Fairy Gold

by Gwyneth Rees

  ‘Another time she ate all the chocolate icing off the top of a little boy’s birthday cake,’ Goldie added. ‘He cried when he saw it and his mum was upset too because she’d spent ages decorating it.’

  ‘Once when I was collecting teeth with her we had an argument and she got so cross she shut me inside a drawer and I was stuck there until someone came and opened it the next morning,’ Bonnie said, frowning.

  ‘Anyway, she’s been banished from Fairyland for as long as it takes for her to become a good enough fairy again,’ Goldie told them. ‘Only instead of trying to be good, she’s been stealing all our teeth – and stopping us from using them to make Goodness!’

  ‘Goldie!’ Bonnie screeched, and Goldie immediately clamped her hands over her mouth in horror.

  ‘It’s all right, Goldie,’ the fairy queen said. ‘I think it’s time we told Lucy and Thomas our secret.’ She turned to the children. ‘Tooth fairies use children’s teeth to make a magic Goodness dust that we sprinkle about wherever it’s needed. It’s quite invisible to the human eye, of course.’

  ‘Goodness dust?’ Thomas and Lucy repeated together.

  ‘That’s right,’ Queen Eldora replied. ‘Goodness dust makes people kinder and more helpful to each other. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of human kindness and helpfulness in the world in any case, but by sprinkling the air with Goodness we make people feel even more like helping each other. So you see, Goodness is a very important substance, which is why—’

  But she was interrupted by a small brown bird, which had landed on the window ledge and was now chirping to get their attention.

  ‘Look!’ Goldie exclaimed, pointing at it, and Lucy saw that in its beak the little bird was clasping a tiny gold envelope.

  ‘It’s from Precious,’ Queen Eldora said, opening the letter after the bird had flown away. ‘It’s addressed to me so she must know I’m visiting you. She says she has sent us one of your sister’s giggles to let us know that Izzy is still with her and that she’s quite safe.’

  ‘How can she send a giggle?’ Thomas asked.

  Queen Eldora peered further into the envelope, then turned it upside down and shook it. Suddenly it was just as if Izzy was in the room with them as the sound of her giggling filled the air.

  ‘That’s Izzy’s giggle all right,’ Lucy said, feeling more hopeful as she added, ‘If Izzy’s having such a good time, Precious can’t be that bad, can she?’

  ‘She is not completely bad, no,’ Queen Eldora agreed, ‘but I’m sorry to say that she is bad enough! Now . . .’ She went back to reading the letter. ‘She says that Izzy is safe and she promises not to harm her, but if we want her back, Lucy has to give Precious her pouch of teeth, and this time she mustn’t try to trick her. Lucy, she wants you to meet her at six o’clock tomorrow morning out in the garden before anyone else is up. And she says if she smells any other fairies nearby, she won’t show herself.’ Queen Eldora looked thoughtful. ‘I won’t be able to send any of my fairies with you when you go to meet her, but I do have an idea how we can find out where she’s hiding – after we’ve got Izzy back safely, of course.’

  ‘How?’ Lucy and Thomas asked.

  ‘You must give her the teeth like she says and then, after she tells you where Izzy is, someone must follow her to see where she goes. Since no other fairy will be able to follow her without being detected, I propose that we send you, Lucy. It will mean changing you into a fairy for a little while but—’

  ‘A fairy?’ Lucy blurted out. ‘You mean with wings and everything?’

  ‘Of course! You’ll look exactly like a real fairy – but because you’re not, Precious won’t be able to pick up your fairy scent the way she could with one of us. But are you willing to do this?’

  ‘Of course I’ll do it!’

  ‘Excellent!’ Queen Eldora smiled at her. ‘We’ll shrink you down straight away and take you back to Fairyland with us. We shall have to fit you with a suitable pair of wings when we get there, and teach you how to use them, but that shouldn’t take long—’

  ‘Hey, what about me?’ Thomas suddenly demanded.

  Queen Eldora looked at him. ‘You wish to be changed into a fairy too?’

  Thomas flushed. ‘Well, maybe not a fairy exactly, but—’

  ‘There’s no need to be embarrassed. We do have fairy boys as well as girls – I’m sure we could find you a pair of wings too if you want to help your sister.’

  ‘I do want to,’ Thomas said quickly.

  ‘All right then. We’ll take you both back to Fairyland with us – but first I must perform a spell on your beds so your parents won’t see that you’ve gone.’ She waved her magic toothbrush around so that a sprinkling of fairy dust rained down over both the children’s beds. Then she flew off into Izzy’s room to repeat her spell in there.

  ‘Our beds don’t look any different to me,’ Lucy said when the fairy queen returned.

  ‘That’s because the spell isn’t meant for you – it’s meant for your parents. If they look in on you while you’re gone, they’ll see just what they expect to see! Now . . . this spell is meant for you . . . I want you to stand together and hold hands . . . that’s it . . . now, close your eyes.’

  Lucy and Thomas did as they were told and as they stood together with their eyes tightly shut they both felt a strange tingling sensation all over.

  ‘You can look now,’ the fairy queen said after a minute or two.

  They opened their eyes and found that they were in a completely different room – or at least, that was how it seemed at first. Their heads felt swimmy as they stared at everything in utter amazement. The ceiling was now as far away as the sky and they were standing between two huge, unrecognizable structures, which were actually their beds.

  Queen Eldora flew down from the top of Lucy’s chest of drawers – which now seemed like a very tall building – and the children saw that she was the same size as they were. Her hair and clothes seemed much brighter than theirs though and, as Lucy gazed at the fairy queen’s enormous glowing wings, she wondered if she was going to be given a pair even half as beautiful.

  Then Goldie and Bonnie joined them and the three fairies took hold of the children’s hands and lifted them up.

  ‘Wow!’ Thomas shrieked as they shot out through the window. ‘This is so cool! I feel like Peter Pan!’

  ‘Who’s he?’ Bonnie and Goldie asked.

  ‘He’s a boy in a story, who can fly,’ Thomas said, looking down in amazement at their garden, which looked huge now as they flew over it. ‘There’s a fairy in the story called Tinkerbell. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of her either!’

  ‘We only know real fairies, not make-believe ones,’ Goldie told him. But Thomas was no longer paying attention, because they had flown over the fence into their neighbours’ garden and there, hanging on the washing line and glowing brightly in the dark, was an enormous gold-coloured pillowcase.

  ‘You mean the entrance to Fairyland has been right next door to us all along?’ Lucy exclaimed.

  ‘One of the entrances,’ Queen Eldora replied. ‘There are many other pillowcases just like this one. Golden pillowcases are situated all over the world – wherever children believe in tooth fairies.’

  The top end of the pillowcase was open and, once inside, the children found themselves in a gold room that didn’t look anything like the inside of a pillowcase. At the far end of the room was a set of gold doors that were closed, but there was a button next to them, which Goldie flew over to and pressed.

  ‘This is where we catch the fairy lift,’ Queen Eldora told them. As she spoke, the doors slid open to reveal a floor-to-ceiling curtain of sparkling golden dust.

  ‘That’s the Goodness curtain,’ Goldie explained. ‘We have to fly through that to get to the lift.’ And she flew straight into the curtain of dust and vanished.

  ‘The Goodness curtain?’ Lucy’s mouth was hanging open.

  ‘Remember how I told you that no fairy can pass through a
golden pillowcase into Fairyland unless she has enough Goodness inside her?’ Queen Eldora said. ‘Well, that is because the Goodness curtain is present in each pillowcase.’

  ‘So you mean there are lots of Goodness curtains?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Oh no! There is only one Goodness curtain, but it is so powerful it can be in many places at once. It appears by magic inside each pillowcase whenever a fairy needs to use it, and it unites all the entrances to Tooth-fairy Land. Once a fairy flies through the Goodness curtain she always arrives in the same place – the fairy lift that takes her home again.’

  ‘Does the Goodness curtain let children travel through it into Fairyland then?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘If they are shrunken children, yes, though the same Goodness rules apply to children as to fairies,’ Queen Eldora told him. ‘If you are good enough, it will let you through. Now follow me, please.’ And she flew into the curtain and vanished in a white flash of light.

  ‘But what happens if you’re not good enough?’ Thomas asked Bonnie nervously after the fairy queen had gone.

  ‘Nothing will happen except that the Goodness curtain will feel like a solid wall and you’ll be stuck on this side of it.’

  ‘Is that what happened to Precious?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That must have been horrible for her,’ Lucy said, frowning. ‘Not being able to get home, I mean.’

  ‘Hey, don’t go feeling too sorry for her,’ Thomas protested. ‘She’s just kidnapped our sister, remember. Even I’d never do anything as bad as that!’

  And reminding himself of that seemed to give him the courage he needed, because he took one step towards the curtain, then another, and suddenly he had disappeared too.

  ‘Come on, Lucy,’ Bonnie said, flying towards the curtain herself. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

  So Lucy followed Bonnie and for a few seconds everything was so bright she couldn’t see anything except whiteness. She held her hands up to her eyes to shield them from the glare and when she removed them she found herself in a second room that had shiny gold walls and no windows.

  The others were already there waiting for her.

  ‘This is the lift to Fairyland,’ Queen Eldora told her. And before Lucy had time to point out that the room seemed far too big to be a lift, it had started to move – though it was difficult to tell in exactly what direction.

  Goldie grinned and pressed a button in the wall that made five gold chairs spring up from the floor for them to sit on. ‘We can have beds to lie down on too, if you’re sleepy,’ she said. ‘Or if you’re hungry, we can order a table with a picnic on it.’

  ‘Is it going to take a really long time to get there then?’ Lucy asked in surprise.

  ‘No real time at all,’ Queen Eldora reassured her. ‘Time stops completely while we’re in this lift – which is why my fairies often like to have a nap here, or eat a nice meal, because they can do so without using up any time whatsoever.’

  ‘But when do we get to Fairyland?’ Thomas asked a little impatiently.

  ‘Whenever we like. All we have to do is say the magic words.’

  ‘What magic words?’

  The fairy queen smiled. ‘If you’re that keen to get there, we can say them at once.’ She looked at Goldie and Bonnie expectantly.

  Goldie and Bonnie linked hands and closed their eyes, and looked very solemn for a few moments before suddenly yelling out at the tops of their voices, ‘Are we nearly there yet?’

  Lucy and Thomas both jumped.

  ‘Those are the magic words?’ Thomas said in disbelief, as the lift abruptly stopped moving.

  ‘They don’t work when you’re using human transport, of course,’ Queen Eldora replied, smiling, ‘but they always work if you’re travelling in a fairy lift!’

  ‘Welcome to Tooth-fairy Land,’ Bonnie and Goldie sang out, and the children held their breath as the lift doors slid open.

  Nervously, Lucy and Thomas stepped outside after the two fairies.

  They had arrived in what looked like the central square of a fairy town, except that instead of having normal buildings in it, all the houses looked like giant white teeth!

  ‘You don’t . . . you don’t use real teeth to make your houses, do you?’ Thomas couldn’t help asking, which made Queen Eldora burst out laughing.

  ‘Of course not!’ she replied. ‘Real teeth are solid in the middle so how could we live inside them?’

  ‘Unless they’ve gone rotten, of course,’ Goldie added, giggling, ‘but no fairy would want to live inside a rotten tooth!’

  ‘We build things in the shape of teeth wherever we can, that’s all,’ Queen Eldora explained.

  Lucy saw that each of the tooth-shaped houses had a little door and little windows and that they seemed to be arranged in orderly streets leading off from the main square. Some of the houses were tall and thin while others were shorter and fatter. Outside the nearest shorter house there was a little painted sign saying, 1 Molar Mews. The next street, which had a row of taller houses in it, had a plaque at the end that read, Canine Close. As Lucy walked around she saw other streets that were clearly named after different kinds of teeth – Wisdom Walk, Incisor Avenue, Gap Gardens and Wobbly Alley. The houses on Wobbly Alley looked a bit lopsided, Lucy thought.

  ‘Goldie and Bonnie will give you a quick tour while I go and prepare the Wing Rooms for your arrival,’ Queen Eldora told them.

  ‘The Wing Rooms?’ Lucy gasped.

  The fairy queen nodded. ‘That’s where we’ll fit you with your own set of fairy wings – and teach you how to use them. But first my fairies will show you everything else!’

  Goldie and Bonnie led the children to a staircase in the middle of the square. There were a few fairies flitting about here and there and some were standing in little groups, chatting to each other. All of them turned to stare as the children passed by. ‘This is Upper Square,’ Goldie explained, seemingly oblivious to the attention they were receiving. ‘We have a full set of houses here and another full set in Lower Square, which is directly below us. Tooth-fairy Land is constructed just like a set of teeth,’ she added proudly.

  They walked down the twisty staircase and came out into another, almost identical square to the one they had just left.

  ‘That’s the Tooth Works,’ Goldie said, pointing to a large tooth-house on their right. ‘That’s where our fairy dentists and their assistants make all the replacement teeth we leave under children’s pillows.’

  Goldie led them inside the Tooth Works, into a large room where about twenty fairies in short white coats were sitting at long tables using hammers and chisels and tiny fairy drills to turn various lumps of a hard white substance (which Bonnie explained was fairy-enamel) into replacement human teeth. The white coats were just like the kind human dentists wore, Lucy noticed, except that they had slits in the back for the wearer’s wings to poke through.

  ‘They’re not being rude,’ Bonnie explained quickly, as the fairy dentists noticed the children and turned round to stare at them just like the other fairies had done. ‘Some of them have never seen a shrunken human before, that’s all.’

  Goldie and Bonnie offered to show them the Meeting Room next, which was just a few houses along from the Tooth Works. ‘We spend a lot of time there because Queen Eldora likes to hold at least one fairy meeting every day and we all take it in turns to attend,’ Bonnie said as she led the way.

  ‘I hate meetings,’ Thomas said, pulling a face. ‘Whenever we have them at school, they’re always really boring. Dad says the ones he has to go to at work are really boring too, doesn’t he, Lucy?’

  ‘Fairy meetings aren’t the least bit boring!’ Bonnie told him. ‘We all get to sit round the big meeting table and talk as much as we want to. Come and see!’ She led them into a building that seemed to have just one huge room inside it – a room that contained the biggest oval table that Lucy had ever seen. There had to be about a hundred chairs around the table and at one end wa
s a much higher chair, a bit like the ones Lucy had seen lifeguards sit on at the seaside. ‘The Chair-fairy sits up there and keeps the air sprinkled with fairy dust the whole time,’ Bonnie explained. ‘Then we all start to talk at once and any good ideas that come out of the meeting react with the fairy dust and turn into gold sparks – which the fairy secretaries rush around trying to catch in their magic nets. Then Queen Eldora examines all the ideas in the nets, and the fairy who thought up the best one gets a gold star to stick on her toothbrush.’

  ‘I’ve got six gold stars already,’ Goldie put in. ‘Bonnie’s only got three but that’s because she’s a bit shy in meetings so she doesn’t speak up as much.’

  ‘Look,’ Bonnie said, as they stepped outside again. She was pointing across the square to a building that seemed to be glowing more brightly than the others. ‘That’s the Goodness Factory. Now we’re going to show you exactly what happens to children’s teeth after we collect them!’

  ‘You’ve heard the expression “as good as gold”, haven’t you?’ Goldie said. ‘Well, that’s where it comes from – because Goodness is golden in colour!’

  They were inside the Goodness Factory now, and Lucy and Thomas were speechless as they stared at a massive gold container that was set into the floor and took up virtually the whole room. It was the size of a small swimming pool and it was filled with a gold-coloured sparkling dust.

  ‘That’s Goodness?’ Lucy murmured in awe.

  ‘Yes,’ Goldie replied. ‘We make it by combining children’s teeth with fairy kisses – it’s quite easy really. Watch!’ She led them into another room where a human tooth – now the size of a large football in comparison to them – was sitting on a table.

  Goldie and Bonnie carried the tooth back into the first room and then they flew up into the air with it so that they were holding the tooth over the pool of Goodness. Then Goldie kissed it. Immediately the tooth exploded into a mass of golden dust that sparkled as brightly as sunshine as it showered downwards.