| ‘DO MY WINGS LOOK BIG IN THIS?’
by TESS NILAND KIMBER.
Seraphina, or Finn as she liked to be called when she wasn’t working
at Fairy.Com, shrugged her shoulders under the tight, leather jacket.
‘Are there any tell-tale bumps?’ she muttered, as she hovered
in the air, gazing at her reflection in the mirror.
That was the trouble with being a fairy. It might be great to have cascading,
blonde hair and dainty, elfin features but her bloody wings showed under
almost everything she wore. She was thinking of having Botox to relax
them so they’d lay flatter against her back.
But although her appearance was worrying her, just as it might any other
twenty-something fairy, the real problem disturbing her sleep was how
the hell was she going to grant Lee his three wishes.
‘A new sporty car,’ he’d requested, ‘my kitchen
revamped and to fall in love again.’
How could she give all this to him! It was 2009. A couple of years ago
it wouldn’t have been a problem - a wave of her stainless steel
wand would have sorted it all - but now the credit crunch had not just
bitten but devoured and spat out many businesses - Fairy.Com being no
exception.
‘You all have to keep down the cost of granting these wishes,’
Dolphina, the MD of the south coast branch had told them at a staff meeting
only last week. ‘Overheads are very high in our business and if
we want to ride the current economic storm then we all … well, have
to clip our wings, if you’ll pardon the pun.’
Finn had agreed with the plump, grey haired fairy godmother but that was
before she’d found this latest beneficiary. She longed to help Lee.
Lee Young deserved his three wishes more than almost any of her previous
clients. Last Monday, risking life and considerably well-toned limb, he’d
rescued a three year old boy trapped in a burning semi.
He’d been remarkably shy about the resulting publicity saying: ‘Knowing
that little boy is going to be okay is all the thanks I need … Besides,
anyone would have done the same. I just happened to be in the right place
at the right time,’ he’d told Finn who’d been posing
as a local hack.
‘You were lucky not to have been burned yourself,’ she’d
breathed, full of admiration.
He’d shrugged and there was a faraway look in his pale blue eyes.
‘Some might say I have been …’
‘You have? Where?” she asked, eager to kiss better wherever,
whatever, he had hurt although she knew kissing was totally off limits
for fairies.
‘Kissing is purely for mortals,’ Dolphina would warn.
As she’d pretended to scribble shorthanded notes for the ‘newspaper’
Lee had given her a deep dimpled smile, lighting up his incredible eyes.
‘Oh, I wasn’t hurt in the fire - I meant I was “burned”
by my last two girlfriends.’
‘I see,’ Finn had said, amazed that any girl lucky enough
to get close to Lee could ever have caused him grief.
As soon as she got home to Bottom Garden cottage, she’d emailed
Dolphina asking if Lee could be considered for three Premium Rate Wishes.
As far as Finn was concerned, drop dead gorgeous Lee deserved anything
his heart desired.
‘Find out what the young man most yearns for,’ Dolphina had
emailed back.
Just as she’d been trained to do, Finn had slipped out under the
cover of darkness, flying through the air around the village with her
friends from ToothFairiesAloud, into Lee’s room whilst he was sleeping.
Lifting one of his soft, brown curls she’d whispered into his ear
and asked him to tell her what it was he really wanted.
Dreamily he’d listed three, pretty bog standard wishes and then
snuggled back under the duvet.
She’d been very tempted to kiss him while he slept but at Fairy.Com
they’d been told time and again: ’f you want to keep your
wings, never, ever take advantage of the clients. Kissing is for mortals
not fairies.’
After all, she was a professional fairy and must behave as one always,
or risk losing her wings for good.
She shrugged her shoulders under the tight, leather jacket. Sometimes
though losing her wings was high on her own wish list!
Lee’s desire to have a better car hadn’t proved too much of
a problem.
In the old days Finn could have ordered a Ferrari for him but there just
wasn’t the funds to do that these days, even with the government’s
new scrappage scheme.
Instead, that night, Finn had worked with a team of apprentice petrol
head fairies from TopGear.Com. They took Lee’s rather battered,
ancient, green MG and had it serviced, waxed and sprinkled with a liberal
shaking of fairy dust until it looked - if not exactly new - then at least,
middle aged.
The next morning Finn made sure she just happened to be passing when Lee
rushed out of his house to leave for work. She cringed wondering if he’d
be pleased with his car. It seemed a cheap way of granting a wish. But
she needn’t have worried. The minute he saw his spruced up, gleaming
MG on the drive, he shouted,
‘Wow!’
‘New car?’ Finn asked in best Oscar winning style.
‘I don’t think …’ He stooped to check the number
plate. ‘No, it is still my car.’
‘Looks great,’ she said and was rewarded with one of his heart
stopping smiles.
Lee’s old fashioned, oak kitchen was a bigger challenge.
‘Can’t I just order one of those flat packed kitchens from
a DIY store?’ Finn had begged Dolphina. ‘They’ve got
them on three years’ interest free credit until the end of the month.’
The older fairy had sighed. ‘You know what Head Office said in their
last directive. Strictly no income eaters. Can’t you try and do
a make-over like they do on that programme?’ She’d smiled
dreamily. ‘I’m kind of partial to that young presenter.’
Finn’s eyes had widened. How on earth was she to improve Lee’s
manky kitchen without ripping it out and starting again? She was pretty
practical - in her job she had to be - but whatever she did, it wouldn’t
be the same as a complete refit.
Once Lee had safely driven off to work she stood in the middle of his
kitchen. With a pen and paper she made a list of things she could not
only do, but afford. Then she flew off to the local DIY store and bought
cupboard paint, laminate flooring and a set of new taps using her Fairy.Com
charge card. Next she stopped off at the charity shop and found just what
she was looking for – a brightly coloured roller blind.
‘Woman said she’d just bought a flat,” the assistant
sniffed as she explained. ‘Blind’s almost new but she said
it don’t go, like, with her mammalist look.’
Finn smiled.
The blind’s splashes of blues and yellows were just right. It would
give Lee’s kitchen a whole new cheerful look for just five pound
fifty.
At the end of the afternoon, with her nose covered in splashes of white
cupboard paint and her arms aching from clipping the planks of laminate
flooring together, she heard a rattle in the lock.
Quickly she checked her buttercup watch. It was five past six! God, she’d
been here all day and didn’t realise how late it was. Was there
time to just sprinkle the final touch - fairy dust? She clenched her hand
…
‘Finn! What are you doing …?’
It was Lee.
She blushed to the tips of her wings.
‘I’m just … um …,’ she said, hiding her
clasped hand behind her back.
‘My God! The kitchen looks fantastic. Have you done all this yourself?’
She could see the questions stacking up behind his eyes.
How had she got in?
Why had she painted his kitchen?
Wasn’t it a coincidence that she was always around lately?
Frightened she wouldn’t be able to answer even one of his questions
- let alone all of them - she panicked. She must stop him talking. But
how?
Without thinking, she reached up and kissed him full on the lips.
Instantly, she felt the hard nubs on her shoulder blades grow hot.
But it was nothing compared to the heat she felt inside as her lips locked
onto his. Her heart thumped so loudly she was hardly aware of her wings
shrivelling.
When finally Lee and Finn pulled apart, he smiled into her eyes.
‘I don’t know - you’re always around when something
good happens. The car, now the kitchen. If I didn’t know better
I’d think you were my … um, fairy godmother.’
‘God, I don’t look that old, do I?’ she smiled, blushing
guiltily.
He pulled her to him and kissed her again.
Lee had had three wishes but as a fairy Finn had only managed to grant
him two.
As the last of her wings disappeared and the fairy dust in her hand turned
to chalk, she thought as they kissed yet again of his third wish,
‘…to fall in love again.’
But as she was no longer a fairy she knew she’d have to rely of
being a mere mortal to make his third wish come true.
And somehow, as she stared into his blue eyes, she thought that this might
be the easiest, cheapest and most enjoyable wish ever to make come true.
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