The Winged Witch 9/15

Sam stood quietly for a moment or two while he carefully thought out a sensible reply. He had rather a lot of new ideas to think about! Witches and dragons he could believe in, after all he’d seen them at first hand. It was one of his scans that had been used to produce the dragon model that was now a best seller on several worlds.

Tooth fairies were rather a different matter! To his mind fairies were tiny little creatures no bigger than a butterfly. How on earth they were supposed to carry away any teeth that they found, let alone carry the money to pay for them, was beyond him. On the other hand the kid said they existed and up to now she’d been perfectly correct, she also said that a surplus supply of teeth existed that were presumably available cheaply. He made up his mind.

“Let’s go back to the laboratory, I think I might have an idea that solves your problem, but I need to check it out with one of the chemists.”

They walked back to the room where the chemicals were prepared and Sam had a quiet word with the man in charge. He in turn had a chat with someone on his comlink and then gave Sam his reply.

“Right then that all seems settled if the young lady will agree. It appears that the synthetic tooth solution is very expensive to produce, we only used it because models made from it were already being sold on your world. If you have a surplus of the material to dispose of, we might be able to take it off your hands if the price is right. Then we could make models more cheaply and increase our sales as a result. It all depends on whether the teeth can be dissolved or reduced to a suitable solution to use with our equipment. Can you get us a sizeable sample, say a pound or two in weight?”

“If we go outside again I should be able to get what you want in ten minutes or so!”

Sam almost laughed out loud, he knew witches were supposed to be able to do all sorts of fantastic things, but to his own knowledge the child would have to fly out to the transport fog. She’d then have to get to another world, find the person holding the tooth surplus and return the same way!

“I’d like to see you do it in the time,” he laughed.

“Check me out on your comlink, assuming it will tell you something as simple as the time,” came the reply rather unexpectedly. “But before I go, can you mark out a large circle on the grass and not let anyone or anything go inside that area until I come back?”

Sam called over several passers by and asked them to mark out an approximate circle using their coats. Jennifer Jane agreed that it was a suitable size and repeated her instruction that nobody must enter the circle until her return. Then she seemed to have another thought.

“Please can somebody find me a large paper or cloth bag for the material I’m bringing back?”

Sam didn’t really see why she wanted a bag before she went; surely she could find one and bring it back with the goods! But before he could protest, one of the onlookers had already run over to the nearest building and a few moments later came back holding a large heavy plastic shopping bag. Then everyone stood round in suspense, waiting for something exciting to happen.

Rather strangely the child put both hands into the empty bag and then smiled at Sam. “Start timing me now,” she said and disappeared.