The Water Fairies

Down deep in the ocean far away from the land of the fairies who lived on the land, lived the water fairies; their kingdom is shared with all the oceans fishes, whales, sharks, dolphins and all the ships and boats that sank while crossing the ocean.

There are ships of all shapes and sizes some very, very big and some just small, the fairy boys and girls would play hide and seek in and around the ships, some times even the fish would join in.

One day the fairies were playing hide and seek inside a very large wooden ship, one of the fairies whose name was Waterlily was hiding in one of the rooms inside an old Spanish galleon that had sunk hundreds of years ago while in a battle.

She had hidden behind a locker and inside a small hole that was in the wall, “this is a good hiding place” Waterlily thought, “they won’t find me here”.  Then suddenly the ship moved and the locker rolled back against the wall, trapping Waterlily inside the hole, she tried to push the locker away but she wasn’t strong enough.

“What am I going to do” she said to herself she tried calling out for help but there was no-one near enough to hear her.  She tried again to push the locker away but it still would not budge.  Then she heard a noise coming from behind the locker, it was a whirring sound she had never heard a sound like that before and was getting very frightened.

Suddenly the locker moved away from the wall and before Waterlily could do anything, she was being sucked into a large pipe.  “Oh what is happening” she cried as she traveled very fast up the pipe, she passed through the ship and out into the ocean, upwards past a shoal of fish that were playing nearby, past the old whale that was now resting after having eaten his lunch and up towards this bright object.

Waterlily didn’t know what to do, she tried flying back down the pipe but the suction was to hard to fly against, soon she was so tired so she gave up trying, upwards she went the bright object getting bigger and brighter, then all of a sudden she was out of the ocean and being taken into a large glass container, that sat on the deck of what looked like a large boat.

Inside the container were coins, bits of jewellery, old seashells and other things that the pipe had sucked up from below the ocean.  Waterlily stood very still against the side of the container as more pieces fell from the pipe into the container, she tried to fly out but she found that her wings would not flap, in fact she couldn’t move even her little finger, she was now very frightened and wished that she had stayed indoors today, instead of going out to play with her friends.

Standing just outside of the glass container were a lady and a man, the man was holding onto the pipe that had sucked Waterlily up out of the ocean, the lady was washing the dirt and sand of off a large round broach, that sparkled as the sunlight hit the bright coloured stones that were set in the middle of the broach.

The lady put the broach down on a bench next to some other jewellery and turned back towards the glass container that Waterlily was in, a hand took Waterlily upwards and out of the container, the lady said to the man standing next to her, “Look at this pretty fairy statue that came up from below” and lay Waterlily down on the bench.  “I’m not a statue” thought Waterlily and tried to fly back into the ocean, but no mater how she tried she could not move.

“How can she see me and why can’t I move”, she thought and then she noticed, there lying inside the glass container on the bottom was her magic tooth necklace.

The necklace’s were made from the teeth of little children, when their baby teeth fell out, the fairies would collected them and leave a coin under the pillow as payment for them, they would then made the necklaces and when worn around the neck, no human could see or touch them, but without the necklace, fairies could be seen and when seen and touched by a human they could not move.

As the day passed Waterlily lay there on the bench watching the lady wash things that they had collected from down deep in the ocean.

Twice another man came up from under the ocean and then after changing a large round thing that sat on his back and putting something into his mouth and something over his eyes, he would roll over the side of the boat and disappear into the ocean.

The sun passed over the sky and slowly disappeared over the edge of the world, the man who had been in the water was now sitting on the deck of the boat looking at all the treasures that they had collected. Twice the lady had picked up Waterlily and said how pretty she was and how she was in such a good shape after being under the ocean for hundreds of years.

“I’m only ten and what does she mean in good shape” thought Waterlily “I have not been alive for hundreds of years these humans are silly”.  Soon all the humans had disappeared inside the boat and Waterlily was left there lying on the bench all alone, she was so sad that she would never see her parents or her friends ever again, that she wanted to cry, but she couldn’t even cry one tear out of her eyes.

Waterlily watched as the moon rose in the sky and as all the stars started to come out and twinkle in the clear sky, “I will never be able to go home again” she thought as she lay there.

The other fairy children had seen what had happened to Waterlily and had raced back to where they lived and told the older fairies what had happened.  All the fairies then got together to try and see how they could get Waterlily back; they couldn’t just fly up and take her of off the boat, as they might get caught as well, so they had to make a plan.

They decided after a while to ask the dolphins if they would do their tricks along side the boat the next morning and hope that one fairy could fly onto the boat, find Waterlily and put a new necklace on her, this would be very dangerous as if the plan did not go right, the other fairy would be caught as well.

Silverback an older fairy volunteered to try and save Waterlily; he was very fast, why he had won the flying medal at one of the fairies school sports days when he was younger, he had slowed a little since then but he was still fast.

The fairies asked the dolphins if they would put on a show for the humans in the morning so they could try and rescue Waterlily, they agreed and said get Silverback to meet us near the boat when the sun comes up.

The night passed slowly for Waterlily as she watched the moon cross the sky and slowly disappear, she watched as each of the stars that had been twinkling in the sky one by one disappear from the sky as the morning sun started to rise in the East.

“We will have to get going soon, they say a storm is coming up before the end of the day” she heard one of the men say to the lady, “we will have to collect all the things we have found and put them away, If you can do that me and Bill will put all the machinery away”.

“I can do that” said the lady “I will get straight onto it” and she started to pick the jewellery and the coins up of off the bench and put them in a large wooden box, she had just pick Waterlily up and was about to put her into the box when a dolphin jumped out of the water right beside her, this startled her for a second and she dropped Waterlily back onto the bench, “quick you two” the lady shouted to the men “come and look at the dolphins playing alongside the boat”

The dolphins jumped up out of the ocean and then dived back in, they swam under and around the boat doing all different kinds of tricks, the lady and men looked over the side of the boat laughing as they watched the dolphins playing.  They didn’t see Silverback quietly slip onto the boat from the other side, he looked around but at first couldn’t see Waterlily, then he spotted her, “I shall have to be very careful, she is right next to the humans” he thought.

While they were looking at the dolphins, the humans didn’t see the seagull that was now swooping down towards the deck of the boat, the problem was neither did Silverback, he was just about to race across and put the necklace on Waterlily, when the seagull landed on the bench, picked up Waterlily in it’s beak and flew away, taking Waterlily up towards the clouds.

“What are you doing” Waterlily said to the seagull, well the seagull was so shocked that this thing could talk to him, that he opened his mouth and before he knew it he had dropped Waterlily, soon Waterlily was falling very fast down towards the ocean, she could still not fly or move as she was still in a frozen state after being touched by the humans.

Oh my” she thought as the ocean raced towards her and she closed her eyes, she was about to hit the water and surely break into hundreds of pieces.

But Silverback who had seen the seagull take Waterlily came flying towards her, faster than he had ever flown before and just as Waterlily was about to crash into the water, he managed to put a new tooth necklace over her head.  As soon as he had done that, all of Waterlily’s powers came back, she could move again, she quickly flapped her wings just as her feet were about to enter the water, that was close said Silverback, yes it was said Waterlily as she gave him a big hug.

Come on let me take you home said Silverback and together Waterlily and Silverback flew down into the ocean and back to their fairy kingdom where all the other fairies were waiting.

The End

© 2013 Dave Gore