Rated G

Sedrick meets a fairy, does she share his taste for toads? 

 

 

November Gray
(or the fairy who ate a toad)
By Bosley Gravel

 

Sedrick dug in the mud with a broom handle.  He was a thin boy, perhaps ten years old.  His brown hair was covered with the hood of his bloated parka.  The sky was November gray; clouds built mystical shapes high above the earth and cast their gloomy shadows on Sedrick's efforts .  The hole at his feet was widened.  He leaned down and extracted his sluggish trophy with his fingers-- Sedrick had caught his toad.

* * *

Tessie was playing in front of the apartment when he got home.  She ran to meet him as he somberly came up the sidewalk with one hand in his pocket, the other swinging his stick. 
"Mom wants you to go to the store."
"Do you want to see my toad?"  He held it out on his palm.
It lay, still in hibernation, one eye half open, the other glued shut with a peculiar slime.  It kicked one foot in a pathetic motion. 
"Gross."  Tessie wrinkled her pug nose and made a face. "That's disgusting."
"Toads are not any grosser than sisters," he said.
Tessie stuck out her tongue and wiggled her bottom defiantly.
"Mom wants a gallon of milk.  She says she wanted it an hour ago.  I told her you were probably out playing with those other boys."
Sedrick put his toad back in his pocket.
"She got mad."
"Who cares?"
"I'll tell you said that."
"Tell!" he said and pushed her with his fingertips; she stepped back a little too far.
"Now, I'm really telling."
He stroked the toad with a fingertip and walked up the sidewalk to the house.
"Don't take that toad in the house!"  She yelled.
"Shut up," he said and opened the door and went in.
Tessie picked up her jump rope and began bouncing up and down, her pigtails swinging in the cool air.

Boys are rotten made out of cotton
Girls are nice made out of spice
Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider
Girls go to Mars to get more candy bars
One, two, three ...

Sedrick walked by, she stopped in mid-swing.
"Sedrick?" 
He kept walking.  She skipped along beside him.
"Can I go with you?"
"No," he said.
"Please?"
"Go back or I'll hit you."
She stopped skipping and walked beside him.
"You don't have permission.  Go back, or you'll get Mom mad."
"Sedrick?"
"What?"
"What are you going to do with your toad?"
"I'm going to eat it," he said earnestly.
She stopped dead in her tracks;  Sedrick kept walking.
"I'm telling!" Tessie said mortified,  "Mom is going to ground you if you eat that toad.  You'll get warts on your insides!"
He turned his head and stuck out his tongue.
"I don't care."
Tessie started bawling.
"You can't eat a toad.  I'm telling."
Sedrick, without a further ado, turned and kept walking.  Tessie was running towards the house, her jump rope trailing behind.

* * *

She must be a fairy, Sedrick thought, a crying fairy, sitting on the curb of the Quickie Mart drinking a 44oz soda.  She was beautiful; her long blond hair hung down to her shoulders.  He caught just a whiff of hair spray (which he mistook for perfume).  Her nails were painted an electric blue.  Her lipstick had been pink, but it was worn a way at the center of her lips.  She took a long sullen slurp of her soda.
A fairy!  Right here in front of the Quickie Mart.  He was staring, he knew that, but it didn't matter.  He felt the toad jump in his pocket.
"Whatcha looking at, little man?"  she said.
Sedrick felt his face fill with blood.
"Nothing," he said, and left the fairy to slurp her soda.
The inside of the Quickie Mart was deserted.  A lone clerk sat on a stool and picked his teeth with a matchbook, his eyes on a tiny black and white television.  A cigarette burned in the ashtray on the counter.  Sedrick picked out a gallon of milk and paid the clerk with a grungy five-dollar bill.  The toad was hopping in his pocket;  the poor thing had finally woken from its hibernation.
"Thanks," the clerk said, not looking away from the television.  Sedrick opened the door, keeping his eyes closed.  Perhaps the fairy had already left.
But, no, she was still sitting there, staring at the ground.  He couldn't help looking at her.  He felt like he did in class when he didn't know the answer on a test, and he could see the next kid's paper.  His eyes were drawn like iron to a magnet, and what if he did sometime catch sight of an answer?  Was that really so wrong?
"So, my little friend is back. " the fairy said, this time with less cruel intent.
"Y--You're beautiful," he stammered.
She laughed and it was the laugh of a fairy.  He felt like an idiot, holding a gallon of milk and a toad hopping in his pocket.  He started to sweat under his parka.
"Come here."
He was under her spell.  He walked over to her.
"Sit down."
He sat.
"Am I really beautiful?"
"Yes."  The toad was going crazy.  He hoped she couldn't see his parka bobbing up and down.
She laughed again.
"Why were you crying?"  He asked putting the jug of milk between his legs.
"Because I don't feel beautiful."
"Oh," he said not knowing what else to do, he felt on the verge of losing something.
"I feel like a toad." She said.
Sedrick's heart bumped twice.  He put one hand over the toad in his pocket.
"You are beautiful."
"Thanks."
Again, he felt awkward, if only he had time to plan his conversation with the fairy.
"What's your name?"  He asked in a flash of inspiration.
"Erika."  (The name of a fairy.)
"You don't look like a toad."
"I know, I know."
"I have a toad, I should know."
"I'm sure you do."
He was flailing like a fish out of water.  Sedrick pulled out the toad.  It tried to jump away.  The fairy looked startled.
"See, you don't look like a toad."
It didn't seem to help.
"You really do have a toad," she said, amazed.  "I used to love toads."
Finally, he had stuck the mother lode, he had taken a desperate chance and it had worked.
"Do you still like them? " he said and thrust it in her face.
The fairy flinched.
"Well, not as much as I used to."
"I'm going to eat it!"  He said excitedly.
"Eat it?"
She took a long slurp of her soda.
"You are a strange little man."
Sedrick looked at his watch.  Mother would be expecting him home any minute now.  But the spell of the fairy was all-powerful.
"Why would you want to eat a toad?"
"I don't know," he said, "I just feel like--"
The fairy smiled and the light from that smile lit the whole gloomy November.
"I know."  She said simply.
He was encouraged.
"Tomorrow, my dad isn't going to come to dinner,  and it is Thanksgiving.  They got a divorce, my parents ..." He could feel it all spilling out of him.  The fairy cocked her head, listening to him go on.
The toad squirmed in his hand.  He realized he was practically killing the poor thing.  He put it back in his pocket while he was still talking.
" ... my father calls, but he's not the same."
He was crying in front of the fairy.  She didn't seem to mind.  She even reached over and touched his hand, the one that had been holding the toad.
"It's okay, my parents got a divorce, too.  But that was a long time ago.  You'll get over it.  Besides there are a lot worse things."
"Worse?"  He sniffled and wiped his nose with his hand.
"Yep, little man, many worse things.  Wait you'll see."
"You are a fairy," he said.
She giggled the way only a true fairy could.
"No."
Sedrick knew she would never admit it.  He looked at his watch again.
"I have to go."
"Okay, little man."
"I'm going to eat this toad, right now."
He took it out and held it by the leg.
She scratched her eyebrow.
"Don't."
He stopped; the toad was over his gaping mouth.
"I'm going to.  I always keep my word."
"How about I eat it for you."
"You'd eat a toad?"
"I'll take it home and eat it."
She took a tissue from her pocket and held it in her hand. 
"Let me have the toad."
He put it in her hand.
"Thanks."
She wrapped it up and held it in her fist.
"Now, run along, little man.  And don't play with toads."
"I--I--thank you ..." He said.
He didn't know why, but he picked up his gallon of milk and ran, never looking back at the fairy.  Sedrick ran like the devil himself was chasing him down the great halls of Hades.

* * *

Tessie was outside waiting for him.
"Mom said that you are grounded.  You ate that toad. I know it!"
He walked past her and went into the house.
"YOU ATE A TOAD!"
Inside, Mother was congenial and asked if he indeed ate a toad.  He said, in fact, he had not, that a fairy had eaten it for him.  Mother said he had to stay inside for the rest of the day for having such an attitude, but he didn't mind, he didn't mind at all.

 

Previously published by The Deepening.

Bosley Gravel, eclectic hack author, was born in the Midwest, and came of age in Texas and southern New Mexico. He writes in a variety of genres. His fiction focuses on the absurdly tragic, and the tragically absurd. He likes good black coffee, nightmares, Billie Holiday, and that hour just before the sun comes up.