Fairies Wear Boots

Fairies Wear Boots

By

Jamey O’Donnell

Kevin Boyd was beyond excited to go on his first camping trip with his new Boy Scout Troop, Troop 373 out of Centennial, Colorado.

He had come up through the ranks of Cub Scouts since first grade at Sandburg Elementary, and now that he was beginning middle school, he could join Boy Scouts, which is what he had his sights on from the beginning.

Boy Scouts was where the action was. Camping trips abound, and there was nothing that excited Kevin more than camping.

School was just getting ready to let out for the summer, and the dog days would soon be here, opening the door to another school year, so Kevin was ready to hit the ground running, going on as many camping trips as his summer schedule would allow.

He had baseball too, so it would be a magic act to negotiate his trips around his baseball schedule, knowing there were some trips he would not be able to attend.

His team needed him, and he understood the commitment he had made to them, so he wasn’t going to throw them under the bus just so he could go camping.

This first weekend of summer vacation was perfect for his first available campout, as baseball had not started their schedule yet, and he was looking forward to a weekend at Peaceful Valley down in Elbert, one of the biggest camps for scouts in Colorado.

Friday was the last day of school, and his troop would meet in the parking lot of Newton Middle School at 5:30, then drive the hour and fifteen minutes it took to get to camp, giving them plenty of daylight to set up camp, have dinner, and partake in games around the campfire.

After they arrived at camp and set up, they made dinner and ate, then cleaned up before performing skits around the fire, entertaining themselves under the stars in a clearing surrounded by pine trees on a beautiful late May evening, and the weather was perfect.

Kevin’s buddy on this trip was Trevor Willis, another Tenderfoot just like Kevin, who was equally as excited to be there.

“We should get up first thing in the morning before anyone else gets up and go scout around for arrowheads. What do you say?” said Trevor.

“Sure. That sounds like fun. How many do you have in your collection so far?” asked Kevin.

“I’ve got 5 so far. I got 3 of them at Estes last September when we camped there. I bet I find at least that many this time. I heard there’s a lot of them up here if you know how to look for them.” answered Trevor.

With that statement, Kevin assumed that Trevor did indeed know how to find them, so he felt good about their chances.

Kevin only had one arrowhead and he treasured it as one of his greatest finds, so he felt a little deflated at Trevor’s claim of having found five. Truth be told, Kevin didn’t even start collecting them until he saw Trevor collecting them earlier in the school year, so Trevor had quite the head start on him.

With visions of Indian arrowheads floating in their heads, the boys drifted off to sleep with the sounds of wildlife in the distance and boys giggling among themselves in the other tents.

The next morning before the crack of dawn, Trevor woke first and rustled Kevin awake, and both got dressed by flashlight, then quietly unzipped the tent and headed for the deep of the woods, guided by flashlight, as it was still dark.

It was still a bit nippy outside, so both boys had the sense to put on their jackets, fending off the cool morning air.

With flashlights blazing their trail, they eagle eyed the ground they were walking on, sometimes stopping to brush the dirt off a suspected arrowhead, only to find it was a rock, but they would not be deterred. After a few minutes of walking, Kevin would make the first find of the morning, a perfect specimen for his collection, which had now doubled.

They had to have been a good quarter mile from camp when Trevor saw the small boy first.

Kevin continued to walk slowly with his eyes to the ground, so he didn’t see what Trevor was looking at, standing still behind him.

“Kevin…look!” said Trevor.

Kevin looked up to see a small boy at the base of a tree, about 50 yards in front of them, waving at them to come over to him, but this was no ordinary boy.

The boy was glowing in the morning twilight, as if he were a lightning bug, which spooked the boys more than anything else.

He was dressed in what looked to be deerskin instead of regular clothes, with deerskin moccasins for shoes.

Both boys just stood there and stared at the boy in amazement, not knowing what to do next.

“What is that? Is that a boy? He wants us to come over to him” said Kevin.

“Let’s get closer to him and take a look” said Trevor.

The boys walked slowly toward the boy, and as they got closer, they both began to feel different, losing any fear or trepidation they had before. It felt like the boy was a friend and wouldn’t hurt them, so they made their way all the way up to him, just a few feet away.

“Hi. What are your names?” said the elfin boy, in the sweetest little voice ever heard.

“I’m Kevin, and this is Trevor. Who are you?” said Kevin.

“My name is Winky. Do you want to play with me?” said the boy.

Kevin and Trevor looked at each other, both smiling at finding this boy in the woods, all by himself, and wondering who he belonged to and where his parents were.

“Where is your scout troop? Are you here with Boy Scouts or are you camping up here with your family?” asked Trevor.

“Boy Scouts? What are Boy Scouts?” asked Winky.

Trevor and Kevin began to laugh, causing the boy to frown at them, not knowing what was so funny, being left out of the joke.

“You don’t know what Boy Scouts is? Everybody knows about Boy Scouts!” said Kevin.

“I don’t. I’ve never been here before, so I don’t know anything about you or your people.” said Winky.

Then something wondrous happened.

Winky moved his hand toward the base of the tree, and an opening appeared in the tree’s base, big enough for the two boys to walk through. It was another world inside of the tree, defying any explanation, but there it was, nonetheless.

Winky was the first to walk through it, motioning the boys to follow suit.

As both boys walked through the opening in the tree, they both felt an exhilaration course through their bodies, giving them each a feeling of wellness. Once completely inside, the opening closed up behind them, catapulting them into a world they had never known before and causing them to look dumbfoundedly around them at all the wonders before them.

In the sky above them, which was a bright pastel green, they could see little people just like Winky flying about, with translucent wings on their backs whipping back and forth with the speed of a hummingbird. Some of them seemed to be heading in a specific direction, where the others seemed to be doing nothing else but playing in the sky, like children playing tag or hide and go seek.

There were beautiful, magnificent candy trees everywhere they looked, and bushes made of chocolate cake and ice cream that didn’t melt.

Off at a distance, they could see groups of these little people singing songs, dancing with abandon, and eating the various candies picked off of the trees around them.

“What is this place?” asked Kevin.

“It is our home, where we live. We don’t have a name for it. We just call it home” answered Winky.

When the boys first met Winky, they assumed he was just a boy like they were, but after looking around and seeing all the other little people, they realized that they all were the age of Winky, meaning they weren’t little boys at all, but instead little people.

“What kind of people are you? I’ve never seen little people like you before. You all look like kids, like me and Kevin.” asked Trevor.

“We are not human like you. We are fairies, and sometimes we come to visit some of you when you are asleep.” Said Winky.

“Oh, you mean like the tooth fairy?” asked Trevor.

“Yes. You are the first humans to ever be here. I was given permission to bring you here by the elders. There is something about the two of you they want to know about and they want me to bring you to them. Shall we go?” asked Winky.

The boys agreed and had lost all interest in the arrowheads they were originally in search of, replaced by the yearning to know and see more of this magical place they found themselves in.

“They’re never going to believe us when we tell them about this place” said Kevin, chuckling with Trevor as they proceeded to follow Winky down a multicolored candy road made out of Starburst.

Trevor was the first one to taste a chocolate bush next to the candy road.

“Wow, that’s better than a Hershey bar!” said Trevor as he took another bite, urging Kevin to try it as well.

Kevin was apprehensive to try anything yet, as he was more concerned with why they were the first human beings to be allowed into this new world, so his steps following Winky were more cautious than his friend.

As they rounded a cottage with beautiful flowers they’d never seen before, they came upon a very long stone table, sitting underneath the branches of a candy tree that had candy canes growing out of it, and sitting at the table were several fairies, but these were old fairies, many with long white beards, wearing big black boots, and all had long swords at their sides.

These did not seem as friendly as the happy go lucky fairies they had seen thus far, but instead seemed to be protectors of the others, and capable of administering great harm to anyone that threatened their existence.

“Welcome to our home” said one of them, and then they all stood up to greet the boys.

“Hi” the boys said in unison.

Winky then disappeared, traipsing off to be with some of his friends.

“Please sit with us. We want to have words with you.” said the same old fairy.

The boys sat down on the bench at the table across from the old fairies, with all of them staring at the boys, but not with ill intent. Their stares were more of genuine interest than of intimidation.

The first thing the boys noticed was how comfortable the benches were, even though they were made of stone. Though hard looking, they were soft as a pillow, and that seemed to be the overall theme of this new world they were in.

Everything was comfortable, gentle, and tasty.

One of the old fairies placed a plate made of white chocolate in front of Kevin, filled with an assortment of candies, and he was urged to eat some. The fairies had noticed that Kevin had refrained from eating off the candy trees and bushes on their way to meet the elders.

Kevin took a bite of a gummy bear and turned to Trevor.

“Wow. This gummy bear is delicious!” said Kevin.

“I told you. Everything down here is delicious. I could live here!” exclaimed Trevor, much to the delight of the elders.

“Yes. You can live here, and so you shall” said the elder.

The look on Trevor’s face changed from excited to confused.

“Huh?” said Trevor.

“Our world is beginning to decline. Some time ago, we lost the ability to reproduce, so we began trying to find new ways to make that happen, but everything we tried failed. We still don’t fully understand why it happened, but happen it did. Every male fairy has lost the ability to reproduce, yet the female fairies are all fine. What we decided was to bring humans into the equation, but we would have to come up with a way to turn a human into a fairy, and after several failed attempts, we finally succeeded.

We want both of you to stay here with us in our world.

We want you to become one of us.

One of the prerequisites is you must have a good heart, as both of you do.

We saw you this morning looking for artifacts outside of your scout camp, and we were able to measure the goodness of your hearts, and we were all amazed at the kindness and generosity both of you possess. You are exactly the kinds of humans we are looking for, and though you will probably object to any and all of this, we must insist that you stay here and become one of us. Our civilization depends on it” said the elder.

Kevin now had a terrified look on his face, where Trevor was more bewildered than anything.

“You can’t keep us here. We have a scout troop to go back to, and they’re going to come looking for us if we don’t head back. I’m sorry, but I’m not staying, and neither is Trevor.” said Kevin as he sat up from the bench.

“Hey, wait a minute. Speak for yourself!” barked Trevor.

“Trevor, you can’t be serious” said Kevin, and then he began to run away from the table under the candy cane tree toward where they had first entered the fairies home.

Upon getting to where he believed they entered, there was no entry way he could find to lead him back to the scout camp, as he frantically searched high and low.

From a distance, Kevin could see two fairies in the air flying toward him, one of them being Winky, and as they got closer, he could see that the other one was Trevor, now turned into a fairy, wearing fairy clothes and moccasins just like Winky, with translucent wings on his back like the rest of the fairies.

“Trevor! Look what they’ve done to you!” shouted Kevin.

“My name is Sparky. Who’s Trevor?” said the newly named Sparky.

“He has no memory of who he used to be. All he knows and remembers is from his fairy life. He has new memories now, memories that were given to him by the elders. It will be the same for you. You will love being a fairy, just as all of us do.” Said Winky.

“Trevor, don’t you remember me?” asked Kevin.

Sparky had a blank look on his face, wondering who Trevor was and why was this human boy was calling him by that name.

In a flash, the council of elders had joined them, with all of them surrounding Kevin, and the elder with the longest beard of them pulled a wand from his side and shot a bolt of energy from it into Kevin.

Kevin twitched and turned for a bit, but instead of turning into a fairy like the rest of them, he remained human, much to the consternation of the rest of the elders.

“It’s not working. His desire to remain human is too strong.” said the wand holding elder.

Kevin was then zapped again, but again, nothing.

Kevin then rushed the elder zapping him, knocking him to the ground, then punching him in his face, knocking the elder out cold.

Winky and Sparky both had horrified looks on their faces, as they had never experienced any violence at all in their existences, and the elders were frightened as well.

“You can’t keep me here! You have to let me go!” screamed Kevin, now agitated beyond reason, on the verge of a murderous rage.

Kevin’s desire to do no living thing harm was superseded by his desire to stay alive and remain a human being, not a fairy living in some weird candy land surrounded by a bunch of freaks with wings on their backs.

His freedom was the most important thing to him, and he was willing to kill, and even die for it.

He was an American first and foremost, and no one would enslave him.

It was the American way.

“My forefathers didn’t fight and die for you to keep me against my will. I will fight to the death against you, so you better let me go. I’m an American and I will kick your ass!” screamed Kevin at the elders.

The elder that had been knocked out by Kevin started coming back into consciousness and began crying, a sound no fairy had ever heard before, and they were all taken aback as they surrounded the elder to comfort him.

“We were wrong about you! You have hate in your heart and you are evil!” shouted one of the elders. “We were wrong to bring you here”

“Yes, you were wrong. Dead wrong. I’m not like my punk friend Trevor. You can’t turn me into something I’m not. If you don’t let me go, I’m going to start stabbing people up in here.” said Kevin as he brandished his Swiss army knife.

“I’m serious. I’m going to start killing you fairies one by one, and I think I’ll start with Winky. He’s the one that brought us into this place.”

Before Winky could fly away, Kevin grabbed him by one of his wings, pulling him to the ground, and then thrust the blade of his knife just under Winky’s chin, causing Winky to be the second fairy ever to cry, as he cried for his life like the sissy he was.

“Please, don’t hurt him. We will let you go” said one of the elders.

They were all in shock as Kevin went straight up hood rat on them.

Even though the elders all had long swords strapped to their sides, it was obvious they were just for show, because not one of them even so much as reached for their sword. If they had any fight in them, they would have all grabbed their swords and chopped Kevin up into cat food, but they couldn’t do it because it wasn’t in them.

They had no desire to fight, which was why they could not relate or understand Kevin’s desire to fight to the death for his freedom.

They had never been free themselves, so how could they understand something they had never known?

“Before we let you return to where you came from, please tell us why you don’t want to stay” asked one of the elders. “We live without a care in the world, we eat candy all day, and we do whatever we want when we want to do it. Isn’t that being free?”

“You think you are free? The only reason you eat candy all day is because that’s all you’ve got to eat down here! Besides, candy isn’t good for you and you shouldn’t eat it all the time. Have you ever had a hamburger or a slice of pizza? It’s amazing, just like candy is, but it’s not near as bad for you.

How about a glass of milk, especially after eating some of your chocolate bushes? There’s nothing better than a cold glass of milk to wash down some chocolate cake! You don’t have any milk either. What’s so free about that? You have to eat the only thing they have down here, and that’s candy.

Another thing…you are all stuck in your little colorful candy land world, but have you ever seen the sun after it’s set over the horizon? Have you ever seen the sun?

Have you ever skated on a frozen lake?

Or played baseball or football in the rain?

The answer is no, because you are not free to leave this sweet little world you have here.

Not everything is supposed to be peaches and cream, which by the way, if you eat enough ice cream, you’ll get fat, and who ever heard of ice cream that doesn’t melt?

You guys do the same thing every single solitary day of your life.

You eat candy and fly around like a bunch of retarded birds, and no sane person would ever want to do that for the rest of their lives.

Now, did I answer your question?” Asked Kevin defiantly.

The elders looked among each other, not knowing what to do, or even say.

The elder that had first spoke to them made a movement with his arm, and an opening suddenly appeared to Kevin’s right, and he could see it was the woods inside of Peaceful Valley Scout Ranch, much to his relief.

As he stepped inside the gateway, leaving his punk bitch friend Trevor behind, he yelled out to all of them.

“You guys might as well be Cuba or Venezuela”