The World's Worst Fairy Godmother (4 page)

“What spell?”

“I told you I was talking to myself!” said Zozmagog, giving Zitzel another noogie.

“Owww!” Zitzel rubbed his head. “Boy, you're awfully cranky for an imp, boss. We're supposed to be full of mischief. You know, merry pranks and all that?”

“Right,” said Zozmagog. “I forgot. Jolly pranks. Ha ha ha ha ha. Have a laugh for me. Now where did I put—oh, never mind. Wait here.”

He went into the cave. Zitzel could hear a lot of scraping and thumping and muttering. After a few minutes Zozmagog emerged, covered with dust and carrying a thick, leatherbound book. It looked very old. Plunking himself down beneath a huge oak tree, he opened the book and began to flip through its pages.

“Not that. Not that. Not that. Ah, here it is! Oh, wonderful! Perfect, you might say. We'll make this and slip it into that basket the kid will be taking to her grandmother. She'll never be able to resist it.”

“But what is it?” asked Zitzel.

Zozmagog smiled, and now he did look like a merry prankster. “A crab apple. Now, get me these things: Two dead toads, a pickled lizard's tongue, a gallon of vinegar, a stack of—”

The list went on and on. When it ended, Zitzel rubbed his hands together gleefully. “This is going to be fun!”

Then he scampered off to the secret place where imps keep their supplies. Zozmagog went back into the cave to gloat.

“One more prank,” he sneered. “One more prank and that fairy godmother is done for good.”

Then he laughed the laugh of the nasty.

While Zozmagog was in his cave, contemplating his revenge, Maybelle was rushing about gathering the ingredients she needed for her apple. Some of the things she had on hand already: the first sunbeam of a spring day, which she had been saving in a bottle for just such an occasion; the song of a meadowlark, a beautiful trill that she had caught in a handkerchief two summers earlier; the smell of bread just coming out of the oven, something that she carried with her always.

But the look of moonlight on still water, which was very hard to keep, she had to go out and fetch fresh. As she traveled she also managed to get a bit of a mother's smile, a gurgle from a baby that had just discovered its toes, and the laughter from a family picnic on a summer evening. She caught the sound of church bells, the whisper of wind on the grass, the smell of laundry just brought in from hanging in the fresh air. She gathered the feel of a mother's lap, the safety of a father's embrace, and something that hung in the air between two very old people who were sitting in rockers on their front porch.

When she was ready with all these things and more, Maybelle flew to a cloud and began her conjuration.

At the same time, far below her, Zozmagog began to work on his apple. Deep in his cave, he poured together his ingredients and chanted:

Handfuls of hatred,

Gallons of Greed

One Rotten Apple

Will do my bad deed!

Up on her cloud, Maybelle delicately stirred together her ingredients, mixing them with sunshine and singing:

Handfuls of giving

Sent from above

This perfect apple

Will fill her with love.

She stirred and mixed and sang and fixed and finally she held up the apple, red and sparkling in the sunshine.

“There!” she cried triumphantly. “A perfect apple to do my good deed!”

“There!” cried Zozmagog, holding up his apple at the very same moment. “A rotten apple to do my bad deed!”

Then both of them began to laugh, Maybelle on her cloud and Zozmagog in his cave, one making a sound like wind chimes, the other a sound like stones grinding in the dark.

Clutching their apples, they hurried off to do their work.

Chapter Seven
Into the Woods

Susan didn't really want to take a basket of fruit to her grandmother. But she knew that good girls always did as their mothers asked. So on Saturday morning she took the basket her mother gave her and headed toward the forest.

“Now remember,” said Mrs. Pfenstermacher, “don't talk to strangers while you're in the woods!” She paused, then added, “Unless you meet a little pudgy woman. Her you can talk to.”

“Yes mother darling,” said Susan, slightly puzzled by this odd pronouncement.

She kissed her mother and headed for the woods. On the way she saw Heidi and Maria playing with their dolls. She thought it might be nice to stop for a while, but they never wanted to play with her. Besides, she told herself, perfect girls didn't stop to play when they had a job to do.

When she reached the edge of the forest, she paused for a minute, wondering if there really were imps lurking inside, as the old woodcutter had said.

“Probably not,” she decided. “Everyone knows he's not a very truthful old man.”

Tightening her grip on her basket, she skipped into the forest singing, “I'm perfect, so perfect, I'm as perfect as a perfect thing can be.”

She hadn't gone far when she stopped to look around. “What a glorious morning!” she cried. “What a divine day. It's almost as perfect as I am.”

Suddenly a pudgy little woman appeared on the path ahead of her. Looking over her shoulder, the woman said something that sounded like, “All right, all right, you don't have to push!”

Susan blinked, and for a moment she thought about running away. Then she remembered what her mother had said. Putting on a big smile, she stepped forward and asked politely, “Are you the pudgy little woman my mother told me about?”

“I suppose so,” she said. Then she smiled, a wonderful smile, that made Susan feel warm inside. “Actually, I'm your fairy godmother. My name is Maybelle.”

The warm feeling vanished. Susan burst into laughter. “That's ridiculous! How could I have someone like you for a fairy godmother?”

Maybelle glanced behind her. Then she spread her hands, shrugged, and said, “Heaven works in mysterious ways.”

Susan looked at Maybelle more closely.

She was a pleasant-looking little woman, though not very carefully put together, what with her apron being so rumpled and the cloudy wisps of hair escaping all around the braid at the top of her head. Also, her slip was showing. Obviously she was crazy.

I'd better humor her, thought Susan, remembering a story her father had told her about a crazy villager. Out loud she said, “You poor dear. Why don't you sit down and rest?”

Looking bewildered, Maybelle sat on the log that Susan gestured toward.

“Now,” said Susan, sounding very solemn. “Tell me all about it. How did they start?”

“How did what start?” asked Maybelle.

“Why, the terrible troubles that have brought you to this sorry state?”

Maybelle blinked. “What do you know about my troubles?”

“Nothing, except that it's obvious you have them. When did they begin?”

Maybelle scrinched her face into its thinking position. “Well,” she said at last, “I guess it was about a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“Oh, my!” gasped Susan. “This is worse than I thought!”

Maybelle nodded. “It is pretty bad when you think about it. It's been a long time.”

“And what do you suppose caused these troubles?” asked Susan, her voice serious and sympathetic. She was sitting next to Maybelle now, thinking it would be nice if she could make the little woman sane again. She wondered if that was why her mother had sent her into the woods, so that she could work a miracle.

Maybelle shook her head. “I don't know.” Then, to Susan's alarm, she sighed heavily and lay down, resting her head in Susan's lap.

“You know,” Maybelle said, settling in comfortably. “It's almost as if someone was out to get me.”

“Oh, I see,” said Susan, remembering an old man who used to wander around their town saying the same thing.

“For heaven's sake,” muttered Edna Prim. Making sure she was invisible, she stepped forward and poked Maybelle in the side.

Maybelle jumped and looked around, but didn't get the message. Edna poked Maybelle again, then knelt by her ear and whispered, “Put the apple in the basket!”

Maybelle blinked. “I almost forgot!”

“Forgot what?” asked Susan.

“Uh… uh… I almost forgot that I'm not here to talk about my troubles. I'm here to talk about yours.”

As she spoke, Maybelle jumped up and put her hand in her apron pocket, where the perfect apple was waiting.

“How can we talk about my troubles?” asked Susan primly. “I don't have any.”

“You mean you're completely happy?”

“Perfectly!”
said Susan, somewhat sharply.

“And there's nothing that bothers you?”

“Not a thing!”

“So everything is just the way you like it?”

“
Of course it is!
”

“That's wonderful,” said Maybelle softly. “I'm glad things are going so well for you.”

“It's not fair,” said Susan, her voice grumpy now. She crossed her arms and looked in the other direction.

Maybelle took advantage of the moment to slip the magic apple into Susan's basket. It sparkled enticingly. “What's not fair?” she asked gently.

“I work very hard at being good.”

Maybelle smiled. “That's nice, dear, but it's not unfair.”

“NOBODY LIKES ME!” shouted Susan.

“Ah. Now, that is not fair.”

“I don't get it,” Susan said bitterly. “I try to be nice. I try to be sweet. I try to be kind.”

“Well, you certainly are trying,” agreed Maybelle.

“But it doesn't do any good.” Susan's shoulders slumped. “Maybe I'm no good.” No sooner had the words left her mouth then her eyes shot open and she sat straight up. “That's ridiculous. I'm perfect!”

“Is that important?”

“Certainly. If I'm perfect, people will have to like me.”

“Well, do people like you?”

“No!”

Maybelle smiled. “Does that tell you anything?”

“Yeah. They don't know a good thing when they see it!” said Susan, crossing her arms and scowling. “They're all jealousy anyway. I'm too good for them. But they act is if they're too good for me! They won't even play with me!”

“How can anyone be too good for anyone else?” said Maybelle softly.

Susan looked surprised. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, I've been studying you mortals for a long time, dear, and I have to tell you that you're more complicated than you think. You always seem to put on masks, as if you're afraid of what you are inside. My advice is to just be yourself and stop worrying about whether or not you're perfect.”

“But I am perfect,” replied Susan, a little desperately.

“You're a little young for it, aren't you?”

“I started early.”

Maybelle sighed. “You've got more inside you than you're showing, Susan. Why don't you start to share it?”

Susan looked offended. “I always share.”

“You don't share your laughter,” said Maybelle, grinning slyly. “In fact, I don't think you can laugh.”

“Of course I can.

“Prove it!”

Susan puckered up her face. “Ha.”

Maybelle rolled her eyes.

“Ha-ha?” asked Susan.

“Pathetic,” said Maybelle sadly.

“Ha-ha-HA!”

Maybelle just shook her head.

“Teach me!” demanded Susan.

Maybelle sighed. “You don't need to be taught, silly. The laughter is already there. You just have to let it out.”

Susan made a face that looked a little like she had just swallowed a frog. Then she rolled her eyes back in her head, as if she was trying to see what was there. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Maybelle giggled. “You sound like a drumroll.”

Susan folded her hands in her lap and pursed her lips. “I was trying my best. Effort should always be rewarded.”

“Well, try harder at not trying. That should be an effort for you.”