by E. D. Baker
“That’s a good question, and I’ve been wondering it myself a lot lately,” said Cory. “If I had a cobblestone for every time I was close to quitting I could pave the road from my house to yours. Say, if I quit and I was no longer working nights, I wouldn’t have to sleep during the day and could start doing things with my friends. I’ve been dying to go swimming in the lake. Would you go with me on your next day off? Or we could go bowling at Thunder Alley or—”
Daisy shook her head. “I already told Nimzy that I’d come watch him race on my next day off.”
“Who is Nimzy?” Cory asked.
“Nimzy Crod is my new boyfriend. I’m sure I told you about him. He races solar cycles on the semi-amateur circuit. He’s the best racer there is; he told me so himself. One of these days he’s going to start winning. I just know it!”
“I thought you were seeing Zigfreed,” said Cory. “What happened to him?”
“I caught him looking in the mirror one time too many. Never date a boy who is prettier than you are and won’t let you forget it.”
Cory sighed. Daisy went through boyfriends faster than some flower fairies changed their gowns. If only Cory could have a vision that would show her the right person for Daisy.
A lot of Cory’s classmates had come into their powers and abilities when they were in Junior Fey School. Flower fairies were suddenly able to make flowers grow, goblin children could speak in any language, and brownies conveyed magic into the things they made with their hands. When Cory was in Junior Fey School, she started having blurry visions of couples. Occasionally, she saw her friends. Sometimes she saw people she didn’t know. Usually the vision was so out of focus that she couldn’t tell who they were. Along with these “visions” came the feeling that the people she saw were supposed to be together. The one time she told this to two of her friends, they thought she was crazy and laughed at her. Since then, she hadn’t told anyone about her visions.
The finch in the nest on the mantel chirped six times before settling back on her eggs. “Oh, no!” cried Daisy. “It’s six o’clock! I’m going to be late for work! Who knew being empathetic would take so long. I’ll see you at the next rehearsal!”
“Bye,” Cory called as her friend darted out the window.
Another ping! drew Cory’s gaze to the woven reed basket on the shelf by the door. Two envelopes appeared in the basket, both bearing the flying-tooth insignia of the Tooth Fairy Guild. One would tell her the amount she’d earned for the previous day’s collection; the other would be for her mother. Confident that her haul from the night before would be better than this night’s, Cory ripped open her envelope. The knot in her stomach grew more painful. Even though she’d collected over twice as many teeth the night before, the guild had paid her very little, which meant that the teeth she’d just collected would bring her almost nothing.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Cory muttered.
Her mother, Delphinium, was a tooth fairy herself. She had promised Cory that being a tooth fairy was the most fulfilling job a fairy could hold and that the prestige of being a member of the Tooth Fairy Guild, or TFG as most people called it, would more than make up for the lousy hours. Unfortunately, Cory didn’t find the job at all fulfilling. She’d told her mother that rewarding children for losing their teeth didn’t really help anyone. And if there was prestige, Cory had yet to notice it. Because of the awful hours she had to work, Cory had almost no social life. She worked when everyone else had off, and had off when her friends were at work. The only good thing about the job was that her hours matched those of her boyfriend, Walker, a sandman-in-training. If she quit her job, that was really the only thing she was going to miss.
Cory had started her internship with her mother as soon as she graduated from Junior Fey School. It had been long and boring, with random moments of sheer terror when a cat chased her or a child came close to finding her. Even though she had mastered everything the guild had to teach, including the supersecret tricks of the tooth-fairy trade, none of it had made her any better at her job or like it any more.
Cory had told her mother countless times how much she disliked the job and that she wanted to quit, but all that had done was start arguments that no one seemed to win. After promising her mother that she would give the job a chance, she had stayed with it far longer than she wanted to and given it her best—until now. No matter what her mother said, Cory wasn’t going to dedicate her life to a job she hated where she wouldn’t even earn as much as a first-year flower fairy. Now, after all her hard work following the decrees of the TFG and trying to meet her mother’s expectations, Cory had had enough. She couldn’t face one more night looking for children’s teeth.
The finch on the mantel chirped softly. It was a quarter past six; her mother would be home soon. If Cory was going to resign, she had to do it now before her mother could start lecturing her. Snatching a fresh leaf from her mother’s desk, Cory broke off the end of an ink-plant stem and wrote her letter of resignation.
I quit!
Sincerely,
Corialis Feathering
Tucking the letter in an envelope, Cory wrote TFG on the outside and set it in the woven basket. She knew that she was in for the biggest argument of her life.
Chapter 3
Cory’s mother was lugging a heavy tooth bag when she flew through the window. After dropping the bag on the table, she fluttered to the middle of the room. The air shimmered and she returned to her normal size, just a little shorter than her daughter.
Cory sighed. She didn’t want to have this conversation now, but she didn’t have any choice if she wanted to tell her mother before the TFG announced that Cory had quit. It was going to be doubly hard because even ordinary conversations with her mother had been strained ever since Cory started working on her own. The two fairies agreed on very little, and they weren’t anything alike, from the way they thought to the way they looked. Other than having the same delicate, pointed ears, they didn’t have much in common. Delphinium’s hair was the same blue as the flower she was named after, like most people born into a flower-fairy family. Cory had dark chocolate–colored hair, which was unusual among fairies. Like the rest of her family, Delphinium had leaf-green eyes. Cory’s eyes were turquoise blue, the same shade as the eyes of the father she had never known.
“Mother, I …,” Cory began.
Ping! Another letter bearing the TFG insignia appeared in the basket, only this time the flying tooth was bright red.
“Just a minute, Cory. I have an urgent message,” said her mother as she reached for the envelope.
Cory watched in disbelief while her mother ripped the envelope open. The TFG couldn’t possibly have notified her already! But when her mother raised her head to glare at her, Cory knew that that was exactly what they had done.
“You quit!” Delphinium said in a horrified voice. “How could you do that? No one quits the Tooth Fairy Guild! We’ve talked about this before! Being a member of the TFG is a lifelong commitment.”
“And I’ve told you that I want to quit I don’t know how many times, but I always let you talk me out of it. This time is different, Mother. I’m not meant to be a tooth fairy. I don’t like it the way you do. Flying around at night collecting teeth is not how I want to spend the rest of my life. I want to do something that matters, something that will make a real difference, something that will help people. Collecting teeth isn’t at all what you said it would be, and I am not going to do it anymore.”
“But the job … The prestige … Being a tooth fairy is one of the most exalted jobs a fairy can hope to earn! Most fairies can only dream of belonging to the TFG!”
“Maybe,” said Cory. “But it’s not my dream. Honestly, Mother, I’ve given the job a chance like I told you I would, but I can’t just—”
Her mother’s eyes had narrowed when her glance fell on the tooth washer that had already finished cleaning Cory’s collection. “How many did you get?” she interrupted, lifting the lid and peering insi
de. “Four! You got only four teeth in an entire night!”
Cory winced as her mother’s voice grew shriller. “I had a bad night.”
“You must not have tried!” Delphinium cried, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation. “You collected more teeth your very first night out!”
“I’m no good at it, Mother. I’ll certainly never be as good as you.”
Delphinium pulled one of the mushroom-shaped stools out from under the table and sat down with a groan. “Good or bad, the Tooth Fairy Guild will never let you quit. You’ve gone through all the levels of training. You’ve learned everything they have to teach you. If you were going to quit, you should have done it before you reached the third level and learned their most guarded secrets. No one outside of the special guilds is supposed to know how to go from our world to the humans’, or pass through solid objects when the job requires it. I was so certain that you would learn to love the job. I just didn’t want to see you throw your life away on some second-rate job as a flower fairy.”
“I never wanted to be a tooth fairy, Mother. If only you had listened to me!”
Delphinium slapped the table so loudly that Noodles, Cory’s pet woodchuck, woke in his basket in the corner, blinking up at them with his big, brown eyes. “Oh, I listened to you, all right! I’ve heard nothing but complaints from you, even though I did my very best teaching you everything I know, but have you ever thanked me or shown any sort of appreciation? I don’t know why I ever bothered. But there’s only one thing you can do now,” she said, getting to her feet. “You have to take a new leaf and write to the guild, telling them that it was a mistake and you didn’t really mean to quit.” Her back was stiff as she strode to her desk and took out a fresh leaf, thrusting it at Cory.
“I’m not doing that!” Cory said, backing away from her mother. “I’m glad I quit and I’m not going to take it back. I’ll see you later. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
“When I’m like what?” her mother called after her as Cory stalked out the front door.
Cory was furious. When her basic tooth-fairy training was over and Cory still didn’t like it, Delphinium had told her that she’d enjoy it once she’d learned all there was to learn. And now that Cory had learned everything, Delphinium had the nerve to say that it was too late to quit, that Cory should have left the guild sooner. As far as Cory was concerned, saying that prestige was more important than how much one liked a job or how fulfilling one found it didn’t make it true.
Delphinium had once said that most people didn’t like what they did for a living, and that Cory was naive to think that she could ever have a job that she enjoyed. But Delphinium loved the job and had declared countless times that it was the job she had dreamed of when she was a little girl. For her to say that most people didn’t like their jobs didn’t make sense. Where did she think Cory had gotten the idea that she could love a job, if not from watching her?
Cory had been wandering for nearly an hour when she realized that she had walked in a big loop and was near her uncle’s house. Her uncle, Micah, was her mother’s brother and was nothing like Delphinium. Both of their parents were flower fairies, but Delphinium was all about appearances and climbing the fairy ladder, while Micah dressed like a flower fairy, acted like a flower fairy, and had taught at the Junior Fey School since before Cory was born.
“I wonder if he’s left for work yet,” Cory murmured, and turned toward her uncle’s house. If anyone could give her good advice, it would be her uncle Micah.
He was there still, seated at his kitchen table with a cup of berry juice and a plate of cold, roasted parsnips and potatoes in front of him. His pet squirrel, Flicket, sat on the table, gnawing a walnut and dribbling pieces of shell.
“Uncle Micah, is it okay if I come in?” Cory said through the open window.
Her uncle glanced up from passing another walnut to the squirrel and smiled. “Cory! Of course you can come in. You’re always welcome here. You know that. Are you hungry? Have you eaten breakfast yet? Or would you call it dinner since I assume you’ll be going to bed soon?”
“I’m too upset to eat,” Cory said as she came through the door. She shooed a blue jay off a mushroom stool and took a seat at the table. “I just had another argument with Mother. I quit my job at the TFG today.”
“Ah,” said Micah. “Then your mother must be upset, too. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I know how much you disliked the job, so I think you did the right thing, but I can also see how your mother would be unhappy. Everyone knows how highly she thinks of the TFG.”
“She wants me to tell them that I made a mistake and don’t really want to quit. I’m not going to do it, but I know she’s going to keep after me until I give in. I dread going home just to have the same argument all over again.”
Micah picked up his cup of berry juice and fished out a bit of walnut shell before taking a sip. “You can always stay here with me while you look for another job. I have a guest room if you want it.”
“Are you sure? Because I’d much rather stay here than face my mother.”
“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”
“Would you mind if I brought Noodles?” Cory asked. “He and Mother don’t really get along.”
“The more the merrier,” said Micah. “You know I like animals.”
“In that case, can I move in tonight? I’d like to wait to get my stuff when Mother goes to work.”
“Tonight would be fine. I have to leave in a few minutes, so make yourself at home. The guest bed is already made up if you want to get some sleep.”
“That sounds perfect,” Cory told him. “But do you think I could have something to eat first? My appetite just came back.”
Chapter 4
Cory had a flying dream, which wasn’t unusual for a fairy. But in this dream she was soaring high above the clouds, which fairies never did. She woke suddenly and sat up, wondering why she felt so free, when she remembered that she had quit the TFG and never had to collect another tooth. Feeling as if she had shed a great weight, she sprang out of bed and spread her arms wide, twirling on her toes.
When she glanced outside, she saw children walking home from school. That meant it was late afternoon and Walker would be up now. If she left soon, she could ask him to help her get her things from her mother’s before he went to work.
Walker lived in the north end of town with his older brother, who was also a sandman. They came from a long line of sandmen, another prestigious guild in the fairy world. Cory and Walker had met when they were in Junior Fey School, and both were on the path to careers in the guilds. Even then Cory had wondered if that was one of the things that Walker had liked about her; he often said that he was going to be an important person someday and that he expected his wife to be, too.
They had dated since they graduated from Junior Fey School. A lot of people thought they would be together forever, but Cory wasn’t so sure. She liked him well enough, but she wasn’t in love with him, not the way she thought two people should be.
It didn’t take long for Cory to shrink to flower-fairy size and fly to Walker’s house. He was outside with his brother, Sandy, polishing the glass covering his house that gave it a dreamlike quality as it reflected the sky and clouds above. Like many of the wealthier fey, the brothers wanted the exterior of their home to hint at their trade.
Cory had just turned back to her normal size when Sandy noticed her walking toward the house. Wadding up a dripping, soapy rag, he threw it at Walker, hitting him with a sploot!
“Hey!” Walker shouted, glaring at his brother. “What was that for?”
“You have company,” Sandy told him, grinning at Cory. “How are you doing, Cory?”
“Really good, thanks,” she replied. “Walker, can I drag you away for a minute? I need to talk.”
“Go on,” Sandy told him. “We’re almost finished here.”
Walker grinned as he climbed down the ladder and dropped his rag into the bucket. “I
’m glad you came by,” he told Cory as he led the way to the back of the house. “I hate cleaning glass. I’ve been telling Sandy we should hire someone, but he’s too cheap to consider it.” He took a seat on the garden bench and gestured for Cory to join him. “What’s up? You don’t usually come around this time of day. Shouldn’t you be getting ready for work? Some of those little kids go to bed pretty early.”
“I’m not going to work. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to see you. I resigned from the guild today. I’m free now! I can do whatever I want.”
“If this is a joke, it’s not very funny,” Walker said, his brow knitting together in a frown. “The guild was your life!”
“No, it wasn’t. Or at least I didn’t want it to be. You know how miserable I’ve been collecting teeth! Or haven’t you been listening when I talk to you?”
“Of course I’ve been listening,” Walker said, sounding irritated. “But I thought it was just beginner’s whining. Everyone complains about a job when they first start. Most people try to stick it out, though—not give up when the going gets hard. I thought the guild was a lifetime commitment.”
Cory was getting angry. This wasn’t at all the sympathetic response she’d expected from her boyfriend. “Now you sound like my mother. I thought you had more faith in me than that.”
Hearing the tone in Cory’s voice, Walker put up his hands as if to stop a charging unicorn. “No need to get all riled up! I do have faith in you, Sweet Pea. I’m sure you’re doing what you feel is right for you. But you do realize that whatever job you get now, we probably won’t have the same work hours.”
“I know, but I just can’t do this anymore. This isn’t the right job for me. I’ve known it since the beginning, but no one would listen. My mother wants me to tell the guild that I didn’t mean it when I told them I was quitting, but that isn’t going to happen. I know she isn’t going to let up on me, so I’m moving out tonight. I was hoping you could come help me get my things.”