Hunting the Fairy Tale

Chapter 59 - Dusty Dead Fairies

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After a long, hot shower, I'm finally rid of the rain and the mud and the bone-chilling cold.

I got rained on some more while I jogged back to school and nearly froze on the motorcycle coming home. I didn't want to take my blazer back from Joe and didn't have my motorcycle jacket today. A soaked sweater is not quite as effective as I was promised it would be.

Now I'm all snug in warm comfortable sweats and really tempted to join the sleeping dog on my bed and pull the duvet over my head until I have to get up for my new job in the mistress of Satan's kitchen tomorrow...

I might even sleep a little.

Not a good idea; it's not even 4pm yet. I have to cook tomorrow's lunch requests, and I also want to try some new ideas for Molly; besides, the exams start next week.

Pretending to be a good student, I sit down at my desk to prove to myself that I can actually study sometimes. I've just taken out my math books when my bedroom door bursts open and in charges a dead moth in an explosion of dust and mangled fairy wings. She makes a dive for my bed, where she lies face down in a cloud of despair.

Wow! And she's always bitching about me barging into her room without knocking.

Dutchess lifts her head off my pillows and swivels around to sniff Paisley's hair. Poor Ewok scurries for shelter in his cage. My hamster is a little skittish and for good reason, this room has seen its share of strange activities, some of them quite noisy too.

"Can I help you, Miss?" I ask since Paisley is apparently just going to lie there and suffocate herself in my bedding. Well, if I'd still been in the process of getting dressed, that move would've saved her from having to see my - and I quote - "instrument of chaos and mayhem" again, something she's always growling about even when she's the one invading my space. I'm still unsure what exactly it is that the beast gets up to in her imagination.

Paisley pushes herself into a sitting position that once again has me convinced that the girl's hips must be completely double-jointed or detachable. Maybe both. Her legs are bent back at the knees and she is sitting flat between her feet.

Freaky as hell.

"That is a new level of whoa!" I give my very eloquent opinion of the mouldy fairy sitting on my bed.

Paisley is wearing a ballet tutu that was the pride of Titania, Queen of the Fairies' spring collection about 500 years ago. Now it's just a bunch of cobwebs held together by pure stubbornness. One shoulder has lost its strap, and the frayed fabric is slowly sliding down Paisley's breast. She grabs it and holds it in place, miserably peering at me.

"Spoilsport," I say when she stops that piece of the bodice from exposing her, and she clicks her tongue at me.

"Duct tape," she says through clenched teeth. "Do we have any? I'm gonna paste this thing to my body and patch the holes with it."

"That's gonna look soooo cool, Paise," I chuckle, rising from my chair to sit on the bed next to her, scratching Dutchess's ears when she crawls into the space behind us for some affection.

"I'm supposed to do the dance of the sugar plum fairy from The Nutcracker for my evaluation; now I'll just look like the fairy that got caught in a nutcracker."

Sugar Plum Fairy.

It's the second time I hear that name today and I wince, thinking of the previous time. Speaking of nutcrackers... feisty friggin' bitch! If Danny pisses me off tomorrow, she's going into the chilli... head first... though she'll probably cause the customers some serious heartburn.