Disclaimer, or Lawyer's Eye Test: "The Fairly OddParents" television series and all related characters and settings are created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon. The show, characters and Nickelodeon cable network are owned by Viacom International.
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Did you ever had a sister or a brother? If you do, you should know what life is like growing up together, particularly if you're a boy with a brother. Of course, it seems to start out fine. When the baby brother is born, he's all cute and harmless. You are not really able to feel vindictive looking at the newest addition to your family, except perhaps in the moments where the baby seems to get all of the attention. Instead, you seem like the best of friends.
This happens sometimes, but not really. When Timmy Turner saw his fairy godparents, Cosmo and Wanda give birth to a fairy baby, the magic really seemed to be in the air that day. Now, it certainly wasn't an easy day to get through, but that's a completely different story, which was actually already told. That baby boy, Poof was an eccentric baby, but one Timmy loved to have around.
Yes, those days were actually smooth and sweet, but when they grow up...
CHAPTER ONE
It was a weekday morning like any other. The grown-ups were dragging their limp bodies out of bed, chugging the hot coffee, showering lazily, dressing with total pessimism, slugging out of their homes and towards work, ruing the day just as it starts. The kids weren't any happier, but they were more energetic, bouncing and running around, thinking this was good enough to resist being forced to prepare for school. This made it harder for their parents to prepare them for the day. As a matter of fact, the mothers seemed to be having the hardest time of all, only able to go through with it with the prospect that it should be over by nine o'clock, when the kids are at school.
And the teenagers were in between these two extremes of the average weekday rut-tine. They had to prepare for school just as much as the kids, but by this point had primarily lost the energy to resist by bouncing around. As a matter of fact, by this point in their lives they were weighed down with the responsibility of preparing themselves for the day, just as much as the grown-ups.
This is the kind of reality that Timmy Turner is about to wake up to. It is seven-twenty a.m., and he has about ten minutes to report to class at Dimmsdale High School. He's still fast asleep, and needs to be jolted back to reality. The alarm clock next to his bed won't do it, as even it's piercing loud beep is sidestepped with the snooze button.
A balloon hits the wall above his bedpost, splattering and leaving purple jelly all over the place. "Darn it, missed," a youthful voice says. Another balloon flies through the air, this time hitting the night stand with the alarm clock on it, causing the light structure to stumble over. The same voice says, "One more shot." One more balloon hits the post at the foot of the bed, splattering the same jelly around, some of it on the sheets.
The voice sighs with frustration, "Oh the heck with it." With the wave of a wand, a waterfall-like stream of the same jelly spills all over Timmy's head and shoulders, waking him abruptly.
It turns out that the jelly is actually very chilly, and the extreme low temperature was enough to shock Timmy awake. As he struggles to move around while shivering so much, he starts to see the culprit behind this attack. It's his younger godbrother Poof, about ten years old in fairy years. He was holding up his wand and a cold jar of jelly. His lavender hair spun into a swirl like his mother's, over a mischievous smile on his face.
Timmy starts to lose it, ready to go at his brother. "You are dead!" But as he starts to dash, Timmy slips on the jelly which dripped onto the floor. He just flies over and crashes into Poof, who cannot stop laughing.
"Well, I at least got you up," he said trying to justify his shenanigans, while raising his wand to get rid of the gooey mess. Timmy was still not amused, especially since that comment reminded him he needed to get ready for school. "I ought tell your parents about this," he said picking himself up. "They really won't be happy to know you're using your magic like this." After finishing that comment, Timmy heard laughter coming from the far side of the room. It was a sound so familiar to him.
It was from his fairy godparents, Cosmo with a spurt of lime-colored hair on his head, and Wanda with a swirl of magenta hair right over her face. The most remarkable thing of all in Timmy's life is that these two are ever the same as they always were. It has been almost five years since Timmy was first assigned these two to grant his every wish, compensating for the copious ills in his life. He never truly clicks with his schoolwork, he still is left with a babysitter who treats him poorly and forces him to do all the work she was asked to do, he is lovesick for a beautiful, popular girl who does not regard he exists, and his parents care more about getting ahead in work than in raising him. As a matter of fact, in the five years that had passed since being assigned fairies, his parents excelled to the top of the corporate ladder and now have even less time to spend with him, leaving his experiences with Cosmo and Wanda as the closest thing to proper parenting that has shaped his life. In fact, he probably would not have survived without them.
At this time, Timmy was fourteen years, five months, seventeen days, thirty minutes and twelve seconds old. He managed to reach high school, and try out for the football team. His body became much leaner and tougher in the time that had passed, and his hair was longer, extending only a little in the back. Even though Timmy was only ten was Poof was born, his godbrother aged about ten years in this span of four Earth years, from the quicker aging processes and shorter childhoods of fairies. Everyone around Timmy, including his human friends aged and started to change in a variety of manners. The world itself has also changed substantially, with the internet taking on a greater role in the lives of humans.
And yet, some things did not change, nor will they ever. For one thing, Mr. Crocker is still the magic-obsessed lunatic he always was, and has even followed Timmy to high school, still suspecting his fairy godparents, even while stalking other, younger kids. More importantly, fairies do not age with time once they are fully-grown. So, Cosmo and Wanda are just as young, energetic, fun, goofy and loving as they were that day when they first met Timmy, while everything around them changes.
These two were laughing at two things primarily, including the sight of their son incurring their godson's wrath by shocking him awake with jelly that cold. The other thing was the suggestion Timmy made on telling on them. Aside from the fact that Cosmo and Wanda found his antic hilarious, Cosmo explained, "Yeah, you would actually tell on Mom and Dad when things aren't going you're way?"
Timmy lowers his face into his hand, because Cosmo had a point. What kind of loser would tell on his parents when dealing with his obnoxious little brother? There are better ways to deal with this matter.
But none of that mattered now. Wanda stopped laughing to remind Timmy, "You have to get ready for school." Indeed, it was now seven-twenty-six , and he had to be at school within four minutes. It was a reality that Timmy did not want to deal with, but the prospect of facing his English teacher for being late again was less desirable. So he rushed to his closet and pulled out his garments, a pink jersey-like shirt with white stripes on the rim, and a pair of stretchy pants that ended in what passed for shoes for as long as he could remember. He hastily pulled the clothes on, working with all his might...And ended up with the pants over his arms and the jersey on his legs.
Fortunately, Wanda was willing to help. "Here, let me help you with that." With a poof, Timmy's clothes were on right, and he was good to go. "Thanks. Would you mind popping me over to school?"
"Sorry, sport. Poof's got lessons this morning which begin...now." Indeed, Wanda is very unique kind of mother in more than one way. She was the only one in Dimmsdale who had to prepare someone for school, a teenager of all things, and did not look forward to a break when school started. Instead, her job involved home-schooling, which constituted the immense responsibility of a fairy parent's life. That is to say, she was the only one, as Poof was the first one born in over ten-thousand years. (Cosmo was the last one before Poof.) While other fairies mulled over the idea of having children after a pair of their own kind did, practically no one did. In some cases, the idea of increased responsibility seemed too daunting. Still, others did not gain interest simply because Cosmo was one half of the guilty party. That fact actually lowered one's opinion of the idea in a few cases. In the four years that have passed since Poof was born, Fairy World saw maybe about six more babies.
Needless, there were no magic schools established or reestablished in Fairy World. A collective was formed to teach the six young fairies, headed by the principal of the old fairy high school. But, Cosmo and Wanda turned down that offer and chose to home-school Poof instead. Not that the collective would have wanted Cosmo's son anyway.
"I know," Timmy responded. "But surely, you can just, ya know flash me over quickly? I mean, I have only minutes."
"Okay, but you do realize that we just can't keep taking care of these problems for you. One day you are going to have to look after yourself, and that includes getting up at the right time and not just as class is about to start." Wanda was taking on the mother role in her nagging form of common sense here. With each year, Timmy comes closer and closer to that point in his life when he outgrows his fairies and they have to leave him forever. He dreaded that fact, because he loved Cosmo, Wanda and Poof so much, like family.
"Please don't remind me."
With a single flick of the wand, Timmy was clear across town...mere blocks from Dimmsdale High School. "Did Cosmo poof me over...no, Wanda's just completely lost it," Timmy thought to himself, completely annoyed. He just had to make a mad dash in order to get to class.
As the running back for the varsity football team, the challenge of getting to school across several blocks should not have been a problem for Timmy. He was doing all right until about two blocks from the gates of the school, when he suffered a cramp in his leg. He found himself hopping the rest of the way until a red sedan passed by.
Fortunately for Timmy, he was wearing his "Wheelys" shoes, and thus was able to glide along while holding on to the back of the car. Upon pulling past the gates, he let go of the car and was flung onto the sidewalk next to the entrance to the school. Then he attempted to make a turn into said main entrance, but wound up spinning around, out of control. Eventually flying into the air on a makeshift half-pipe in the parking lot. The next stop was the dumpster, which Timmy crash landed into.
And all of this took a grand total of two minutes. And since it took about thirty seconds for Wanda to get around to transporting him to school, that now left Timmy with ninety seconds to get to class. Those ninety seconds were a massive struggle to climb out of the dumpster, and mad dash all the way to the second floor classroom, halfway across the building!
Actually, it was more like one-hundred and five seconds. Timmy ended up fifteen seconds late.
"Mr. Turner," English teacher John Harper addressed his student in a stern, rather sarcastic tone. "You've arrived just in time, and almost completely missed the first sentence of today's reading."
"Yeah, am I lucky or what," Timmy responded with more sarcasm. He could tell that today was going to be a long day.
