The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker (2 page)

“Blue, is that you?” she asked, emerging from the box.

“Hi, Cory,” he replied in a rough, gravelly voice.

Relieved, Cory fluttered closer. “What are you doing here?” she asked. Johnny Blue was her boyfriend's best friend. Although she didn't know him very well, she did know that she didn't need to be afraid.

“Walker had an extra-heavy load tonight and he asked me to help. We should hurry. It'll be light soon.”

“I know. You're right. I just want to say thank you. For taking care of those dogs, I mean.”

The big man grinned at her, looking even more frightening than before. “You're welcome.” His cracked lip started to bleed more heavily and he patted at his mouth with a big, beefy hand.

“Here,” she said, taking a handkerchief from her pocket. She dropped the tiny speck of fabric and he caught it. The moment it touched his hand, it grew into a piece of cloth the size a human could use.

“See you around,” Cory said as Blue patted his mouth. She turned back to wave before darting over the top of the wall into the courtyard. Glancing down, she saw that one of her slippers was torn, probably from the dog's tooth.
Thank goodness the Boogie Man saved me
, she thought.

Cory emptied her sack of teeth into the tooth counter and closed her eyes. This had been one of the worst collecting nights of her very short career, and she didn't need to see the results to know that she'd brought back a paltry number of teeth.

Ping!
The number four appeared on the counter, confirming just how disappointing Cory's evening had been. She watched as the scale dumped the teeth into the tooth washer and the transparent lid closed with a muffled thump. Water gushed through a narrow reed into the clay bowl, mixing with tooth-washing powder. When it reached a line in the bowl, the water shut off and the little container began to roll back and forth on its rounded side, swishing the teeth like a mouth full of
mouthwash. The little teeth clicked as they tumbled inside the swirling liquid, but the sound was too quiet.
It would be louder if there were more teeth
, Cory thought.
I'm not going to make much for that
.

A painful knot formed in her stomach. More than anything, Cory wanted a job where she could really help people. When she'd realized that being a tooth fairy wasn't that kind of job, she'd decided to stick with it long enough to save some money. She and her mother didn't get along very well, and Cory looked forward to moving out. Someday she hoped to save enough to get her own place, even if she had to share it with a roommate. Then she could get the kind of job she wanted and make a difference in people's lives. At the rate she was earning money now, however, that might never happen. She was going to be stuck in a job she hated, living and arguing with her mother for the rest of her life!

“Whatcha doin'?” asked a flickering light as it fluttered through the open window.

“Hi, Daisy,” she said, glancing at her friend. “I just got home. I always take care of the teeth first thing.” Flying to the middle of the room, Cory landed on the floor, where she had plenty of space. Light shimmered around her as her gossamer wings disappeared and she returned to her normal, human size.

“I can't stay long; I'm on my way to work,” Daisy said,
hovering near Cory's left ear. “I just stopped by to tell you that tonight's rehearsal has been canceled. Skippy has a flock meeting and Olot's got a sore throat. He won a roaring contest last night.”

“Good for him. Bad for us,” said Cory with a rueful smile.

Daisy fluttered closer to Cory. “You don't look too good. What's wrong?”

“I had a bad night. That's all,” Cory said.

“Tell me about it,” said her friend.

“You had a bad night, too?”

“No, not at all. I mean I think you should tell me about it. I've been taking a correspondence course in empathy and they say it helps to talk about your woes. Sort of carhartic. Go ahead. I can count it as homework.”

“I think you mean cathartic, and I didn't know flower fairies took empathy classes.”

“It's continuing education. I thought it would be interesting. Go on. I'm listening. We have to practice being good listeners.”

Cory shrugged. “There isn't much to say. I had a lousy night doing a job I hate.”

“I'm lucky,” said Daisy. “I grew up knowing that I was going to be a flower fairy, just like my parents and grandparents. I love my job and can't imagine doing anything else. Tending flowers and helping them grow
have to be the most rewarding things a fairy could do. It's a lot of fun, too.”

“My mother has been telling me that I had to be a tooth fairy for as long as I can remember, and I still hate it.”

“At least you work the same hours as Walker.”

“That's probably the only good thing about this job,” said Cory. “The job itself is next to useless. I collect teeth! What good is that doing anyone? Sure, witches used them in potions years ago, and some fairies made jewelry out of them, but hardly anyone needs them anymore. The only thing I want to do is help people and I'm sure not doing that now! Can you think of a more useless job than being a tooth fairy? And as far as jobs go, I make less than you do and I work longer hours and I have to go to the human world to do it. At least you get to stay in the land of the fey and work normal hours and have a job that means something.”

“Being a tooth fairy is one of the few jobs that lets you visit the human world,” said Daisy. “I know a lot of fairies who would love to see it.”

“Then let them! The human world is dirty and smelly and dangerous. I have to constantly hide so I don't frighten the children or let the adults know that we exist. The animals there have no experience with fairies so they don't respect us and half of them want to eat us.
I'd much rather stay in the land of the fey, where I don't have to hide and I can actually talk to people.”

“I like humans,” said Daisy. “One of my favorite old boyfriends was a human. He wasn't one of those newcomers that a crazy wizard brought over illegally either. His ancestors came when the old fairy queen first lured humans to our world. Humans multiply like mosquitoes in a witch's swamp and now they're one of the biggest minorities around. Most of them are nice enough, but I can't imagine living in a world where there was only one species. Think about it—humans are all pretty much alike with the same number of limbs and heads and digestive systems. Here you have fairies and dwarves and elves and gnomes and ogres and satyrs.”

“I know!” Cory replied. “I like variety, but the work of a tooth fairy is pretty much the same from one day to the next. All we do is collect human teeth!”

“If you hate it so much, why don't you quit? There are a lot of other things you could be doing.”

“That's a good question, and I've been wondering it myself a lot lately,” said Cory. “If I had a cobblestone for every time I was close to quitting I could pave the road from my house to yours. Say, if I quit and I was no longer working nights, I wouldn't have to sleep during the day and could start doing things with my friends. I've been dying to go swimming in the lake. Would you go
with me on your next day off? Or we could go bowling at Thunder Alley or—”

Daisy shook her head. “I already told Nimzy that I'd come watch him race on my next day off.”

“Who is Nimzy?” Cory asked.

“Nimzy Crod is my new boyfriend. I'm sure I told you about him. He races solar cycles on the semi-amateur circuit. He's the best racer there is; he told me so himself. One of these days he's going to start winning. I just know it!”

“I thought you were seeing Zigfreed,” said Cory. “What happened to him?”

“I caught him looking in the mirror one time too many. Never date a boy who is prettier than you are and won't let you forget it.”

Cory sighed. Daisy went through boyfriends faster than some flower fairies changed their gowns. If only Cory could have a vision that would show her the right person for Daisy.

A lot of Cory's classmates had come into their powers and abilities when they were in Junior Fey School. Flower fairies were suddenly able to make flowers grow, goblin children could speak in any language, and brownies conveyed magic into the things they made with their hands. When Cory was in Junior Fey School, she started having blurry visions of couples. Occasionally, she saw her
friends. Sometimes she saw people she didn't know. Usually the vision was so out of focus that she couldn't tell who they were. Along with these “visions” came the feeling that the people she saw were supposed to be together. The one time she told this to two of her friends, they thought she was crazy and laughed at her. Since then, she hadn't told anyone about her visions.

The finch in the nest on the mantel chirped six times before settling back on her eggs. “Oh, no!” cried Daisy. “It's six o'clock! I'm going to be late for work! Who knew being empathetic would take so long. I'll see you at the next rehearsal!”

“Bye,” Cory called as her friend darted out the window.

Another
ping!
drew Cory's gaze to the woven reed basket on the shelf by the door. Two envelopes appeared in the basket, both bearing the flying-tooth insignia of the Tooth Fairy Guild. One would tell her the amount she'd earned for the previous day's collection; the other would be for her mother. Confident that her haul from the night before would be better than this night's, Cory ripped open her envelope. The knot in her stomach grew more painful. Even though she'd collected over twice as many teeth the night before, the guild had paid her very little, which meant that the teeth she'd just collected would bring her almost nothing.

“I can't do this anymore,” Cory muttered.

Her mother, Delphinium, was a tooth fairy herself. She had promised Cory that being a tooth fairy was the most fulfilling job a fairy could hold and that the prestige of being a member of the Tooth Fairy Guild, or TFG as most people called it, would more than make up for the lousy hours. Unfortunately, Cory didn't find the job at all fulfilling. She'd told her mother that rewarding children for losing their teeth didn't really help anyone. And if there was prestige, Cory had yet to notice it. Because of the awful hours she had to work, Cory had almost no social life. She worked when everyone else had off, and had off when her friends were at work. The only good thing about the job was that her hours matched those of her boyfriend, Walker, a sandman-in-training. If she quit her job, that was really the only thing she was going to miss.

Cory had started her internship with her mother as soon as she graduated from Junior Fey School. It had been long and boring, with random moments of sheer terror when a cat chased her or a child came close to finding her. Even though she had mastered everything the guild had to teach, including the supersecret tricks of the tooth-fairy trade, none of it had made her any better at her job or like it any more.

Cory had told her mother countless times how much she disliked the job and that she wanted to quit, but all
that had done was start arguments that no one seemed to win. After promising her mother that she would give the job a chance, she had stayed with it far longer than she wanted to and given it her best—until now. No matter what her mother said, Cory wasn't going to dedicate her life to a job she hated where she wouldn't even earn as much as a first-year flower fairy. Now, after all her hard work following the decrees of the TFG and trying to meet her mother's expectations, Cory had had enough. She couldn't face one more night looking for children's teeth.

The finch on the mantel chirped softly. It was a quarter past six; her mother would be home soon. If Cory was going to resign, she had to do it now before her mother could start lecturing her. Snatching a fresh leaf from her mother's desk, Cory broke off the end of an ink-plant stem and wrote her letter of resignation.

I quit!

Sincerely
,

Corialis Feathering

Tucking the letter in an envelope, Cory wrote TFG on the outside and set it in the woven basket. She knew that she was in for the biggest argument of her life.

Cory's mother was lugging a heavy tooth bag when she flew through the window. After dropping the bag on the table, she fluttered to the middle of the room. The air shimmered and she returned to her normal size, just a little shorter than her daughter.

Cory sighed. She didn't want to have this conversation now, but she didn't have any choice if she wanted to tell her mother before the TFG announced that Cory had quit. It was going to be doubly hard because even ordinary conversations with her mother had been strained ever since Cory started working on her own. The two fairies agreed on very little, and they weren't anything alike, from the way they thought to the way they looked. Other than having the same delicate, pointed ears, they didn't have much in common. Delphinium's
hair was the same blue as the flower she was named after, like most people born into a flower-fairy family. Cory had dark chocolate–colored hair, which was unusual among fairies. Like the rest of her family, Delphinium had leaf-green eyes. Cory's eyes were turquoise blue, the same shade as the eyes of the father she had never known.

“Mother, I …,” Cory began.

Ping!
Another letter bearing the TFG insignia appeared in the basket, only this time the flying tooth was bright red.

“Just a minute, Cory. I have an urgent message,” said her mother as she reached for the envelope.

Cory watched in disbelief while her mother ripped the envelope open. The TFG couldn't possibly have notified her already! But when her mother raised her head to glare at her, Cory knew that that was exactly what they had done.

“You quit!” Delphinium said in a horrified voice. “How could you do that? No one quits the Tooth Fairy Guild! We've talked about this before! Being a member of the TFG is a lifelong commitment.”