A Dreadful Fairy Book

by Jon Etter

  “Ve haf regular feast, mein friends!” the wulver laughed, taking a step toward the Professor. “Maybe ve eat pixie first unt haf brownie for dessert, ja?”

  “How-how-how ’bout s-some e-e-enter-t-t-tainment f-first,” the Professor stuttered. He began to dance a lively jig, skipping and hopping about, yet with a wonderful grace to it, the sort of gracefulness that can only be achieved if you have legs like a cricket and knees that bend backwards. If you’ve ever seen someone with legs like these dance, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, I highly recommend you widen your circle of friends a bit and expose yourself to more diverse people and experiences.

  The fairy gang exchanged puzzled and amused looks before moving to capture the pixie. He danced nimbly out of their way, opened his mouth, and, after a few stutters, began to sing in a beautiful, lilting manner:

  Hey nonny hey,

  Come and play, come and play.

  Hey nonny hey,

  Do as I say.

  Hey nonny ho,

  Time to go, time to go.

  Hey nonny ho,

  Know that it’s so.

  Hey, nonny, hee,

  Come with me, come with me.

  Hey, nonny, hee,

  Let’s go to the sea.

  Shade was mesmerized by the pixie’s singing. What a beautiful voice! She smiled serenely. I wish I could listen to it always! And yes, it is time to go play by the sea! Hey nonny ho, let’s go!

  Shade smiled at the gang and Ginch, all of whom—goblin twins, wulver, spriggan, and Ginch—smiled back, looking just as peaceful and pleased as she. The Professor spun around and pranced away from the fire into the darkness of the night, repeating his song as he went. Oh good! Shade thought when she saw everyone else was also skipping along after the Professor. We can all go play by the sea together! What fun!

  The Professor sang and skipped, trilled and twirled, piped and pranced, crooned and cavorted, until they reached the edge of a high cliff overlooking the sea. Well, this will be a lovely place to play! Shade nodded appreciatively at the lush grass and the lofty view.

  Shade’s desire to play, however, came to an abrupt end as the Professor suddenly stopped singing and dancing. He faced them all with his back to the ocean, the cliff edge less than a foot behind him, then stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry while thumbing his nose.

  The Sluagh gang growled, to which the Professor responded by turning around and wiggling his behind at them. With cries of rage and unrepeatable insults, they charged at the pixie. Just before they could grab him, the Professor launched himself over their heads. Speeding past him, the wulver flew over the cliff’s edge, followed by hyena-headed Laffer who had almost stopped short when his twin Gaffer slammed into him, sending them both tumbling painfully down the rocky cliffs to join their lupine companion in the dark waters below.

  Only the spriggan halted in time, but that did him little good when the Professor sprang back and kicked him with both feet in back of the knees. Struggs flailed wildly as he tipped over the edge and landed on a jagged patch of rocks. There was a popping sound and the spriggan went sailing erratically through the air and then eventually out over the water with green, foul-smelling gas shooting out a hole in his side with a loud, continuous, farty BRAAAAP! When he was nearly out of view, the sound finally ended. A moment later, there was a quiet little splash.

  Shade and Ginch turned to see the Professor panting, grinning with the tip of his tongue sticking out. Ginch threw his arms around him. “Ha-ha! You save-a us!” He stopped hugging and held the pixie at arms’ length. “’Ey, how come in all of the years you my partner you no tell-a me you can-a talk?”

  The Professor shrugged. “Y-you n-n-never asked.”

  Shade had stood back this whole time watching the two but couldn’t contain herself any longer. She threw her arms around them both. “I’m so happy to see you! After all the mean things I said to you, you still came and freed me!”

  “We figure we owe you,” Ginch replied. “Plus, the Professor, he take-a the shine to you. Me, I no mind-a you company too much.”

  “Thanks,” Shade smirked. “I guess I don’t mind your company too much either.”

  The Professor whistled and pointed back toward the campfire. “B-b-baby?”

  “The baby!” The three sprinted back to the campsite to find the baby curled up asleep in a corner of the cage. Together the three slowly tipped the cage over.

  “Okay, we have to carry him back to his house,” Shade said. “Professor, you carry the end with the head; Ginch, you take the middle; I’ll get the feet.”

  Ginch made a face and shook his head. “Oh no. I no take-a the stinky part.”

  Shade and the Professor put their hands under their respective ends of the baby. “It’s a baby—every part of it’s the stinky part. Just grab and lift.”

  Carefully the fairies lifted the baby over their heads, carried him back to his cottage, and placed him in front of the door. Ginch raised his hand to knock, but Shade stopped him. “Wait! We can’t just knock on the door.”

  “Why not?”

  “The parents are humans. They won’t be able to see us—they’ll just find their baby on the ground. Plus there’s a changeling, which the parents will be able to see, that looks just like their son in the baby’s bed.”

  Ginch scratched his head. “Maybe if we tell-a the changeling-a-ding that the jig’s-a up, he’ll skee-deedle.”

  The Professor nodded vigorously then dragged the two over to the window of the baby’s room.

  “There’s no way that he’ll—” Shade began to object but was cut off by the Professor grabbing her around the legs and tossing her up and into the open window. She just managed to open her wings in time to keep from crashing on the floor. Instead, she was knocked to the floor when Ginch’s body flew through the window right after her.

  Ginch got up, dusted himself off, and walked to the crib. He pointed a finger in the cooing baby’s face. “All right! Hit-a the bricks, fatcha-coota-matchca, babyface!”

  The “baby” reached up, grabbed him by the ears, and slammed his head against the side of the crib. Ginch staggered back as the changeling stood up, grabbed his cigar from the nightstand, and took a puff while leaning on the side of the crib. “Aw yeah?” he said in his gruff, gravelly voice. “Who’s gonna make me, huh?”

  In the next room, Shade heard a knock and then someone open a door. A woman’s voice cried out, “Me baby! What’s me baby doin’ out here?”

  “We’re going to make you, slug slime!” Shade said. “You better jump out that window before that mother comes in and catches you!”

  “Aw, horse apples!” the changeling sneered as he chomped on his cigar. “I can out baby any stoopid baby! When I’m done wit’ my act, she’ll chuck her own brat out dat windah!”

  The Professor vaulted through the window and landed as silently and gracefully as a cat. In one hand he held a tin cup with something rattling inside. He pointed at the changeling with his free hand and then hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

  “Oh, you wanna piece a me too, pixie-pants!” The changeling puffed his cigar and balled up his fists. “Awright, come get some, youse mooks! I’ll pound tha lot a yas!”

  The Professor held up the tin cup and rattled its contents. With a wicked grin on his face, he flung it at the changeling—an iron nail. The changeling shrieked and wailed and swore as it struck him in the chest, causing his flesh to sizzle and blister. The changeling leapt out the window, swearing revenge and just plain swearing.

  “You get-a the nail from the barn?” Ginch asked. The Professor nodded. “Ha-ha! That’s-a good! Okay, we got-a—”

  Just then the doorknob started to turn. “Okay, as long as we stay out of the humans’ way, they shouldn’t see us or hear us,” Shade whispered. “So up against the wall, and we’ll get out of here with the baby’s parents none the wiser.”

  The door opened and there, la
ntern light streaming in around her, stood a fair-skinned blond woman wearing a brown peasant dress. One hand clutched her infant to her chest; the other brandished an iron fireplace poker. “Roight, ye wee folk! Which one o’ ye’s been muckin’ about wi’ me little Bran?”

  “You can see us?” Shade gasped.

  “‘Course oi can see ye,” she snorted. “Drank a glass o’ milk backwards after refusin’ to do me chores first thing on Saint Bartleby the Unwillin’s Day when oi were ten. Been able to see ye wee boogers ever since. Now what ye be doin’ here?”

  “The goblins, they take-a the bambino!” Ginch said, raising his hands above his head. “We bring-a him back and chase-a off the changeling-a-ding they put-a in-a the crib. He scream-a the bloody murder, he do-a! You gotta believe-a us!”

  “Well, maybe oi believe ye and maybe oi don’t, but ye better believe oi want ye to clear out o’ me house. Ye can sleep in the bairn for the noight if ye want but oi’ll give ye a taste o’ dis poker if ye’re still ’round when mornin’ come. Now sod off, the lot o’ ye!”

  Needing no second warning, the three scrambled out the window, with only the Professor pausing to blow the baby a kiss on the way.

  “And take yer bloody cigar with ye!” the mother called, chucking it out the window.

  In which expectations are

  unsuccessfully managed and then

  dashed . . .

  “I know we’re going to find the library today. I just know it!” Shade declared cheerfully as they set out immediately at daybreak, partly due to eagerness and partly due to a recently acquired fear of mothers with iron pokers. “I wonder if they’ll have copies of all the books we used to have: The Hasty and Increasingly Poor Choices of Romulus and Julianna by William Shudderpike. And Lee the Harper’s To Murder an Insulting Finch! And—”

  “’Ey, little Sprootshade . . .” Ginch tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

  “Maybe they need a copy of Radishbottom’s book. I could donate mine along with my corrections if they let me stay there. My stuff could be in a library!” Shade’s eyes grew wide. “I wonder how many books they’ve got. Hundreds? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands?”

  FWEEET! The Professor’s shrill whistle startled Shade enough to quiet her for a second. The pixie pointed at Ginch.

  “Oh! Sorry!” Shade smiled, continuing to walk. “Were you saying something?”

  “Yeah.” Ginch looked at the ground. “I just wonder . . . you know . . . what if-a the library, uh . . . it’s-a no there no more?”

  “What?” Shade halted abruptly, causing the Professor to bump into her.

  “I mean, we have-a the big, big war and—”

  Shade closed her eyes and shook her head. Why is he talking rot? she wondered. “It has to be there.

  “I . . . I just no want-a you to get-a you hopes up too high.” Ginch jammed his hands in his pockets and faced the sea.

  Shade’s face grew hot. She felt betrayed. “The library will be there. They will let me in. Come on, we’re wasting time!”

  Shade stomped off, furious at Ginch for trying to ruin things. Ginch and the Professor exchanged a worried look, then hurried after her. For a long time, the three traveled in silence, hiking along the coast, high atop cliffs and down along pebbly shores. The sun shone brightly in a cloudless, powder blue sky, its light shimmering on the surface of the brilliant turquoise sea as brisk breezes blew inland.

  Shade’s anger with Ginch had abated somewhat when they stopped for a rest and brief morning snack, but she was still annoyed with him. Ginch took his handful of berries and said, “You two relax. I take-a the peek from the hill up-a there.”

  As he walked away, the Professor took from various pockets a notebook, a quill, and an inkwell and began to write furiously. “What are you doing?” Shade asked.

  The Professor tore out the page and handed it to Shade. It read: Don’t be mad. He just doesn’t want you to be disappointed.

  Shade snorted. “What does he know about disappointment? Everything’s either a game or a joke to him.”

  The Professor scribbled another note: That’s what he wants everyone to think. His home was destroyed in one of the wars.

  Shade’s brow furrowed. “But I thought he was just a lazy crook.”

  He is, the Professor wrote. But he loved that cottage and the family in it. He’s never really gotten over the loss.

  Shade looked over at the figure standing at the top of the hill, slightly slouched with his hands jammed in his pockets. Up to this point, Shade had always thought his threadbare, too-tight clothes looked comical; at this moment, however, they struck her as extremely sad. “I had no idea,” she said quietly. “Why didn’t you tell me before? I mean, you can speak. I’ve heard you.”

  The words always get stuck in my throat, he wrote. For me, it’s easier to speak without words.

  “Then why haven’t you written us any notes before?”

  Ginch is the best friend I’ve ever had. I don’t need words, written or spoken, for him to understand me.

  “Sprootshade! ’Ey, little Sprootshade!” Ginch called, rushing down the hill. The Professor stuffed the writing implements into a pocket and crammed the written notes into his mouth and chewed. “The Marble Cliffs! I see-a the Marble Cliffs!”

  There from the top of the hill, Shade saw them: gleaming white cliffs veined with glittering gold and silver rising high above the brilliant blue sea that lapped at its base. She had never seen anything so majestic, so awe-inspiring. She squinted at the cliffs, searching for some glimpse of the library Baba Ingas had told her about. There was no sign of any buildings; the only thing of note was a massive tree that loomed large there. Maybe it’s behind the tree? Shade wondered. Or under it or further along the cliffs? But it’s up there. I know it’s up there.

  Having their long-sought-after goal in sight, the three resumed their trek with the manic energy that comes when a dream seems about to come true. The cold winds that had chilled before now invigorated. Rather than be wearied by the ever-steepening slope as they followed the cliffs, they felt heartened and challenged by it.

  Shade looked at Ginch and the Professor, who followed red-faced and smiling right behind her. They looked just as excited as she was to be nearing the library, yet she knew that neither of them had really wanted to go there. They’re not excited because this is what they want, she realized. They’re excited because this is what I want.

  Shade tried to tell herself that it was the cold breeze that made tears well up in her eyes at that moment, but I’m the narrator of this story, and you are a very astute Reader; so we know better, don’t we?

  “Ginch? Professor?” Shade said as she wiped her eyes. “I never would have made it here if it weren’t for the two of you—”

  Ginch waved a hand dismissively. “Aw, we no help-a much—you would-a managed just-a fine on you own.”

  “That’s not true. I wouldn’t have even made it past Gypsum-upon-Swathmud without you.”

  “Neither would-a we,” Ginch chuckled. The Professor nodded, drew his thumb across his neck, stuck out his tongue, and rolled his eyes back in his head.

  “Look, what I’m trying to say is . . .” Shade looked down at her feet. “Thank you.”

  The ground leveled off as they reached the summit of the Marble Cliffs. “Without you, I never would have made it to the li . . .”

  Shade trailed off and gawped, speechless, at what she saw at the apex of the Marble Cliffs.

  Or, rather, what she didn’t see.

  “You really no need-a to thank us, little Sprootshade,” Ginch said gently. “The library—it’s-a no here.”

  In which the description of the

  chapter is not at all helpful . . .

  We’ve all been disappointed many times in our lives, and so we all know that the biggest disappointments come when we have great expectations that are not met. I believe a fellow named Dickens wrote a book all about this, although the name of
it escapes me at the moment. Now, to better understand Shade’s disappointment at this point in our tale, I’d like you to think about the time that your beloved Aunt Esther—the one who travels to all sorts of exotic locales—gave you those two wrapped presents, which looked exactly the right size to be the Balinese dueling daggers and shrunken head that you had been hounding her about for years, that turned out to be a knitting kit and a souvenir hockey puck from Muncie, Indiana. Now take how you felt as you held in your hands a pair of knitting needles and a puck with “Muncie Flyers” inscribed on the side and multiply it by about a thousand, and you’d come close to feeling the disappointment that Shade felt on top of that cliff that day as she found nothing resembling a library whatsoever.

  This is not to say that the clifftop was completely barren. The tree that they had seen from below was there: an ancient, gnarled oak that towered above them, as wide around as a church, its rough, gray-brown bark overgrown with moss, lichen, and ivy, and its fiery autumnal leaves all but blotting out the sky above them and rustling amongst the patchy grass and twisted, exposed roots beneath their feet. It was the biggest tree any of them had ever seen, and one all but guaranteed to inspire awe in the heart of any who saw it.

  “All there is is this stupid, useless tree!” Shade spat as she whirled about, searching the top of the cliff. “Where’s the dingle-dangle library? Ingas said it would be here!”

  “Maybe . . . maybe we get-a the wrong part of the cliffs?” Ginch suggested hopefully.

  Shade gestured around her. “This is the highest point of the cliffs.”

  The professor whistled, took a pair of binoculars out of his coat, and pointed up.

  “There’s nothing to see!” Shade cried as she collapsed on the ground. “We can see the rest of the cliffs from here, and there is no library.”

  The Professor, who was having trouble finding a good foothold, rounded the trunk until he was out of sight. Ginch sat down next to Shade and put his arm around her.

  “You were right about not getting my hopes up,” Shade sniffed. “I wanted this so badly. And now, after all that I’ve been through—”