Tree Fairies

         All the tree fairies were excited because is was a warm day so early in the spring so planned on taking complete advantage of it. As normal for all fairies, they would dance, play and sing all day and hours into the night, until complete exhaustion finally overtook them. Then they would all go to their homes to sleep comfortably in their tiny beds till they would be completely rested once again.

         That is, all except one small family. Dad, Mom, Faith and Alex had decided to sleep up by the leaves of their tree. Sadly, they rested uncomfortably. It was a fitful sleep, but once the sun broke through the dark skies, they woke up right away, yet still tired. Dad and Mom felt the first night wasn't that bad, because they felt that they could just wait for the others to wake so they could play and eat once again. While they waited for the others to wake, they found a few things lying around that they could at least eat for breakfast, since they couldn't get to inside their house to get some food. Finally the others awoke and ate, then came out of their tree homes to play. When they arrived, this thrilled our small family.

         As was their custom, all the tree fairies would bring food to share for a picnic that would be everyone's lunch and dinner. All but our small family brought food, who survived because they had great food to eat during these meals. This kept up their strength for a couple of days to continue to play and sing and dance. At night they waited till the last fairy went home so none of the other fairies knew that they sadly slept in the upper leaves of their tree. They were too embarrassed to let the other fairies see them sleep this way. One night they couldn't get completely comfortable because it rained for a few hours during the night. While it rained, they quickly grabbed some early spring leaves in hopes of covering themselves completely. However, they still got wet so didn't sleep very well.

         The next morning, once the sun rose, they woke up once again very tired still. This was depressing all right, since this morning they needed to dry out their wings and their clothing. Luckily, by the time all the others got up and around, their wings and clothes had all dried out. While waiting for the others, they once again searched and found a few berries and some pine nuts further in the forest to eat. They were still unable to get to their food in their home. As the others started to come out, they came back to the group and danced, sang and played. This was not with as much energy as normal. However, none of the other fairies seemed to notice this small change yet. Our family was very happy that none of the others had yet noticed anything. Plus, our family felt very thankful to have real fairy food for their lunch and dinner.

         At first no one noticed until they saw that these small families’ wings had dimmed a little more each day and night. Even the family tried not to pay attention to it. Then by the end of four days, the other fairies had begun to majorly notice the dimness in this family’s wings and that they wore the same clothes every day. They were all very concerned and decided by this time, someone needed to get word to the King. When the King of the Fairies heard of this, he told one of his guards to hide and follow the family over the next two nights to find out what was wrong and to report back to him. He also decided he would keep a close eye from his throne over the family during the day.

         This guard watched this small family sleep in the leaves of the trees for two nights. He saw that during a thunderstorm they didn't return to their home, but stayed in the leaves. The guard finally reported his findings to the King as ordered. He told the King how they slept in the leaves of their trees instead of inside like all the other fairies. Then he told about how they had to search so very hard for food for their breakfast, and how bedraggled the family was starting to look. No new clean clothes, no drinks except for a tiny bit of some plain dew water droplets. No way to help with bringing any food. They were not acting like any family who would enter inside of their home would.

         The King was shocked by this, but was waiting for this small family to come to him. While waiting, he spread word secretly to the other fairies. He said that they should leave out some berries for this friendly family to eat and to drink its sweet nectar in the mornings. He also asked that if possible, could they leave out some clean clothes for this family to wear. Sadly though, the first night and morning after, none of the food had been touched and none of the clothing had been worn. This small family thought that this was for someone else and did not want to steal something that wasn't for them. The King suddenly realized this the next day, and told the other fairies to mark it to say: "For anyone who is in need of some help, we offer these items willingly and ask that you put them to good use."

         The next morning, our small family noticed the signs and realized that they would not be stealing anything by taking the clean clothes and the fairy food. They took them and did indeed put them to good use by changing their clothes finally and having a robust breakfast. Even with all these things helping them, the wings of this family continued to grow so dim that one could hardly see them while they would dance. Finally after one more night, Faith and Alex got really bad head and chest colds (which had never happened to fairies) and this made the King very scared. Why wouldn't they go into their home and take better care of themselves? They were a well off family prior to all this. Why would they ignore all of the comforts inside their homes? Why not go inside where it was warm and dry so the children would not have gotten sick?

         Very worried and somewhat upset with this small family’s pride, he had his guard bring them in front of him. He asked all the questions, and at first our small family answered just the basics. They even went so far as to say that they were doing a test to see what the outside world would be like at night. The King knew right away that these were not the correct answers and being upset by the lies, told them that if they did not begin to tell the truth, they would have to leave the forest.

         Finally, being totally humiliated by lying to their King, the Dad coughed a little to clear his throat, then spoke quietly and stated the truth. "Remember nine days ago when we all got scared because there was a dog running through our forest?" The King nodded his head slowly, wondering what that had to do with anything. "Well, there was a small incident that happened directly on our front door." This time the King looked at the small family confused. "What does that have to do with your family?", the King asked.

         "Well, that dog pee'd on our tree and flooded our home" was the Dad’s response. "And then with all the rain, everything is still soaked and stinks and our food supply ruined." The King smiled, trying to hold back a great laugh, and sent out word that all the fairies were to help fix up a home so this small family could get back into one and help our family get food again. Within two days, a new house had been built and the family returned to their new home ecstatically every evening. Faith and Alex got healthy again and all of the families wings shown brightly once more. And better yet, they had warm beds, clean clothes and food to eat at home and to bring to the parties also.

         Just so this would never happen to any fairy family ever again, all the fairies homes were raised up above the line that any animal would ever be able to reach again.



Gamma Jill
Originally this was written for a contest and there was a limit on the amount of words... now that there is no more contest that this is included in, I have made changes. I hope that these changes are ones that makes my story more enjoyable and easier for a small child to understand. Please feel free to share this with them if you so desire, as it would be an honor to know that some children have heard it and hopefully have enjoyed!!!