Emily and Amber; A Fairy Story

I wrote this story as a gift for my daughter Emily.

Outside, the snow dazzled and sparkled. Inside, it warmed the back, shoulders and dark hair of a beautiful nine year old girl. The pleasant feeling was coupled with the joy she was feeling while reading her favorite book. Her body may have been sitting on the window seat in her sister’s room, but her mind was worlds away…

“Emily, are you coming? Hurry up!” Amber called to her best friend in the next tree over. “We don’t want to be late!”

“I’m coming! Just one more paragraph and I’ll be done with this chapter!” Emily called back, not looking up from her book.

Amber sighed impatiently, tapping her foot so that the leaves on the branch she was standing on trembled to the beat. “It’s not like it’s not her third time through this book,” she muttered to herself.

“Okay, done! I’m coming!” Emily tucked her book safely in the hollow of the tree and stood up. She smoothed out her purple petunia dress and looked around for her shoes. She always kicked her shoes off while she read, which meant she was always looking for her shoes when she was not reading. “Have you seen my…”

“Shoes?” Emily looked up at Amber who was dangling her shoes from her fingers. Emily gave her a sheepish grin as she gracefully lifted herself from her branch with her wings and silently glided to Amber’s branch. “Shanksh,” she said through closed teeth. Amber rolled her eyes with a smile.

Both fairies ascended into the dappled sunlight glinting through the foliage of their forest. They dipped and swirled through the air giggling. As they flew, they were joined one by one by other fairies their age. They waved and greeted many of their friends. “Hi, Cherry!” “Leela! Did you finish that killer math assignment?” “Hey, Chad!” An exceptionally cute fairy by the name of Charles winked at them and set them off into another gale of giggles.

As they approached the wide, tall Oak tree, they slowed in their flight. Mrs. Wood smiled at her class as they alighted on the front steps of the Greenwood School for Young Fairies and ran on tip toes to their seats. “Welcome, Everyone! I trust you had a wonderful weekend.”

She was greeted by lots of nodding heads and murmured, “Um-hmm”s.

“I hope you were all able to finish your homework,” she said brightly. A few people bit their lips and looked down because they had obviously forgotten. “Not to worry,” she said pleasantly. “We will only have time for a few of you to report today, so those that aren’t finished have another day, but please be prepared to present your findings tomorrow.” Several sighs and relieved expressions could be heard throughout the room. “Now, who would like to be first to present today on something in the forest that changes?”

Charles looked around and then sat up straight and raised his hand. “Charles!” Mrs. Wood’s voice held surprise. “Please stand at the front of the classroom and tell us about your findings.”

Charles stood and shuffled to the front of the classroom in his moss green shorts and short sleeved shirt. His sandaled feet made no sound on the grass that grew like carpet on the floor. He ran his fingers through his sandy colored curly hair. His blue-green eyes were still looking at the floor when he reached the front of the room and turned to face his classmates. He smiled as he looked up. “When I was flying home from school on Friday, thinking about this assignment, I decided to fly over the lake and take the long way home. I didn’t want to get eaten by a jumping fish or anything, so I stuck close to the edge of the lake and flew around and around it. After about the third time around, I decided to stop and get a closer look at a moving cloud I had noticed under the water. I landed on a cattail and peered down into the water. As I watched, the cloud moved and shifted around and I could see that it was made up of a whole bunch of really tiny critters. I kept watching and I could see the ones on the edge of the cloud and I realized they were little tadpoles!” Charles grinned and held his fingers up to show how tiny they were. Even to a fairy, who are much smaller than we are, these tadpoles were pretty small.

“So, anyway, as I sat there swaying on that cattail, I realized that these little guys used to be eggs and pretty soon, they’ll be frogs. Pretty cool change, right, Mrs. W?”

“Yes, Charles. Great job! Later today, we’ll be starting to write about our findings about the change around us. Really great.” Mrs. Wood leaped (with the help of her wings) to the front of the classroom and wrote ‘Tadpole to Frog’ on the sanded wall of the tree with her pollen chalk. She turned around as Charles took his seat again. “Anyone else?”

Emily tentatively raised her hand. Looking timid, she went to the front of the room when Mrs. Wood smiled at her encouragingly.

“Well,” she started softly. She glanced at Amber who winked encouragingly and mouthed “Speak up!” Emily laced her fingers together behind her back and stood up straight and tall. Taking a deep breath, she started again, “On Saturday, my sisters Becca and Grace and I discovered an unopened chrysalis hanging outside our bedroom window. Last week, we noticed that a caterpillar had been chewing the edges of the leaves around our house. I guess she picked our branch to build a chrysalis because it is nice and sunny, and sheltered from the wind. She just sort of hooked herself on there, hanging upside down. The chrysalis is grey and it looks like layers and layers of paper wrapped around her long body. My mother said they stay in their chrysalis for about 10 days and I figure she’s been in there for about 8 days.”

“You know, Emily, that sounds like a great field trip for our class if we could watch your butterfly emerge. How does that sound?”

Emily nodded vigorously without speaking. Mrs. Wood chuckled. “Alright, we’ll have to see about that. Good work, Emily! Sounds like you’ve got the makings for a great write-up, too! Good luck!” Emily flitted to her desk while Mrs. Wood wrote ‘Caterpillar to Butterfly’ underneath Charles’ project name.

Amber was practically dancing in her seat, bouncing up and down and waving her arm in the air. “Yes, Amber, would you like to be next?” Mrs. Wood smiled.

Amber jumped out of her seat and skipped to the front of the room. She loved having all eyes on her and she began to talk so fast, Mrs. Wood had to stop her and remind her to speak slowly and distinctly. She started again.

“I was flying through the forest with my brother, Mikey and my Dad and we flew farther than we had ever been before.  My Dad was telling us all about what the forest looked like when he was a kid. He said it went on and on without ever ending… or at least as far as he knew. He said he never thought it had an edge. Right after he married my Mom, though, there was this huge fire!” Mrs. Wood nodded sadly, remembering. “It burned, like, EVERYTHING! It almost got all the way here to our small town. Everyone was getting ready to move as it got closer and closer.

“Then he told us about how the whole town, every single fairy there was, went out and combined their magic and stopped the fire. He said it was like a wall of magic that wouldn’t let the fire pass. He said it took all of their energy and they stayed there for, like, a whole day, just keeping up their magic wall. When the fire finally died, they were all so exhausted, they just dropped to the ground right there and slept. As they slept, the plants underneath them grew up around them and kept them safe while they slept. When they woke up, they were laying where it was plush and green, but right in front of them everything was black an charred. Everything had been killed and burned. He cried a lot when he told us about that part.”

“Amber, I hate to interrupt your fascinating story, but I was wondering if you could tell us about the part that made you think about the assignment. What was the change that you wanted to document in your project?” Mrs. Wood said kindly.

“Well, when we stopped at the edge of the forest on Saturday, it wasn’t black anymore. There was green stuff draped on everything that used to be black. There aren’t any tall trees there anymore, but there are baby trees and lots and lots of green stuff growing everywhere!” Amber was making big gestures with her arms and jumping around to show just how much green there had been there.

“Amber, that is a very ambitious project you’ve got in mind, there. But I think you can do it. Wonderful idea!” Mrs. Wood added ‘Forest after Fire’ to the list on the board. “I think we’ve got a great start for our projects, Class. I want you all to keep thinking about what you’d like to learn more about and write your project on. For now, let’s take a break at recess. Please clear your desks and enjoy your break!”

“Emily?! Emily, where are you?”

Emily became aware of the sun again on her back. “Huh?” Carpet was on the floor instead of grass. She shrugged her shoulders to be sure there were no wings fluttering behind her. Next to her on the window seat, Amber smiled her same smile. Was that a wink? Emily looked again at her favorite doll. “Did you just wink at me?” she whispered.

“Em? Come to the living room for Family Home Evening!” called her mother. Emily shoved her bookmark in her book, grabbed Amber and trotted off to spend time with her real life family, with a big grin on her face.