Karin stared with wide-eyed wonder at the small person fluttering around the playground, she was far too young to ever imagine that she might be hallucinating, and daddy had read her stories about the fairies, so she naturally assumed that the small glowing creature with wings was a fairy and more importantly, never doubted that it was most certainly real. Daddy had also told her that fairies were good, granting wishes and being nice to little children, so Karin skipped toward the glowing creature.
"Hello," the fairy whirled around in surprise, a stunned look painted across his face,
"You…you can see me?" it asked and she nodded, "But, you're human, humans aren't supposed to be able to see our kind." The thing sighed and studied the small girl, it was a human, but a human child, even if it did see him, no one would believe her. "What's your name, little girl,"
"Karin," she squealed with delight, "I'm six. Are you a real fairy?"
"Yes," he answered, "I live in Neverland with Peter Pan and Tinkerbelle," the little girl was grinning so widely, it may have well been Christmas morning.
"Can you be my friend?" she asked and the fairy sighed, this was what happened all the time before they started conducting their business invisible, human children were smitten with fairies, it was annoying to say the least,
"I'm very busy Karin, we all are," the excuse was feeble to any other six year-old, but she nodded with an understanding beyond her years,
"That's okay, what's your name?" the child asked and the fairy sat down on the low branch of the sapling he had been hovering around,
"Fern," he replied and she giggled with excitement, "Just like the plant," Fern explained,
"Can I touch your wings, they're so pretty?" she asked and he sighed and stretched out his wing and she stroked it gently, "Are there girl fairies?" she asked and he nodded,
"Lots of them," he answered and looked over at the other children, "You should go back and play with your friends, I've got to go back home and see the fairy King."
"Oberon," the small child nodded and he flew into the air and waved at her. Karin waved back, "Bye, Fern." The fairy flew off into the clouds and Karin watched it go, only slightly disappointed that he couldn't stay or better yet, take her with him. Fern will come back, she decided and skipped back to the group of children, playing in the sandpit, Daddy will never believe what I did today. The thought made her giggle, she was glad that Fern was a nice fairy; daddy had read her stories where there were evil fairies like Rumplestiltskin who took away small children. Aislin will believe me about Fern, her cousin had always believed her stories, even the silly ones about the moon being made of cheese and that she had seen a unicorn. The bell rang and one of the teachers came out to collect the children, Miss Jane bent down and smiled at her,
"What did you do in playtime, Karin?" the lady asked and Karin smiled back,
"I met a nice fairy called Fern," she answered honestly, "He had to go back to see the fairy King, Oberon,"
"Did he have wings?" Miss Jane asked and she nodded excitedly,
"They were really pretty, and green and he glowed as well, like a firefly," Karin hurried to her seat, they were drawing now and she wanted to make a picture of Fern. She grabbed some pencils and drew herself talking to the fairy and the little tree he had been sitting in.
"That's really great!" Miss Jane complimented and bent down to look at it more closely, "Is this your fairy friend?"
"Fern," she corrected, colouring the sky blue and drawing a yellow sun in the corner of the page. "He lives in Neverland, with Peter Pan and Tinkerbelle, he said so."
Jane wasn't too worried about Karin's fairy story, the children always came out with these kind of things, another boy was telling Rachel about how he had seen some dinosaurs on the weekend and one little girl was obsessed with princesses. Karin had a good healthy imagination.
"Did you see her in play time?" Rachel asked her and Jane shook her head, "She was over, talking to a tree,"
"A fairy, she says she made friends with a fairy called Fern who lives in Neverland." Jane explained and Rachel laughed,
"The stuff these kids come up with, Jaime's been going on about dinosaurs again," Rachel said,
"Again? Last week it was astronauts," Jane chuckled, and watched Karin walk over, holding her drawing,
"I finished it," she explained and held it out, Jane took it and showed Rachel,
"This is Karin with her fairy friend, Fern," she said, pointing to the characters in the drawing, "It's really good honey."
Karin smiled and wandered away to start playing with the blocks, and Jane put the picture on the pile of other drawings, labelling it with her name. It was strange that Karin seemed to be obsessed with fairies now; there had been other people around town, swearing that they had seen something like she had described. Fairies aren't real, Jane told herself; that would be just ridiculous.