Fairies
Do you believe in fairies?
The Wilkinson family were having their annual holiday at the seaside but unfortunately the
weather didn’t know it was summer and it was raining hard. I volunteered to entertain the
younger members of our family by telling them a story. First, I asked them, ‘Do you believe in
fairies?’ And they replied, ‘No, of course not, they’re only in books.’
Well, when I was your age, I loved them and read anything I could find about them. I lived with
my parents, sister Annabelle, brother Robert and our dog Rex in a house at the edge of a village
with a wood at the end of the garden. I thought of it as an enchanted wood and wondered if
there were fairies there.
Then before the end of the summer term, our class had a nature walk which ended at the fairy
ring. Our guide said, ‘It is said that on a full moon fairies have a party here.’ One of the children
replied, ‘Rubbish, they don’t exist.’ But I wondered how I could get to see them. I checked the
fence at the bottom of the garden and thought I would be able to squeeze through. Then I went
into the kitchen and found where they keep the back door key but I would have to stand on a
chair to reach the bolts. I had already seen a path which I hoped led to the fairy ring so on the
night of the full moon, I crept silently down the stairs. Rex woke up and I knew if I didn’t take him
with me he would start barking. So I found the torch, undid the bolts, opened the door and we
both squeezed through the hole in the fence.
We started down the path and arrived at the fairy ring but there were no fairies dancing. I sat
under a tree waiting for them but I eventually fell asleep. I had a wonderful dream where I was
dancing with the fairies and I was as small as them. Then I felt someone pushing me and I
woke to find Rex licking my face. It was getting light and he was anxious to go home. He set off
at a fast pace and we found our way back to the fence and squeezed through.
I hoped my parents hadn’t missed me but if I had looked up, I would have seen them watching
me from my bedroom window. I replaced everything I had taken in its rightful place and noticed
Rex was fast asleep in his basket. Perhaps he had been awake all night guarding me? I crept
back up the stairs and I glanced at my parents’ bed room. The door was closed. Good, they
were still asleep and hadn’t missed me but when I opened my bedroom door, they were waiting
for me.
They said, ‘Where have you been?’ ‘To see the fairies,’ I said. ‘And did you see them?’ ‘Only in
my dreams.’ ‘You must never do anything like that again,’ my father said and I never did.
My audience had listened patiently and then one said, ‘I think you were very brave to go out in
the wood at night’. I was lucky to have Rex and maybe I wouldn’t have gone without him but I so
wanted to see the fairies, if only in my dreams. Then someone noticed that it had stopped
raining and they all ran out to play in the garden.
© Margaret Cobb