The Story Blog: Anise: Fairy/1 ft tall

Anise: Fairy/1 ft tall/black hair/unknown eye colour/small suitcase/3 yrs old/blue dress/brown coat/pink shoes.

Private flight ------- to NearFair from great ocean over mountains.

Seat 7.

The snow was all around, grey blankets of it which looked rather ghostly at this time of night. Or maybe it was early morning, Anise couldn't tell. She wasn't sure where she was, she wasn't in fairyland, the land she knew. She shivered and looked out of the window at the wreckage of the aeroplane. Anise was three, had long straight hair and eyes which no one could tell the colour of. She and her parents had lived on one of the islands in the middle of the great ocean. That morning they had set off from the island on a secret expedition to find out if the immortals were planning an invasion. While they were flying over the border mountains something had happened to the engines and the plane had crashed on Mt Duvet, one of the closest mountains to human country. Anise looked out again, but there still was no sign of anything living. Suddenly, to her right, she saw a light, the light of a candle through a small window made to keep the cold out and save glass.

Anise searched the cabin for a scarf or hat she could use to keep warm, but she only found the sleeve of somebody's jacket which she used for a scarf. She climbed out of the hole in the wall and made for the light as fast as she could. The light was coming from a large stone building, when she reached it her hands were so cold she could hardly lift the heavy knocker on the large wooden door. The knock echoed for some time and then there was silence, soon followed by the sound of footsteps coming closer. Suddenly she shivered so hard her teeth rattled and cold started seeping into her body, the footsteps now sounded unbearably loud and went right through her head. The wind howled and it was so cold Anise could hardly move or feel anything. Her head hurt so much that she screamed and everything went black.

When Anise awoke she still could hardly feel anything and her head was throbbing so hard she couldn't hear anything. It seemed as if she had slept for a very long time. She opened her eyes with difficulty and blinked a few times. She couldn't see anything very clearly. Her head and throat and toes ached, and she suddenly realized to her horror that her lovely long black hair had been cut short. Anise felt like crying, but she didn't because someone came into the room at that moment with a tray of nice looking food.

“Here is your breakfast.”

said the person. She was tall and thin and wore a dark blue dress and a white apron. She put the tray down on the bed and went out of the door. Anise took the tray and started eating hungrily. On the tray there was toasted brown bread, a cup of warm watered-down milk and a small bowl of stock. When Anise had finished all this she put the tray on the bed side table and went back to sleep. When she next woke there was a different tray on the table with a cup of vegetable and meat soup. Anise ate this and being bored she made a drum set out of her cup and spoon. The lady soon came back and took them away! Anise folded her arms and sulked. Nothing happened so she went back to sleep. She next awoke to see the lady sitting in a chair at the side of the room. Anise sat up and looked at her. Her hair was grey and her dress was faded and creased. “Are you feeling better?” she said, Anise nodded. “Good. What's your name and how old are you?” “Anise. I'm fwee.” said Anise with pride, “Ah, we don't have many three year-olds in this school but I'm sure you'll like it here. My name is Helen, I'm in charge of the 10-16 year-olds. Your teacher will be Margaret. There are five other little girls of your age and all the others are four and over. This way and I'll get you dressed.” Anise was soon walking down some narrow stairs wearing a dark green dress and a white pinafore. They came to a very large room with a fire at one end and tables in rows. There was a line of girls at one table with two large pots and three large loaves of bread at one end of the table and stacks of bowls at the other. Helen walked up to one of the girls, “Emily, you asked me before if you could look after one of the smaller girls, this is Anise and she is three. You will be looking after her.” “yes ma'am.” said Emily, curtsying. Helen disappeared out through a door. “you're new, aren't you?” “yes” said Anise, looking at her feet, “do you want some porridge?” Anise nodded. “I'll get you some then.” she led Anise to one of the tables with little girls sitting around it. Anise sat down beside a small girl with blonde hair in piggy tails. “hello, what's your name?” said the girl, “Anise.” said Anise in a small voice, “oh that's a nice name. My name's marigold and I am three.” said the girl, importantly, “I'm fwee too.” said Anise, “not fwee it's thir-ee.”

“fir-ee.” “thir-ee!”

“ffirr-ee!” “never mind. What are you going to be when you grow up? I'm going to be a cook.” “I don't know.” said Anise. When Emily came back she found them deep in conversation about no one knows what except small girls.

This school is the Maid School and in the maid school you learn how to be a good servant. You could be a lady's maid, a scullery maid, a maid of all work, a cook, (all the girls learned how to cook and sew and sometimes embroider, but if you were going to be a cook you had to have special lessons.), you could be a nurse or a gardener or a governess. With all of these you had to know what to do in an emergency and every week a bell would ring and everyone would pretend to panic while one of the bigger girls got them into orderly lines and walked them outside.

Each night there was a great thumping noise as the girls whose night it was practiced defending the school against burglars, (large bits of wood.), fighting them off with whatever was handy which was usually a pillow and a hairbrush or comb and was once a frying pan from the kitchen. They were of course all taught to read and write when they were ready and some maths. When a girl had a birthday she got a special breakfast and a small cake at tea time. When she turned 16, (which was when the girls were allowed to leave), she would get a novel. This was always very exciting as most of the books at the school were instructive. Every day after the morning lessons they would all go out for a walk supervised by the teachers and afterward they would all have a lesson in etiquette. They slept in a large room with a stove at one end and there were often three girls to a bed, but no one minded, it was warmer like that.

On this particular day a dark shape wandered around the wreckage of the aeroplane, looking under bits and pieces with no apparent purpose.

Once it looked up, cursed under its breath and disappeared under something for on the ridge above the crash there were two people, Anise and Emily. “look, vere's va plane I was in. It got bwoken.”

said Anise, pointing, “oh.” said Emily, who was rather nervous because the teachers couldn't see them “um, we should really be getting back now, I think I can hear Margaret calling us. We should go now.” “my mummy was in vere.” said Anise as they walked back to the teachers. The figure reappeared and continuing to curse it started to kick bits of plane about.