Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Episode 4
The moment the last word of power left my lips, I dropped the spell book back on the desk and darkness clamped around me, squeezing and twisting my body like an ogre wringing every last drop of water out of the washing.
Then the light rushed back, and I opened my eyes.
I was standing next to an enormous buckled shoe stuffed with an oversized stockinged foot attached to an elephant-sized leg. My desk was the size of a double-storey house. The whole studio was vast, like a cathedral for giants.
I always experience a rush of giddy pleasure when my spells work, and I felt it this time too, but it quickly vanished when I looked around. Although I was about three inches tall, as intended, I realised the enormous buckled shoe and stockinged leg belonged to Grimmon, who hadn’t shrunk at all.
“Grimmon?” I said.
The shoe shifted, scraping along the floor and banging into me. I jumped aside to avoid being squashed.
“Where are you? And why is your voice so squeaky?” said Grimmon.
I tipped back my head and shouted, “I’m down here!”
Grimmon bent and peered at me. “Ah, there you are. Why are you so tiny? I thought you were going to cast a spell to take us out of here.”
“I did cast a spell! That’s why I’m tiny! Why haven’t you shrunk as well?”
“Another one of your spells misfired, eh?” The goblin went down on his haunches, wheezing like a deflating balloon. “Hang on… Are you saying this isn’t an accident? That you meant to make yourself that small?”
“Yes! But the spell was supposed to shrink both of us.”
“Let me get this straight.” Grimmon rubbed his forehead. “Instead of casting a spell to, let’s say, produce a magic sword we can use to cut our way out, you cast one that reduced you to the size of a mouse. And, you imply, it was supposed to do the same to me.” He huffed and a great waft of his rancid breath washed over me. “I’m rather glad it didn’t. What possessed you to think being tiny is a good idea?”
I tried to keep my face from showing my annoyance – and, yes, my embarrassment – that a magic sword hadn’t even occurred to me.
But there was no way I was going to give Grimmon ammunition for future arguments. I puffed out my chest and put my hands on my hips. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? At this size, I can walk through the gaps in the moss. The fairies must have left them there so they can do the same thing.”
“I see. So, once you’re in those gaps of yours, where do you suppose you’ll go? How are you going to get out of the castle? You’re way too small to open the doors.”
He had me again. I cursed under my breath, then pulled myself together and stood as tall as my three inches allowed. “I have no intention of leaving the castle,” I lied. “My plan all along has been to go to the kitchen and have breakfast. I’m starving.”
“What about me?”
“Oh, I’ll bring something back for you to eat.”
“How do you propose to do that? You’re too titchy to carry more than a crumb! You really didn’t think this through, did you?”
I didn’t like the turn the conversation had taken, and I’m not fond of being on the defensive. There was only one thing I could do.
“Goodbye! See you later!” I yelled and scurried away across the floor. Before he could stop me, I dodged out of the door and dived through a gap in the moss.
It didn’t stop him yelling after me, though. “It will take you half a day to walk to the kitchen on those matchstick legs!”
Another thing I hadn’t thought of.
“That’s even if you manage to get down the stairs! It’ll be like climbing down a mountain!”
Ignoring him, I pelted along a mossy tunnel, which I hoped would lead to the stairs. He shouted some other things too, but they were too rude for me to pay attention to. In any case, I had far more important things to deal with.
Like the fairy who stepped out of a side tunnel and pointed her spear at me.
I skidded to a halt and her face split in a mean smile, revealing teeth like a row of yellow needles.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she said.
***
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