Farrah in Fairyland (12 page)

“He could have
a loose tooth. After all, this is a Veddo and as you know it is
supposed to inform Tooth Fairies of human boys and girls whose
teeth are ready to be offered up for reward.”

Suddenly, a
large man walked into the room. It was the boy’s father. He had a
sour looking expression on his face and a gruff sounding voice to
match his gruff appearance. A large moustache covered his upper lip
and his white shirt had a similar stain to the one on the boy’s
bed. The man held out a paper dish of what looked to be burnt fish
sticks.

“Here’s your
dinner,” said the man sounding annoyed as he dropped the plate on
the mattress.

“But, Dad, I
thought you were going to take me to get some pizza?” The boy said
cautiously as he clutched the pillow to his chest.

“Pizza? Well,
unless you have a job that I don’t know about, we ain’t got no
money for pizza. Plus have you looked outside? It is pitch black!
All you are going to get outside is a lungful of black smoke. Now
eat your fish sticks or else I’m gonna give them to the dog! Oh,
and don’t be getting any ideas of leaving this house, boy. It’s
dangerous out there - if you haven’t noticed. It’d be your luck to
have a bomb land on ya.”

That would be better than having to live here,
said the boy under his
breath.

“You getting’
smart young man,” the man said angrily.

“No sir,”
recoiled the boy as he pulled the plate closer and attempted to
bite into one of the fish sticks.

The boy’s
already puffy and red eyes filled up with tears as his father
walked out of his room, slamming the door behind him.

“How
horrible,” Farrah said to Giuseppi.

“Have you ever
seen anything so loathsome?”

Giuseppi shook
his head ever so slightly, not removing his gaze from the boy.

“I know, I
can’t believe he’s gonna eat those fish sticks. My dad would go
absolutely ballistic at the sight of someone eating that processed
crap.”

Farrah whacked
Giuseppi on the chest with the back of her wrist.

“Not the fish
sticks, dummy! I’m talking about the boy. He can’t be happy living
in that place.”

“Oh, yeah, the
boy. I knew that’s what you meant. Yeah, just horrible.”

Having thought
she heard a noise, Farrah stuck the Veddo in her purse and walked
out the door of the room. She walked out the front entrance to the
building and took a quick scan of the outside. She saw nothing.

“Maybe it was
just the wind,” observed Giuseppi as he stood next to his friend
and peeked out the door.

“Yeah, you’re
probably right.”

Farrah spotted
another building at a diagonal from where the two of them stood.
Although she had seen it before, for some reason, Farrah couldn’t
take her eyes off of it. It looked spectacular with the beating sun
illuminating the entire building. It gleamed in silver and was the
shape of a pyramid, except for a perfectly round sphere of red that
sat on the tip of the pyramid.

Farrah
remembered having read about a building named the Rotondo Pyramid
in a book that she got from the library. It was entitled
We’re
Watching
and warned
Fairies that they were always under surveillance. If this was
indeed the Rotondo Pyramid, Farrah knew that the Fairy King was
able to transmit a message via the marble sphere.

Farrah ran her
hands along the slick walls of the building. It was seamless. There
wasn’t a window or a door anywhere.

“How do you
think you get in?” asked Giuseppi, as he crouched down to get a
better look at the underbelly of the building.

Expectedly,
Farrah did not respond - she was in her own little world again. Her
eyes were drawn to a circular pad that sat two feet from the side
of the pyramid. Farrah walked over to the pad and without
hesitation, she stepped into the centre. With a puff of smoke, she
disappeared.

“Farrah,
Farrah!” screamed Giuseppi as he rushed to the pad.

“FA-RRAH! – Oh
no! Where are you?”

Giuseppi
continued to shout for his friend for several minutes. Not hearing
Farrah’s voice, he sat down on the ground in front of the silver
pyramid and began to cry.

Giuseppi’s
eyes had filled with tears to the point where his vision became
blurry. He could no longer see the spot where Farrah had
disappeared. Taking out a handkerchief, he blew his nose loudly,
like a brass trumpet, which startled a flock of Pookie Boo birds
that were perched in a nearby tree. Giuseppi followed one of the
ghost-like birds with his eyes as it flew past the sphere on the
top of the pyramid. Startled, he noticed the face of a girl within
the sphere that had turned translucent. As the image became
clearer, he now realized that it was Farrah’s face staring back at
him.

“GIUSEPPI!”

“Farrah?”

Giuseppi ran
up to the pyramid, his head pointed straight up as he continued to
look at the sphere. Although Farrah’s hair was a little
dishevelled, she appeared to be okay.

“Farrah are
you’re alright?”

“Yeah, I’m
okay.”

“Where are
you?”

“I’m inside
the pyramid. That circular platform that I stood on seems to be
some kind of transporter. After stepping on it, I appeared inside
here. There’s another marble similar to the one on top of the
pyramid in the middle of the room. My instincts were right. It is
some kind of communication tower. Go on, Giuseppi, step on the
platform and see if it works again.”

Although he
was sceptical, he slowly walked over to the platform. He would do
anything for Farrah, especially if it meant showing some bravery.
Giuseppi stood as straight as he could in the middle of the
platform for several seconds – nothing. Deflated, he stepped off
the platform and sat on the dusty ground at the side of pyramid.
Farrah frowned as she could see that her friend was upset.

“Don’t worry,
Giuseppi. I’ll find another way to get you in here.”

Farrah
disappeared from the large sphere for quite a while. She searched
the pyramid high and low for some sort of trap door. The inside of
the pyramid was cold and sterile. Although the inside walls were
gleaming like chrome, the room itself was bland.

Palming the
walls up and down for some sort of seam or button, Farrah finally
gave up. She walked over to the large sphere and took a seat on the
ground. As she arched her back to stretch a little, the sphere
moved. Realizing that the marble tilted as she leaned back on it,
Farrah concentrated even more weight from her upper shoulders. The
wall in front of Farrah started to lift off the floor, tilting the
entire building.

“Farrah, what
are you doing in there?” asked Giuseppi as he crouched down with
his face sideways against the ground to peer under the wall. The
entire left side of the pyramid had been elevated an inch off the
ground.

“I think the
sphere opens some sort of secret door Giuseppi,” called Farrah as
she continued to lean with all her might against the heavy
sphere.

“Well keep
pushing, Farrah!” Giuseppi yelled to her as he slipped his fingers
under the wall and tried to lift it up. Suddenly, the wall slapped
to the ground, nearly crushing Giuseppi’s fingers.

“What
happened?” shouted Giuseppi, as he inspected his fingers- thankful
that all of his fingernails were still in tact.

“Sorry,
Giuseppi, I couldn’t hold it any longer.”

Farrah tried a
few more times, but as she became tired, it became a struggle to
get the wall to budge. The highest she had lifted the wall was two
inches, not nearly enough for Giuseppi to squeeze under. As Farrah
sat on the ground to take a break, she got an idea.

“Hey,
Giuseppi, go and see if you can find a couple of large logs.”

Not waiting for
an explanation, knowing that Farrah wouldn’t give him an answer,
Giuseppi headed out around the Pyramid to a forested area. It
didn’t take long for him to find what he was looking for. He ran
back to the Pyramid shouting to his friend as he approached.

“I’ve got
them, Farrah, what do you want me to do with them?”

Farrah
appeared on the large sphere on the top of the pyramid once
again.

“I’m going to
push the sphere. This time when the wall begins to lift, put one of
the logs underneath so that it won’t close shut again.”

“Okay, Farrah,
but make sure that my hands are clear before you stop pushing.”

“Got it,”
Farrah gave a little wink and started to blow him a kiss when she
stopped herself. This went unnoticed by Giuseppi as he spat into
his hands before he rubbed them together.

Farrah walked
up to the sphere. She pushed with both hands near the underside of
the large marble. Her face turned red and she began to sweat as she
pushed. She was having a hard time maintaining her grip, as her
hands were sweaty and slippery. Fortunately, she was able to hang
on just long enough for Giuseppi to slip the log under the wall.
When Farrah stopped pushing, the wall didn’t drop. Instead, the log
acted like a wedge, preventing it from slamming to the ground.

“Okay, what do
you want me to do with the other log?” asked Giuseppi as he
squished his mouth and part of his cheek under the wall. He had a
clear shot of Farrah’s ankles as he spoke.

“Nice green
socks,” mocked Giuseppi.

“Oh, yeah, my
gran got me these for my birthday.”

“Why do they
have pink Gautusos on them?”

Farrah chose
to ignore Giuseppi. Instead, she shouted more instructions to
him.

“Forget about
that, slide the other log under the wall and then stand back.”

Giuseppi
dropped the subject of the socks, and did as he was told. Farrah
quickly grabbed the log after Giuseppi carefully slid it underneath
the wall. She jammed the log under the sphere to use it as a wedge.
Farrah grunted as she focussed all of her weight on the exposed end
of the log.

“Whatever
you’re doing, it’s working!” Hollered Giuseppi excitedly, as he
watched the wall lift slowly, separating itself from the
ground.

In no time, the
wall lifted well over a foot off he ground. For once, Giuseppi’s
puny body became an asset as he effortlessly slipped under the
wall. He continued to roll to the centre of the room and stopped at
Farrah’s feet. She helped him up and dusted off his back. For a
moment, Giuseppi leaned in and got a whiff of Farrah’s sweet
smelling hair. Fearing that Farrah would notice, he coughed loudly
into his hand and looked in the opposite direction. The empty,
anaesthetic room didn’t impress the young fairy.

“This is it?
You went through all that to get me into a place that nobody in all
of Fairyland would want to go. I don’t get you sometimes,
Farrah.”

Without a
word, Farrah took out some Tooth Fairy dust and held the pouch up
close to the wall. Much to Giuseppi’s disbelief, a word appeared
like dripping paint from centre of the wall.

“PECORU,”
whispered Farrah.

Impressed,
Giuseppi moved slowly toward the word that had appeared out of
nowhere.

“What is going
on?” He shouted as a sense of fear had overcome him. He could feel
a sickness coming on, like that summer two years ago when he had
come down with Duckie Pox. Giuseppi wasn’t able to walk or talk for
a month, having sprouted massive webbed feet and a huge duckbill.
This time however, his ears weren’t feeling right. He could feel
them stretching at a rapid pace.

As he looked
down at the back of his hands, dozens of tiny hairs protruded out
until his entire fist was covered in hair.

“What did you
do to me, Farrah?” He shouted angrily.

“Oh just
relax, Giuseppi, it’s just a simple Pecoru spell that’s all. Don’t
worry, it won’t last very long.”

“Pecoru –
what’s that?” reacted Giuseppi as he tried frantically to shake the
hairs from his hands.

“Ah, well,
right now you look like a donkey,” she giggled.

“A what?”

Giuseppi
rushed up to the chrome wall to see his reflection. Farrah was
right, he looked exactly like a donkey found on earth. Embarrassed
and not wanting Farrah to see him that way, he rushed to a corner
with his hands covering his head.

“Don’t worry,
Giuseppi. The spell will wear off after a few seconds.”

Farrah walked
up to the section of the wall where the word Pecoru had formed in
large cursive writing. As the spell began to wear off, the words
also started to fade. Within a minute, the word had completely
vanished and Giuseppi had returned to normal. Relieved to see the
reflection of his old self in the chrome wall, Giuseppi began to
kiss his hands up and down.

Farrah was in
deep thought once again. She was staring at the very spot where the
word Pecoru had appeared when another word formed.

VISTO

Giuseppi
stared at his reflection in the wall once again fearing the worst.
However, nothing happened.

“Farrah, what
in all of Fairyland is going on?”

Farrah opened
her eyes and looked directly at her friend.

“In this
pyramid room, the thoughts of any Tooth Fairy can be read. It
apparently knew what I was thinking when it spelled out
Pecoru.”

“Geez
FA-IRR-IES, Farrah. Don’t you ever do that again!”

“Sorry,
Giuseppi, but I have to say that you were the cutest donkey I have
ever seen.”

Giuseppi
blushed and looked away from Farrah. He was trying to think of
something nice to say when he heard voices coming from the wall.
The word VISTO had disappeared and was replaced by two fairies that
floated in mid-air. They were having a conversation and one began
to laugh deeply. Farrah and Giuseppi tried to distinguish who the
fairies were, but their faces were smudged rendering them
unrecognizable.