My favorite bed time stories were when my Mom or Dad would make up stories. While both were imaginative, my mom’s always were step by step with a beginning, middle and end, whereas my dad’s were wild and jumped around and then ended abruptly.
The cycle has come almost full circle as my niece recently asked me for a story. While it wasn’t bedtime, it was time for her to listen to a story and I was thrilled that she asked. Below is a story I wrote just for her which I titled: "In Chayse’s Backyard…"
There once was a little girl named Chayse who lived in a shoe. Truthfully, she lived in a house, but she liked to call it a shoe and watch how the grown ups reacted.
Her bright brown eyes took up half her face and when she talked, her dark brown ringlets bounced from side to side.
She loved to play outside and go for walks in the forest behind her house. There was a raging river that ran through the meadow of tall, lion filled grass and the deep, dark forest hid a fairy village.
One day Chayse galloped like a horse through the meadow.
"I am a Wild Mustang!" she whinnied, loud enough to scare away all the fearsome lions.
"The Wild Mustang would like to have tea with the Queen of Fairies," she called to the forest.
She trotted over to the thick of the wood and whinnied a few times to announce her arrival to the fairies.
A pretty little fairy with a pink tutu and jet black hair flew out from behind a tree and fluttered about the Wild Mustang’s head. Waving her magic yellow wand, she spoke: "The fairy queen bids you follow me." She smiled and fairy dust fell from her wings.
The Wild Mustang pranced proudly into the forest. In a small clearing surrounded by tall trees, a fairy tea party was about to begin.
Fairies dressed in a rainbow of colors sat at leafy seats around a tree stump table. The fairy queen, in a very glittery gown with gossamer wings waved at the prancing horse entering her tea party.
"Please join me fair child," she said.
The child whinnied.
"Please leave the horse in the forest. Let the child come to tea."
The fairy queen smiled and Chayse watched rainbows leap from the corners
of her mouth.
Chayse took her seat at the tree stump table. A few fairies had to move because she was so much bigger than them.
"A toast!" exclaimed the excited fairies.
"A toast!" echoed the excited Chayse.
The fairy queen bowed her head and smiled.
"To fun filled days and reasons to laugh!"
"To fun and laughter," the fairies cried as they clinked their tea cups, sloshing hot chocolate on to the sugar cookies below.
Chayse had to be careful not to clink too hard and send a fairy flying out of the clearing, through the forest and into the meadow beyond. Her tea cup was the size of her finger nail!
They laughed and ate yummy sugar cookies until they were too full to eat anymore. A tiny fairy in a yellow daffodil-like dress flitted between them
filling the empty tea cups with hot chocolate. She thought Chayse to be a very thirsty and rather large fairy with wings she could not see. (She was new to fairy and child tea parties.)
A voice called to the tea party-goers through the woods.
"Chaaaaaaaaysssssssssssse!"
"Oh!" cried Chayse, "It must be time for…"
"Diiiiiiiineeeeeeeeeeeeer!" cried the voice.
Chayse bowed low to the fairies: "to fun and laughter!"
The fairies giggled and flitted about her head, some kissing her cheek. The older fairies stayed seated at the table and lifted their tea cups in a silent-smile-filled-toast.
Chayse blew kisses to her lovely friends and the Wild Mustang began to trot back through the forest. At the forest's edge she stopped and peered out to look for lions. Seeing no hungry lions on the prowl, she decided to become one.
A fierce growl resounded through the forest confines into the meadow beyond. Elephants lifted their trunks out of the watering hole and monkeys stopped in mid-swing.
The lion emerged from the forest depth and ran quickly to the edge of the meadow, through the open gate, into the short, green grass, and up the wooden steps to the dinner table with her family.
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