My Very UnFairy Tale Life: Jenny’s First Adventure (2 page)

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to sound
sympathetic. I’d never really been all that attached to furniture.
“I’ll do what I can to stop the sprites.”

In my mind, sprites were small and bubbly and
totally harmless. How could a group of dragons be afraid of them?
But they clearly were scared or they wouldn’t be burning down their
entire land to protect themselves.

“Thank you,” said Sam, bowing his scaly
head.

Just then, a shrill horn sounded from among
the burned trees. The dragons’ eyes turned huge with panic.

“We’re under attack!” Sam yelled.

I didn’t even have time to duck before
something bullet-like zipped past my head. Then another, and
another. One of the buzzing bullets grazed my shoulder, sending
what felt like a lightning bolt down my entire arm.

“Get down!” Anthony cried, pushing me to the
ground.

Above our heads, the buzzing got louder and
louder until it was almost deafening. The numbness in my arm
started to fade, and finally I could focus on what was attacking
us. That’s when I realized the bullets had pink wings.

Sprites. Now I understood why the dragons
were so scared of them.

The dragons were flapping around in the air
above us, trying to dodge the sprites and belch fire at the same
time. No matter which direction they went, the sprites followed at
top speed. It was clear the dragons were losing; the sprites were
tiring them out by making them fly in tight circles. Already, a few
of the dragons looked like they could barely stay in the air.

“We have to do something,” I said.

Anthony’s orange eyebrows climbed up his
forehead. “All right, Jenny-girl. Let’s see if the Committee was
right about you having adventurer potential.”

“Wait, you’re not going to help me?”

He shrugged. “You’re the one running the
show.”

Great. Well, the first thing I needed to do
was stop the fighting. Then maybe I could get these crazy creatures
to sit down and talk out their problems. But how was I supposed to
get their attention in the first place?

“Any chance you have a giant whistle on you?”
I asked Anthony.

He grinned and snapped his fingers.
Pop
! Instantly, a whistle the size of a trumpet appeared. I
had to use both hands to hold it up.

I took a deep breath, put my lips to the
whistle, and blew as hard as I could. “Tweet.” The whistle let out
a pathetic sound that resembled a dying tea kettle.

Determined, I got to my feet and sucked in
the biggest breath I could. Then:

“TWEET!”

The whistle’s shrill sound echoed toward the
clouds. The fighting stopped, and all the creatures glared down at
me.

Gulp.

I threw back my shoulders and put on a stern
voice that would have made my gym teacher proud. “Stop all that
fighting and come down here right now!” I hollered up at the mass
of dragons and sprites.

The creatures drifted toward the ground,
sulking like they were in trouble.

“Now sit down, all of you,” I said, amazed
that they were actually listening to me.

The creatures formed a circle around me,
dragons on one side and sprites on the other. Now that the sprites
weren’t moving, I could see just how stunning they were. While
their wings were various shades of pink and purple, their skin was
pale blue and their clothes were shimmery white. They eyed me with
suspicion, clearly unhappy that I’d put an end to their fun.

“Okay, you guys,” I said. “This fighting has
to stop. Dragons, if you keep going like this, you won’t have
anywhere to live. I mean, look at this place. It’s a mess!”

The dragons hung their heads in shame.

“And sprites, what would it take for you to
end this war?”

One of the sprites stood and gave me a little
bow. Her wings were darker than the others’ and her shimmery white
clothing was laced with gold.

“Adventurer, I am Queen Olra. You must know
that we did not want this war. The dragons left us no choice. They
robbed us of all our worldly possessions until we had to act.”

“Robbed you?” I said. “What do you mean?” I
turned toward Sam, who was looking at the ground with guilty eyes.
“Is this true? Have you been stealing from the sprites?”

He nodded slowly. “We can’t help it,” he
said. “It’s simply in our nature. When we see something shiny, we
must have it.”

“And what about our chairs?” Olra demanded.
“They were made out of wood, and still you took them even though
they were far too small for you to sit in. Now we can’t get them
back, since you burned down the entire forest and destroyed them
all.”

Sam’s green cheeks looked slightly red. “They
were just…such nice chairs.”

“I know,” said the queen coldly. “I conjured
them myself.”

I couldn’t believe it. The entire war was
over some
chairs
? I glanced at Anthony, but he had a
straight look on his face. Maybe this kind of thing was normal in
the magical worlds.

“I want peace,” Olra went on, “but my people
are angry. The dragons destroyed our villages, and the magic
necessary to rebuild our land has left my people drained.” She
turned to me. “Please. There must be something you can do to help
us.”

“Um, okay. Well, the first thing the dragons
should do is apologize,” I said. “And promise you won’t steal from
the sprites again.”

The dragons around me gasped.

“But…but what will we do without our
treasures?” one of the smaller dragons said. Based on its high
voice and the pink bow tied around one of its spikes, I assumed it
was a girl dragon.

“Why must you have treasures at all?” said
the sprite queen. “Why can’t you simply live productive lives?”

“Easy for you to say,” one of the dragons
growled. “Your people can conjure anything with magic. All we have
is fire.”

“Which you use to destroy us!” one of the men
sprites called out.

“Not on purpose,” said Sam. “We try to think
before we burn, but sometimes it’s hard.”

“Of course it’s hard when you’re a bunch of
simple-minded creatures,” said Olra, her pale cheeks flushing
pink.

“Hey!” one of the dragons said while the
others scrunched up their green faces like they were trying to
figure out if they’d just been insulted.

“If you don’t have anything nice to say,
don’t say anything at all,” I found myself calling to the sprite
queen. Whoa. Since when did I go around spouting cheesy
sayings?

“You sound like an adventurer already!” said
Anthony, grinning. “They’re always chiming in with wisdom.”

“Wisdom?” I repeated. I didn’t know if
kindergarten lessons were all that wise.

But the “wisdom” seemed to get through to
Olra as she bowed her head. “I apologize,” she said. “I didn’t mean
to offend. I would like us to find a compromise.”

My mind churned. I doubted that sprites and
dragons would ever get along. Still, just because they couldn’t be
friends didn’t mean they couldn’t help each other out.

“All right!” I said, clapping my hands. “This
is what we’re going to do.” I turned to the dragons. “Because you
destroyed the sprites’ villages, you’re going to help them
rebuild.”

“What about them?” said Sam, pointing at the
sprites. “Will you have them help us, too?’

“Yes,” I said.

“What?” the sprites cried all around me.
Their wings started to buzz with annoyance.

“Hear me out!” I said, getting to my feet.
Luckily, that worked to get everyone to quiet down. “This whole war
is about treasure. We know the dragons can’t make their own
treasure, which is why they steal it. But the sprites, you guys
make treasure all the time! So what if the dragons helped you with
all the heavy-lifting stuff that drains your magic, and in exchange
you paid them with shiny things that they could add to their junk
piles…er, I mean, to their collections?”

The creatures eyed each other warily. It was
clear the last thing they wanted to do was to work together.

“Look, if you’d rather keep fighting, that’s
fine,” I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “But you
asked for my help, and I’m giving it to you. So, do we have a
deal?”

The dragons and the sprites whispered
furiously amongst themselves. Their whispers rose and fell as they
argued. The longer it went on, the less hopeful I got. These were
not the faces of creatures who were willing to compromise.

I glanced at Anthony, whose grin had faded.
Obviously, he thought I’d messed things up.

Great. My one shot to prove that I could be
an adventurer, and I’d failed. I tried to tell myself that it
didn’t matter. If all magical creatures were only concerned with
weird things like chair ownership, maybe this wasn’t the job for me
anyway. But the truth was, I could feel the disappointment welling
up inside of me. This had been my chance to make my life into
something amazing. Tomorrow, I’d just be a regular kid again.

Finally, the whispering stopped and the king
and queen came to stand in front of me. I took a deep breath,
preparing for the bad news. (And getting ready to run in case
another round of fighting broke out.)

“Adventurer,” Olra said with a little bow.
“We accept your terms.”

I stared at her. “You what?”

“We apologize to the sprites,” Sam announced.
“We didn’t mean to burn everything. And we promise to help them
rebuild”—his eyes twinkled—“as long as we get some shiny treasure
in return.”

I couldn’t believe it. My plan had
worked!

“Oh, good,” I said, trying to play it cool,
as if I’d known things would turn out okay from the start. “And
make sure to keep the peace from now on, okay? You don’t want me to
have to come back here.”

Sam nodded. Then he turned and took something
from one of the smallest dragons and held it out to me. I realized
it was a bouquet of rusty spoons.

“We thank you, Adventurer,” said Sam.

“Um, you’re welcome,” I said, taking the
bouquet. It wasn’t exactly the kind of reward Anthony had promised
me, but it still felt nice to be thanked.

Queen Olra came forward and waved her pale
fingers. Suddenly, a crown of delicate silver flowers appeared in
my hands. It was so amazing that it barely looked real.

“A token of our gratitude,” she said before
bowing and striding away.

“See?” said Anthony, coming up beside me. “I
told you that you were a natural!”

I couldn’t believe it. I’d gone to a magical
world. I’d managed to talk dragons and sprites into not fighting
each other. It hadn’t felt like I’d done all that much, but it had
worked. Maybe I really was a natural.

Suddenly, there was a loud
pop
! behind
me. I glanced over to see the purple duck materialize on the edge
of the clearing. It looked at me and smiled. “Quack,” it said,
almost like it was telling me I’d done a good job. Then it waddled
into the woods and disappeared.

“Now what do we do?” I said to Anthony as the
dragons and sprites wandered off in different directions.

“Well, if you think adventuring is really for
you,” he said, “then I just need you to sign this.” He held out a
blank piece of paper and a crayon.

“What’s that? A contract or something?”

“Just a way to make this all official,” said
Anthony. He popped a hunk of chocolate into his mouth. I was
starting to suspect he was kind of a sugar addict.

Was I ready to make this official? I tried to
imagine my life as an adventurer, but it was impossible. I had no
idea what else I’d encounter if I decided to take this job. But how
could I say no? After years of feeling like something was missing
in my life, I finally had a chance to do something about it.

I grabbed the crayon and stared at the paper
for a second. Then I took a deep breath and scrawled my name. But
somehow it didn’t look right. Finally, I realized what the problem
was. I picked up the crayon again and wrote:
Jenny the
Adventurer.
There. That was perfect.

###

Jenny the Adventurer breaks down the colorful
characters from
My Very UnFairy Tale Life.

Anthony

My magical gnome guide who spends every
second of the day stuffing his face with candy. He and I have very
different opinions about what “life-threatening” actually
means.

Location:
Anywhere in the magical
worlds

Likes:
Candy, ice cream, and corn (the
candy variety)

Dislikes:
Being bothered with “small”
things like killer unicorns

Aunt Evie

My aunt and my legal guardian (ever since my
parents went missing). She’s an animal psychotherapist which means
that she treats animals like they’re people and people like they’re
aliens. She means well, but she kind of exists in her own
universe.

Location:
Good Ol’ Earth

Likes:
Earl Gray Tea, lots of it

Dislikes:
Normal human interaction

The Committee

A creepy collective of old women who talk in
unison and rule the magical worlds. They think everything can be
solved with proper paperwork. Whatever you do, don’t bring your
cell phone when you go to see them.

Location:
Secret for their
protection

Likes:
Rubber stamps

Dislikes:
Unsigned documents

Crong

A magical, talking frog who likes to wear a
little blue cape (maybe because it makes him feel like a
sorcerer?). He used to be an actor, but now he’s part of the
Speaker’s League which means he spends his time working to undo
Klarr’s curse and get everyone’s mouths back.

Location:
The Land of Speak

Likes:
Anything melodramatic
(including Halga)