Alpin found a perfectly good Mars Bar an unapprehensive mortal picnicker had abandoned in the forest along with some litter under the shade of a cigar tree. He decided to deep fry it right where he had found it. He went home to fetch a bowl of batter, sunflower seed oil, a frying pan, matches and the rest of the things he needed to go about this business.
When he returned to the cigar tree he lit a fire right under it and…didn’t burn the forest to a cinder because Glorvina, the banshee, jumped out of the bushes screaming t the first whiff of smoke. Just in time too.
Traditionally, banshees are fairies who wail and scream shortly before the death of humans who belong to certain Irish and Scottish families. But lately, perhaps because of longer life expectancy or due to a wish to do more, they are taking a lot of interest in ecology. They forsee the planet Earth could die because of the way the mortals are mistreating it and they are trying to do things to save it that should keep them from having to wail for it.
Glorvina had been wanting to do something to protect Minced Forest. To this end she had petitioned Prime Minister Mungo J. Binky for an audience.And he was there in the woods with her because he had granted her one. I am sure he would also like me to say he is accessible and ready to listen to anything the people he considers his would like to say to him.
Prime Minister Binky is the only authentic civil servant in Fayland. Other fairies have jobs at my parents’ court, but they are there for the fun of it. Mum’s maids-in-waiting and other supporters are more like a moviestar’s fans than than like anything else. My father, Oberon, has Puck, who is always ready to do his bidding. But this is because loyal Puck is hyperactive and needs to be always doing something but runs out of ideas of what to do, whilst my father, who has a very fertile mind, is always thinking up interesting things to be done he would probably never even begin to do if left to himself. These are informal relationships, without signed contracts, based on goodwill and a lot of mutual admiration.
Mr. Binky was different from everyone else in that he would never do anything without producing a written document about it first. When he suggested the fairies ought to have a prime minister and offered himself to fill the post, it took him six months to write the document that named him prime minister, though he had been meditating on what he would say in it for years.
It was my dad who signed the document of Binky’s designation. My mum never signs anything she doesn’t read first and she refuses to read fine print. Which is why Mr. Binky has given up on getting her to sign anything he writes.
What Mr. Binky was doing behind the bushes Glorvina ran screeching out of was trying to get her to understand that before he could begin to protect the forest she had to specify in detail exactly what there was to protect. He wanted her to make a list of each and every tree, bush, blade of grass, etc., there was in the forest. But before she could send it to him, each and every tree, bush, blade of grass, etc., had to be examined by a vegetable doctor who was to produce a certificate of the state of health of each tree, bush, blade of grass, etc., and annex that to the list.
Vegetable doctors were conceived by Mr. Binky as persons licensed in both medicine and botany. He had never seen one but hoped to once he published an ad for one in the fairy papers. If he didn’t, this had to mean there weren’t as many unemployed people as there were said to be.
While Mr. Binky lamented that he had not been in office long enough to create a fire department, Glorvina cast bucket after bucket of tears on Alpin’s bonfire as she stomped ferociously on it until she finally put it thoroughly out.
I must say many of the Leafies did come to her aid carrying nutshells full of dew.
Glorvina fought the fire cussing and screaming all the while, in a higher pitch than Alpin who was yelling too, in protest, of course. They say that on moonless nights one can still hear echoes of their potent shouts in the vicinity of the cigar tree, much to the annoyance of forest dwellers and the fright of casual passersby.
As for Alpin, the least that happens to people who mess with fire is that if they don’t get burned, they get wet.
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