es,
of course I’m a fairy. What about it? You’ve seen one before, haven’t you? You
haven’t. Oh. That makes things a bit more difficult. You won’t know why I’m
here. No, I’m working. Didn’t you know? Fairies are not the pink-and-white pointy-eared
long winged nitwits you seem to expect. We are the Old People. The Elementals.
We were here before you and we fully expect to be here when you have gone, if
you can be stopped from tearing the world to bits in the meantime. We are the
Workforce. Fairies have jobs. We keep the system running.
What? Oh, the jobs. Well, there’s the Santa Claus team, of
course. Technical bods mostly, toy creation, time dilation, spatial mathematicians
and so on. Then there are gremlins and the like, under various names. The ones
who hide the car keys. Nowadays there’s a big sub-group in computers. Oh, you
knew that? Tooth fairy, house brownie, foot-fetish elves, and the rest.
Some of the jobs are more specialised. We’re also responsible
for muses, various forms of inspiration and so on. Who? Paulus the what?
Woodgnome? No, I don’t know anybody by that name. I don’t think he can be an
elemental. Probably human.
Look, let me tell you a bit about fairies, then, because you
people seem to have some very odd ideas. For a start, fairies come in two sexes,
just like humans. The difference is that ours aren’t fixed. I’m sorry, this
isn’t my first language, so you’ll have to stop me if I don’t make myself clear.
I don’t think I mean sex, do I? I mean gender. I’ll come to sex later. We are
born male or female, like you, which is sex, but we don’t have to stay that
way, which is gender. We can switch. No, nowadays they call it toggling, don’t
they, when you flick from one state to another? Most of us flick from male to
female and back according to what we fancy, or who we fancy. Shifting, we call
it. By the time we’re a couple of thousand years old, we tend to have settled
with one or the other, but it’s a matter of personal preference.
Sexual activity is also a matter of personal preference. We’ve
got the same possibilities as you do: male/female, male/male, female/female,
but in our case, obviously, it’s easier to arrange. If I’m being male, and I
meet another male who prefers male/female, I’ll become female. Or he will. I
must admit, I rather like female. There are so many more sensitive bits.
But I don’t want to breed, so I’ve got to be careful. When we’re breeding we
can’t Shift, but we don’t breed often. But we see sex and orientation as optional.
Yes, I know, some of you do too. And of course, we can play with you too. Most
of us do, at least once in a while.
Look, we aren’t getting on here, and I’ve got appointments.
Boy, have I got appointments! And there aren’t as many of us to shift the work
as there used to be. I’m head of Nemesis. In fact, to be frank, there isn’t
much to be head of, but that’s the modern world for you. We used to be the Fates,
Kismet, and about six other departments. By the way, that’s something you don’t
seem to have grasped. In most cases, our names aren’t names, they’re job titles,
or they used to be. My name’s Cobweb. Pleased to meet you. I’ve had a lot to
do with humans in my time. That guy with the bald head saw us, and he knew me.
William something. Brakespear? He put me in a play; I was on holiday at the
time. I started off as a household fairy, hence the name. I rather liked it,
so I’ve held onto it, even though it’s a long time since I did housework stuff.
Yes, all right, in those days I was a dust bunny. And my associate over there,
the big guy with the muscles, he’s Briony. Well, when he’s female, he’s Briony.
When he’s male he likes to be Brian. I ask you! What sort of name is Brian for
a male fairy?
What? Oh. If you say so.
Where was I? Oh yes, Kismet. Well, you know in the fairy tales,
the bad guys were unhelpful to the old crone, and in exchange they got eaten
by the monster. The good guy drew the water, and shared the lunch and was generally
polite, and in exchange the aforementioned crone provided the password to the
treasure chamber, or the important artefact that ensured not being eaten by
the monster. Yes? Well, the crone was one of ours. Actually, so was the monster.
It was a Buggins’ turn appointment, but it was important, because it ensured
that being polite to old ladies and gentlemen became known as a desirable behaviour
pattern. Good manners became genetically transmissible, because the ill-mannered
tended to be eaten before they could marry and breed.
Basically, we are the fairies of Consequences. We ensure that
you get what you have been asking for, although you may not know that you have
been asking. If you are generally a nice person, good things happen. If you
are a brat, bad things happen. Now I appreciate that it isn’t often obvious,
but we provide the consequences: what we can’t do any more is make them transparent.
If you’re a horror at work, I may not be able to give you financial meltdown
any more (they think I over-reached myself with Enron), but I can generally
provide an ulcer. If you’ve been playing away, I can provide an embarrassing
rash in all sorts of interesting places. And in a small number of cases, such
as yours, I can deal more directly.
How did I get to this from housework? Boy, do you ask questions!
Well, once upon a time, I was the domestic fairy at a castle,
and I was pretty pissed off. I had applied for a transfer to Fairy Godmothering,
and they had taken me on for a trial period, and then I got fired. I still think
that was unfair. I had just been trying to bring Godmothering into the twelfth
century, for pity’s sake. There was a team of us, in charge of Gifts for Babies.
You know what I mean? We turned up for christenings (well, naming ceremonies,
really) and provided Gifts. All I said was that the Gifts were dated and stupid
and Eurocentric and we should provide more practical ones, so I did. The traditional
ones were hair as black as coal or as gold as corn for girls, together with
skin as white as whatever, and lips as red as, well you know the stuff. The
boys tended to get sword skills and the ability to be loved by their people.
Unfortunately, after a while somebody got wise to what I was doing. I had done
a whole batch of practical Gifts. Several girls got the ability to tell when
men were lying to them. A couple of boys got the ability to engage their brains
before their mouths. The two that got me in the drink were the girl who could
manage not to say ‘I told you so’, even though she had, and the boy who was
able to look for things with some hope of finding them, rather than waiting
for some woman to do it.
I got busted back to domestics and sent off to a castle in
the back end of beyond. There was only me, and it was a big castle, and a lot
of work, and I was in a big rage. And in the fullness of time, there was a baby,
and a gathering and the Godmothers came. The baby was a girl, and there were
twelve Godmothers, which I think is excessive, personally, and the Gifts were
the usual rubbish: a sweet singing voice, beauty to make your nose run or something,
the ability to dance all night (like teenagers can’t do that anyway, and like
anybody else wants to). Not a decent trust fund among them. And I had a headache
like you get before thunder, and a distinct feeling that there was something
up, and the Godmothers were sneering at me, and Carabosse turned up.
Carabosse is the villain. The Wicked Fairy. Actually, the one
who keeps the Story moving; it’s a very responsible job, and it’s always given
to a very senior elemental. No, there isn’t just one Carabosse, there’s a whole
team. But for some reason, there had to be a hold up in this Story; it’s to
do with genetics. The princess had to be stopped from marrying the prince who
would have turned up in due course, because of some weird chromosomal abnormality,
and had to be provided with another one. And we, or rather they, didn’t have
a spare. So the obvious thing to do was to shift her into either a parallel
normality or an alternative time line.
Look, I’m sorry if you don’t have the vocabulary for this,
but I’m doing my best.
Carabosse did the traditional thunder and lightning, peals
of evil laughter and a really great “I wasn’t invited to the party” speech.
Frankly, I’ve seen it done a dozen times, but that Carabosse was easily the
best I ever met. Think of Alan Rickman on good form. Try not to dribble. Yes,
I know, Alan Rickman does that to me, too. The princess was on target to prick
her finger on a spindle on her sixteenth birthday, and die.
Then the twelfth Godmother pops up to ameliorate the situation.
The princess will not die, but will sleep for a hundred years until the prince
comes to wake her with a kiss.
Then there’s a big party for the humans, and I’m trying to
keep an eye on the kitchen staff because anything they don’t do, I have to.
And there was another big party for the magical people, and about the only good
thing was that I got it together with Carabosse big time, and he ended up staying
for nearly a month before his next engagement. He was a lovely bloke, and a
charming girl, and he went like a train, as you people say, both ways. I liked
him best as a male, and he was equally good whether I was male or female. And
he liked to... I’ve forgotten what you call it. Oh, I know! He was a Top! I’d
never done that before and it was a lot of fun.
You know that. You seem to know a lot of things... No, honestly,
I really don’t know anybody called Paulus the anything. I don’t know any woodgnomes.
I’m sure he isn’t an elemental.
Now you would have thought that the family would spend quite
a lot of time training this princess in spindle recognition, so that on her
sixteenth birthday, she doesn’t prick her finger and all the rest of
it. It is actually possible to buck the storyline if you try hard enough. After
all, it’s only a standard phallo-centric virginity myth, nothing out of the
ordinary. But no, they just ban the things, so suddenly you can’t spin your
own thread anywhere in the kingdom, and all wool has to be exported, at a poor
price because neighbouring kingdoms have heard the Story, and re-imported as
cloth at an exorbitant price for the same reason. And in due course, Carabosse
comes back, the princess pricks her finger, and the whole household is locked
in slumber for a hundred years. I hadn’t expected that: I hadn’t realised that
it would be basically everybody except Carabosse, me, and the cats. Well, of
course the cats don’t count. They have their own magic and disregard ours.
Big plus: Carabosse stayed another month, and I didn’t, technically,
have to do any housework because there wasn’t anybody except him and me to do
it for. This gave me a lot of time to think of things to do with him and to
him, and we didn’t have to worry about letting other jobs slide. We just played.
Well, the sort of games that couples do play. Well, like pretending that the
housework did matter, so that when I didn’t sweep the stairs, he followed
me up them, making me sweep each step in turn and then touch my toes for a spank
with the brush. There are two hundred and forty six steps from the cellar to
the guardroom, and I should know. It took most of an afternoon, and I slept
on my face afterwards. Oh yes, I enjoyed it; there were six landings as well
as all those stairs, and we spent some time on each landing.
Eventually, though, Carabosse had to go, because he was doubling
for the evil magician in that Story involving the swans, and I looked forward
to a hundred years in the castle, with nothing to do except housework. Dull,
or what? At least in Beauty and the Beast, there’s a sizeable invisible staff.
This time, there was only me. But there was no point in repining, so I set up
a schedule to get round all the castle at least once a year, and just got on
with it. Fortunately, outside wasn’t my responsibility. The Godmother had set
up a gardening scheme which grew a huge hawthorn hedge, and the grass was kept
at its original height, and that was it. I had plenty of time to think about
Carabosse, and to accept that I wasn’t likely to see much more of him. It had
been a fling, but basically he was slumming it with me. He’s a lot older than
me, and very high in court circles. I hadn’t much chance of being promoted into
the upper ranks, given the castle job, and being a household fairy. But I came
to terms with that, and I looked after the place, and I was, I suppose, not
happy precisely, but contented.
Only I began to grow up a bit. I thought about Carabosse, and
I began to wonder whether what we had been doing was as much fun from his point
of view as it had been from mine. I had occasional days off: even a working
fairy has a contract, after all, and I went exploring the countryside. I made
friends with a couple of naiads and dryads, and I had a brief relationship with
one of them. She was an apple tree, and very affectionate. I introduced her
to all the things that Carabosse had taught me, only this time I was Top, and
she seemed to enjoy them. Does that make me a Middle? Like I said, this isn’t
my first language and technical terms are always difficult.
It must have been a good fifteen years into the Story when
Carabosse came back. Apparently the swan thing had gone badly and he had been
required to stay and help sort it out. Something to do with lead fishing weights?
Does that sound likely? He was exhausted and far too thin, so I kept him with
me for a while until he looked better, and this time when we played, I topped.
He said I could be quite good at it if I practised, but he wouldn’t let me practise
as much as I would like, and when I tried to insist, he practised himself, and
I smarted for it. It was such fun.
He called in every couple of years after that, and played merry
Dis with my cleaning schedule, and punished me for not washing the windows or
whatever, and I began to keep the castle really nice, not because he would spank
me if I didn’t but because it was easier to free up time to misbehave if everything
were up to date. We never had any trouble finding something I hadn’t done that
he could punish me for. The hundred years went by really quite fast, in the
end.
And one day I woke up and thought, “I reckon it’s today.” You
get a feel for these things after a while. I knew Carabosse would be back for
the big closing scene, and I could feel him somewhere about. You know how sometimes
humans get headachy and tetchy when there’s a storm coming? I get sensitive
in the rear, if you follow me, when Carabosse is in the vicinity. Like pins
and needles in the behind. So I shot round and checked all the floors and made
sure there was nothing left on the stairs for a prince to fall over, and unlocked
the doors, and waited. These things usually happen at noon, because that makes
the administration easier, so by half past one, I was in a flat spin. In the
end I went out to look for the prince. I wasn’t going to spend the next hundred
years as a household brownie on account of some inbred airhead with a poor sense
of punctuality, and I knew the princess was rousing, because she had turned
over in bed when I looked in.
He was sitting in the damn orchard, and his horse was eating
windfall apples! I mean, how stupid can you get? He was just sitting there,
not doing anything, while his horse was working up to a serious colic! What?
Well, apples aren’t very good for horses, not eaten in bulk. I was furious!
I materialised in front of him, having at least the wit to bring on the right
costume – pink and frilly and sparkly – and told him I was the twelfth Fairy
Godmother, which was a lie, but the bitch should have been there to deal with
this, and that he should get his arse in gear for rescuing the princess. Well,
no, of course I didn’t word it like that. It was all thee and thou and pretty
phrases. And the half-wit had the nerve to say that he wasn’t sure about that,
because he wasn’t marrying any princess without seeing her first, like he had
the choice!
Sorry, didn’t you know? All fairy tale characters know in advance.
It’s a contractual thing. I know it’s difficult for you to understand, because
the princess effectively has to sign up before she’s born, but that’s how it
works. Time isn’t quite as fixed for us as for you. We can run it both ways.
He had signed up to marry the princess and he was damn well going to marry the
princess because I was the one who would be in trouble otherwise.
So I shot back up the stairs – I had to do this using plain
muscle because there’s so much loose magic in the castle that I couldn’t materialise
accurately inside - and shook the princess until her head rattled and of course
she didn’t wake up because I’m not the handsome prince, am I. Except that the
little cow was already awake, because it was time. She was just pretending.
There was no point being the Pink Fairy for her, I had to pique her interest,
so I did Handsome Hunk for her. Tunic, leggings, long boots. I put on something
of Carabosse’s looks, very Alan Rickman. Only she knew, because I wouldn’t kiss
her. Not my job.
So I went back downstairs and had another go at the prince.
And then up for another go at the princess. And down. And up. And down. And
of course she’s in the topmost tower, because it’s in the specification, and
the stairs are really beginning to get me in the ankles and thighs. And my temper
was getting shorter and shorter, and at one point I got the Shift wrong and
forgot to change the clothes, and did one circuit as the Handsome Hunk in a
long cerise frock, elbow length gloves and silver stilettos, and the Pink Fairy
with a bouffant hairdo and full make-up dressed as a Captain of Horse. They
both looked a bit bewildered by that, and I can’t say that I blame them.
I was at the bottom in the orchard for the fifth time when
I lost the rag completely. The prince had turned onto his face and was asleep
in the long grass. Upstairs, the princess had gone back to bed. So I shrieked.
I stood in the middle of the orchard and I let rip. The prince, snotty little
brat, pretended not to hear, but Pommy heard. She’s the apple tree I mentioned?
She is absolutely sweet, but she is also absolutely not stupid. She had apparently
been watching, and she leaned her tree over my head, and said “Cobweb darling,
would you have any use for one of these?”, and she dropped a long slender applewood
switch at my feet.
I just love intelligent women, don’t you? Even when they are
fruit trees. I had that switch in my hand and was legging it over towards the
prince in slightly less than no time. He was still face down in the grass, pretending
to be asleep, and I caught him two smart ones across the seat of the hose before
he had a chance to move. My, but he squealed! And of course he tried to jump
up, but there’s almost no means of getting up from face down that doesn’t involve
lifting the arse into the air first, and I got him twice more. And I abandoned
both the Pink Fairy look and the Handsome Hunk look, and went for the one that
scared me when Carabosse wore it, of leather trousers and a plain white shirt
and black boots and a long leather coat, and I left my own face on top, which
is fairly androgynous, and basically I snarled at him that if he weren’t heading
for the castle in two seconds he would know about it, and I flourished the switch,
and he ran. At least he ran in the right direction.
The stories tell you that the hedge drew back to let him in,
but it isn’t actually true. He attempted to hurdle it, and I could see that
he wasn’t going to make it, so I shrieked again and Hawthorn, who’s a friend
of Pommy’s and who had been watching and laughing like a drain, lay down as
flat as he could go, which was about three feet, and I applied the switch a
fifth time to the seat of the royal pants, and just lifted him over. Then I
rocketed past him and started up the stairs for about the sixth time.
At the top I stopped to wheeze and cough, and thought about
changing back to either Handsome Hunk or Pink Fairy, only I couldn’t remember
which one warranted which character, and then I thought “Bugger it! They can
both have Cobweb,” and threw the door open. The princess was leaning out of
the window, obviously having been watching what had been going on, and the target
was too much to resist. I wound my hand in her sash to stop her tipping straight
out, and I applied the switch to her rear as smartly as I had done to her intended,
and she scrabbled back in through the window howling and bit me on the wrist.
Well, I wasn’t having that, so I planted one foot in the window embrasure and
the little madam went across my knee and became more closely acquainted with
the switch. I don’t think she found it a relationship worth sustaining. And
then I pushed her towards the door and told her to go downstairs if she didn’t
want some more of the same, and down I went again.
The prince, who obviously wasn’t quite as stupid as he had
been making out, had made it to the third floor. Unfortunately, which was
stupid, he had stopped to lean over the banister and wheeze. He found as I passed
that in fact his wind was sound enough for another floor without a pause.
Indeed, he was taking the stairs two at a time, because every time he slowed,
I laid another cut across his bum. I went back to the top, and chased Her Royal
Pain down a couple of floors using a technique of alternating forehand and backhand,
and they clashed on a landing outside the main bedrooms. They both knew what
was required of the Story, and she had both arms round his neck and her tongue
in his mouth before he could even introduce himself.
I staggered to the bottom, wondering if fairies could die of
exhaustion, and opened the main door and looked out into the face of Sir Huon
and half the court of the King of Faery, and said, “Oh fuck,” and shut the door
again. That was wrong. I admit it. One of the equerries opened the door again,
and they all looked in at me sitting on the bottom step and there was a horrible
silence. Then all the exercise caught up with me, and I rolled back to my feet
and pushed past Sir Huon in a manner he obviously didn’t expect, and threw up
in the flowerbed. That got their attention, although I wasn’t grateful. If I’m
going to heave, I prefer not to have an audience, particularly not one of the
great and good. But by the time I was able to sit up and take notice, most
of them had gone into the castle, where people were beginning to wake up, and
by the time my breathing had steadied, there was only Carabosse left outside.
He was wearing the full outfit, ready to be formally thwarted and banished,
and he looked like... he looked like... well, if my stomach hadn’t hurt and
my chest hadn’t hurt and my legs hadn’t hurt, I would have put him flat on his
back in the grass and never mind who was watching.
He eyed me up and down, and was graciously pleased to approve
the theory behind my clothes, although they were now spattered with grass clippings
and sodden with perspiration, and enquired delicately what precisely I had thought
I was doing. So I explained it all to him, and he listened attentively and tried
hard not to laugh, and asked to be introduced to Pommy and Hawthorn. He made
clear to me carefully that as a household fairy I had no business interfering
with the running of the Story and that he would naturally have to spank me for
it later, and I agreed happily that this was so. Then Sir Huon bellowed for
him and he went off at a run to be thwarted, and I sat on the grass, and viewed
the ruin of my career.
When I gathered my courage and went inside, the celebration
was going on. In view of the fact that the prince and princess had apparently
retired to a bedroom to compare stripes the moment I left them, the wedding
had been informal and extremely hasty. The humans were trying to find out exactly
what had happened to their political standing in the region in the last hundred
years, and the elementals were just working up to a good party. I arrived in
time to hear Carabosse telling the tale of what I had done, and making a damn
good story of it. Sir Huon laughed so much that he fell off his chair, and he
insisted on seeing the Pink Hunk and the Handsome Fairy outfits, and I began
to think that I would be the court joke for the next hundred years, which might
or might not be an improvement on being a dust bunny. And at that point, the
blasted Pink Fairy turned up, bleating “Oh dear, am I late? Did it go off all
right?”
Carabosse prised my fingers off her throat before I could do
any real harm (and used my own switch later to persuade me that throttling a
senior fairy was a bad idea). Sir Huon tactfully pretended not to have seen
(apparently he can’t stand the woman and thought I had every provocation) and
assured her as she coughed that although she was indeed a little late, Cobweb
had improvised a very suitable happy ending for all concerned. Well, we had
achieved what we ought to, and as far as I could see the only loser was likely
to be me. Except that Sir Huon suddenly leaned forward to address me.
“Cobweb, is domestic service a vocational thing for you? Or
could we persuade you to a change of career? A promotion? We’ve been reviewing
the Nemesis files lately, and you seem to me to have exactly the ‘make-it-happen’
attitude we want at the top. Come and talk to me about it tomorrow.”
And I did, and here I am. I got Carabosse on a permanent basis,
and I got my promotion and I am Head of Nemesis. It’s a fancy name for what
I am. I’m the Spank Fairy, sunshine, and I love my work, and you are in deep...
Oh! I’ve just thought! I do know your Paulus! A woodgnome? Is that what
he is? I thought he was a... well, a... aren’t woodgnomes usually quite respectable?
Are you sure that’s what he is? He isn’t human, certainly, so he must be some
sort of elemental, I suppose. I don’t know him well; he’s on Briony’s list.
He likes Brian better than me. Do you remember, Brian? You got him last week
for doing something stupid to the hard drive. And the week before for excessive
use of the internet. And the week before that for... I forget. Between you and
me, I think that he’s deliberately provoking Brian, and Brian knows it, but
they do all the paperwork properly, so I don’t interfere.
Don’t try to distract me. I am your own personal Spank Fairy,
provided with weaponry by Pomona Apple Switches Ltd. (Purveyors to the Royal
Court), and we are going to discuss the precise lie you told the insurance company
about the speed you were doing when you slid the car into the ditch. Yes, it
was a lie. Yes, it was. Look, I’m going to use this switch for
that lie, and if you keep insisting that it wasn’t a lie, I can give you a spanking
for insubordination as well. Do you want me male or female? As you prefer. Do
you wish to go over my knee, or to bend over your kitchen stool? No, those are
your only choices. Can you please remove all barrier clothing? No, it needn’t
all come right off, just give me access to the target area. Thank you. One dozen.
Ready?
Click
on Idris the Dragon to go back or
here for
the next episode
es,
of course I’m a fairy. What about it? You’ve seen one before, haven’t you? You
haven’t. Oh. That makes things a bit more difficult. You won’t know why I’m
here. No, I’m working. Didn’t you know? Fairies are not the pink-and-white pointy-eared
long winged nitwits you seem to expect. We are the Old People. The Elementals.
We were here before you and we fully expect to be here when you have gone, if
you can be stopped from tearing the world to bits in the meantime. We are the
Workforce. Fairies have jobs. We keep the system running. 
,
2005