Gwen and The Fairies Dream

47, 48, 49, 50 Whew! 50 strokes of the hairbrush every
night before going to bed. Gwen looked in the mirror
at her long locks of shiny red hair. 50 strokes is a lot,
but it helped to keep her hair healthy and strong.
Besides that, it was a rule. A silly rule Gwen thought,
but it was a rule nonetheless. Why are there so many
rules around here anyway? Wouldn’t it be better and
more fun without all these silly rules?

Gwen put down her brush, switched off her lamp and
crawled into bed. Rules she thought again. She
wished there didn’t have to be so darn many rules!

“Ouch! Hey, that hurt! Why did you pinch me?”
Gwen asked the wee little pink fairy that had suddenly
appeared on her pillow. “Because you almost crushed
me with all of that hair of yours, that’s why!”
said the fairy. “Well, excuse me! I didn’t see you.
Not until you pinched me that is. And what are you
doing on my bed anyway?” “Oh, I can go anywhere that I want to go.
I can do anything that I want to do too! Where I
come from, we can do as we please.”

Gwen thought for a moment. If only she could do what
she wanted to do with no rules and no boundaries!
Wouldn’t that be a lot more fun? “So, where is it
exactly that you’re from? And what do they call you
there? Do you have a name? My name is Gwendolyn,
but my friends just call me Gwen.”

“My home is just a hop, skip and a jump away Gwen,
and I am called Kalarie. If you’d like, we can go there.
Just hold onto this magick blue stone and
we’re on our way!”

When Gwen opened her eyes, she couldn’t believe
what she saw. Tiny little huts all covered with ivy and
honeysuckle. The sweetest smelling honeysuckle ever.
Every thing was green and lush with flowers and bushes
and grasses like she had never seen before. Her gardens
and flowerbeds at home were nothing like this! What a
beautiful place to live. Gwen noticed something else
too. She was small! She was the same size as the fairy
folk that were milling around the square.
Hmmmmm, she thought, how peculiar!

Kalarie and Gwen walked a short way along a path
and soon came to the most untidy little cottage that Gwen
had ever seen. The shutters at the windows hung this
way and that, and the leaves that served as walls were
chewed and coming apart at the seams.

“Well, this is home, come on in!” Kalarie said.
She flung open the door and it almost came off the hinges.
“Oh my!” said Gwen “ Shouldn’t we get someone
to fix that?” “Wouldn’t do any good,
everyone is busy doing what they want to do”

They went into the kitchen for a snack and not only
was there not a bite to eat, the place was a mess! Dirty
dishes were everywhere, and nobody had bothered to
gather any food to eat or water to drink. Gwen asked,
“Whose job is it to prepare the meals?” “It’s
nobody’s job” Kalarie answered,
“we all eat when and what we want.”

Finding nothing to nourish them, the pair went into
Kalarie’s room. Holy Toledo! Gwen just could not
believe her eyes! The seashell that served as a bed
was rumpled and tumbled and looked as though somebody
had a few fit full nights of sleep! “Don’t you have
to make your bed when you get up?” Kalarie looked at Gwen
in amazement. “Ummmm, nooooo! We don’t have rules
here remember? When I get ready to sleep, I just jump
in and pull up a corner of the cover. That’s good enough
for me!”

The table in the corner had a tiny mirror that was
covered with pixy dust so thick that it would be
impossible to see yourself. There was no brush on her
little table either. “How in the world do you brush
your hair 50 strokes at night without a brush?” Gwen
wondered. “I don’t. That’s a silly rule, and we can do
as we please here. It pleases me to not brush my hair!”

Gwen thought to herself that this would be such
a beautiful place to live. If only it weren’t falling
apart around them. If someone would just fix the door,
or gather food and water, or clean up all these messes.
If Kalarie would just make her bed and tidy up her room.
And for golly sake, she really needed to
brush that hair! Why didn’t someone
do something? Anything?

Gwen remembered her own home now. Everyone in her
family had chores to do to keep their cabin nice
and homey. Dad tended their animals and gardens.
He kept everything in good repair. Gwen and her
mom gathered vegetables and fruit and kept a big pitcher
of fresh lemonade in the icebox. They dusted and swept
with mommy’s “other” broom and washed the clothes
and Gwen always made her bed. Every morning. She would
fluff her pillows and smooth out the white coverlet that
her mom had made especially for her.
And every night she would brush
her hair, 50 strokes!

What? What’s that? Gwen rolled over and reached
out to turn of the alarm clock. She was once again in
her tidy purple bedroom. She was in her own cozy bed.
“Oh, what a dream! Oh, my gosh! What a mess things
would be if every one did as they pleased. Everything
would just fall apart.
Oh, what a dream that was!”

Gwen sat up in her bed and yawned and stretched,
a little blue stone fell from her hand.
As she pushed back the covers to get up
she saw the tiniest glimmer of shiny pink dust
on the pillow next to hers.