Mother Posie sighed and looked over her shoulder at father Posie who was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of cocoa and eating a piece of freshly baked apple pie.

This was the day that any parent anticipated with glee, their child was going to meet her fairy godmother or godfather.

All children in Quaint had the privilege of having a fairy companion once they reached the age of five. Just about every single neighboring girl or boy already had a winged friend. For instance, little Timmy Browns from Willow lane was inseparable from his appointed “mushroom” fairy with the shiny gold wings who would be teaching him the wonders of the fungi world or the ever smiling miss Sunny Ray of the Sunshine villa was ever seen singing in the fields accompanied on a flute by her “daisy” fairy.

The fairies were there to teach children how to care for the woods, the fields, and the rivers – all that Mother Nature provides, but above all, they were there to teach the the little angels how to laugh and bring joy to their parent’s lives. So no wonder that all parents longed to see the light in their child’s eyes once they brought home a winged treasure.

As for the Posies, they too longed for that day and today might just be the day when Rosie would return with her destined fairy. If only this weren’t already the fourth day in a sequence of such days during the length of two years ever since Rosie came of age.

No matter how hard the fairy council tried, they could not match Rosie to any of their designated fairies in the godparent network.

The first fairy godmother that appeared to Rosie on the stem of a reed by the river scared the girl so much with her insistent tinkling that she grabbed a stone and threw it right at the fairy who took a heavy fall and sprained both wings. This was at first seen as an accident, so soon enough another fairy was sent to befriend the young girl.

All seemed fine with the new fairy godmother until one morning mother Posie found the nice “morning dew” fairy tied to her best goat’s tail. Rosie pleaded innocence, admitting that she only wanted to show the fairy where milk really came from, cause she was sure that it wasn’t gathered from parent’s smiles by pixies, as the fairy had been trying to make her believe. The council conceded that this was not the best match and left it as a case of irreconcilable differences, but they weren’t giving up and decided to try sending Rosie a godfather for a change.

This time the fairy godfather of “pebbles” quit after being used by Rosie as a cannon ball in a little war game against red ants, which she seemed to think were going to invade their cabbage field, so guided by her family duty she took action to wreck their evil plan before they knew what had hit them. Too bad, that the only thing that happened to be at hand was a burly fairy. After this incident no fairy wanted to be paired to the mischievous red haired girl.

The Posies had almost given up hope that their only child would grow up to know the joys of a fairy companion, until recently they were contacted by the high-fairy of the council, who seemed to think that they had finally found the fairy godfather for Rosie.

This was their last chance and if this fairy failed, then no other would take its place, leaving Rosie as the only fairy-less child in the country.

This was the day and there was nothing more for the Posies to do, but to await their daughter’s return, praying that she would have finally befriended one of the fair folk.

As for Rosie, she didn’t feel bothered and couldn’t understand what the big fuss was about. This whole fairy business was in her opinion a bit overrated. She had no need for a stupid jingling, spangling flying pest dodging her every step.

What she really wanted was to grow up faster and leave this boring land and go on grand adventures across the continents. Quaint was the last place she wanted to live, cause nothing interesting ever seemed to happen there. So it was quite a shock to come face to face with her new fairy godfather on this dull sunny morning.

Rosie had gone down to the river where the big rocks were washed by the cold waters crashing down from the distant mountains. Here the frogs liked to rest in the sunshine after the cold swim. To keep herself amused Rosie liked to play a game called “splat the frog” when she would catch a squirming amphibian by a leg, swing it back and let it fly hitting the distant stones with a loud, wet splat. One of the frogs had just scored an 8 out of 10 on the splat-scale, when Rosie was just about to swing another and suddenly on the rock next to her black smoke started to form.

Following a few small lightning discharges a fairy appeared among the cloud of black swirls. This would not be very surprising, if not for the fact that Rosie had never seen a fairy quite like this before. It had black leathery wings, not the usual pink or gold sort. It was dressed in nothing more than a black leather kilt and didn’t have much hair on its head, but what it lacked there, it made up for on its chest, forearms and legs. The rest of him that was still visible, seemed to be covered by black spiked markings, accented by a silver hoop in the left ear. To top it all off the fairy was smoking a cigar.

After rolling the cigar a few times in its mouth and surveying the dumbfounded girl, the fairy said in a husky voice: “Hey babe! Let me show you how professionals do it…”

The fairy looked around, spotted a nearby frog that was blissfully dozing away in the spring rays, and with a running start kicked it on the backside. The unsuspecting creature never knew what hit him as it went soaring through the air and struck true on the other side of the bank.

The fairy jumped up and punched in the air shouting: “Oh, yeah! Te-e-e-en points! Who’s the man, who’s the ma-a-an?!” This exclamation was followed by a little victory dance, but the fairy soon remembered that Rosie was still standing there and turned to face her.

“I’m Leroy, your new fairy godfather.”

After a few more rounds of “splat the frog” it was clear that Leroy and Rosie were a match made in fairy heaven. They became best of friends and went on to terrorize the whole village with their devious pranks.

That didn’t seem to matter much, since the main objective was filled – a child was made happy and that’s what counts at the end of the day.