The next in a series of stories written for my children to read to my grandchildren.  Artwork courtesy Mrs. Sharon Dahl.

When Stephanie was very young (as young as Joshua was before he got to be so grown up), she was fairly curious.

She never thought of herself as curious; she may not even have known what the word curious meant.  But she knew, and her mother certainly knew, that she liked to ask questions.

“Mommy, why is the sky blue?” Stephanie asked.

“So that you can see the yellow sun better,” her mother said, washing the dishes.

“Mommy, why is my hair green?” Stephanie asked.

“So that people will notice your pretty brown eyes more,” her mother said, still washing the dishes.

“Mommy, why don’t I have a daddy?” Stephanie asked.

Her mother stopped washing the dishes.  She picked up a little towel and dried her hands very slowly.  “Why do you ask?” she said in that special voice that mothers use when there is a problem but they want to pretend that everything is all right. 

I’m sure that Emilie would have recognized that there really was a problem, but Stephanie was fairly young and fairly busy, so she didn’t notice that her mother was unhappy.  She was juggling three acorns and didn’t look up as she answered.

“I was just thinking about the birds and the bees,” she said, dropping two of the acorns.  “Oh, nuts,” she muttered, bending over to pick them up.

Her mother acted like she had a hiccup stuck in her throat, but she managed to repeat her daughter’s words.  “The birds and the bees?”

“Yes,” said Stephanie as she stacked the acorns in the corner of their little home under the maple tree.  “The birds have daddies, but the bees don’t.  I don’t think I’m sweet enough to be a bee.”

“No, honey, you’re not,” said her mother with a sigh.

“And I’m not flighty enough to a bird, even if I did have a daddy,” Stephanie continued, flapping her fairly small wings.

“That question is still up in the air,” her mother replied, taking Stephanie by the hand and walking with her into the living room to have a seat on the couch.  “But you do have a daddy.  He just doesn’t live here.” 

“Why not?”  Stephanie asked, poking at a spot on the wall of their tree house.

“He lives far away, like Grammie and Poppa, and it’s not easy for him to come and see us.”

“Does that mean we’re not a close family?” Stephanie asked.

“I guess that’s open for discussion,” said her mother.  “People can live far away and still be close.  Farness is measured in miles, but closeness is measured in smiles.”

“Hey—that rhymes!” Stephanie exclaimed, smiling broadly.

“And when we count the smiles, I’d say we’re a very close family.  Your daddy loves you very much; you just don’t remember him because you were so young when we moved here.”

So Stephanie’s mother told her (with a few fairly curious interruptions) about how she had won the lottery (“What’s a lottery?”) and had gone to Ireland (“What’s Ireland?”) where she met and fell in love with a leprechaun (“What’s a leprechaun?”) and they got married and had twins (“What’s twins?”) named Stephanie and Winston.

At that point Stephanie’s interruption was very curious.  “You mean I have a daddy AND a sister?”

So her mother had to explain that Winston was a boy, so technically he couldn’t be her sister.

“Oh, brother,” Stephanie said.

And her mother told her how she had gotten so homesick that she brought Stephanie with her and came back to her home in the New World.  “And that’s the story, from the ground up,” she concluded.

Stephanie scrunched up her fairly cute face and started a new series of questions.  “Why don’t they ever call us?”

“Because we don’t have a telephone.”

“Why don’t they ever Skype us?”

“Because we don’t have a computer.”

“Why don’t we have any pictures of them?”

“We do.  That picture on the wall over the fireplace is them.  I know it’s a little blurry, but let me tell you clearly that those are your daddy and your brother.”

Stephanie got up and stepped over to the fireplace to examine the photo.  “I always thought they were pirates, or Jedi knights, or something.”

Her mother frowned.  “Why would a have a picture of pirates or Jedi knights over my fireplace?”

“Maybe because you knew I like pirates or Jedi knights?”

“No, I have it there because I love your daddy and your brother.”

Now if Dawson were here, he would probably try to make a joke about the man in the picture saying in a deep, dark Jedi voice, “Look—I am your father,” but Stephanie wasn’t old enough to get the joke.  Instead, she sat down on a toadstool and continued her list of questions.

“Why don’t they ever write to me?”

“Because you can’t read or write.”

“That’s just wrong.  Why don’t they ever write to you?”

“They do,” her mother answered, “but it takes a long time to get here by snail mail.  The snails get seasick crossing the ocean, you know.”

Stephanie made a face, “I don’t want to be sick OR see sick,” she said.  But then, after being thoughtful for a minute (which was a new record for her), she said, “So a family can be close even if they’re far away.”

Her mother smiled.  “That’s right.  That’s exactly right.”

“Then maybe we should call it close away instead of far away.”

“That’s a fairly good idea.  Our family is close away,” said her mother, still smiling.

Then Stephanie asked, “Can I write them a letter?”

(Obviously Stephanie didn’t know the story, or she would remember that she couldn’t write.  Duh!)

Her mother just smiled and suggested, “Why don’t you tell me what you want to say, and I’ll write it for you.”

“And then,” Stephanie excitedly, “maybe we can get a rabbit to take it to them by hare mail.  That should go fast!”

“Now, honey, how would a rabbit get across the ocean?” her mother asked, sensibly.

“You’re right—he would probably flounder in the waves, and somebody would have to fish him out.  But maybe he could get a ride on a sailfish.  I heard they’re cheap.”

Her mother smiled again.  (She smiled a lot, if you haven’t noticed.)  “Now you’re just being silly.  But let me get some paper from the drawer and a pencil from the pen, and we’ll get started on your very first letter.”

“A-OK, Mom, but I have a question,” Stephanie said.  “Who was born first?”

“Well, if we go all the way back there was Abel, then Cain…”

(I know, it should be easy to make a joke about Abel’s name, but I just can’t do it.)

“No—seriously.  In our family, who was born first?”  Stephanie insisted.

“Let me see,” said her mother, putting on her glasses.  “There was your father, then me, then you, and then Winston.”

Stephanie smiled.  “That’s good.  I always wanted a little brother.”

And Stephanie was fairly contented with her new, close away, family.

Now if the ice cream doesn’t fall out of the freezer and melt all over the cat, then next time I will tell you the story of Stephanie and the Fairly Bad Pet.

Many years ago, I wrote a handful of stories for parents to read to their children.  They were intended to be interesting enough to hold the attention of a child, but entertaining enough (with jokes, puns, and other wordplay) that adults would enjoy them as well.  I never did anything with those stories.  Until now.

Since I cannot write as work while I am on unemployment, I have started revisiting these stories and tailoring them to my grandchildren.  They are not deep, inspiring, or instructive, but I think that you may find them fun to read.  So, for your reading pleasure, I offer

Stephanie

A Fairly Tale

You’ve probably read some fairy tales at one point or another in your life.  I don’t like fairy tales, because they have people like kings and wicked queens and woodsmen, and porridge and glass slippers and other things I have never seen in my life.  I like stories to be about things I can understand.  And why do people call them fairy tales?  Most of them don’t even have fairies in them!  I know about the fairy godmother, but whoever made up that story didn’t know a fairy from a pumpkin.

So I wanted to set the record straight—oh, please forgive me, the youngsters won’t understand me if I write like that!—I wanted to set the iPod straight.  There are fairies here in the New World, and you’ve probably known one or two yourself.  I know one quite well, for she lives near where I grew up in the Catskill Mountains.  (There used to be cats there, but they are all gone for some reason.) 

You may have met this fairy yourself along the way.  For a time, she was the First Assistant Tooth Fairy for all of New York State, and she did a fine job, except for the time she left a Canadian Loonie under Dawson Baker’s pillow when she meant to leave an American dollar.  (She always thought that she must have gotten that coin from a Canada goose, but actually we have a lot of loonies in our mountains.)

One day, this fairy bought a lottery ticket and won a million dollars in American money and decided to travel across the ocean and visit the Old World while she was still young.  She started in England but got mad and went to Ireland instead.  There she met a leprechaun, and fell in love, and got married, and had twins, and I’ll tell you more about them later if you are still reading.

But then our fairy got homesick (she was really only allergic to the curtains, but she thought it was the whole house making her itch.)  So she used the last of her money to return to the New World, and made a home under a maple tree in a sugar bush near my house.  If you don’t know, a sugar bush is one sweet place to live!  When a whole lot of Maples live on the same street, (or avenue, or drive,) the saps who make pancake syrup call that a sugar bush, but this fairy just called it her home, sweet home.

She was out of money and looking for a job, but her life was full of excitement because of her daughter Stephanie, who came with her from Ireland, and I’m glad she did, because she’s the one I really want to tell you about.  I only told about her mother because she’s going to be in the stories too, so you needed to meet her.

Stephanie was a fairly.  No, I didn’t misspell that; she was a fairly.  Since her mother (you know about her) was a fairy, and her father was a leprechaun, Stephanie turned out to be a little bit of both, so her parents called her a fairly.  (Now, I know a particularly smart girl named Emilie who remembers the story so far and wants to know about the other twin, and she’s not very patient so I’ll tell that part next.)

Stephanie had a twin brother named Winston, who lived with his father in Ireland.  And was Winston a fairly too?  No, don’t be silly!  Since his father was a leprechaun and his mother was a fairy, he was a leprefaun.  (That may be a hard word to say, but I know good readers like Joshua can do it.)  And Stephanie and Winston were not identical twins, so we should be able to tell them apart during our stories.

Since Winston stayed in the Old World with his father, I never met him, though I might someday when I’m in my 60’s or 70’s.  But I know Stephanie fairly well, because she lived near my house and I liked to look for nuts in the sugar bush.  (I know, it’s crazy!  If I wanted to find lots of nuts I should go to Washington, D.C., or maybe to Canada; but I was too sensible to do that.)  So I went to the sugar bush, and I met Stephanie, and the stories I will tell you in the weeks to come will be about her and her fairly exciting life.

I hope to see you soon with the next chapter of what I call my “Fairly Tales”.

Illustration courtesy graphic artist Sharon Dahl.  Thank you!