csMarianna+S.

Past the sea of Julister and over the Andeleige Mountains is a forest. A large forest, one that no one knows about. To us, it is unknown. To the fairies, it is home.

In that forest, which the fairies call Magic Woods, there are many fairies; about 700 of them. For each of the trees in the Magic Woods, there is a fairy, and they only die if their tree dies.

Out of the 700 fairies, there was one very peculiar fairy. His full name was Augustine Merrick Gabriel Eugene Flaz, but he became later known as Gabe.

Gabe was quite an unusual fairy. He had red-rimmed wings, gray eyes, blue-tinged skin, and a crooked smile, rather than the blue-rimmed wings, bright golden eyes that slanted up, sparkling silver skin, and perfect smile that every other fairy had.

Gabe not only looked different, but he acted differently than other fairies. Instead of loving to laugh all the time, he kept a blank face and refused to speak unless he had to. His first word was “no” when he was 60! (6 in human years.)

Gabe was most certainly different. He preferred to be by himself most of the time rather than be in public with staring, perfect fairies. Because of this, it was he that found the thing.

One day, while Gabe was sitting on an acorn (he was only 3 inches tall, so it was a large rock to him), he saw humongous creatures walking towards the forest.

They looked a lot like fairies, except they had no wings, and their skin was a peachy color. Gabe thought them to be giants, as they were about 22 times his height! The giants looked ferocious, too!

One of them had a large square-shaped knife and he swung it behind his head and firmly planted it into a tree. The tree let out a gentle sigh that only the fairies could hear, and sank gracefully into the dirt below.

Gabe gasped. He could just hear the scream of a fairy as it collapsed on the ground and died. He knew that he had to do something! But what?

Gabe crossed his arms and furrowed his eyebrows. His wings hunched over as he thought. He thought and thought and thought. And then, finally, he had the answer!

Gabe flew home as quickly as he could. He stopped at the center of town, surrounded by the busy fairies as they worked. Suddenly, with all his fairy power, he threw golden dust as high into the air as he possibly could. The dust attracted fairies, and they all raced over to the town square immediately.

Thinking as quickly as he could, Gabe unexpectedly laughed. This laugh attracted more attention than any yell could, because Gabe was laughing! No one had ever seen this happen before and so they all stopped what they were doing to look at him.

Gabe looked up at the waiting 699 fairies and felt warm blood rush through his body. He opened his mouth as wide as he could and said in a loud, strong voice that carried through the forest, “There are giants in the forest.”

A loud gasp passed through the crowd. Gabe continued.“They’ve killed one already-” (“My dad!” sobbed a young fairy.) “-and there are many more that can be killed. I say we go get them!”

A cheer rippled through the crowd. Fairies began taking as much power as they could and throwing them at the giants. Eventually, the giants, overcome with dizziness from all the spells, left the forest.

The fairies stood back for a second, telling each other, “Good job!” and “Nice touch there, Ted!” Then they all turned to Gabe. What would they do?

The fairies began to clap. Slowly but surely, the clap grew louder. Eventually all the fairies were whooping and clapping. Gabe was pink with happiness!

Gabe was, from then on, seen as someone who had saved the fairy colony and worthy of respect. Gabe found himself with lots of friends who, though they loved to laugh, enjoyed thinking and being serious sometimes.

Gabe found that he respected himself after the giant event. All he needed was a little boost.

MORAL – Being different is not always a bad thing. Being yourself is the best you can be.