My Very UnFairy Tale Life

by Anna Staniszewski

  “I tried to break up a unicorn fight yesterday,” I said.

  Dr. Bradley raised his bushy eyebrows. “I always thought of unicorns as peaceful creatures.”

  So had I. But I was never going to make that mistake again. “Apparently they go crazy for rainbows,” I said. “A giant one appeared in their field, and they were all fighting over it.”

  “So what did the brave Jenny the Adventurer do?” Dr. Bradley asked, clearly expecting to hear about my heroic triumph.

  “Well, they wouldn’t listen to me. I tried to tell them that they needed to learn how to share. You know, all that ‘Caring is sharing!’ stuff. But I think unicorns’ heads are filled with glitter because they turned on me.”

  “Turned on you?” The doctor’s gray eyes widened.

  “They started chasing me and stabbing at me with their horns,” I said, shivering at the memory. “I probably would have died if Anthony hadn’t finally gotten me out of there.”

  “Ah yes, Anthony the Gnome. How is your colorful guide?”

  Annoying. Candy-obsessed. Useless. “Same as usual,” I said aloud. “Sometimes I wonder if I’d be better off going on adventures by myself.”

  “Well, you are very independent,” said Dr. Bradley. “But what will happen to Anthony if he’s no longer your guide?”

  “I’m sure there’s a circus somewhere that would take him.”

  Dr. Bradley let out a deep, purring laugh. “I’m afraid their supply of cotton candy wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “It would be gone in minutes.” I chuckled as I imagined Anthony eating his way out of a vat of cotton candy. Then my arm started throbbing again and the image disappeared. “I’ve been thinking that maybe I’m not meant to be doing all this adventuring stuff.”

  “Really?” said the doctor. “But why?”

  “It’s just not fun anymore.” The moment I said it, I realized it was true. When Anthony had first popped into my life three years earlier, he’d told me I was lucky to be chosen so young, and that the Committee believed I would be a natural. He’d also promised that adventuring would be the most fun I’d ever had. At first he’d been right, but now…“I never have time for school. Or friends. A math test sounds more exciting than going to save another magical world.”

  Dr. Bradley took off his glasses and blew on them until they were foggy. Then he stuck them back on his nose. “I suppose there is a bit of adventure in having a normal life,” he said. “But I seem to remember a time when you enjoyed being a hero.”

  “For a while, I did.” After all, I’d gotten to travel to tons of exotic, magical worlds and save the day. Most of the time, I just had to say one of the cheesy things that popped into my head, like “Waste not, want not!” and the magical creatures would think I was wise and great and do whatever I told them.

  In fairy tales, elves and fairies all seemed powerful and clever, but I’d found that wasn’t true at all. Most of the magical creatures I’d met had a hard time doing the most basic things on their own. They weren’t powerless or dumb; they’d just always had people like me to help them. They’d never had to do anything on their own.

  “Do you really think you could leave adventuring for good?” Dr. Bradley asked. His glasses were finally unfogged again, so I could see his worried eyes.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It doesn’t really seem worth it anymore.”

  At the end of my adventures I was usually rewarded with jewels or servants or anything else I wanted, which had also been exciting at first. But there was nowhere left to keep those kinds of presents in Aunt Evie’s tiny house. My closet was already stuffed full of treasure chests. The treasure would come in handy when I was older, but who would accept gold coins from a twelve-year-old without asking too many questions? Besides, having fancy gifts wasn’t fun unless you could share them with other people. One thing I never got out of my adventures was friends. The creatures I helped went back to their normal lives in their own worlds, and I went back to my abnormal life in mine.

  “Well, I have to go to school,” I said.

  “Stop by anytime!” said Dr. Bradley. “I just made a batch of butterscotch pudding. And I never grow tired of hearing your amazing stories.”

  I pretended not to notice the concerned look on the doctor’s face as I walked away.

  Chapter 3

  As the bus rolled along on the way to school, I realized it was the first time all week I’d made it this far. Usually Anthony woke me up first thing in the morning and whisked me away before I’d even had time to brush my teeth—nothing like saving the day when you still had morning breath! I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spent the entire day at school. Usually Anthony would do some of his magic, and my tests would be passed and my homework completed without me having to actually do anything.

  Weird as it was, I actually kind of missed doing my assignments. Even a whole, uninterrupted day at school sounded nice.

  Pop!

  A mop of flaming hair appeared in the seat in front of me. It was Anthony.

  “Are you insane?” I hissed. “You’re not supposed to pop up in public.”

  “The Committee said I had to find you right away,” said Anthony, his voice booming through the entire bus. As he turned around, I saw two green frogs perched on his shoulders. They were about twice the size of regular frogs, and each wore a tiny cape around its neck, one red and one blue.

  “An elf!” someone screamed from the seat behind me.

  “I am not an elf,” Anthony said.

  “Greetings, Jenny the Adventurer,” one of the frogs croaked.

  “A talking frog!” someone else cried.

  “Ahhh!” everyone shrieked as the bus suddenly lurched forward and we went flying off our seats. I looked up to see the bus driver staring into the rearview mirror. His eyes were locked on Anthony and the frogs, his face frozen in terror.

  “Help me!” I called to Anthony as I rushed up to the bus driver. I tried waving my hand in front of the driver’s face, but it was as if his eyes were made of glass. The bus started to veer off the road.

  “Step on the brake!” I yelled. The driver didn’t move. I turned to Anthony. “You need to make this bus stop before we all die!”

  Anthony rolled his eyes. “Always such drama with you, Jenny-girl.”

  “We’re in grave danger,” the blue-caped frog said while the other frog covered its eyes.

  I glared at Anthony. “Do you want to go back and tell the Committee that you killed a busload of humans?”

  His face went all pouty, and I knew I’d won. Anthony held up his hand, snapped his fingers, and disappeared. Instantly, the bus driver came out of his trance and got the bus on the road again. The other kids sat in confused silence for a second before going back to talking and laughing as if nothing had happened.

  “We’re still here, by the way,” I heard Anthony’s voice say from somewhere beside me.

  I groaned as I sunk back down in my seat. “Haven’t you caused enough trouble?” I whispered.

  “The Committee insisted that—”

  “Shh! We can talk in a minute. When we’re not in public.”

  “Fine,” Anthony’s voice said. I could imagine him sticking his pointy tongue out at me. Why wasn’t I allowed to tell anyone about magic, but he could do whatever he wanted? If I ever met the Committee, I would talk myself hoarse listing all the things that didn’t seem fair about being an adventurer.

  Finally, we pulled up at the school, and I filed off the bus with the other kids. Everyone was acting like the bus ride had been totally normal. A side effect of magic seemed to be that regular people forgot all about it once it was over.

  As I got off the bus, two girls with identical backpacks walked by. I tried to tell myself to ignore them. I tried to tell myself that I didn’t have to talk to the
m this time. I tried—

  “Hi, Trish. Hi, Melissa,” I said, waving. Apparently, I wasn’t in the mood to listen to myself.

  The girls looked at me and then glanced at each other, just like they had the last time I’d broken down and spoken to them.

  “Do we know her?” Trish said in a loud whisper.

  “She doesn’t look familiar,” Melissa answered.

  The two girls kept walking, leaving me standing alone on the sidewalk. Trish and Melissa had once been my best friends, but for almost two years they’d been acting like I was a complete stranger. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. One day they’d just stopped talking to me, making it clear they didn’t want to be friends with me anymore.

  As I watched Trish and Melissa toss their hair over their shoulders in unison, my chest tightened. Maybe if I wasn’t an adventuring weirdo, my friends might actually like me again.

  “Jenny!” Anthony called from around the side of the building.

  I sighed and hurried over to him and the two frogs. “Okay, so what’s the problem?”

  “Mistress Jenny,” said the blue-caped frog, “my name is Crong and this is Ribba.”

  “Hi!” the frog in the red cape croaked, waving. She had a swirly design painted onto her green arm, almost like a froggy henna tattoo.

  “We have been sent from the kingdom of Speak to beg for your help,” Crong continued. “Our land has been under the rule of a terrible sorcerer named Klarr for years. Weeks ago, he kidnapped our prince and locked him in a dungeon. Several adventurers have tried to rescue him, but none have succeeded.”

  “And what makes you think I can help?” I asked.

  “The Committee said that, despite your youth, you are the best adventurer there is,” said Crong. “If you can’t find the prince, then no one can.”

  “No pressure,” Anthony chirped.

  I gave him a look. I wanted to tell all three of them to go away and leave me alone. Was it too much to ask to have one quiet day at school? But as the frogs looked up at me with their pleading eyes, I knew I couldn’t say no. As annoying as being an adventurer was sometimes, I couldn’t just turn my back on creatures that needed my help. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

  “Yay! You’re really going to help us?” Ribba asked, jumping up and down on Anthony’s shoulder.

  “Doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice. If I don’t go with you now, you’ll just keep scaring everyone at my school.”

  “It was not our intention to frighten your friends,” said Crong.

  His words stabbed at me like glittering unicorn horns. I didn’t have friends at school, not anymore. But it was better that way, I told myself. My life was busy enough as it was.

  “Ready?” croaked Crong. He hopped on my shoulder as Anthony grabbed my elbow.

  Pop!

  The school blurred into a million specks of light. I closed my eyes and braced myself. Even after all this time, I still hated every second of traveling in between worlds. It was like being tossed around in a dryer, only without the nice-smelling dryer sheets.

  When I could feel solid ground under my feet again, I opened my eyes and glanced around. What the—?

  I opened my mouth in surprise, but one of the frogs hopped into it before I could scream.

  “We must be quiet, Mistress,” Crong whispered in my ear from his perch on my shoulder. That meant the frog in my mouth was Ribba. I tried to push the frog out with my tongue, but Ribba wouldn’t budge. She was like a large, slimy cough drop.

  I breathed through my nose in bursts, trying to keep from panicking. Spread out across endless rolling fields were hundreds, maybe thousands, of animals. The fact that they were all staring at me was creepy. The fact that none of them had mouths was terrifying.

  Chapter 4

  As I stood there like a statue, one of the mouthless creatures came toward me. It was a large, woolly sheep with kind eyes. But below her nose, there was just nothing, not even a dent where a mouth should have been. Its not-thereness made me feel a little sick.

  The sheep came up and nudged my hand with her nose. Then she nodded and stepped back. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I tried to bow my head without swallowing Ribba. The frog shifted uncomfortably in my mouth.

  A few other mouthless creatures scurried over to me, among them a squirrel, a lizard, and something that looked like a four-legged, beakless chicken. The animals held out bunches of tulips so yellow that I almost expected them to smell like lemons. I bowed my head again and took the flowers, smiling in spite of myself. I hadn’t been greeted like this in a long time. It was nice to be honored instead of attacked.

  The creatures lowered their eyes and retreated back into the crowd. I spotted a family of mouthless rabbits nearby, the babies peering up at me like I was some kind of god. Nothing was cuter (and stranger) than a tiny baby bunny with no mouth.

  “Now you must wave,” Crong said softly in my ear.

  I lifted a shaking hand and gave the best screw-in-the-lightbulb wave I could. The sea of eyes watching me seemed to smile in response. The creatures’ mouthless faces looked so hopeful. Clearly, they were all counting on me.

  The sheep stomped one of her hooves and the crowd turned. When she stomped again, the crowd ran off across the hills, the woolly sheep leading the way. It was amazing to see so many different kinds of animals running together, kind of like watching a zoo marathon.

  When the dust settled, my mouth opened and Ribba shot out.

  “Phew!” the frog said as she landed on the grass by my feet. “No offense, Jenny, but your mouth is smellier than a patch of stinkweed.”

  “Um, thanks,” I said. Good thing she’d caught me on a day when I’d actually had time to brush my teeth. “I didn’t ask you to jump in there.”

  “Forgive her, Mistress,” said Crong, giving Ribba a stern look.

  “I had to do it,” said Ribba. “You’re not allowed to speak while Her Majesty is honoring you.”

  “What just happened?” I asked. “Who were all of those…creatures?” I looked toward the hills again, but all the animals had disappeared. Other than a sprawling stone wall in the distance, there was nothing to see but blindingly green grass under a bright blue sky. This didn’t look like a kingdom that had been taken over by an evil sorcerer. It could have been the setting of an allergy-medicine commercial.

  “Those were the citizens of Speak,” said Anthony, twisting the end of his beard with his plump fingers. “They came to get a look at you, to see what all the fuss is about.”

  “Couldn’t you have warned me that they were going to be so…mouth challenged?”

  “And miss seeing the look of total terror on your face?” Anthony asked with a chuckle. “Where would be the fun in that?”

  “It is a great honor to be nosed by the Queen herself,” said Crong. “You are the first adventurer she has greeted in this way.”

  “That sheep was the Queen?” I’d never met royalty that was quite so…fluffy.

  “She is called Queen Ewe,” Crong went on. “Her son, Prince Lamb, is who you will be rescuing. The queen is one of the greatest leaders our land has ever seen. It’s a shame her rule has been marred by Klarr’s occupation.”

  It was rare to hear anyone talk that way about royalty. Usually, creatures couldn’t wait to get rid of their kings and queens. If Queen Ewe really was so beloved, it would feel good to help get her son back.

  “So how come you guys have mouths?” I asked the frogs.

  Crong let out a long sigh, like my question had pained him. “We are among the few who were immune to the Silence spell.”

  “I was the only one in my whole swamp who could talk,” said Ribba.

  “Okay, well, my job here is done,” Anthony announced. He grabbed the flowers out of my hand. “I can take these since you won’t be
needing them. They’ll be perfect for my sister’s birthday tomorrow. She said I’m not allowed to give her any more candy.”

  “Wait, aren’t you going to help?” Why did Anthony even bother calling himself my guide when he was always running off during my adventures?

  Anthony conjured a giant chocolate bar out of thin air. “I was asked to deliver you here, and here you are. So that means I’m done.” He unwrapped the end of the candy and took a bite.

  “Fine,” I said. “But if I call for you, come right away this time, okay?”

  Anthony rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay,” he said, his mouth still stuffed. “Have fun.” He disappeared with a Pop! leaving behind the scents of chocolate, caramel, and tulips.

  I turned back to the frogs. “So tell me more about this place. Why is it called Speak? Isn’t that a little, um, cruel?”

  “The history of Speak is long and tragic,” Crong said with a graceful wave of his green arm. “There was once a time when it had a different name, just as its citizens were different. But nearly twenty years ago, when Klarr cast his Silence spell over our kingdom, the citizens decided it was time for a change. Their hope is reflected in the name they gave their newly hushed kingdom.” Crong hopped forward, his voice suddenly an intense whisper. “And since then they have waited patiently, silently, for someone to save them and to restore their ability to truly speak once more.”

  After a dramatic pause, Ribba started clapping her tiny frog hands. “Bravo!” she said. “You haven’t lost any of your talent, Crong!”

  The frog grinned, clearly pleased with himself, before giving a little bow.

  “Crong used to be a renowned actor before he joined the League,” Ribba informed me.

  “What league?”

  “Over the years, those of us with magical abilities have banded together and made it our mission to restore our kingdom’s previous glory,” said Crong. “Ribba is the newest addition to our order.”