the thought of being nice when she felt so bad. So, she was a snappy grump all morning. That day at lunchtime, Robert was able to eat outside, and they talked some. Lucinda knew that Robert was really good at being cheerful, so she asked him about it. And this is what he said: “Lucinda, before I became a Foundfairy, I lived on a farm. I had to do a lot of work there to help my family have food. When I came here, I had to work a lot too, but I was used to it, so I didn’t mind so much. But, the most important thing that helps me be happy is that I know a really cool guy who changed my heart and lives inside it now. Now, because it makes him happy, I am cheerful when I work. He helps me to be able to be cheerful.” Lucinda wasn’t all the way sure about everything he said, but she told Robert she thought she probably needed to talk to that guy because it looked like she was going to be working in the hall for a long time. Then Robert showed her how to pray, and she met him, and sure enough, her heart got changed around too.

Lucinda was at the hall for a long time. She worked very hard every day, and even after she got used to it, sometimes her back still hurt. Knowing Robert’s heart friend made it tons easier, though, because she knew it made him happy when she was sweet to everybody. Lucinda was so sweet and such a good worker that she sometimes didn’t just work in the kitchen, but she served food to the noblefairies when they came to visit. Eventually Lucinda even served King Lucius, because she was so nice to be around. Everybody liked her. She was such a good worker that when she was old enough, she was allowed to become a citizen of the hill and stream country.

Even after such a long time, Lucinda still missed her family, so after she became a citizen, King Lucius let her go home for a month. The trip was long and hard because she had to walk back instead of floating like last time. When Lucinda finally got home, her mother and sister cried, and she cried, and her dad’s eyes were sparkly. She got to go visit her brother, who lived in another plant with his wife and little boys. After a month of wonderful visiting, Lucinda had to start back to her new home. After she had walked out of sight, her mom told her dad that Lucinda sure had changed a lot. Her dad nodded, and his eyes kept sparkling.

When Lucinda got back to the hall, she kept up her hard work and always tried to be a friend to the people around her. Everybody was glad she was back, but Robert was especially glad.

One day, Robert was eating lunch with Lucinda, and after a few minutes of being quiet and looking at the sky, he looked at Lucinda and told her something very special. Robert said that he would be the happiest fairy ever if Lucinda would marry him. Lucinda said she felt the same way about Robert. It was very special. They got married soon and they lived happily ever after.

Fairies are a lot like people.

The end.