Reaction To: Fanfiction
Commentary by Me
Fanfiction Title: "O, but Will I Tell?"
Author: NickeltheRed
Rated: T
Status: Complete
Romance/Fantasy
…
"Dickon is sooo a fairy," I giggle to myself, and though I spoke quietly, in the large empty dining room, my voice still boomed, breaking the silence. I remove my laptop from my lap and place it on the table, quickly removing my hand from the steaming bottom of it. The more I read, the more engaged I become, it's almost a mystery really. Is Dickon really a fairy? I think so.
"What are you doing over there?" Sixteen year old Colin Craven called to me. I don't bother to move or look at him as he eyes my computor. It must be strange to see something that shouldn't exist for another eighty years or so. I mean, technically they do have, sort of-ish, computers in the forties, but even then again, it's not the forties. The year here is 1916, the war had just began two years ago, and to my relief, a certain handsome gardener was not, I repeat not, forced to join the stupid army.
"Reading a story," I answer closing the top and finally get a good look at him. Once I closed it, he immediately picked it up, staring at it as if it were the ninth wonder of the world. I guess for him it would be. For a moment I amuse myself, watching him play with it, opening it, closing it, watch the light turn on and off, "having fun?" I ask him, unable to swallow my laughter.
Colin looks up, his cheeks turning a lovely shade of rose. It's so easy to embarrass someone here, you almost have to make a game of it, and Colin is one of those kind of young men who need to be put down every now and then. He straightens his back, trying to make himself look more taller. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks at me as if I had done something despicable. In a way I had. I made fun of him and it was soo worth it. I'm sorry, I'm a bit of a smart ass. Please excuse it as you read the rest of the story. "Never mind. You should be more careful of what you expose us to," he states, reprimanding me in a very proper tone. "I've read about theories to time travel and if they are right, your carelessness can rip a hole in the fabric of…"
"Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah!" I say, motioning my hand to the movement of his mouth, "Dribble, dribble, dribble! You want to talk about fabric of reality? I wanna know why I have internet here." Picking up my computer I tuck it under my arm and begin to leave, "and the moment you can answer that, I'll be in the garden."
…
I flip open the top again, click the giant "E" with the halo draped over it, like a sash and immediately it brings me to my last saved page.
I spin on my heels now, grazing up at him, hands folding behind my skirts. He smiles silently in return and still steps forward each time I pace backwards. I then tell him, "The other day had me thinking. Maybe you are a faerie, a shepherd of the forests. And all this time I should have been called you 'Pan' instead of 'Dickon?' You even know how to play the flute like Pan does in the stories.
"You tell him girl", I say to myself as I continued to read, "he is soooo Peter Pan. Well… he's an unselfish Peter Pan and you Mary, you are sooo his Wendy and the Secret Garden is soooo your Neverland."
"Pan is a God of Old," Dickon corrects me, "not a faerie himself."
Upon hearing this, I lift my finger and tap it into his chest excitedly, "Ha-ha! So, you admit it, then? You do know about magical things! Of the real kind!"
The breeze catches up with us again, caressing our skin and out clothes. Dickon momentarily brushes a long stray curl out of my eyes, tucking it back. Then he drops his hand, responding with, "Well, I would like to know why Miss Mary wants my confession so badly."
"So, you are one?" I try again, "At least you must be half-Fae, right, Dickon?"
"He's totally half-Fae. I'm just saying, taming a horse the way he did, is sooo impossible."
His grin widens, and he replaces his full attention to his bouquet. "I should get back to pickin' flowers for The Queen."
"Queen? Like a literal queen? Or are you just being sweet to Mary?"
I want to know who this so-called Queen is, and want to know why Dickon wishes to praise her with all those flowers!
(The italicized sentences above are actual content from the fanfiction written by NickeltheRed. NOT ME.)
"Hell yeah! You show that bitch who Dickon is truly meant for."
"What!?"
I look up and immediately I feel a hot rush up my neck and to my face. I hadn't realized I was talking out loud. There in the entrance of the garden stands, Dickon Sowerby himself. His hair is short, but still long and thick enough to grip it good and tight. He's taller than I expected him to be, and he still has a baby face, but it's smoothed a little to show off his adult features and he's looking at me as if he has caught me doing something I shouldn't. "How much of that did you hear?" I ask him awkwardly.
He adjusts his stance and nods his head as he admits, "enough."
"Sorry! I'm just reading a story and I'm really getting into it."
"A story about me and Miss Mary?"
"Yeah - kind of. Don't misunderstand, it's not a sequel or anything to the original. It's a fan fiction."
He raises an eyebrow.
"Yea it's kind of hard to explain. Sorry about my mouth. I didn't know I was talking out loud."
He nods again as he sways in place, awkwardly. After awhile he gestures to the flowers, "I should probably get to work."
"Yeah," I whisper awkwardly trying not to look at him. He's so much more handsome in real life. UGH! Don't! He's meant for Mary! He's meant for Mary!
Picking the prettiest flower in the bunch, he hands it to me, "A lily for our strange new friend Lilly."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
BE STRONG GIRL! Conceal don't feel! Conceal don't feel! Don't let him know!
"Thank you," blush uncontrollably. "Where is Mary?"
"Her uncle requested an audience with her, she'll be here in a moment."
I nodded, thankful. I smell the flower and it does infact smell like heaven, and dirt because well, that's what all flowers smell like. Dickon continued his work. "So… Dickon."
"Yes Miss?" he answers, keeping most of his attention on the flowers.
"Are you?" I pause.
"Am I what?"
"Are you… are you a faerie?"
For a moment he turns away from the garden and just stares at me until finally he says, "Yes."
"Really!?"
"No, ofcourse not," he smiles. He is so sweet. He won't even judge me when he has perfectly good reason to. "Why would you ask that?"
"I don't know," I admit. Maybe it's because the way NickeltheRed wrote his/her story, it was too convincing. I had to ask.
"What is a fan fiction?" he asks, stumbling a little on the word with his thick yorkshire accent.
"It's hard to explain."
"Try. I'm just working until Mary gets here."
I nod, "Okay well remember how I explained I'm from a different universe. One where your whole world is actually a children's book? And none of you believed me, until I showed you proof." I try to explain. Dickon nods, every now and then glancing in my direction, "Well, the… how do I say this? The… admirers of your story, like to make their own ending, twist, or continuation, without getting in trouble with copyright."
He seems like he's following, so I continue, "These stories are mostly reallly dramatic an-"
"What kind of stories have they wrote about Mary and I?"
"Uuuuuuuggggggghhhhhh…" I should have just avoided the subject all together, "They're mostly romantic."
"Romantic," he asks, tearing his gaze away from the flowers and giving me his fully undivided attention.
"Yeah, very romantic."
"They don't think I'm too…" he pauses, his insecurities showing, "poor to be with Miss Mary?"
"Dickon, in my world, women can take care themselves. We don't need to get married and people won't look down on us if we don't. So, we don't really care about where you stand financially."
He looked at me like I was something incredible and asks smiling, "Really?"
I nod again, "Really, really!"
He looks away his smile falling, "Well things are different here. The wife must rely entirely on her husband, or things get tremendously difficult for them. I would never do that to Mary."
I smile at the way he doesn't call her Miss Mary, as usual.
"Do you love her?" I ask him, carefully seating myself next to him.
He looks at me as if I were something he's never seen before, "Ofcourse!" He looks off, over my shoulder as if someone had been creeping up on me, but in reality I know he's just thinking of his true love, "How could I not? She's like none I've ever met or seen before."
My heart flutters upon hearing him talk about Mary in such a way. It's different in the books. In the books they were children just looking for a light in their dark world. Some kind of magic to save them, and they found each other. "I remember being a young girl, reading "The Secret Garden" for the first time and I was devastated to learn the author of your story did not write a sequel," I didn't care about respect at this moment or culture shock. I was trying to be a friend and did it a bit modernly. I put my hand on his shoulder, from which he flinched under it's touch. Never even crossed my mind about how deep the separation was between two genders. He barely knows me after all. I quickly removed my hand giving him an apologetic expression before continuing, "I loved how even at eight years old, I knew you two were meant to be together."
Dickon smiles at me, completely unfazed by my bold move to touch him. "What was the story about, Mary and I? The one which you were reading on your magic box?"
Ha ha! Magic box! Priceless!
I try to keep myself from smiling but a few chuckles escape my lips, totally out of my control. "It was about how Mary had an assumption, that you were some magical fairy or fae or Pan. She was trying to get you to admit to it."
"How is that romantic?" He asked, clearly both a little disappointed and amused.
"What's romantic about it, is the way she approaches you. She talks about you like you are the most perfect person in the world, as if there can only be ONE Dickon Sowerby in the world and she is the most luckiest girl in the world to have you."
The way he's looking at me, is what some of you Fan Fiction writers out there would write before he would kiss Mary. Giving me this REALLY intense stare, I knew it would not be the same, if he was looking at Mary. No. He was probably thinking about things. Trying to imagine Mary actually saying these things to him and probably building up the courage to ask me something. I already know the question and immediately answer it before he even had the chance to ask. I hand him my computer.
"Here," I say as he carefully cradles my laptop in his arms. "Try not to break it."
"Eh.. I don't think-!"
"Dickon, take it! I know you are dying to know-!"
"No you don't understand," he says finally, pushing the machine back to me in shame. He puts his head down. Part of his cap covers his eyes and in a moment I feel this growing of guilt inside of me for pushing him, "I don't really read. I don't read. I can't read."
I'm quiet for a moment. It does make sense. I mean, back then school was not work, it was vacation for these kids. Dickon probably had to help out his family at a very young age. I didn't want to push any farther. He didn't look like he was in the mood to share, so instead I took my laptop back. "I'm sorry," I say, and I mean it, "Maybe I could teach you. We'll invite Mary and Colin too, and we'll all read 'The Secret Garden' together."
He smiles at me, especially when I added Mary and Colin into the plans. Just so ALL of you know. I am NOT, I repeat NOT trying to pick up on Dickon. I would certain do it though, if a beautiful young lady named Mary Lennox didn't exist, but she does and I don't belong in this century anyway. The way women have to act here. I WOULD DIE! (or at least murder someone)
Nodding his head in agreement, Dickon's smile impossibly grows as he answers, "I would like that."
READER'S NOTE:
Thank you sooo much for reading this. Like I said earlier, the story young Dickon Sowerby was reacting to was a story called, "O, but Will I Tell?" It's a fantastic short story and if you haven't read it. I HIGHLY recommend it. Most of the main character's reactions were actually my own. It was a very fun read, and I loved it. Anyway! This is a humor story about the beloved characters of the story "The Secret Garden" and how they react to the modern world. Please give me suggestions, anything at all. Tell me what you want them to react to and I will do my best to write them to your likings. Anyway! Love it! Hate it! Don't understand it! Please…
REVIEW!
