Chapter 5

Cory was eating breakfast with her uncle the next morning when he handed her The Fey Express opened to the help-wanted ads. “I thought you might want to look through these. An idle fairy is an unhappy fairy.”

“I thought I’d take a day to rest before I started looking for a job,” Cory said, holding the paper as if it might bite.

“You already did,” said Micah. “Yesterday. Today is the day you start looking. I glanced through it before you got out of bed. There are a few in there that I thought you might find interesting. You don’t have to decide on a new career right away, but you should have a job while you decide what it is you really want to do. Unless you’ve already decided?” he added, raising one eyebrow.

Cory shook her head. “I have no idea what I should do. All I know is what I don’t want to do.”

“Then maybe one of these will inspire you. Take a look. It can’t hurt.” He glanced down at the woodchuck sleeping on his foot. “Pardon me, Noodles, but I have to get ready for work.”

“He likes you,” Cory said as the drowsy woodchuck rolled off Micah’s foot and went back to sleep.

“Most animals do,” her uncle replied. He pushed his mushroom-shaped stool back from the table. “Good luck with the job hunt. Oh, before I forget, here are some leaves and an ink stick. You might want to make a list.”

“Thanks,” Cory said, not very sincerely. She sighed as she moved her nearly finished bowl of mashed berries and cooked oats out of the way. Glancing at the front page, she noticed an article about Santa Claus. He had been speaking at the Looking Forward to Christmas Conference and the paparazzi had mobbed the hotel where the conference was being held. A picture showed the old elf looking angry and upset as a crowd of satyrs and dwarves surrounded him, shoving Mrs. Claus and his assistant elves aside.

“Poor Santa,” Cory murmured. “He never gets a moment’s peace.”

Turning the paper over, she studied the help-wanted ads. The first ad to catch her eye read:

“I bet they’re looking for an assistant egg dyer,” she told Noodles, even though he was still asleep. “I knew a girl in Junior Fey School who did that after she graduated. It’s a seasonal job, so it doesn’t last long. From what I heard, she went from one seasonal job to another. I’d rather find something that would last more than a few weeks. Wait. What’s this? It looks interesting.”

“I wonder what they want me to do,” she said. “What do you say, Noodles? Should we find out?” She glanced down at the woodchuck, who was now sleeping on his back with his paws in the air. Grunting in his sleep, he waved one paw.

“You think so, too, huh?” said Cory. “Then let’s do it!”

Taking one of the leaves her uncle had given her, she wrote, Who are you? After addressing it to Fuzz for Life, she set it in the woven reed basket on the shelf by the door. It vanished, and less than a minute later a nice crisp envelope appeared. Inside was a leaf bearing the words The Belly Button Lint Guild.

“Ugh!” said Cory. “Forget that! Collecting belly button lint would be worse than collecting teeth.” After throwing the leaf into the trash, she made a big, dark X through the ad.

“All right,” she said, sitting back on her mushroom stool. “What else is there?” Running her eyes down the column, she noticed that most of the jobs required that she show up in person. “At least the weather is good,” she muttered, and reached for a clean leaf to start her list. After reading them all, only three jobs interested her. She copied them down word for word on her leaf, and decided to go to the closest one first. Wall Road was at the edge of town. If she flew, it should take her just a few minutes to get there.

The leaf was light enough that she could shrink it and take it with her. She read the first ad over again as she flew.

Cory didn’t really want to lift heavy weights, but the job sounded intriguing and she wanted to see what it involved.

Wall Road was a pretty little street with only a few houses, all on the same side of the road. A high stone wall ran along the other side, with a rolling, clover-filled meadow just beyond it. Sweet-faced cows grazed in the meadow, nibbling the clover and drinking from the sparkling stream that ran from one end of the meadow to the other.

One hundred Wall Road was the last house on the street. It was a cream-colored, squat little house with bowed walls and an oval door. Wisteria vines covered the house, dripping fragrant purple clusters of blossoms down its sides. The scent was intoxicating when Cory was tiny, but became more muted when she returned to her human size.

After checking the address one last time, Cory knocked on the door. Nearly a minute went by before a short, egg-shaped woman answered. Her skin was pale, but she wore so much makeup that she didn’t look real. Big, round circles of red colored her cheeks and the swipes of bright blue on her eyelids matched her eyes. Some of her red lipstick had come off on her small, baby-size teeth.

“Are you here about the ad?” she asked, sounding hopeful. When Cory nodded, the woman’s smile grew so wide that her face seemed to split in two. “Marvelous! Then come right in. I’m Doris Dumpty and my son’s name is Humpty. He’s in his bedroom. I’ll have him come meet you.” Turning halfway around, the woman shouted, “Humpty! Your new babysitter is here!”

“Babysitter?” said Cory as she followed the woman down a short hallway. “I didn’t know that was what you wanted.”

“But the ad was perfectly clear,” the woman said, leading the way into the brightest room Cory had ever seen. Everything was yellow, from the furniture to the rugs to the paint on the walls and ceiling. Even the doorknobs were yellow. “I need someone to watch Humpty while I go visit my ailing mother. Her mind is a bit scrambled lately. If I don’t go see her, she’ll hatch a new plan to escape from the nursing home and get lost again.”

“But I don’t think I …,” Cory began.

“Oh, good! Here’s my beautiful boy!” Mrs. Dumpty said as a boy skipped into the room, gave her a quick look, and climbed on one of the overstuffed chairs, taking a seat on the back. The shorts and T-shirt he was wearing showed off the bandage on one of his spindly legs and scars on his thin little arms. Narrow at the hips and shoulders, he was wide around the middle and his skin was even paler than his mother’s. Cory couldn’t help but think that he looked like an egg wearing clothes with another egg balanced on top for a head.

Doris Dumpty sighed. “Humpty! How many times have I told you not to climb on the furniture? Sit on the seat, please!”

Humpty scowled as he slid down the back of the chair, but his scowl disappeared when he looked up at Cory. “Do you like to climb?” he asked.

“That depends on what we’re climbing,” she replied.

“No climbing!” his mother said as the boy squirmed off the chair. “I’ll be gone for only a few hours, but he is not allowed to climb, no matter what he says. My little Humpty is a fragile boy and gets hurt easily. Here’s a list of emergency numbers,” she said, handing a leaf to Cory. “My husband, RJ, is the first one you should call if there’s ever a real emergency. Now be good, Humpty. Listen to Miss … What is your name?”

“Cory. Don’t you want to—”

“Be a good boy, Humpty, and listen to Cory. Mother loves you,” she said, planting a kiss on the top of his head.

“But, Mrs. Dumpty, you don’t know …”

“I’m sure you two will be just fine. Good-bye, my little darling,” she said, twiddling her fingers at her son even as she hurried to the door.

The moment the door closed behind his mother, Humpty took hold of Cory’s hand and pulled her toward the hallway. “Let’s go outside. We can play hide-and-seek. You’re it!” he cried as they stepped onto the grass. “Face the wall and count to five billion.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” said Cory as he turned her toward the house. He let go of her hand and scampered off, but instead of counting she turned back to protest. The boy was already gone. “Humpty! Where are you?” she called. She heard giggling, but she couldn’t tell where it came from, so she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Humpty, I’m not playing this game!” The only reply was another rash of giggling.

“He’s close enough that I can still hear him, and he likes to climb,” Cory muttered to herself and began to look in the trees. She started with the trees closest to the house, then searched the ones by the road. When she couldn’t find him from the ground, she became tiny and flew into the trees, inspecting them more closely. She finally found him hidden behind a leafy branch, high in an old oak tree.

“Gotcha!” she said, tapping him lightly.

“You’re a fairy!” said Humpty. “I’ve never had a fairy babysitter before. Hey, didn’t you say you weren’t going to play this game?”

“I did indeed. And didn’t your mother tell you to listen to me?”

Humpty nodded. “I always listen to my babysitters. That’s how I know where you are when you’re looking for me.”

“How many babysitters have you had?” asked Cory.

Humpty shrugged. “A new one every week. Nobody ever wants to come back.”

“Uh-huh,” said Cory, wondering what she’d gotten herself into.

“Want to race?” Humpty asked her. Before she could answer, he was running across the street as fast as his spindly legs could carry him.

“Humpty, no!” Cory cried as he started to climb the wall that bordered the road. Although he didn’t look very strong, the little boy was fast and he’d reached the top before Cory was halfway there. Turning small again, she darted to the top and became big as soon as she landed. “Your mother said that you weren’t supposed to climb!” she said, peering at the ground, which seemed far away.

“I know,” said Humpty. “It’s quiet up here and I like to watch the cows. I wish I could fly, but I don’t have wings like you.”

“It is very pretty,” Cory told him as she looked out over the meadow.

Humpty sighed. “My mother always says it’s not safe. She’s never been up here. She doesn’t know what it’s like. Things always look different from up high.”

“If going up high is what you want, maybe we can find a way that you can be safe and happy. Let’s go inside and see if we can’t figure something out.”

“You won’t tell my mother that I came up here?” asked Humpty.

“Not if you don’t,” said Cory. “Sometimes a mother is happier if she doesn’t know everything.”

Cory held her breath as the boy scrambled down the wall. He flashed her an endearing grin when he reached the ground, and she found herself smiling back at him. Maybe this job wouldn’t be so bad after all.

When Mrs. Dumpty came home a few hours later, she found her son curled up in the top of the linen closet with every pillow in the house piled on the floor below him. Cory was seated beside the pillows, reading a story out loud. Seeing the expression on the woman’s face, Cory was sure that she was angry.

“Well, I never!” declared Mrs. Dumpty. “All my pillows! Even the good ones out of the parlor!”

“I’m sorry,” Cory began. “It was the only thing I could think of that would …”

“What a marvelous idea!” said Mrs. Dumpty. “I wish I’d come up with that!”

“Then you don’t mind about the pillows?” asked Cory.

“Not at all!” the woman gushed as Cory got to her feet. “Can you come back next week at the same time?”

“Sure,” Cory replied as Mrs. Dumpty handed her some money. “See you next week, Humpty.”

“See ya,” said the little boy.

Once Cory was outside, she stuffed the money in one pocket and took her notes out of the other. The next job was farther out in the country, but it wouldn’t take long to get there. Cory read the ad three times as she flew, trying to figure out what kind of job Mrs. McDonald wanted done.

Cory thought she was quick and observant, but she had never used a carving knife. Did they want her to carve wood? She had carved a piece of soap into the shape of a butterfly in art class, but she’d never made anything out of wood.

As Cory flew above the trees, she noticed that the number of houses dwindled while the farms grew larger. She knew where the Dell was located, having seen the farm sign when out flying with Daisy. When she finally reached it, she saw large fields and a big, red barn behind a tidy white house. Landing at the doorstep of the farmhouse, she had just returned to her human size when the door slammed open and an elderly woman peered out at her. “What do you want?” the old woman asked.

“I came about the job,” said Cory. “Mrs. McDonald advertised for …”

“I’m Mrs. McDonald! I know exactly what I need! Are you any good with a knife?”

“What do you need me to do?” asked Cory.

“Pest control!” said the old woman. “Get rid of the three blind mice that keep chasing me. I already cut off their tails with a carving knife and now I need someone to finish the job. The little vermin won’t leave me alone! They follow me everywhere I go.”

Movement behind the woman caught Cory’s eye. Three tailless mice were nibbling a half-eaten peach pie in the middle of the kitchen table.

“If you want the job, get in here and take care of the mice before I change my mind about you!” the old woman snapped.

“I’m not sure I want to …,” Cory began, but Mrs. McDonald was already dragging her into the kitchen and shoving the knife in her hands.

“A couple of good whacks ought to do it,” Mrs. McDonald declared. “Just take care of those mice before they get away. I’ll find a box to put the bodies in.”

While the old woman shuffled out of the room, Cory studied the mice. They looked odd without their tails, and she could tell they were blind by the way they stared straight ahead, regardless of what they were doing. One of them stopped eating long enough to scrub his tiny face with his paws, wiping away some crumbs.

“You’re so cute!” Cory exclaimed. She felt sorry for them. They had learned how to survive even though they were blind. It didn’t seem right to kill them.

“Did you whack them yet?” Mrs. McDonald asked as she came back into the room. She was carrying a shoe box, which gave Cory an idea.

“I just need the box,” Cory said, reaching for it.

A teakettle on the stove began to shake and whistle as steam poured from the spout. Mrs McDonald hurried to turn off the burner. While the old woman wasn’t looking, Cory held the box under the edge of the table and used the knife to whack the table on the far side of the pie. Startled, the mice turned away from the sound and ran straight for the box. Using the flat of the blade, Cory pushed them over the edge and into the box, clapping the lid on to keep them inside.

“All done!” she declared. “These mice aren’t going to bother you again.”

“Thank goodness!” cried Mrs. McDonald. “Here,” she said, handing Cory some money. “Take them outside and get rid of them.”

Cory smiled. “It will be my pleasure!”

Holding the lid on the box, Cory hurried out to the lane that ran past the house and peeked under the lid. The mice seemed so small and helpless that she couldn’t bring herself to let them go. She’d have to take them home for now, which meant that she wasn’t going to be able to fly. Even if she shrank the box and the mice, they would be too heavy to carry when she was small. She’d just have to call the pedal-bus and hope that one was coming out this way.

Like most of the fey who lived in town, Cory always carried a token for the pedal-bus. There were nearly twenty buses zipping through town and around the suburbs now, but two fairies and a brownie had started the business with only one pedal-bus just the year before. Although the first few buses had been magic-propelled, keeping the magic at full strength was costly when non-fairies were operating it, so most of the buses used a little magic and a lot of pedaling.

The buses looked much like the bicycles that Cory had seen in the human world, only these seated twelve people, with one operator in the front and one in the back. The passengers sat in the middle with baskets for their belongings. Everyone had to pedal, but because the bus was magically enhanced, it went much faster than pedaling alone would have made it go. There was magic in the seats as well, so a brownie only a foot tall could ride with an ogre topping eight feet.

Knowing that there were more buses the closer one went to town, Cory started walking in that direction even as she took the token out of her pocket. She rubbed the token with her thumb while declaring her destination—her uncle’s address. After tucking it back in her pocket, she continued walking; the token would tell the operators where to pick her up.

Only a few minutes later she heard the ringing of the bus’s bells. A bearded goblin wearing a patch over one eye was sitting in the front operator’s position while a slender male elf with a long ponytail was seated in the back. Most the seats in between were filled with nymphs dressed in the clothes of their trade; bark for tree nymphs and water lilies for water nymphs. The only seats available were right behind the goblin, who scowled when Cory took her seat and placed the box in the basket in front of her.

“Aren’t you ready yet?” he grumped, although she hadn’t taken any time at all.

“All set,” she said, and put her feet on the pedals.

Everyone pushed down on the pedals at once and the next moment they were flying down the road. Cory thought they were probably moving as fast as she could fly. If they hadn’t had to stop now and then to let a passenger off or pick up someone new she would have been home in minutes. As it was, she was there in less than an hour, paying the goblin with a coin when she got off.

Cory watched the departing bus until they had driven out of sight before heading up her uncle’s walk. After taking the box to her bedroom, she let Noodles outside for a few minutes, then put him back in her room. The moment she was out the front door, she made herself small again.

Cory wasn’t far from the address on Curdsin Way and was glad she had saved it for last. She knew Marjorie Muffet, the person who had written the last help-wanted ad, having met her at her friend Apple Blossom’s birthday party years before. Cory had seen Marjorie a few times over the years, and thought she was nice. If their paths had crossed a little more often, she might have called her a friend.

Cory had never been to Marjorie’s house before, but when she finally found the address, she thought the little cottage suited her perfectly. Miss Muffet lived in a cute little cottage with a white picket fence. Pink roses covered the arbor that stood at the gate, with more pink roses planted along the inside of the entire fence and lining the walkway that led to the front door. A patch of black-eyed Susans surrounded a for sale sign in the middle of the front lawn. The sign was weathered, as if it had been there a long time.

Cory read the newspaper ad once more as her feet touched the ground.

Her shoes weren’t exactly large, but she did have a strong stomach and she’d proven herself to be pretty fearless as a tooth fairy. Maybe the shoes aren’t that important, she thought, heading for the gate.

Cory had just stepped through the arbor when she noticed that Marjorie was seated on a carved bench nestled in a corner of the garden. Wearing a pink gingham dress and a white ruffled apron, she was intent on the pages of an oversize book.

“Hi, Marjorie!” Cory called.

The girl glanced up. She looked puzzled at first, but her expression brightened when she recognized Cory. “Cory Feathering! What are you doing in this part of town?”

“Looking for a job,” Cory said as she walked toward the bench. “I saw your ad in the paper.”

“Apple Blossom told me that you were training to be a tooth fairy. Didn’t that work out?”

“I was almost finished with my training, except I quit a few days ago. That’s why I need to find a job.” Cory felt a flush of embarrassment over admitting that she’d walked away from such a prestigious career. Saying it like this made her sound like a failure, something she hadn’t felt before.

“I’m sure there’s a story behind that!” said Marjorie. “But I’m not going to pry. Come sit beside me and I’ll tell you about the job, then you can tell me if you still want it. I have spiders, you see. They’re not poisonous, but they are obnoxious. My house is full of them. I’ve tried putting out spider traps so I can release them in the wild, and bait that makes them turn green, fall over, and twitch so they’ll want to leave and not come back, but neither the traps nor the bait do the job. Every day I have more spiders than the day before and I’m getting quite desperate. It bothered me so much that I put my house up for sale, but no one is interested. To tell the truth, I hate killing anything, but lately I’ve resorted to stomping on them. Unfortunately, I have tiny feet and it doesn’t do anything except make them mad. That’s why I need someone with large feet.”

“How big are these spiders?” asked Cory. She had already glanced down at Marjorie’s feet, which were indeed very tiny, but then Marjorie was so petite that the top of her head barely reached Cory’s shoulder. Cory suddenly recalled that Marjorie had been called Little Miss Muffet when they were younger. Ordinary spiders might seem huge to someone so small.

“Come inside and I’ll show you,” Marjorie said, standing up. She set the book on the bench, but changed her mind and picked it up again. “This is a very useful book. I refer to it often.”

Cory glanced at the cover as they walked toward the house. The title, What Mother Goose Didn’t Want You to Know, sounded intriguing. She nearly bumped into Marjorie when the girl opened the front door and stopped to peek inside.

“I don’t see any yet,” Marjorie said, tiptoeing across the threshold. “It won’t be long before they show up, though. Look! There’s one now!”

A spider as big as Cory’s hand with her fingers spread wide was sauntering across the woven sea-grass carpet in the main room. Cory shuddered. She’d never liked spiders, but had never been particularly afraid of them—until now. Taking a step back, she wondered how anyone would think of stomping on something so big when suddenly the spider jumped, landing on the wall beside her. In a heartbeat, Miss Muffet swung her book, smacking the spider so that it fell to the floor, stunned.

“Wow! That was impressive!” exclaimed Cory.

“I told you this was a useful book,” Marjorie said with a grin. Pulling a pair of cooking tongs from the pocket of her apron, she plucked the spider off the floor and carried it out the door. With the tongs held at arm’s length, she marched to the middle of her yard and set the spider down. Returning to Cory’s side, she pointed at the spider and said, “Now watch.”

The words had scarcely left her lips when a crow landed on the ground beside the spider, tilted its head to one side to get a better look, then snapped up the spider and swallowed it in one gulp.

“They must be tasty,” Marjorie explained. “The birds really seem to like them.”

“I have one question,” Cory said as the crow flew off. “Why do you want to hire someone to stomp the spiders? It looks as if you’re handling it well yourself.”

“I usually do, except I’m tired of them jumping on me in the middle of the night or landing on the table when I’m eating. I’ve given up eating curds and whey, although they used to be my favorite food. I haven’t been able to stomach them ever since a spider landed in a bowl while I was eating. At first I found the spiders intimidating, but now they’re just an annoyance. I want them to be gone, even if I have to pay someone to take care of them for me. Are you interested in the job?”

“I’m sorry,” said Cory. “But I don’t think I’d make a good spider stomper. My feet are much too small to stomp one of your spiders.”

“I didn’t think you’d want the job. But at least we got to see each other again,” said Marjorie.

Cory nodded. “Now that I’m no longer working at night and don’t have to sleep during the day, I’ll actually be able to see my friends.”

Marjorie smiled. “I’d like that! And maybe we can go somewhere that doesn’t have things jumping out at you.”

“I’m sure I can find a place like that!” Cory said with a laugh.

Cory told her uncle about her day at dinner that night. He seemed interested, especially when she mentioned the spiders in Marjorie’s house. “How big did you say they were?” he asked.

“As big as my hand,” Cory said, holding up her hand and spreading her fingers wide.

“I don’t know if this will work or not, but I have an idea that might do the trick. There’s a spray made from chrysanthemums that I’ve used to get rid of insects. It’s worked well for me, but then I’ve never tried it on such big spiders. I have some in the garden shed if you want to try it.”

“I would! Thank you!” Cory told him. “I think that at this point, Marjorie will try just about anything.”