17. The Dream School

Mr. Binky got to be Prime Minister because my dad decided to humor him. I have said before that my dad, unlike my mum, thinks it is best to let things flow. He thinks good will prevail over evil if given time to do it. He is so convinced of this he believes in doing nothing much about anything. He always says that all will be well and there is nothing to worry and it is silly to be scared. And he never counts casualties. Only survivors. So Dad felt it wouldn’t matter much what Mr. Binky might do, and if being prime minister made him happy, well, why not let him be that?  

Mungo John Binky has a dream. He dreams that the mortals who are destroying the Earth can be friends with the fairies who are losing their homes and their patience because of this. He feels that if the fairies were educated to understand the mortals they would be able to live together.

It is the fairies Mr. Binky wants to educate because even a dreamer like he is has to admit that there is no educating certain mortals. After all, some were fairies once and the other fairies had to give them up for impossible. Some mortals are generous enough to love the existence of fairies.These don’t need any education. They are born with good hearts. But the company of the rest makes them unredeemable.

Many humans would never agree to follow our ways and live like we do.The purest of us even refuse to till the Earth and only take what it gives them freely.  Many humans find it impossible to thrive on a handful of nuts and berries while others feel a ferocious need to consume even the insides of Mother Earth, tearing out her entrails. And I am not mentioning other problems exiled fairies have like destructive envy or unnatural cruel streaks.   

                                             

Mr. Binky is one of those people who desperately need to believe that evil does not exist. Mr. Binky reasons it would make things easier if fairies accept that the ways of  mortals are not backwards or evil. If they are destroying nature, why, that must be because it is time that plants and animals should die and be extinguished, like dinosaurs.We are to accept that the peace and the beauty of our world have to go, making room for whatever comes, hideous as it may be. So reasons Mr. Binky, trying to believe this is a thing called Progress.

Unlike the Leafies, I don’t think Mr. Binky is bad, but I think he is mistaken. I will never accept that if you can’t beat them, it is perfectly right to join them. My mother says, quite pleased, that this makes me like she is. But I don’t want to flee off to her ideal world, hoping the mortals will never reach us. I want the senseless destruction to end, not my world. 

                                                                         

Now,  back to Mr. Binky’s dream of educating the fairies. The Prime Minister is bent on creating a school where fairies can be taught to accept the changes mortals are bringing about. And he is convinced  the first thing he needs to found such a school is a prestigious headmaster for it.