I’ll always remember the day I visited that old watermill by the river bank. At first I was excited because my friends, Tory, Phil and George, were with me. We were wandering around the park and ended in the deep, dark forest. We had been there before, so it felt alright.

It was almost midday and Tory said we should stop wandering and find a place to eat our lunch-just some toasts were available and water as well. Phil thought that the old watermill would be great, so we went there. We had lunch and made much noise but, who could ever be bothered? We were alone, right?

George had that stupid idea! He dived in the river while he knew he just had lunch! He couldn’t get out of the water even though he was close to the surface. I dived too, to rescue him, but he seemed very upset when he saw me coming for him. Finally, we pulled him out of the water. He felt cold and had a strange look in his eyes. “What happened to you?” Tory asked. “Goblins, fairies, everywhere…” he answered “They‘re all around us! Can’t you see them? Now they’re coming for me!” he shouted and tried to leave. Phil stopped him. “I think you drank too much water” Phil told him.

It was strange because I started to see weird shapes and figures behind leaves and stones, too but I thought it was my imagination. Fairies do not exist. Soon after that we realized we couldn’t calm George down. He was truly upset! He begged us to return to the city. We agreed. Another strange thing was that some of our things were missing: Phil’s car key, Tory’s cup and my mobile phone. We searched the whole area, but they were gone. Even inside the watermill we searched, though we knew we hadn’t been there.

Anyway, we made it to our homes by afternoon and George calmed down a bit. It was I that felt weird now. I heard a voice singing, coming through the wall: “Fairy’s bath, fairy’s bath, fall inside and see the path…” “I think I’m crazy” I told myself. But the voice kept on singing the whole night. Of course I couldn’t sleep. The next morning, I went to school and told my friends what I had heard. George said he couldn’t sleep either because a strange tiny fairy had been jumping on his forehead all night! “He’s flipped!” Tory commented.

By 11 o’ clock I had discovered that if you dive in a lake or river where a fairy takes its bath, you can see the fairies all around you, hear their voices and talk to them! I talked to my friends and we decided to go back to the old watermill and try to stop those fairies from torturing us!

It was early midday when we arrived, and the sun was burning us, so Tory and Phil were brave enough to dive in the river. When they started to see what George and I could see, they finally believed our words. Different kinds of fairies were all around us. Fairies with wings, with wood-like skin, leaves instead of hair, with pink, green or deep blue eyes!

A winged fairy approached us and whispered in George’s ear: “Give your hair to our Lady and she will forgive you!”

“But I’ve done nothing wrong!” George complained.

“Do it!” the tiny fairy pitched.

Suddenly, all the fairies formed a circle around us and kept coming closer. “Now you all owe something to our Lady…You, the red-haired girl,” said the fairy and pointed to Tory, “Give my Lady some of your eye lashes now!”

“What’s with you and hair?” asked Phil. “Is your lady bold?” We all laughed our heads off, but those creatures were strangely transformed into vicious goblins who wanted some pay back for our lame words. “OK that was a joke.” I explained.

All of a sudden, forks, knives, needles and other deadly weapons appeared in their hands! They were attacking us! I don’t want to remember the pain I suffered, and neither do my friends.

They forced us to give way to the river bank and we were absolutely panicked! A bunch of microscopic flies could make us surrender to their will! What could a larger fairy do to us? We didn’t want to think about that possibility. There, without a reason, our persecutors pulled back and disappeared. What was happening? We were supposed to be able to see those creatures. Some water dropped on my back. I turned around to see what was going on.

“AAaaa…” that was all I could say. My companions turned around… We saw the ugliest image ever, standing before us!  “Hhellooo mmy frrieendss!” that thing said. It was a tall fairy, with pale skin full of spots and scratches. Its hair was a mix of rotten grey grass, broken branches and messed differently colored hair. A huge mouth full of dirty, yellow teeth was doing its best to give us a smile.

Of course we ran as fast as our feet could take us, but that fairy’s long arms grabbed us and pulled us close to it. “Ii need your help. Mmy nname is Claudy. Ii used to be the mmost beautiful ffairy.” “What can we do about it?” Phil complained. “You’re going to kill us, I know that” he continued, certain about the fairy’s reply. Claudy laughed! “I only need you to give me some things to undo the spell” “Yeah? Like what?” George asked her furiously. He really loved his ‘dreadlock rasta’ hairstyle.

“Some of your hairrrr would do” said Claudy and reached for his hair. George had no time to react! The fairy took out of the river her scissors and cut a dreadlock off his hair. She did the same to Tory’s eyelashes. “Yes, ivvorrry black and gingerrr hhair!” Claudy blared! My friend’s hair grew up in an instance. “Now you!”. She turned to me. “Your skin…”I froze. The fairy held a knife. She grabbed my arm violently and forced the shinning blade in my skin! I was surprised to find out it felt like a soft and gentle touch. No pain was there. I recovered immediately and so did Phil, since the fairy had pulled out some of his teeth.

“Are you the tooth fairy?” he asked ironically.

“Well, you know I used to be” Claudy answered. She had that miserable look in her cruel and nasty eyes. We almost felt sorry for her. “Why do you think that the last 30 years almost every child had to wear braces? It’s not only because of cakes and sweets! They’ve always been available! Braces were invented because I was missing! Why do you think the fairy never came for your teeth?” she continued.

From that moment on, I convinced myself I started losing it. To tell the truth, I was absolutely certain! “I don’t get the spell and I don’t get you! Why on earth did you do this to us and why the hell do you exist?” I yelled! Claudy didn’t react to my words. She obviously couldn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘hell’. She finally spoke. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone of you. You accidentally swam in my bath. It was an opportunity for me to undo the spell. As you can tell, nobody ever comes here for a swim. Please put me out of my misery!” she begged.

“You know, Claudy, we can’t trust you that easily. How can we be sure you won’t harm anyone?” George stated. “You must explain to us what happened to our belongings and why you need to use our hair!”

“Well,” the fairy started, “as you see I have no hair. I used to have long, dark hair. That’s why I took some of your ivory hair. My eyelashes were as red as the burning fire. My skin was clear and shinning and I had a bright smile and wonderful teeth. A wicked pixie cursed me. He really loved iron and every kind of metal. He was the one who helped this doctor invent braces! You see, everything was against me! First I lost my beauty and then my job! I’m extremely ugly and unemployed!” Claudy cried. Her tears fell like the rain on a homeless person’s butt. That was pathetic.

We all felt some sort of compassion for that poor, ugly fairy, so we thought she should be free. After a while the tiny fairies appeared before us and gave us back our things. “You will be fully rewarded for helping our Lady. Follow us and she will come.” One of them said to us. Hesitatingly, we followed them. They led us to a wonderful garden, full of wild roses, laurels, daffodils, blue bells, other kinds of flowers and bushes. Claudy came a few minutes later but she had totally changed. Our eyes could see one of nature’s wonders walking among us, tall, divine, a true beauty. “You can’t judge a book by its cover” I mumbled.

“This is my home children. You’re welcome any time here” she said. “What happened to the evil pixie?” Phil dared to ask. “Oh, he died a few years ago. That’s why I didn’t need any human sacrifice to break the spell” she kindly explained. “He had an accident. He was trying to help the doctor with his teeth, but believe me, he never had a gentle touch. The doctor overreacted because of the pain he felt, and hit the pixie which ended up in the toilet. As a result, its wings were wet, it couldn’t fly. A young boy, that could be you,” she pointed to George, “came in the toilet, peed and flushed his urine along with the pixie.”

“Poor creature! What a miserable way to die!” Tory told herself, out loud. We looked at her with the eyes of a predator about to catch its game. “If that pixie was alive…” I started but I never spoke the rest of my thoughts before that fairy. Soon after that, Claudy decided she wanted to be left alone and focus on her current problems. She had to be back on the game and search for the next tooth lying under the pillow.

“What about our reward? You promised!” George asked angrily the winged fairy we had already met. “Your reward is that! Our Lady is back! That should be a reward for everyone!” was the reply. “You ugly, little fraud!!” George screamed and caught the fairy in his hand so tight, that it was almost squeezed to death. “Enough! You humans deserve a huge reward for what you did. Go back to the water mill and dig a hole as deep as you can out of the front door. Your reward will be there. I’m afraid your ‘gift’ must be taken back.” Claudy said and everyone calmed down. George released the fairy. “Thank you” Claudy said.

She and her companions started to fade away, until they became transparent and then disappeared. Our gift, the ability to see fairies was gone for ever. I don’t think we will ever miss it! We did as Claudy said. We dug a hole one meter deep and two wide.  Nothing was there. By sunset it was miraculously filled with gold, diamonds and silver! We were the happiest people on the earth!

We went back home with a huge smile on our faces. The next day we quit school. Tory took her share and became a famous explorer. She presents her own shows on TV. She’s been everywhere on this planet.

Phil went out to be one of the world famous dare devils and has starred in countless movies. He lives in Hollywood now and makes 1.000.000.000.000 dollars a year. He now owns 15 studios and Warner Bros as well.

George started his own cult in Mexico. A few thousands have converted to this new religion. Mostly they are people who believe in supernatural phenomena. They pay huge sums of money to take part in the rituals and they have founded the “Tooth Fairy Institute” which manufactures braces.

As for me, I bought some land and built houses, factories, ports and boosted the local economy by allowing visitors into one of my houses, the Great Pyramid. I also have my cute little army which makes sure visitors come and go safely in my land. I also do some trade with aliens from planet 9. They usually buy condoms and sand.

There is no moral in this story. Just take the money whenever you can and spend it on whatever you want.

The end

Ελένη

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