by Dmitry M. Epstein
Once upon a time, there was a little fairy, Mazy, who had nothing to do. Not that there was nothing to do – actually, all other fairies were fairly busy; it’s just that Mazy didn’t want to do anything. (That’s why they called her Lazy Mazy.) But she wanted it to be done – badly.
You see, she couldn’t quite grasp why, if fairies are supposed to be sprinkling wonderdust all over different stuff, they also have to clean it up. “Is there such a thing as ‘too much magic’?” Mazy used to ask. “Is it a bad thing when wonderful things happen?” A reasonable question you would say.
“Of course, it’s good to work wonders,” answered older fairies. “But it’s not so great to have unexpected things happen. So yes, there can be too much magic. As much as we all love surprises, not all of them are pleasant.”
“How can surprises be not pleasant?” wondered Lazy Mazy. And as luck would have it, soon she learned how. You could call it bad luck if that wasn’t the little fairy’s own fault.
All Mazy had to do on that unfortunate day was to deliver the dust to a boy who wished he grew faster – not because he wanted to be able to get the jar with cookies from the upper shelf (although this would be cool, too) but because his granny had a bad back and found it painful to bend down and hug the boy. If only he was taller… Well, that was Mazy’s assignment: to make sure he would grow. Just a little.
But you see, those who are lazy are also, more often than not, sloppy, so Mazy’s task didn’t turn out as successfully as it should have. Later, she blamed it – a lame excuse, really – on the cat, and indeed, a kitten used to sleep on the boy’s bed at night.
Have you ever noticed how cats seem to be hearing something even when there’s nothing to be heard? Sure, they may listen to a mouse that’s somewhere out there, under the floor, but mice are rare these days – unlike other small critters, not of animal kind. Thing is, cats see what humans can’t: invisible folks, various sorts of The Tiny Tiptoes, as those critters call themselves, – including fairies. (I didn’t tell you about Mazy’s encounters with gnomes and elves, and their greatest secret, did I? She even became friends with a gnome named Mad Nomado.) Adult cats usually don’t think much about them, yet the boy’s pet wasn’t a grown-up and wasn’t going to ignore Mazy.
Worse still, Mazy wasn’t going to ignore the kitten either. She knew it could get in the way of her sprinkling the wonderdust over the kid’s head, but she didn’t care much about doing it carefully, without leaving little piles of dust on the bed or at least about scooping it up afterwards. To aim for top of the head and not drop magic grains on the pillow? Forget it! Our little fairy didn’t care as much. She was just being her usual careless self where a lot of carefulness was needed.
And then, the cat. The cat! The kitten always seemed eager to play, and so did Mazy. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it’s not what you do when there’s some serious business to tend to – and magic is serious. Could you be serious when a furball stretches and then reaches out to you? This fairy couldn’t.
No, in the beginning she approached the boy the right way: from behind – he should not have been able to see Mazy if he suddenly opened his eyes. Otherwise, he could get startled and unwillingly hurt the fairy. Yes, to see her. I know, I know, I told you humans can’t see The Tiny Tiptoes, but they can’t do that only if they’re actually looking. And in the strange state between sleep and wakefulness they see things without looking, because in this state everybody is blessed with wondrous vision and is able to catch the glimpse of magic. So, sloppy as she was, Mazy didn’t want to be noticed and to have to fly for her life, and she tried to be as cautious as possible. But you can’t be lazily cautious… And that’s why it all happened.
Just as Mazy took a handful of dust from her special purse and started to sprinkle magic grains on the kid’s head – roughly over that sweet spot where hairs look like they grow in a circle – the kitten stretched and yawned. “What a cute pink tongue it has,” murmured Mazy loud enough to make the cat prick up one ear, open one eye and lift one furry paw towards our fairy. She wasn’t frightened, no; rather, she found it very charming and waved her hand in the kitten’s direction, forgetting she still had wonderdust in her teeny weeny fist. The grains went up in the air, and the fairy sneezed. Oh, how she sneezed! As a result, the dust was sprinkled all over the pillow and the blanket as well. Mazy sneezed again… Now, the magic formed a little cloud which descended on the poor beast.
The time came for Mazy to be frightened – not to be really scared but to be worried about the consequences of her slapdash work. Right away she realized what she had done, but it was too late. Before the fairy thought of the ways to gather the grains from fur, the kitten began to grow – and not a little. And why not? What could be the right dose of magic for a little human, turned out to be too much for a small animal.
In a few moments the furball reached the size of four footballs, and it was clear the cat wouldn’t stop getting large until it would be the size of six. For a brief moment our fairy admired the outcome of her sloppiness, but she had no time to waste, as the playful giant kitten looked quite dangerous and could hurt the kid – you see, Mazy didn’t think she could be harmed too. Worse still, she thought, other fairies might see her bad attitude toward work. That would be so embarrassing! And what did Mazy do?
Lazy or not, nobody ever called her dumb, so when it came to saving the boy’s life, this fairy was thinking fast – and she found the solution.
Salt.
Yes, salt. Salt that we add to our food when we cook or eat. Did you ever think why fairies are never seen near the sea? It’s easy to understand why they don’t live up in the mountains, in the desert or at the South Pole – because there’s no green there, and fairies need the green – but the sea? The secret is simple to know if you know that fairies can’t stand salt; and sea air, let alone sea water, is filled with it. Why can’t they stand salt, you’re asking? Uh, salt destroys magic – everybody knows that! And without magic fairies would be… No, it’s best not to even think about it.
That’s why our Mazy flew to the kitchen, where she knew she would find the white powder which could save the day – or at least the kid. But how – how was the fairy supposed to be carrying salt without ruining her own powers? Oddly, Mazy had no problem figuring it out on her way downstairs.
While preparing to deliver the dust to the boy, Mazy observed his evening routine and remembered how his mother was giving him medicine when the kid caught a cold and started to cough. She used a plastic syringe, and the fairy knew where it was: fortunately for her, the syringe was in the kitchen cupboard, not far from salt and pepper shakers. Mazy didn’t mind the darkness there – like cats, fairies can do without lights just fine – so she quickly grabbed the syringe, opened the salt shaker, dipped the tip into the white powder, pulled the plunger until salt filled the pump, closed the shaker lid, all this as quiet as possible, and flit back to the bedroom.
By the time Mazy returned there the kitten had grown so big it almost reached the boy’s size. Good for her, and the kid, the cat was too confused by what was happening to do anything at all, but she wasn’t going to linger until it would have an idea – and once she stopped mid-air right above the animal, the fairy pushed the plunger.
Salt sprinkled the kitten all over and vanished in its thick fur. Mazy froze. For a short while she thought her brilliant solution wasn’t working. But then the cat began to shrink. The animal deflated – that’s what it looked like – and darted out of the room. The fairy checked the hall: the kitten, normal size now, sat on the floor frantically licking its hind paw as if to make sure it was okay. The fairy checked the bedroom: the kid was sleeping not knowing how close to danger he had been.
Now it was time to calm down and check if the boy was going to grow as planned. The fairy felt for a wonderglass in her purse, a special sort of lens that could show the effects of magic, and aimed it at the kid. As seen through the glass, he glowed which meant the effects of grains on his head would be obvious very soon.
“Phew. Isn’t it cool that no one noticed what I’d done,” muttered Mazy under her breath. Little did she know that a couple of older fairies who were passing by saw everything – and reported the incident to her supervisor. But instead of telling the supervisor how lazy and sloppy Mazy was, they praised her wit and resolve. So once she got back everyone met her with a round of applause.
Oh how moved Mazy was. At last she understood the difference between pleasant and unpleasant surprises, and from that moment on, she wouldn’t leave anything to chance. After all, her new nickname, Mazy the Amazing, seemed too nice to spoil it. Not that she never got in trouble again, though. They don’t call you Amazing for nothing, right?
But that’s another story.
