A Sticky Situation: A Fanny Nightsky Tooth Adventure

It was raining cats and dogs. That’s what Whiz had said before Fanny left, but Fanny didn’t see any cats and dogs falling from the sky. What she saw was water, and lots of it. Peanuts and popcorn! She didn’t like rain. It made flying difficult.  And as much rain was coming down, it made seeing impossible. Which is why she was huddled under the windowsill at the wrong address. Fanny was lost.

“Pixesticks, I wish all this rain would stop.” Fanny stomped her foot for emphasis, but that only resulted in her splashing water up into her face.

“That didn’t seem to help.”

Fanny wiped the water out of her eyes and looked around to see who had spoken. There was a spider in the corner of the window. She was watching Fanny with amusement.

“No, it didn’t,” Fanny agreed. “I want to go home, but I have one more house on my list tonight… and I can’t find it because of all this rain.”

“It will eventually stop,” the spider said. “In the meantime, why don’t you come join me in my web.”

Fanny looked suspiciously at the spider. “I’m a fairy, not a fly…”

“I’m not going to eat you,” the spider chuckled. “It’s dryer in this corner than it is on the ledge… no puddles.”

“Well, my wings do need to dry some…” Fanny flapped her wings and flew up towards the spider’s web, landing just on the edge.

“Be careful,” the spider warned, “my webbing is a bit sticky. It’s easy to get stuck.”

“Cotton candy, it is sticky,” Fanny said, checking to make sure she could lift her feet, “but I’ve seen worse. Spec got stuck in Taffy once and it took five of us to pull him out.”

“My name is Bridgette,” the spider said.

“Fanny Nightsky.” Fanny put out her hand to shake one of the spiders many legs but lost her balance and fell face first into the web. “Pixisticks!”

“Are you stuck?” Bridgette asked, when Fanny continued to lay there with her face in the web.

“I think so,” came the muffled reply.

“Oh dear.” Bridgette tried to pull Fanny out of the web, but she couldn’t budge her. More and more of the sticky thread began to cover Fanny. “Oh dear, oh dear.”

“Peanuts! Fanny, how did you get so tangled.”

Fanny wished she could fall through the web and disappear when she heard Spec’s voice.

 “I didn’t do it on purpose, Spec.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Whiz said, landing on the edge of the web and surveying the situation. “Zip, Spec, if the two of you each take hold of one of her arms, and Vera and I each take a leg, I think we can pull her out. Be careful not to tear a wing.”

There was a murmur of agreement and Fanny realized that there must be several more fairies. She had an audience. “This… is embarrassing,” Fanny sighed.

She felt a gentle tugging and then she began to rise out of the web. Then her arm slipped and half her body landed back in the sticky substance.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” said Bridgette.

“I’m sorry,” Zip said. “The rain… my hands are slippery.”

“No problem,” Fanny said. Fanny had trained Zip and she knew he could be a bit clumsy, but sweet. They’d had some close calls when he’d been her Fairy In Training.

“Ok, let’s try this again,” Whiz said. “This time Fanny, flap your wings and see if that helps. On three… one… two… three…”

Fanny flapped her wings and then felt herself rising again. Before long she was standing back on the window ledge.

“Thank you,” Fanny looked around at all the fairies that were there. Her face flushed red, there were so many. “But how did you all know I needed help?”

“Zip called us,” Whiz said.

“This house is one of mine,” her former F.I.T. said. “It’s a good thing it was raining, I was running behind. If I’d been here earlier, I never would have seen you tangled in the web.”

“If it wasn’t for the rain,” Fanny said, “I wouldn’t have gotten lost and I wouldn’t have been here… oh, Bridgette, I ruined your web.”

“No worries,” the spider said. “I can fix it… and I’m glad it rained because I got to meet you, Fanny. Promise me you’ll come back and visit some time.”

“I will,” Fanny said, “but maybe next time we can meet on the window ledge and not in your web.”

“It’s a deal.”

“The rain is letting up now,” Whiz said, “and it looks like morning is just around the corner…”

“Pixisticks, I’ve got to go,” Fanny said. “I have to get to the last house on my list, or there’s going to be a little boy that is going to be disappointed when he wakes up.”

Fanny flew off then and made it to the house just in time. She put the coin under the boy’s pillow, put the tooth in her bag and then hurried to make it back to Fairy Land before the sun rose.