106. No Name Day

Three days after a fairy child is born, its parents give a party. Friends and relatives gather to meet the new baby and to hear it say the name it wishes to be called by.

Yes, baby fairies choose their own name and say it out loud because they can speak right after being born. The average fairy child starts speaking as soon as it has been claimed by its parents. After a very little while in their company, it gets to trust them and tells them that important secret, its name.

For yes, names are important secrets in Fairyland. Fairies don’t tell just anyone their names, and if you don’t know a particular fairy’s name, it is because you are not formally acquainted with that fairy. Even if you have learned a fairy’s name from others, you must not call her or him by it until she or he tells it to you herself or himself. If he or she does, it means he or she recognizes and trusts you, and is admitting you into his or her world.

Baby fairies who are not claimed by parents grow up to be very secretive and mistrustful. Many of these feel only at home with the birds and the trees that dwell in their habitat. Some have never spoken their name out loud and never will. Yes, Name Day is a very special day for a little fairy. It is the equivalent of a human christening and the little fairy’s kith and kin bring her or him wonderful gifts, some so magical that they are invaluable.

But when the three days before the party my new sister was to have were up and she hadn’t breathed a word, my parents began to get nervous. Friends and relatives kept calling, asking when the party would be and that made matters much worse. After a week was up without the baby’s having said a word, my parents were truly worried.

  

                                   

My father, who is by nature warm and optimistic, would not leave the baby’s side, and kept talking to her, trying to get her to trust him.

“Speak out, sweetie. Why don’t you trust your daddy? I’ve been sitting here next to your cradle for over a week doing nothing but ask you what your name is. I even had your sisters lend me a book of baby names they use to find names for their dollies so you could choose one from it. Doesn’t all this deserve  a little gratitude? Tell me your name, honey. If you do, we will give a splendid party for you and you will get loads of lovely presents.”

But Baby just stared at him without even shaking her head to say no.

“There are a lot of people who love you waiting for you to speak. Look, if you don’t know your name, all you have to do is listen and repeat. Li-ly. Li-ly? That’s a pretty name for you. Ro-sie! Ro-sie? Daisy. Dai-sy. Lo-tus? Like the tree where we found you!”

After reading every name in the book, Dad began to get a little impatient.

                                         

“Come on, kid. Say something or I will tell the world your name is Eustiquiana. Would you like to be called that? Sticky, for short. I’m almost sure  there was someone in my family that had that name. Violet? Surely you like Violet,” Dad pointed to a little green glass vase filled with violets there was on a table next to the baby’s crib. “Little girls love violets. Surely you want that name now that you know what it means. Come on, darling. Vi-o-let. Listen, cutiepie, it will do if you just say Vi.”

“Why don’t you shut up?” shouted my mother. “How can she get a word in if you don’t stop talking? Nothing like this has ever happened to us before. All my children spoke out their names a minute after being first cuddled by us.”

My mother’s nerves were pretty much on edge since, I think, Michael’s Freudian Halloween party. I’m sure she was thinking all she needed was another child with a problem.

“Heather’s first words were ‘thank you,’ when we found her shivering in the heath under a harebell on a stormy night and covered her up with a woolen scarf to protect her from the pouring rain. Arley greeted us in verse when he  saw us for the first time as he sat among larks and nightingales under Shakespeare’s mulberry tree. And Thistle...she was like a fakir on a cardus benedictus, surrounded by buzzing bees under the sun, making little buzzing noises herself  that called our attention to her. She looked us straight in the eyes even before we touched her and asked, ‘Are you  going to take me home with you?’ Of course we were!” 

My father nodded sadly and Mum went on ranting. “All the others had something to say for themselves too!”

To make matters worse, the baby learned to fly before it learned to speak. This was a problem because she would have to be watched every second night and day, for one cannot trust a baby that hasn’t made its intentions clear. Dad even had to put bars on the windows of the nursery, something never seen at home before.

Mum turned one of her necklaces into a golden chain that bound my new sister’s ankle to her wrist, so the baby couldn’t fly too far away from her.

And then one day the baby seemed to have said something.

                 

“Ibys!”

“Ibex?” said Dad. “The kid said Ibex? We’ve had an economist?”

“Certainly not!” cried Mum. “Fairies don’t have pennypinching babies! That comes later in life. She must have said Iris. Ask her if she is called Iris.”

                  

“Maybe I heard Ivy,” said Heather.

“Why not? Maybe she wants to have a name that will match ours,” said Thistle. “We’re your role models, aren’t we, baby? Say Ivy.”

While they were debating, I was consulting my pocket encyclopaedia.

                                      

“Ibex doesn’t just have a financial meaning,” I said. “It also means Pyrenean wild goat.”

“No way!” cried Mum. “No daughter of mine is going to be called Wild Goat because her brother is a geek who goes everywhere with an encyclopaedia in his pocket.”

“Alright, I haven’t said anything,” I said a little irrately. “And maybe the baby hasn’t either. She may have just burped. In any case, whatever she says she must repeat loud and clear in front of the guests at her Name Day Party. If they don’t understand what she says, the event will be meaningless.”

“Are you jealous or what?” snapped Mum. “The child will do what she has to do perfectly!”

“I was only trying to understand her,” I said.

But what I did understand was that Mum probably had the baby because she was tired of my being the little one in the family. Don’t misunderstand me. I was happy to have another sister. But I was upset to think that Mum might think I wasn’t. 

One more word about baby fairies before I get on with the next chapter. Fairies can change their colours to any they like, but most like to stick to their first shades, which almost always have to do with when and where they were born. True blue fairies are born in winter, and get that way from having been out in the cold. Red fairies are usually born at noon, in May and among poppies.White fairies are born under a full moon, and are sometimes rather dreamsighted, with little notion of reality. Black fairies are born when the moon is new, and can see better than cats in the dark. Green fairies are born in spring, and usually come wrapped in new leaves that begin to unfold or fall with a drop of dew from a blade of grass. Pink fairies are born at dawn, wearing golden slippers, but most golden or yellow fairies are born at about ten in the morning in cornfields or among buttercups, daffodils and daisies.Orange fairies are usually Autumn fairies, and often appear in pumpkin patches or leap from the last life in heaps of fallen leaves burning in bonfires.Violet and purple fairies are born at twilight, in violet patches, very early in spring, or among grapevines and aubergines in the summer. Brown fairies spring out of  the trunks of trees, or rise up from under the earth  like mushrooms, especially after a rainy day in summer.Grey fairies drop from clouds during rain storms or are born among pebbles near rivers and streams. Silver fairies come with the sea mists. And aquamarine fairies are usually found among seaweeds and white sea foam. And on this goes.