HOME | DD

Description

At some time in June, a betwixt-and-between time, the Summer Fairies looked down to the earth from their special clouds and waited for a secret sign. And when it came, a smile lit the sky from a heavenly source and basked the entire earth in its warmth. Soon the air was filled with the soft, permeating sound of synchronised wings being flexed after prolonged rest.

The Summer Fairies were ready.

And now they waited for their transport and gathered at the edges of the clouds, laughing and nudging each other. They looked to the earth below and told fairy jokes that they had all heard a million times before, to relieve the boredom of waiting. And then they primped and preened in little fairy mirrors, which they kept in their pockets, to make sure they looked at their Summer best.

And when all the jokes had been exhausted, and they deemed their reflections in the mirrors to be perfect, a game was played called ‘Closest to the edge’ which was played every year. To view this scene, it could be described as rather cute: all those Summer Fairies on tip-toes posing rather comically on cloud tufts. But the sun dragon, who was supposed to be their guardian whilst they lived in the sky, thought otherwise. He thought them to be a pain! He wondered why they took such risks at this stage, when they knew full well, they were unable to fly? Their gossamer wings, though fully spread and looking entirely flight-worthy, were still sticky with a residue that formed during ‘hibernation’. This residue took at least an hour to wear off. He sighed as he watched the foolery continue.

It was inevitable then, that at least one fairy would fall through a cloud gap, which called for an immediate rescue procedure. The sun dragon’s tongue darted forth and caught the errant fairy in just two ticks. But did the near escape deter the Summer Fairies? Not one whit! Once the first had fallen, several others followed. The sun dragon’s tongue got plenty of exercise! It lashed back and forth, downwards and upwards, performing contortions that made it ache. The sun dragon knew it would have to rest its tongue for many days afterwards to enable it to recover.

It was at that point, that the clouds grew angry. Their edges were growing increasingly frayed! They whispered together and informed the sun dragon of their decision, at which he nodded approvingly. He cleared his throat, and tried to speak as his swollen tongue lolled pathetically, from one side of his mouth. ‘ Ouds are owing oo ain on oo,’ he said, which meant: ‘Clouds are going to rain on you.’ The fairies got the message. They stopped their game immediately. Damp wings took a lot of drying out!

Soon the fairies began to leave, most of them slipping onto the nearest sunbeam, of which there were many variations. The fairies argued a bit over these, as they were considered to be top-of-the-range in sky travel, and so were the most popular choice! They were possibly the equivalent of mortals’ prized BMWs and Ferraris, but not all fairies were lucky enough to grab one, because sunbeams could be quite elusive. So other little beings, less nimble and thus less fortunate, had to make do with alternative types of ‘vehicle’ like rainbows. Unfortunately, these were available less often – rather like certain buses. And also, as spectacular as these arcs may have been, they were rather cumbersome and tended to imprint their colour onto travellers! Thus, a fairy travelling by blue ray would arrive on earth, equally blue! This was not desirable. In fashion terms, none of the rainbow colours were in fairy vogue this season: ‘So passé darling!’ – as fairy fashion designers would say. Silver and gold were the colours to be seen in – the only colours! It took tons of soap to wash rainbow hues off, too and the fairies, much like many mortal children, hated it with a vengeance!

Perhaps the quickest modes of sky travel were thunderbolts and lightning but they were also extremely hazardous. Many a fairy had used a Number One or Two (as they were known) to his or her detriment. Singed eyebrows and eyelashes were a common occurrence in the foolhardy twits who chanced such transport! And those were just the lucky ones! However, all forms of sky transport were superior to those on earth. And the sky itself, was far less congested, thank goodness! Otherwise Summer might well have been delayed.

Soon the clouds were bare and the sun dragon breathed a sigh of relief, as he watched the last fairy leave. But then he heard a crackling sound. A fairy had caught a thunderbolt! Where had that come from? Well no matter, the sun dragon thought, he was sure the fairy would be all right. Maybe arrive a little charred though! He lumbered back to his fiery cave at the topmost point of the clouds and settled down for a well earned rest. He rather hoped that summer would not arrive again for a long, long time.

Meanwhile, the fairies swooped downwards with yells of delight. They didn’t even pause to stop at a fairy transport café for a cuppa and a doughnut. Was it because of their eagerness to start Summer? Or was it because fairy doughnuts tasted yuck? Who could tell?

The yells and whoops came louder as their enthusiasm crescendoed. They saw the earth below, still in its springlike mantle and couldn’t wait to add their own special touches to ‘pep’ it up a bit. Why, even before the fairies reached the earth’s surface they could not contain themselves, almost as if they were in a sense of overspill. ‘Something had to give,’ as the saying goes. And so, waving aloft their Summer wands, the fairies lit the earth with vibrant colour: bright blues, reds and pinks, yellow like the sun, rich grass green, stunning purple and many other hues cascaded down to paint the flowers and fields, the sea, the rivers and the streams. Everything became jewel-like and glowing. With all this pizzazz and vibrant energy abounding, it might well be expected for the resultant scene to reflect this and be somewhat bold and garish. But no, the scene was as gentle and as inspiring as a mother’s first touch to her newborn. A caress that promised many more. How come?

The vital ingredient that created Summer was LOVE. Summer was the fairies’ child: a bright young thing they brought with them to nurture and so enable it to flourish. And each Summer was different and special in its own way, just as most babies are. Sometimes, it would sleep and the rains would come. Sometimes it would gurgle with delight and let sunshine spread, and sometimes it would just stare into space, as if it didn’t want to be there at all. But no matter, for all Summers were beautiful in the Summer Fairies’ eyes.

Skye, the Leader of the Summer Fairies supervised the whole event every year, but he didn’t interfere. His task force knew their job only too well and to give them orders would only serve to deprive them of job satisfaction. And he didn’t want that because he hated to be bossy. Skye was more of a father figure than a leader, and his kindly beaming face shone upon the fairies as brightly as the sun itself. And oft he would refer to his workers as his children, which summed up the true nature of most fairies, particularly the Spring and Summer ones.

As the fairies were so small and so abundant, mortals perceived their arrival as a Summer haze and often fell into the trap of thinking they were in for a really hot spell. Poor deluded fools! But then mortals weren’t as clever as they liked to think they were. Just because they were big and heavy didn’t mean they knew everything, whereas the tiny fairies knew that they did know everything! The only thing they didn’t know was that they possessed just a smidgeon of conceit!

Anyway, getting back to fairyfoolery, it is best explained by the fact that Summer Fairies liked to vary their season each time and give full reign to their creativeness. Heat, was only one of their many talents and on many occasions, when they were feeling naughty, they liked to slip in a hailstorm in the middle of August and call it artistic licence. Of course, the mortals didn’t call it artistic licence, in fact they called it everything but. Air could get very blue at times such as those and it wasn’t with cold.

And once the fairies had arrived on the earth below, fairy equipment had to be sorted and cleaned. Well, fairies had to look after the tools-of-their-trade! Wings had to be detached and sent off to a special fairy laundry; magic amulets had to immersed in salt water; whilst wands had to have a really vigorous polish. It was a nuisance with the wings being sent off, because it meant the fairies had to walk everywhere for a day or so, but the amulets and wands were soon dealt with. Amulets in the shape of eyes, cats and various lucky shapes were tossed into little, salty rock pools at seaside places, and were cleaned in two ticks. But the fairies spent a little longer on their wands. Little tins were produced full of fairy polish and soon the fairies were rubbing away vigorously. It took each fairy at least two hours of polishing to achieve the best shine. But it was well worth it.

It has to be noted that wands had developed somewhat since the ancient models used by Xmas fairies. The type with a flat stick with a star on top was now virtually extinct along with dodos! Modern day fairies had super-wands that possessed every conceivable gadget incorporated in them. In fact, they could do most things apart from making a cup of fairy tea, and even this was being worked on by the inventors!

Fairies tended to receive their first wands at the age of three, given to them by doting fairy parents. And it was a sad story indeed, if any of those parents were behind the times and presented junior with an older model. The words ‘petulant sulk’ were not even mildly adequate to describe the resulting scene. For those unfamiliar with fairy physiology, an explanation may be necessary here: All fairy children tend to have quite malleable and elastic bodies, and a sulky top lip could protrude in quite hideous proportions in relation to the child’s body for days on end. Some parents even had to equip their offspring with wheelbarrows to carry their top lips around until the sulk diminished! Fairy parents experiencing such tantrums, used the phrase ‘He/she has got a full lip on’ and other parents would nod knowingly.

Enough of fairy parenting problems and back to the major task in hand. Summer. Apart from doing stuff with their wands, or ‘wanding’ as it was popularly termed, the Summer Fairies also breathed joy into the air that mortals shared with them, and filled their days with a sense of fun. And this particular Summer was no exception.

As usual, fun was easily achieved via fairy laughter: potent stuff that was spread across the earth’s surface in a thick sweet layer like treacle. It dripped down from the tops of trees, clinging merrily to branches and then splattered into golden droplets to the ground. It also got caught up on the tongues of wind sprites, who then carried it along for a while, savouring its sweetness, before transferring it to mortal children by licking their faces! Slightly unhygienic, yes! But effective! As children emerged from school, at the end of a long day, tired and weary, with their heads full of plans on how to garrotte their maths teachers, they felt this subtle sensation across their cheeks. It was like the faintest tickle but had immediate impact. Suddenly, they were all laughing, and thinking that all teachers were wonderful, especially maths teachers. Ah, such power!

The children returned home to their parents and immediately offered to tidy their rooms, unaware what had prompted such an alien thought. Naturally, parents were delighted and blessed the Summer madness that had taken their offspring unawares. And these blessings were then relayed back to the instigators, the Summer Fairies themselves, who absorbed the joyous feelings, and then promptly gave them back out again! It was a continuous regenerating circle.

There were fairy tears too, as well as laughter, but these were tears of happiness. In Summer rain they sprinkled into brooks and rivers, where the water undines carried them to the living creatures within.

Gifts from the fairies to mortals were abundant but they did not forget the animal kingdom, not to mention the fish and insect kingdoms. All rejoiced in Summer, from the biggest elephant to the smallest ant.

But there was something in the Summer wind, so to speak, though only a few Summer Fairies felt this. Was it just a large speck of dust destined to blur the eye of those who sought true happiness? Were the Summer Fairies’ children to be denied of some of their Summer magic? Who knew? Perhaps it was far more than this. Certainly at this point of the proceedings, the Summer Fairies had no realisation of what was about to happen. As per usual, they were propelled into an absolute frenzy of activity. No time to ponder on a vague premonition.

Yes, indeed, there was much to be done and as usual there was still a residue of Winter hanging in the air. It was true to say that the Spring Fairies, who had preceded them had done their bit, but March, as usual, had huffed and puffed its way through, whilst April and even that particular May and early June had still kept much of Winter’s chill. The reason for this, was that the Winter Fairies were always loathe to relinquish their reign to the next Season Fairies, and thus had put an extra bit of oomph into their weather dealings. The ‘Oomph’ was a reservoir of energy, so potent it continued beyond its timescale. It was a cheat but a legal one and the Winter Fairies always employed it. But no matter now, for the Summer Fairies were in full flux, and their fairy wands were rarely still; these golden rods zipped about hither and thither, whilst fairy wings blurred with high speed enthusiasm.

Soon, light and love filtered into every type of dwelling place throughout the world, shaming cobwebs and dust that spring cleaning had failed to remove. Housewives everywhere took up their dusters and polish that they had only just put away, for Summer light was all revealing. Dark corners emerged into the illumination also, and everywhere a dingy place had lurked, there stood a Summer Fairy, urging a housewife on to fluff away its dusty memories. And real memories got dusted also, for this was a Summer Fairy speciality. Plus, all those Winter woes that mortals had, were banished to another place, where they could rest until the time came for them to be taken up again.

But there was no time to sit and rest for the Summer Fairies themselves, and neither did they want to. It was their time and they were making the most of it, just as all the other Season Fairies did when it came to their own turn. In fact, there was resting time enough when their Season finished and they had to return to the Hall of Shadows and then they merged into its wonderful sense of stillness…

Note: this is from the first chapter which I thought made a little story in its own right.