Party With The Fairies

This is from Somita, a young Enid Blyton fan. This story is not based on Enid Blyton characters, but is very well written and extremely Blytonesque in style, and will certainly appeal to young readers who like fantasy short stories about fairies.

Julie was a little girl of about eight. Her father was a sailor and spent most of his time away on the sea. Her mother used to tell her the stories of fairylands and magic. Julie always wanted to go to fairylands and meet the fairies.

One evening, she went to bed as usual. At about eleven o'clock in the night, she was woken up by some noise outside. She got up cautiously from her bed. She took her torch and went to the window. She shone her torch around the garden. She saw something under an apple tree. She couldn't make out what it was. Suddenly that something looked up. To Julie's surprise, it had a face like a human. And to her even bigger surprise, it had a pair of wings and it flew up to her window! It was a little fairy! The fairy went to the window and sat on the window-sill. She smiled at Julie.

Julie was very astonished. She couldn't believe there were fairies in real life. "Are you – are you a fairy?" she asked.

"How do you know?" asked the little fairy.

"Well, there were some pictures of fairies in my fairy-tales book," said Julie.

The fairy nodded. "Yes, I am a fairy," she replied. "My name's Smiley." Her name certainly fitted her. She smiled all the time.

"My name's Julie," said Julie. "What were you doing in the garden? Were you searching something?"

"No, I was cleaning the ground under the apple tree to make it ready for the party tonight," replied Smiley. "It begins in about an hour, at midnight."

"Oh! Will there be dances too?" asked Julie. "Yes, and all the fairies of the Fairy land are coming," replied Smiley. "Would you like to join the party?"

"I would love to, thank you," said Julie. "And I will help you clean the ground."

"Thank you," said Smiley. "But it's nearly finished."

Then Smiley took Julie's right hand and pulled. They flew down to the garden and under the apple tree. It was a lovely feeling for Julie who had never flown before.

She helped Smiley to collect the fallen leaves. After finishing that, Smiley said, "Now for some magic." She tapped on the trunk of the apple tree five times. Then, Julie saw a most amazing site she had ever seen.

Many small toadstools began to grow in front of her, forming a ring. And a smaller toadstool grew beside each toadstool. "Oh, are these toadstools for the party?" asked Julie. Smiley nodded and gave another tap at the tree-trunk. Another toadstool, slightly bigger than all the other toadstools, grew at the centre of the ring. And a smaller toadstool grew beside it.

"That is for the Queen of Fairies," said Smiley. "Now, look."

As Julie looked, another toadstool a bit bigger than rest, grew – and a smaller toadstool grew beside it.

"That's for you," said Smiley with one of her pretty smiles. "All the bigger toadstools are tables and the smaller toadstools are chairs!"

"What about food?" Julie asked. She wondered what was going to happen next.

"You'll have to wait and see," replied Smiley. Just then, a bright light shone upon them. It came from somewhere in the sky. As it came nearer and nearer, she saw from what it came.

A big carpet was flying towards them. On it were fairies from Fairyland. All the fairies were very beautiful and were dressed in beautiful dresses. But Queen Fairy was most magnificent, of course. She could be easily recognized with jeweled crown on her head and a wand in her hand.

The carpet landed on the ground and all the fairies came towards Julie and Smiley. All of them stared at Julie in surprise as they didn't recognize her. Julie felt uncomfortable. "All of them are wearing party-dresses but I am in my pyjamas," she thought. She looked down to her pyjamas but to her enormous surprise, they were gone! Instead, she was in a very beautiful party-dress, as good as the dresses of fairies!

Smiley whispered to Julie, "I changed them because I thought you wouldn't want to join the party in your pyjamas."

Then she announced, "This is Julie. She saw me working here and I invited her to the party. She is very good and helpful girl."

Julie blushed. The Queen welcomed her. "Welcome to the party," she said. "You are a nice girl."

Julie thanked the Queen and all the other fairies for letting her to join the party.

"Let's dance," said one of the fairies. At once a soft music began to play by magic. All the fairies, including the Queen, began to dance with their friends. Julie danced with Smiley.

After the dancing finished, they went to sit on small toadstools.

"Wish out aloud what you want to eat or drink and tap your table twice. The food you wish will appear on it," said Smiley to Julie.

Julie did what she was told. She wished for an ice-cream and tapped on the table twice. At once a cup full of lovely ice-cream appeared on the toadstool-table. Julie began to eat hungrily. She wished for other items and tapped on the table and what food she wished appeared there.

When everybody finished their dinner, the Queen of the fairies called Julie to her. "I would like to give you some presents from my side," she said. Then she waved her wand and at once a box wrapped up neatly with colorful paper appeared on her toadstool. She gave it to Julie and said, "Open this only when you reach home."

Julie nodded and thanked the Queen. It was time for the fairies to return. All of them thanked Smiley for the grand party, sat on the magic carpet and flew away to Fairyland. Julie and Smiley waved to them.

Julie was very tired by then. Her party-dress disappeared and she was in her pyjamas again.

"How will you clean this mess?" she asked to Smiley, pointing to the toadstools.

Smiley smiled and tapped on the trunk of the apple-tree, ten times this time. All the remains of the party and the toadstools at once disappeared. Julie was awestruck.

"I forgot to ask you," she said. "Where is your house? Don't you live with the other fairies?"

"I live inside this apple-tree!" Smiley replied.

"Oh, you are so near and I didn't know it!" Julie exclaimed. "I would love to meet you again."

"We shall meet again. Shall we?" said Smiley. "We shall meet everyday at five in the evening under this tree and play. I shall take you to my house."

"How can you adjust inside this small tree-trunk?" Julie asked.

"It is bigger inside than you can imagine," Smiley replied.

"Oh, I shall love to see what's like, inside," said Julie. She suddenly yawned.

"You seem very tired. Will you wait for a minute?" Smiley said. "I will be back."

Julie nodded. Smiley flew to one of the branches of the apple-tree and disappeared behind some cluster of leaves. She came out again and flew down to Julie.

She had a small box with her. She gave it to Julie. "It is a present from me," she said. "Now, I will take you to your room."

Julie carried her two boxes, one given by the Queen and other given by Smiley, under her one arm and hold Smiley's hand with her other hand. They flew to Julie's room and went in through the open window.

"Good night, Julie," said Smiley. "Oh, I forgot to say one thing. Promise me not to tell tonight's happenings to any other person."

"Can't I tell it to my best friend, Daffy and my mother?" asked Julie. She had longed to tell it to her best friend.

"Well then, just to them, okay?" said Smiley. "Not to anybody else. Goodbye now and thanks for helping in cleaning."

"Goodbye and thanks to you for a lovely party and your gift," said Julie.

Smiley flew out of the window and Julie shut it. She switched on her bedroom-light and opened the box given by Smiley. In it was a bag of sweets and two story-books. Then she opened the box given by the Queen fairy. There was a pretty party-dress, a teddy and a big doll who could sing a song when her tummy was pressed. Julie was simply delighted with these gifts from Smiley and Queen Fairy. She put them in her toy cupboard.

"I'll tell all about tonight to Daffy and Mother tomorrow morning only," she thought. She switched off her bedroom-light and went to bed.

"What an exciting night it has been," she thought as she fell asleep.