Chapter 1: It's Now or Never
Chapter Text
Cosmo curled up meekly in his chair at the barracks—called headquarters in a feeble attempt to hide what they really were—and lifted his gaze upward to Jorgen Von Strangle, who was glaring at him with such ferocity and anger that the veins in his neck were popping out.
Just like old times!
"So… did I mess up?" Cosmo ventured a guess. He had only just been sent on his first godparenting assignment in more than… some number bigger than five years… and by only just, it really did feel like it had been just a few seconds ago—
"MESS UP?!" Jorgen roared. "Your total time from arrival to failure was seven seconds! You have set a new record for complete and utter imbecility!"
"I set a record?" Cosmo exclaimed, brightening. "Cool!"
BAM! Jorgen blasted Cosmo with his wand staff, burning the little fairy to a crisp.
"…I guess it's not so cool then?" Cosmo said timidly and painfully.
"You do not come up to your new assignment, say 'So I bet you wish for a monster fire-breathing iguana', poof it up before the poor puny child has even a chance to figure out what the fudge is going on, and burn the child to a crisp—in front of his entire class and thus revealing your existence to twenty-four human beings before your godchild even knows who you are!"
Cosmo blinked, scratching his head and shaking the last of the burnt crisps off his body. "That's bad, then?"
"AUGH!" Jorgen screamed in frustration. "How is it possible for anyone to be as utterly devoid of brains as you? I knew I should have just let your license expire! But no, the records don't lie, of all the happiest godchildren in the history of godparenting, Cosmo and Wanda were always at the top of the list, all these records at how much the human children just adored Cosmo and his silliness—silliness that is dangerous and rule-breaking and just plain moronic and a complete impediment to being a successful godparent without Wanda!"
Cosmo blinked again, recoiling a bit back into his chair. "Uh, could you say that again, but with less and smaller words?" he asked, trembling. All he had really gotten from that was that Jorgen thought he was stupid, but that was nothing new. Oh, and Jorgen had said Wanda's name a lot. And Cosmo wished he wouldn't.
"YOU'RE TOO DANGEROUS AND STUPID TO BE A GODPARENT! I AM FORCED TO TEAR UP YOUR LICENSE, AND I WILL TAKE GREAT PLEASURE IN DOING SO!"
"Well, duh, even I could have told you that! I did tell you that!" Cosmo jutted out his chin defiantly, actually smiling a bit in satisfaction, taking full advantage of this rare moment of him knowing something before it had been told to him—apparently knowing it before even Jorgen did. "I'm waaaaaaay too stupid to do this by myself! I can't do anything without… without W-W- …without her." His self-assured defiance faltered dangerously when trying to say her name. Straightening up again and crossing his arms, he added quickly, "I told you that, I told Poof that, and did either of you listen? N—wait a minute! Poofy!"
Jorgen rolled his eyes impatiently. "What does your puny and insignificant son have to do with any of this?"
A quick rush of courage shot through Cosmo's veins, and had he been thinking he would have decided to take advantage of it—but he wasn't thinking, which was just as well, because the sensation made him do something both courageous and stupid anyway. He shot out of his chair and hovered at the level of Jorgen's face, eyes narrowed dangerously but still with a touch of pleading in his voice. "Now listen here, Jorgen Von Yelling Guy! I told Poof that I'd try to godparent again and be a good dad to him so that he doesn't have a lame dad and now he does because I am lame and stupid and now I've failed him too like I've failed everyone else and… and manly tears!" Cosmo noisily sniffled as tears began to well up in his large eyes. Jorgen continued to glare at him, and Cosmo instantly shrunk back. "Meek, scared, puny tears," he corrected, wiping his eyes.
Jorgen's expression softened by a few degrees.
"Cosmo, do not think I am unaware of your suffering. I am making all the allowances for you I can, even though you hardly deserve them. I understand that you're going through a difficult time right now. Your wife is dead, your unborn twins were lost, your only child thinks that you are a loser—"
"You don't have to rub it in!" Cosmo shrieked.
"Oh right. Sorry." Jorgen cleared his throat. "My muscles may be made of steel, but my heart is like a cotton ball. Your plight makes me shed manly tears of my own. So I have given you all the allowances I can." His expression suddenly hardened back to his authoritative rage of before. "But you have used them all up!"
"Please!" Cosmo begged. "Please give me just one more chance! I promise I'll try to be smarter! Just don't make me go back to Poofy like a loser! I'd rather stay here with you for my entire life!"
Jorgen's eyes bulged in horror. "NOOOOOOOOOO! I cannot allow that! We must do something to get you out of my hair…" He looked down at Cosmo's godparenting license, lying on the desk in front of him. "I must have done something equally as drastic to get you this in the first place, but apparently the memory was so traumatic I have blocked it from my mind entirely. How did you pass your godparenting exam?"
"By getting the right amount of answers right," said Cosmo matter-of-factly.
"It must be on record here somewhere…" Jorgen abruptly stood up and made his way to the many rows of file cabinets behind him.
Although they were large and conspicuous, Cosmo hadn't noticed them until Jorgen began digging through them. "File cabinets?" he laughed. "Wow, get with the twentieth century! I haven't seen one of those in ages!"
"It is the twenty-first century," Jorgen grumbled without looking at Cosmo, instead intently flipping through the files. "It has been for fifty-four years now. …Fudgesickles! What is your last name again?"
"Uh… Smith?" Cosmo ventured.
"Uhsmith!" Jorgen quickly made his way to the U's. "You'd think I'd remember that… aha!" He pulled out a large folder and began leafing through the first documents inside. "Mm-hmm, yes, Wanda passed her godparenting exam without a hitch… but where is yours? Oh, right here."
There were a couple of different pieces of paper regarding Cosmo's test, rather than the single sheet for Wanda, and almost all of them were marked up with official-looking—and urgently condemning—red ink. Jorgen glanced through them, set the papers down, and began to rub his temples thoughtfully.
Cosmo waited. And waited. And waited. And—holy cheese, what was he doing and what was taking him so long?
"Found a peanut… found a peanut… found a peanut just now," Cosmo began to sing softly. "Just now I found a peanut, found a peanut just now. Picked it up, picked it up, picked it up just now, just now I picked it up, picked it up just now. Cracked it open, cracked it—"
"Would you kindly SHUT UP?!" Jorgen roared.
"Well, I'm bored!" Cosmo countered. "What are you doing?"
"I am thinking! You should try it sometime!"
"Oh, I have, but it's too much work," grinned Cosmo.
He jumped back in fear as Jorgen decisively slammed his fist on his desk. "BINKY!"
Two seconds later, Jorgen's tiny assistant, secretary, and all-around lackey Binky poofed into the room. "Yes, sir?"
"In order to make sure Cosmo is a successful godparent again, we must take drastic measures as we did the last time! And there is only one drastic measure that will work! BRING ME POOF!"
"Uh… yes sir!" said Binky, looking confused but knowing better than to question Jorgen. He poofed out in an instant.
"Does that mean you're done thinking?" Cosmo asked.
Another quick poof showed that Binky was successful. Still looking a bit confused, he had returned in record time with an even more confused-looking Poof.
"What's going on?" Poof asked. Upon seeing Cosmo, his confusion grew even more pronounced. "Dad? What are you doing here? I thought you were going to start your new assignment today!"
"That is exactly why I have summoned you here!" Jorgen bellowed. "Binky, get back to your desk!"
"Uh, yes… sir?"
"NOW!"
Binky vanished in a POOF cloud that said "YES SIR!"
Jorgen turned to Cosmo. "And Cosmo, you wait outside! We need to have an intelligent conversation!"
Cosmo laughed. "Well, that sure leaves me out!"
"OUT!"
Jorgen grabbed Cosmo and drop-kicked him out the door, slamming it shut behind him. Two seconds later, Cosmo could be heard singing softly to himself, "Found a peanut, found a peanut…"
With just Jorgen and Poof left in the room, Poof crossed his arms in slight irritation. "Now do you mind telling me what's going on? It's craft time at the daycare and I need to teach the kids how to make papier-mâché aardvarks!"
"There are far more important matters in the world of fairy godparenting! The most pressing at the moment being your moronic dimwit of a father!"
Poof sighed. "Oh, great. What did he do this time?"
"He set a new record for failure—seven seconds! It's a wonder he even passed his exams in the first place!"
"How did he, then?"
"That is why I have called you here." Jorgen sat down at his desk and pushed Cosmo's earliest documents over to Poof. "As you probably don't know, since you are a lazy bum and have yet to even join the Fairy Academy let alone settle on an occupation, when a fairy is in training to be a fairy godparent they must pass a series of tests with their godchild and a mentor fairy godparent who already has their license. When your father first attempted this test, he failed miserably. Poor Lyman was in the hospital for three years…" Jorgen shook himself out of his tangent and got back to the matter at hand. "That should have been the end of it, but your mother insisted on giving him one more chance, with her as his mentor. It is against regulations for the mentor to be a family member or close friend, and Wanda was pretty much Cosmo's only friend, and they were boyfriend and girlfriend in all but name by that time… but I relented—"
"You relented?" Poof repeated incredulously. "You actually, even just once in your life, relented?"
Jorgen blanched a bit. "Hey, your mother could be very scary at times."
Poof nodded in understanding. "You're preaching to the choir here."
"Anyway, surprisingly, Cosmo did pass that time. And they got married not too long after that, thank goodness, so we never had to test Cosmo out on his own or with anyone other than Wanda again. The point is, it seems your mother was right. Your father is capable of being at least halfway competent when someone who knows him and knows how his wisp of a mind works is helping him." Jorgen's eyes narrowed. "And right now, that person is you!"
"Me?" Poof squeaked.
"Our only hope of getting Cosmo out of my hair—I mean your hair—I mean Fairy World—I mean, get him back to his job and become a productive member of society again, blah blah blah… he will have to relearn how to do his job, from someone who knows how to get through to him! And since Wanda is no longer with us, that leaves you!"
"You want me to be Dad's mentor?" cried Poof, disbelieving. "For poof's sake, for someone who's always going on about rules and regulations, and you want me—how can I be his mentor when I haven't had any godparent training, let alone a license?"
"Official training, no, but for the first twenty years of your life you were in a sense being mentored by your own parents, by observing them through their assignments. I believe sometimes you were even directly involved in wish-granting, in fact."
Poof nodded, looking away from Jorgen. "That's true…"
"Now then," said Jorgen, "we will give Cosmo another assignment. An easy one. And you will go with him, shadowing him for one month, assisting him and helping him to get his footing back."
"I suppose I don't have a say in this?" Poof muttered.
"NO!" bellowed Jorgen. "Look at it this way," he added, his voice not nearly as menacing, "if you do this, it will get your moronic father out of my—I mean your—hair for good, and we will not have to clean up after his idiotic mistakes—"
"Don't talk about my dad that way!" Poof cried defensively.
"But you know I'm right!"
Poof sighed, his shoulders sagging. He did love his father, and was always offended by others' cruel insults of him. But he hated having to baby him, having to be his own dad's dad. And if this worked… his dad would be back to his old happy, carefree, loveable self again, doing the job he loved, and Poof would be free to pursue his own life without having to worry about taking care of his father. Yes, Jorgen was right.
"Okay, fine," he conceded. Not that there was any point in trying to defy Jorgen, anyway. Especially since Poof wasn't capable as being even half as scary as his mother could be whenever she had wanted something. "What's his assignment?"
"I will go and find one immediately." Jorgen stood up, moved to the door, and opened it… and Cosmo abruptly fell into the room on one side, having clearly been pressing his ear against the door.
"COSMO!" roared Jorgen, back in rage mode. "Were you listening to our confidential conversation?"
Quickly standing up, Cosmo brushed himself up and looked at Jorgen both defiantly and matter-of-factly. "Of course I was! When people are talking about me, I wanna know what they're saying, and believe me, I heard every—" He stopped himself and stared at Poof in surprise. "Poofy! How long have you been here?"
Poof facepalmed.
"You deal with him, I've had enough," Jorgen mumbled to Poof. "I will be back in forty-nine seconds with your assignment!" BAM! In an explosion he was gone.
"Now where was I?" Cosmo wondered. "I found the peanut, picked it up, cracked it open, it was rotten, ate it anyway—"
"Forget about the peanuts, Dad," Poof interrupted. "You can eat some later. Jorgen's getting you a new godchild assignment."
"I hope their parents are peanut vendors!" Cosmo said with a grin.
Poof smiled too. "Poof poof, that would be cool, all the peanuts we could eat—wait a minute, get back on topic!" He shook his head to clear his mind and started over. "Jorgen's getting you a new assignment, and he's ordered me to go with you. So you don't screw up again."
Cosmo paled. "He didn't tell you that I completely and horribly failed my first new godparenting assignment in decades, did he?"
"He did."
Cosmo suddenly burst into tears and flung himself at Poof's feet helplessly—at least as much as he could considering the two fairies were floating in midair. "I'm trying, Poofy, I really am, it's just so hard to be competent! Please don't think I'm lame!"
"I don't think you're lame," Poof reassured his father. "I think you're an idiot, but I don't think you're lame."
"You don't think I'm lame!" Cosmo cried happily. "You're either that nice and forgiving or that deluded and maybe both but either way you're still the best son in the world!"
Poof smiled, opened his mouth to speak, and—
BOOM! Jorgen blasted back in.
"Wow, has it been forty-nine seconds already?" Poof marveled.
Jorgen quickly handed a folder to Cosmo. "Here is your new assignment! Report to her as soon as possible! Poof, I will be expecting weekly status updates. And Cosmo…" Jorgen leaned right into Cosmo's face, all the better to bellow "THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!" with such force that Cosmo's facial features were nearly blown off.
"Uh, I'll try my best, just as soon as I rearrange my face," a completely disheveled Cosmo croaked out with great effort.
Seemingly having had far more than enough of Cosmo for one day, Jorgen exploded off again without another word.
"Poofy, could you find out what our assignment is while I look for my other eye?" Cosmo asked, handing the envelope to Poof.
Poof pulled out the data sheet on their newest assignment. "Name, Anna Hoffman. Date of birth, April third, 2044. Current age, ten. Hair, brown. Eyes, brown. Height, four feet. Weight, fifty-six pounds. Place of residence, Reno, Nevada. And her bio, of course." He quickly scanned over the rest of the file. "She seems like your typical unhappy kid in need of a fairy godparent. No siblings, and she lives only with her mother, so that'll make the secrecy easier." He looked back up at Cosmo, who was pushing his face back into shape. "Is your face back to normal yet?"
Cosmo let go of his face. "Is my eye crooked?"
Poof squinted and cocked his head to get a better vantage point. "No, but your left nostril is."
Cosmo pushed on his face again.
"Your other left."
"Oh. Why didn't you say so?" Cosmo pushed the correct side this time. "How's that?"
Poof gave Cosmo a thumbs-up. "Perfect."
"Yay! Lemme see the folder." Cosmo took it from Poof and looked over the picture and information regarding his new goddaughter, a huge grin breaking over his face. "This is gonna be so cool, Poof! You and me together, having fun, causing mayhem, possibly destroying public property—we're gonna have such a great father-son bonding time!"
But then Cosmo caught himself, his grin vanished, his eyes widened with tears, and his lower lip began to quiver. "I… I just wish…" he whispered.
Poof gently took the folder from Cosmo's hands. "I know," he said softly. "You should be doing this with Mama, not with me. But—but we'll make the best of it, right?" Poof made himself smile, and Cosmo gave Poof a weak, apprehensive smile of his own. "And you're right, it is gonna be a lot of fun. You're gonna get your groove back! And along the way, we're gonna make this girl happy. Are you ready to go meet Anna?"
Cosmo sniffled his tears away as his smile grew a little broader. "You bet. Especially if she has peanuts!"
They both lifted their wands, and in a "ANNA AND PEANUTS SEEKING POOF POOF" they were gone.
Chapter 2: Suspicious Minds
Chapter Text
The young girl with her dark brown hair pulled up in a ponytail, listlessly and mechanically sculpting various figures out of her brightly-colored Play-Doh, was unaware of the two fairies hiding in the ventilation ducts of her bedroom, observing her.
"Well, there she is," whispered Poof. "She's alone. Now's the perfect time to introduce yourself. Are you ready?"
"Aren't you going to introduce yourself too?" Cosmo whispered back.
"Not at first. You're her godfather! I'm not! You have to go first."
Cosmo shot Poof a look of worry and dread.
"Come on. You did it with Mama thousands of times. You just poof up there, say 'Hi I'm Cosmo and I'm your fairy godfather', and bam!"
"You sure I can do this alone?"
"You have to do it alone. She's your godchild, not mine."
Cosmo gulped. "Okay. …Now?"
"Now would be a good time, yes."
Cosmo nodded nervously, waved his wand, and whirled out of the ventilation ducts in a swirling wisp of green smoke.
The girl, Anna, was so listlessly and unhappily molding her Play-Doh that she almost didn't notice the strange new presence in her room…
But green smoke is hard to ignore for very long.
Dropping her Play-Doh construction worker on her table, now forgetting her sculpting projects completely, she gasped in horror. "Either someone set off a smoke bomb in the air conditioning or the house is catching on moldy fire, and neither of those are options I want to consider!"
It wasn't long before Cosmo formed his regular shape from the smoke, all the better to more fully see Anna's dumb disbelief and horror at what was happening. The look most kids had upon first meeting their fairies. Cosmo grinned automatically. It was all coming back to him now—it had never left, in fact. This was old hat.
"Heeeeeey Anna!" he greeted her cheerfully. "I'm Cosmo!" He paused—for too long—and his smile disappeared for a brief, painful second, Wanda's absence so cruelly manifesting itself in the silence. "A-and Iiiiiiiiiiii'm…" Cosmo moved back, forcing his smile to return, and waved his wand confidently, getting back on track. "Your fairy godfather!" The words "FAREE GODFATHUR" appeared behind him, complete with backwards R's.
Neither Cosmo nor Anna could see Poof, still in the ventilation duct, facepalming.
"My… what?" Anna asked.
"Can't you read?" laughed Cosmo, motioning towards the words he had made appear. "I'm your fairy godfather! I'm gonna grant all your crazy wishes and be your pal and we're gonna have lots of fun and… is that Play-Doh?"
Anna finally began to smile. "I have a… fairy godfather? Cool! Wait until I tell Mom! I won't have to have that robot babysitter BW-164 anymore!"
"Awesome!" cried Cosmo, happily and cluelessly.
Poof facepalmed yet again, but that wasn't enough to keep him from speaking up this time. "No, not awesome!" he yelled out.
Anna blinked. "Who said that?"
AUTHORITATIVE POOF POOF! Poof appeared in front of Anna, with Da Rules right next to him.
"If you tell your mom, or anyone at all, about our existence, that would break the most important rule of all!" cried Poof, turning Da Rules open to page one. "You're not allowed to let anyone know you have a fairy godparent! Otherwise your fairies will go away forever, and that means no more wishing for you! So it's really in your best interest to not tell anyone. Any questions?"
Anna raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. Who are you?"
Cosmo laughed and threw one arm around Poof's shoulders fondly. "This is my son, Poof! He's bossy and responsible and a complete stick-in-the-mud!"
Poof had smiled at first, but it quickly faded into a look of annoyance. "Gee, thanks for that, Dad," he muttered darkly.
"You're welcome!" Cosmo responded cheerfully.
"Are you my fairy godfather too?" Anna asked Poof.
Poof shook his head. "Nope, I'm just here to watch and observe. I might help a little with the magic and wish-granting, but Dad here's gonna be your main man. I'll just be taking notes."
Anna considered this. "Soooooo… you're like an intern, then?"
Poof and Cosmo exchanged glances.
"Uh, sure!" said Poof.
"Let's go with that!" said Cosmo.
Anna still did not look entirely convinced.
"So what's your first wish gonna be?" Cosmo blurted out excitedly.
"Uh… what can I wish for?" Anna asked.
"Anything!" exclaimed Cosmo.
"—that isn't forbidden by any rules in this book!" Poof added, motioning again to the huge Da Rules book.
Anna rolled her eyes. "Perfect, I bet that just cut my options down to nothing."
"Start with something small," Poof suggested.
"Like a huge amusement park in your backyard!" Cosmo said.
"NO!" cried Poof in horror.
"A small amusement park in the backyard?"
"No."
"You're no fun," Cosmo muttered, crossing his arms and pouting.
Anna blinked in confusion. "O-kaaaaay then…" Her stomach suddenly lightly rumbled. "How about a cookie?"
"That's the perfect first, small wish!" said Poof with a grin.
"Alright! I wish for a cookie!"
Silence.
"You heard her," Cosmo said, nudging Poof.
"Dad, you're her godparent! You have to grant it!"
"Oh…" His arm shaking in nervousness, Cosmo lifted his wand… and still hesitated.
Poof sighed. "What kind of a cookie do you want, Anna?"
Anna shrugged. "I don't care… chocolate chip?"
"Okay, wish for it."
"Alright…" Anna crossed her arms in impatience. "Cosmo," she said slowly and concisely, "I wish for a chocolate chip cookie."
"O-okay…" Cosmo waved his wand, and POOF!…
…a perfectly-sized, perfectly-formed chocolate chip cookie appeared right before Anna's eyes.
"Amazing!" she cried happily, snatching the cookie out of the air and eating it up.
Cosmo was grinning too. "I did it!" he cried. "I did it!"
"Can you give me more?" Anna asked. She had snarfed down the cookie in record time and was wiping the few stray crumbs from the corners of her mouth. "Like a whole dozen?"
"Uh…" Cosmo's grin faded into uncertainty. "That depends. How many is a dozen?"
"Twelve," prodded Poof.
"Uh… and how many is twelve?"
Poof sighed, although this time he was able to resist the urge to facepalm. "Give her four, then give her four again, then give her four again."
"Oh!" Cosmo brightened. "No problemo!"
POOF! POOF! POOF!
Three plates of four cookies each appeared before Anna's astonished eyes.
"Awesome!" she cried. "I'm getting tasty baked comestibles and learning my multiplication tables at the same time!"
"What's going on in there?" a new voice suddenly called out. Anna, Cosmo, and Poof all froze with widened eyes.
Without even knocking, Anna's mother opened the door and looked at her daughter, still standing in front of her three plates of cookies and momentarily paralyzed in a mild panic. "Anna? Where did all these cookies come from?"
"Uh… I bought them?" Anna stammered.
"Oh… And where did those fish come from?"
"Fish?" Anna followed her mother's line of sight to her nightstand—and sure enough, there was a fishbowl complete with two goldfish where there hadn't been before, one fish with green eyes and one with purple eyes.
"They, uh… they came with the cookies," Anna quickly. "It was—it was kind of a package deal thing. Buy some cookies, we'll throw in some free goldfish."
Anna's mother pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose thoughtfully. "The gimmicks they come up with nowadays to sell stuff. Well, Anna, I'm glad that you're apparently enjoying the wonders of math with your new goldfish, but could you please keep your excitement down? I'm trying to work."
"Sure," Anna instantly complied. "Can do."
Anna's mother left the room and shut the door behind her without another word.
"Whew!" Anna leaned against her bedpost in relief. "That was a close one!"
Cosmo was still staring at the closed door, deep in what must have been thought for him. "I know her! Where do I know her from? —Aha! My underwater basket weaving class!"
Poof sighed. "No, Dad, you don't know her."
"Little league extreme skydiving?"
"No, Dad!"
"Give me time, I'll think of it, I swear!" said Cosmo with determination. His eyes suddenly lit up. "Is she a peanut vendor?"
Anna looked at her goldfish in confusion. "Uh, no, she's an accountant."
"Rats!" cried Cosmo.
He and Poof both poofed out of the fishbowl, back in their normal fairy forms. "As far as anyone else is concerned," Poof said to Anna, "we're your pet goldfish. That way we can hang out with you and not arouse suspicion."
"So, as long as people see you as fish, I won't break the first rule and make you go away forever?"
"Kind of. If you want to get technical, the rule is that nobody can know you have fairy godparents. So if you were stupid enough to tell someone that your fish are your fairy godparents, we'd have to go away even if we were still fish. But on that same token, if someone sees us as fairies but doesn't realize that we're—I mean, that Dad's your godparent and I'm his, uh, intern—then we can still stay." Poof paused thoughtfully. "That loophole's a little tough to achieve, though, but it can be done."
"Are you gonna eat those?" Cosmo asked suddenly, pointing to the plates of cookies he had conjured.
Anna hesitated, studying the cookies, then looking back at her fairies with a smile. "I guess twelve's kind of a lot for just one person. You can each have a plate."
"Hooray!" Cosmo and Poof both exclaimed.
"They're not peanuts, but they'll do!" Cosmo added.
…
Anna's wishes that first day had been few and simple, but they were the perfect stepping stones for Cosmo, and when she went downstairs to have supper with her mother, he was jumping excitedly on the couch inside the fishbowl castle, babbling with excitement. Poof, too, was having a hard time containing his optimism, and was joining his father in the elated bouncing up and down.
"I'm actually doing it right!" Cosmo cried. "I haven't messed up yet! And you've only needed to help me a little bit!"
"Yeah, Dad, you're doing great! We'll get you back to being a full-fledged godparent yet, poof poof!"
"And I think she likes me, too!"
"And she's smart and knows how to phrase things so you can understand them!"
"And she likes Play-Doh!"
"Poof poof!"
"Cosmo Cosmo!"
"And just think," said Poof, calming down enough to stop jumping up and down, finally sliding down to a seated position on the couch, "you're gonna make her happy! You already have, I think! Okay, sure, so she's a little suspicious and untrusting, but who wouldn't be if two magical creatures suddenly burst into your bedroom? And once she gets used to us… we're gonna have a blast!"
"You don't mean an actual blast involving explosives, do you?"
Poof would have facepalmed at that, but Anna's voice stopped him. "Cosmo? Poof? Are you there?"
Turning back into fish, Cosmo and Poof swam out of the castle and grinned at Anna. "We're always here!" Cosmo said.
"Did you want something?" Poof asked excitedly.
"Yeah, actually, I needed to ask you something, Poof."
Poof's smile faded. "Uh, well, you know I'm not technically your fairy godparent. I'm not authorized to grant your wishes, only Dad is—"
"I know, and I'm not wishing for anything. I just need some help with my math homework. It's really tough."
Cosmo laughed at that. "Yeah, Poofy, I'm gonna let you handle this one! I don't even know how many a dozen is!" He swam back into the castle as Poof poofed out of the bowl, back to his normal fairy form.
"I don't really think I'll be much help either," said Poof, "but—"
"Yes you will." Anna glared at Poof crossly, folding her arms. "You can tell me what the heck's going on here."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what the heck's going on here? How can you be intern to someone who doesn't have a clue of what he's doing, whereas you're actually capable? This—" Anna's eyes grew wide. "You probably aren't even my fairy godparents at all! This is some undercover spy thing! You're posing as fairy godparents to get the dish on me and my mom for some reason and you're going to turn us over to the government and all the magic is fake and you dyed your hair and—and he's not even your real father, is he?"
Poof quickly flung a hand over Anna's mouth, preventing her from wildly shouting out more suspicions. "Jeez, calm down, kiddo, and stop reading so many conspiracy theories!"
"What's going on?" Anna demanded in a muffled voice. "You're not Cosmo's intern! You can't be! Why are the two of you here?"
Poof sighed, but didn't release his hand. "Look, alright, I'll tell you what's going on, but you have to promise to not tell Dad that I told you, alright? And don't yell. I don't want him to hear us."
"Mmphf—!" Anna mmphfed in surprise and horror.
"It's nothing bad, really, I just don't want Dad to lose his confidence! Now promise not to yell!"
Anna's eyes narrowed, but she nodded reluctantly, and Poof let go of her mouth.
"Alright," he said quickly. "You're right, I'm not Dad's intern. And I haven't had any official godparenting training, but I spent the first nineteen years of my life with my parents when they were godparenting, so I know the gist of it. My parents were some of the most successful fairy godparents ever. Their godchildren adored them, they were able to keep them for long amounts of time, and Dad and Mama loved their jobs. And they were poofin' good at it, too."
"You have a mom?" Anna asked in confusion. Realizing what she said, she shook her head, mumbling, "Duh, that's obvious, everyone has a biological mother, but where is she?"
Poof sighed sadly. "That's the problem. Mama died about a year ago."
"Oh…"
"And Dad just… fell to pieces. He couldn't do anything. I practically had to drag him back to headquarters to get his license renewed, but even that didn't help him. His first solo assignment was, I guess, a total disaster, so Dad's boss—well, technically I guess he's the boss of all of Fairy World—ordered me to go with him this time, to help him get his footing back and relearn how to godparent without Mama there to help him. It's the only way to get the old Dad back."
Anna had a look of understanding on her face. "Oh, so you mean Cosmo hasn't always been that dense and stupid, he's just become that way since your mom died?"
Poof snorted incredulously. "Are you kidding me? What you saw was the old Dad. It's amazing. He's already acting more like his old self, which is wonderful."
Anna still looked horrified. "You call that wonderful?"
"Look." Poof took a deep breath, considering how to phrase his next statement. "My dad's… not very smart. But he's also a good godparent. All his godkids loved him. He's fun and a lot of laughs and he likes to make kids happy. That's why he and my mama were such a good team. Because whenever Dad's, um… lack of intelligence caused a problem, Mama was able to clean up after him. After she died… Dad's hardly smiled at all this past year, and today's pretty much the first time I've seen him be really happy again. I just… I just want my dad back," Poof sighed helplessly. "I want my dad back, and he's coming back, doing the job he loves to do. But I need your help. Please, please don't give up on him. I'm going to help him for a month so he can figure out how to do this by himself, but you'll need to help him feel like he can do this too. If you can just… understand the way his mind works, and give him a chance, you'll have nothing to worry about. You'll love him. Trust me. Just… just please give him a chance."
Anna's arms were still crossed, but her expression softened a bit as Poof's huge, pleading eyes bore into her. No, no, ignore the eyes, ignore the eyes, it's the oldest trick in the book. Why should she give in? Both fairies had lied to her. Not very much, but it was still a lie. And Anna had principles. She wasn't about to be lied to and accept it, even if that meant giving up two magical fairies who would grant her every wish.
Wait a minute, was she crazy?!
And as Poof continued to silently plead with her with his eyes, one of his sentences in particular flittered back through Anna's mind.
I just want my dad back.
Anna could relate.
Oh, could she relate.
"Alright," she finally conceded.
"Thank you!" Poof flung his arms around a startled Anna in a grateful hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I owe you big time, poof poof! But please don't tell Dad I told you this. And don't mention my mama to him at all."
"How—how can I do that when I don't even know her name?" Anna asked.
"Perfect!" Poof brightened, letting go of Anna. "You don't know her name, so you can't mention her!"
"Wait a minute, what if her name's the same name as my teacher or best friend or something and I end up saying it accidentally?"
"You won't." Poof grinned confidently. "If I don't tell you Mama's name, you won't say it. My plan's a good one! It's foolproof!"
Anna raised an eyebrow. "It's fool, Poof."
"Uh-uh-uh!" Poof shook a finger at Anna. "No arguing. It's settled. You won't mention any of this, especially my mama, to my dad."
Anna rolled her eyes. "I'll do my best…"
"So what do you want to do tonight?" Poof asked.
Caught off-guard, Anna blinked in surprise for a moment before answering. "Well… jeez, no one's ever asked me that before… I usually just watch a movie by myself, that is the nights when BW-164 isn't babysitting me. You know, the nights when Mom's actually here. Not that I notice, she's always working even when she's home anyway…"
"Watch a movie!" Poof grinned. "I've got a big collection of movies. Maybe you and I and Dad could watch one tonight. Have you ever seen an Elvis movie?"
"No," said Anna incredulously. "Those movies are like a hundred years old, they're black and white and 2D, why would I want to watch—"
"Ooooohhh, Anna, you don't know what you're missing!" interrupted Poof, a starry-eyed look going over his face. "Elvis, his movies, his music, his person, they're all just absolutely amazing, poof poof poof! You've gotta watch one. Just give Elvis a try!" he pleaded, noting Anna's still annoyed, unyielding expression. "They're great movies! Just because something's old doesn't mean it's lame. Come on. Watch Jailhouse Rock with me?" He held out his hand to her invitingly.
Anna hesitated.
"Look," said Poof, a playful smile on his lips, "you're stuck with me for a month, and I'm a huge Elvis geek. You're going to have to put up with Elvis either way. You might as well join me in the madness and embrace him."
"Well, since I can't get out of it…" Anna finally gave Poof an authentic, true grin. "Alright. Enlighten me in the ways of the Elvis."
…
It had been a wonderful day, and a wonderful evening, and Cosmo should have been smiling as he got ready for bed.
He had gotten Anna her cookies. And her extra Play-Doh. And a new skirt that almost perfectly matched her favorite one that she tore a month ago. And she had watched one of Poof's Elvis movies with them, had enjoyed it, and had smiled as she told them goodnight.
But Cosmo couldn't think about any of that right now.
He could only remember the past.
This room. This room, this house, in various forms had always been his and Wanda's "traveling home". Their godparenting home. Sometimes they were different species, sometimes their disguise was a little different, but the inside was always the same.
This had been their room.
Almost more so than their "real" house in Fairy World.
As if Cosmo and Wanda had ever spent that much time in Fairy World. They spent all their time godparenting. They loved their jobs that much.
Wanda would always smile whenever she made their godchild happy, and would always smile about it even as they got ready for bed.
It was always wonderful when Wanda went to bed with a smile. Because Cosmo would too. Sometimes he would smile so much that he had to move over to her and kiss those smiling lips of hers, and if he started there he had to move to her cheek and her chin and her ear and her neck and all the while Wanda would still smile and laugh softly and murmur "Goodnight, darling"…
In the empty room, Cosmo took a deep breath.
Sometimes it hurt to breathe without Wanda.
He couldn't smile now.
Why should he be so sad here, after such a happy day, and here, here where so many wonderful memories were?
Memories that all involved Wanda…
Cosmo shut his eyes tightly.
Sleep. Sleep. Please. Just think of something wonderful about this room that isn't about Wanda…
Something…
…something…
"Looky what I found, my old baby toys—it's Dog, my stuffed monkey!"
Cosmo's old baby toys were indeed there in his bedroom, shoved in a box and long forgotten by everyone… except Cosmo. Sometimes, even as an adult, he would pull them out and play with them, make believe that he had a baby to give them to. His son would get the monkeys and mobiles. His daughter would get the plastic chewable play food and the tattered but still soft and snuggly teddy bears. And then he'd put them all back, the babies being just pretend babies.
But the day when he and his wife first brought their newborn son home, it suddenly wasn't pretend anymore.
"This is Dog!" Cosmo exclaimed, holding the worn plush monkey over baby Poof. "He's a monkey! I once had a dog named Monkey, somewhere in here… Here, you hold Dog for a minute!"
"Poof poof!" exclaimed the baby happily, snatching the monkey from him.
Cosmo laughed in confusion. Funny, the babies had never said that before during his games.
Wait a minute. This was different. This wasn't pretend. Holding one of his teddy bears in his hand, Cosmo turned his attention back to Poof, total amazement in his eyes. This was real. He really did have a baby. He had a son.
Poof smiled at his father. "Poof poof!" he cried again, happily reaching out for the teddy bear.
Cosmo hesitated for only a moment before passing the teddy bear over to Poof as well. Poof wasn't his daughter, but that didn't matter anymore. This time he didn't have to put them away when he was done. He wouldn't be done. They were Poof's now. All of them.
"You—" Cosmo's voice choked with emotion as he wiped a few tears from his eyes. This was real. This wasn't pretend. This was his baby! His real baby! "You take good care of my toys now, you hear? I mean—I mean your toys." Cosmo sniffled, but made no attempt to wipe the tears of love and joy from his eyes, and dumped the entire box of toys out in front of Poof. "They're all yours now!"
"Poof poof!" exclaimed Poof, diving in.
Cosmo, for once in his life, wasn't saying anything, just sitting on the edge of the bed and watching, incredulously, disbelieving, completely and utterly overcome with happiness. This was real. This wasn't pretend. This wasn't going to go away.
"Poofy," he choked out, "can—can I have a hug?"
Poof poked his head out of the toys and gurgled happily. "Poof poof!" he answered, quickly hovering into his father's open arms.
Cosmo wrapped his arms around his son protectively and lovingly. "You're real, you're real and you're my baby and you're never going away!" he marveled.
He suddenly looked up, sensing another presence watching them.
It was Wanda, hovering in the open doorway to their bedroom. And she too was smiling with tears in her eyes, wiping a few away, murmuring, "My boys…" And then she just laughed in amazement. "My husband and son, I can't believe I can finally say that…"
And then suddenly she, too, had their arms wrapped around both of them, Poof saying "Poof poof!" again, and Cosmo half sighing, half laughing in bliss. Before this very second, he would have thought that anything between him and his Wanda would be just getting in the way, that nothing could come between them… but their baby fit in so perfectly that Cosmo couldn't imagine that he had only so recently arrived on the scene.
"I love you both so much!" Cosmo exclaimed, holding them tighter.
And the three of them hugged and smiled and laughed, the laughs echoing off the walls, laugh, laugh, laugh…
Laugh…
Cosmo stared blankly at the closed bedroom door, silence overwhelming him.
I need a hug.
"Poofy?" he called, sitting up.
He opened the door and floated down the hallway to Poof's room, the door closed but light trickling out from the crack between the door and the floor, and the sound of "Hound Dog" blasting through Poof's speakers coming through loud and clear.
"Poof!" Cosmo called out, knocking at his door. "I'm respecting your privacy by knocking, but asserting my authority as your father by—"
The door swung open.
"And I'm beating you to the punch by opening the door before you," Poof said.
"Killjoy!" Cosmo spat out.
"What did you want?"
"Turn down this racket!"
"What?"
"YOUR YOUNG PEOPLE MUSIC, I CAN'T HEAR MYSELF THINK!"
Poof waved his wand and instantly the music was muted to only a soft background noise.
"Can't hear myself think?" Cosmo repeated incredulously. "Ha ha! You can't hear what doesn't happen!"
"Sorry about the music, Dad, I know you were probably trying to sleep."
"Poofy," Cosmo blurted out, "do you… do you really think she likes me?"
Poof hesitated for a moment, an action that was not lost on Cosmo. He bit his lip nervously, and Poof quickly nodded in an attempt to reassure his father. "Yeah, yeah I do Dad, I mean… she will like you. Give her time. She only just met us today. You can't know you like someone after you just met them."
Cosmo frowned. Usually he was content to accept the fact that Poof—like almost everyone else—knew more than he did and thus said the right things all the time, but this time he felt an objection rise in his mind that seemed completely reasonable. "But I knew I liked your mama when I first met her. I—I knew I liked you when I first met you."
One corner of Poof's mouth twitched upwards slightly. "Well, come on, Dad, that's different. I'm your kid. You're supposed to like me at first sight."
"And Anna's my godkid," said Cosmo, slowly, trying to figure this out. "And I like her. Not as much as I liked you when I first saw you, of course, but…"
"That's good, though," said Poof. "And she likes you too. She seemed happy. And things are just gonna get better tomorrow. We'll get to know her better, she'll get to know us better, we'll grant her wishes, and she'll give us someone to play with. Trust me, Dad." Poof smiled with warmth and assurance. "It's gonna be great. Just like old times."
Cosmo smiled too, but a sudden painful jab hit him as the meaning of Poof's words sank in. "Not—not just like old times," he whispered, wiping away quickly-forming tears.
Poof looked away. "No," he muttered. "Not just. But we have to make do with our situation as it is."
Cosmo cocked his head in confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Poof looked back up at Cosmo. "Nothing. I mean, not nothing, it means—it means we just have to try our best, even without Mama, because that's the way it is now." He glanced back at his stereo, now softly playing "Return to Sender", and he quietly mouthed the words, seemingly without realizing it. "S-sorry about my music being so loud," he quickly added, looking back at Cosmo again. "I'll try to be a better roommate. I know the last thing you need right now is your troublesome, quarrelsome, plays-his-music-too-loud son disturbing you."
"Actually," said Cosmo, quickly and with firm assurance, "what I need right now is—can I have a hug?" He held out his arms in an attempt to fight off the sadness and loneliness that had crept into his body back in his own room, feeling his eyes and lower lip tremble.
To his dismay, Poof rolled his eyes. "Come on, Dad…"
Another painful rip tore through Cosmo's body, and his throat constricted with the heartbreaking realization that his Poofy was too old, too cool for hugs with his dad anymore…
But then suddenly Poof had his arms tightly wrapped around him.
"…you know you don't need to ask."
Cosmo smiled and almost sobbed in relief, flinging his arms around Poof. "You're never gonna leave, right?"
"Uh." Poof's voice lost its smile. "I'm only gonna be here helping you for a month, you know, and I'm gonna be figuring out what to do with my own life here pretty soon, and… But I'll never go away forever. And I'll never go away emotionally or mentally or whatever. I'll always be around if you need me, no matter where I am."
"I need you right now," admitted Cosmo. "And I need a hug."
He heard Poof laugh softly. "Well, I think I can handle that, poof poof."
Still wrapped up in their hug, Cosmo opened his eyes and took notice of Poof's bed. It of course had its Elvis bed sheets and was flanked by Elvis posters and there was an Elvis "Let Me Be Your" teddy bear seated on top of the bed, but next to that was…
"Dog?" cried Cosmo incredulously, staring at the plush monkey. "You still have Dog?"
Poof let go of Cosmo and turned around to look at his bed, laughing at Cosmo's shock. "Of course I still have Dog, poof poof! I could never get rid of him! Monkey the dog's around here too, somewhere…"
"Thanks for taking good care of them," smiled Cosmo. "They were once mine, you know."
"Yeah, I know." Poof smiled too. "Thanks for letting me have them."
Cosmo smirked. "You're my kid, of course I let you have them!"
"Are you feeling better now?"
"Yeah. I needed a hug, and…" Cosmo gave Poof another grateful smile. "Thanks for being here, Poofy."
Poof gave Cosmo another quick hug. "No problem. Goodnight."
"Goodnight! And keep your music down!"
Poof threw a playful mock salute. "Yes, sir!"
Cosmo smiled as he hovered back to his own room, a smile that was still somewhat pained, but still a smile. Wanda wasn't there, and there was nothing that could ever fill the void she had left. But he wasn't alone. He had Poof.
And that wasn't the same.
But it was still wonderful.
Chapter 3: Trouble
Chapter Text
Anna, as she often did, woke up early that next morning. And, again as she often did, she lay in bed and allowed herself a few extra minutes of the warmth and security of her blankets. Besides all that, it was Sunday, and there was no real reason to be up…
And lying in bed gave her the solitude she needed to think.
She hadn't opened her eyes yet. She didn't want to. There was still too much to take in. She had had… she had had the strangest dream last night. No, scratch that, she wasn't even convinced it was a dream. It had been something she had imagined while she had still been wide awake. She had imagined… fairies. Fairies appearing out of nowhere to help her.
She snorted. How hopeless was she, so lonely and miserable that her mind had conjured up two mythological creatures to keep her company!
And how weird her mind was, too, she thought. For some reason the fairies it had made up were… far from what one would normally expect from a fairy. They weren't tiny little beings that fit in the palm of her hand and wore clothes from nature and were ethereal and delicate. No, they were almost her size, wearing clothing that a human would wear, yet their hair was outrageously colored, and one was an eager-to-please moron and the other was a worrisome Elvis nerd?
Huh?
How on earth had her mind come up with that?!
And why did they have to be male, anyway? Her eyes still closed, Anna scowled a bit at that. If she was going to conjure up two fairies, wouldn't she have made them females, like one would expect, a mother/daughter pair rather than a father/son pair? Why males? As if a male had ever been there for her, what with her father walking out on her and her mother when she was three and so rarely keeping in touch even though her mother, God help her, still waited, still clung to the hope that he'd come back, fool that she was, when the deadbeat obviously didn't care two figs for the wife and daughter he left behind…
Anna realized her fists were clenched. She relaxed them, trying to get her thoughts off of her father.
It wasn't just his absence, though. Her entire paternal side of her family was absent from her life, too. She couldn't recall ever meeting them and wasn't sure if she ever had. And it was only marginally better on her mother's side. Anna had one uncle, but he lived in New York City and she only saw him on holidays, if that. And while her maternal grandmother was alive, her grandfather had died years and years and years ago, years before Anna was even born…
Anna flipped over on her side, still keeping her eyes tightly clenched shut.
As if a male could be counted on. Why did she have to get two male fairies?
It was all probably just some dumb coping method her brain was using, she suddenly realized. Some subconscious part of her wanted a positive male influence in her life, and she had imagined up some fairies yesterday in her desperation. Funny, she hadn't felt all that desperate yesterday—but no matter. It didn't matter in the slightest. The only thing that did matter was that Cosmo and Poof—what ridiculous names—were only figments of her imagination, and thus didn't exist. So none of it made any difference.
She opened her eyes and drew in her breath sharply, looking straight at the fishbowl.
Oh, no way.
She sat up, leaned over to better peer into the bowl, opened her mouth… Oh, this is ridiculous, they're not there, they don't exist.
But that fishbowl shouldn't exist either.
"…Cosmo? Poof?" she finally said, tentatively, her voice barely audible.
A few tense moments passed.
And then, a green-eyed fish quickly and eagerly swam out of the castle. "Good morning, Anna!" he said cheerfully. "How did you sleep?"
"Uh… alright, I guess," said Anna, blinking both sleep and surprise from her eyes.
"So did I!" grinned Cosmo. "I had the most wonderful dream. I was swimming in a sea of CHEESE! Cheddar and gouda and Monterey Jack and Swiss and edam and—hey, did you have a dream?"
Anna rubbed her eyes. "I thought I did, but it turns out it's real."
Cosmo continued to grin. "Coo-al! I wish my dream were real. Heeeyyy!" He quickly poofed out of the fishbowl and into his regular fairy form. "You could wish for my dream to be real! I'm your godfather and I can grant wishes!"
"A sea of cheese?" Anna asked in surprise. "What would I do with a sea of cheese?"
"Swim in it and lap it all up, of course!" laughed Cosmo. "And while we're at it, we could put that amusement park in your backyard, too!"
"But Poof seemed to think that was a bad idea!"
Cosmo looked to the fishbowl, then leaned closer to Anna with a sly grin on his face. "Poof's still asleep," he stage whispered deviously. "You can make any wild wish you want!"
Anna hesitated. "A sea of cheese… You can really do something like that?" she asked, disbelieving.
"Ha! Try me!" grinned Cosmo. "It'll be a piece of cake! Of CHEESECAKE!"
Anna's eyes flittered to the fishbowl one more time, making sure Poof wasn't visible yet. Well… what better way to test the abilities of her new fairies, right? A sea of cheese in the backyard… that would be kinda fun, she had to admit. And cool! And once she got tired of it, she could just wish it away, right?
"Okay, Cosmo," she grinned. "I wish that my backyard was a sea of cheese!"
"Yes yes YES!" crowed Cosmo, waving his wand in ecstasy.
And with a POOF cloud that proclaimed "PROCESSED MILK CURD!"…
Anna and Cosmo both zipped to the window and looked out over the backyard.
The grass had been replaced by waves of mozzarella and crests of Cheddar. A tidal pool of gorgonzola lay where the patio used to be. And the tree growing in the corner of the yard now looked positively holey, a sort of Swiss palm tree, growing from an island of Colby and gruyere.
A reverent silence passed through the room.
"This…" Cosmo finally breathed, "…is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
Anna smiled at him. "Well, you made it."
"But you wished for it!"
"Well then," said Anna, still smiling, "I'd say this is a lovely piece of teamwork."
"Stick with me, kid, we'll go places," grinned Cosmo.
Anna suddenly pushed open the window. "Well, what are we waiting for?" she asked.
"Swimsuits!" Cosmo immediately answered. Anna looked at him in surprise, but Cosmo wasted no time in waving his wand and poofing both of them into more appropriate beach wear.
"Now we're ready!" he laughed, leaping out the window and landing in with a splash in the cheese pool.
Anna laughed too, not waiting more than two seconds before jumping right in after him.
…
About ten minutes later, the other fish floated out of the castle, awkwardly wiping sleep from his purple eyes with his fins. "Why doesn't anyone wake me up when I oversleep… Dad? Anna?" Poof looked about the empty room. "Where are you?"
He poofed out of the fishbowl, back to his normal fairy form, and sniffed the air.
"And why do I smell… cheese? Lots and lots of…"
His eyes widened in horror.
"Oh no."
Zipping to the window, he stared at out at the sight before him in pure terror. What had once been green and lush was now white and yellow and… cheesy. And Cosmo and Anna were diving off a cheese-constructed diving board, flipping through the air, laughing carelessly.
"Oh, poof POOF POOF!" screeched Poof in dismay. "What the poof have you done?!"
Seeing and hearing Poof, Cosmo looked up at the window and waved happily. "Hey, Poof! Good morning! Look what Anna wished for! She wished for my dream to come true! Isn't it cool?"
"No, no, NO!" shrieked Poof, poofing himself to the backyard and wildly flinging his arms in urgency. "It's not cool! What if someone sees this?"
"Relax, Poof," laughed Anna, floating by on an innertube made of parmesan. "What am I gonna do, tell people that my fairy godfather made this happen? They wouldn't believe me even if I did! Besides, once I get tired of it, I'll just wish it away."
"Not good, not good, not good!" Poof insisted frantically. "Wishes that so completely change the landscape always spell disaster! Unwish it, Anna, unwish it!"
"No way!" protested Anna. "Not until after I've dived through the dolcelatte!"
"Ooh, me first!" cried Cosmo. "But first I'm gonna plow through some provolone!" He deftly dove into a corner of the cheese pool and quickly vanished from sight.
"You have to get rid of this," Poof pleaded with Anna. "This is so not good! This could have dire and serious consequences!"
"What good is having fairies if I don't make some big wishes?" Anna snapped. "You're such a worrywart! Cosmo wasn't lying when he said you were a stick-in-the-mud! Come on, all I did was wish for my backyard to turn into cheese. What's the worst that could happen?"
That was the only cue that the "worst that could happen" needed to show up.
A huge sea monster, reminiscent of the plesiosaurs of prehistoric times, emerged from the muenster, roaring ferociously and baring its dagger-like teeth.
Anna and Poof froze.
"That!" shrieked Poof, pointing at the monster and answering her question.
"AAAHHH!" shrieked Anna. "I wish that thing was gone!"
Poof desperately waved his wand, and—
—for the first, but most certainly not the last, time, Anna heard the fizzing out noise of a wand not working.
"WHY CAN'T YOU GET RID OF IT?!" Anna yelled.
"I'm not your fairy godfather!" Poof cried. "I'm not authorized to grant your wishes! I can only help Dad grant them, and he's underwater—under cheese right now!"
"WELL GET RID OF IT ANYWAY!" shrieked Anna. "Use your magic for your own self preservation and GET RID OF IT!"
"Awesome loophole!" cried Poof, waving his wand again, and—
—fzzt.
"NOW what?!" cried Anna, the sea monster quickly approaching her.
"I can't interfere with your wishes!" Poof cried. "No fairy can, unless you explicitly unwish it by your assigned fairy godparent!"
"BUT I DIDN'T WISH FOR THIS!" shrieked Anna, the cheese sea monster snatching her up in its jaws.
"What did you wish for? What were the exact words you used?!"
"I—AAUUGH!—I wished for the backyard to become a sea of cheese, that's all!"
"A SEA of cheese?!" Poof was now braving the monster's teeth and trying to pry Anna loose, to little avail. In fact, it was only making the monster more fervently eye its second target. "Don't you know what comes with seas? Sea creatures! You wish for a sea, you get everything that comes with it, poof poof poof! You did wish for this!"
Anna was precariously balancing herself in a crevice between the sea monster's teeth, only still unswallowed thanks to Poof's desperate holding open of its jaw. "What can I do?" she yelped helplessly.
"The—ergh!—the only thing you can do is find Dad and unwish this!" cried Poof, straining under the monster's forcefully tightening bite.
"But he's underwater—I mean, under cheese!" shrieked Anna. "Cosmo! COSMO! HELP!"
"Dad, wherever you are, GET UP HERE AND HELP US, PLEASE!" cried Poof.
Thankfully, the cheese sea monster wasn't the only being in the pool that operated on cue.
Cosmo poked his head out of the cheese, his sunglasses so covered with the stuff that he couldn't see anything. "Why is it that every time I'm enjoying a swim through Stichelton, someone's yelling my name in a panic?" He lifted his glasses—and promptly gasped in a panic almost greater than his son's and goddaughter's. "POOF! ANNA!"
"I WISH THE BACKYARD WAS BACK TO NORMAL!" Anna shrieked, not wasting any time.
POOF!
In an instant, all the cheese was gone, even what had stuck to Cosmo's shades. The sea monster was gone too, leaving Anna and Poof suspended in mid-air for a split second before crashing to the ground, Poof not even having the time to keep himself afloat.
"All the cheese is gone! You two are no fun!" Cosmo pouted, crossing his arms.
"Of course not," growled Anna, "we were nearly eaten by a monster—"
"—And couldn't do anything about it—" added Poof in irritation.
"—And we just fell about thirty feet—"
"—And this whole thing could have been avoided—"
"—And I'm gonna be emotionally scarred for the rest of my life from the sheer mention of stilton!"
Cosmo drew in his breath sharply, the severity of the situation re-hitting him. "Are—are you okay?" he asked, his eyes flittering from Poof to Anna, back and forth, all his annoyance at the removal of his beloved cheese completely gone.
"Relatively speaking," muttered Poof, rubbing his forehead.
"Yeah, we're alive, which I guess counts for something," said Anna.
"Well—" Cosmo flared up defensively. "Well, you wished for it!" he cried, pointing a finger at Anna.
"Oh, come on!" cried Poof. "She might have wished for it, but I'm sure you put the idea in her head!"
"What are you talking about?"
"A sea of cheese? For poof's sake, Dad, I know you! This has you written all over it!"
"It does not!" cried Cosmo, trying his best to discreetly cover the word "YOU" etched in the lawn.
"HEY!" yelled Anna, breaking up the fight.
Both Cosmo and Poof turned and looked at her inquisitively.
"It's alright, really." A small smile crept up on her face. "I mean, we're all alive and okay, no harm done, right? And besides, once I get over the fact that I was almost eaten alive by a cheese sea monster, it was fun! I got to swim through cheese, how many other people can say that? It was an adventure. It was… it was fun." She now grinned more fully. "And no harm done. No one saw us, and we're all alive."
"No harm done, no harm done, what the poof do you think that matters?" Poof cried in frustration. "We got lucky! This could have been a catastrophe! Please, please think before you wish! You see what can happen now with just one little poofin' insignificant wish! Please just think, poof poof!"
"In Anna's defense, thinking can be very taxing on the brain," Cosmo butted in.
"Has anyone ever told you how weird it is that you use your own name as a swear word?" Anna asked Poof sardonically.
Poof sighed in irritation. "Just. Just don't do it again is all I'm asking, okay?"
"Duh," said Anna. "I don't want to go through that again. I'm just saying that I survived, I got to eat some cheese before breakfast, and…" She grinned at Cosmo. "I know what Cosmo can do!"
"Not much?" Cosmo offered.
"Are you kidding?" cried Anna. "That was awesome! Not only all that cheese you made, but how fast you got it all away, too!"
Cosmo beamed with confidence. "Well, come on," he laughed, "if something's threatening my kid or my godkid I'm gonna get rid of it pretty darn fast! And if something's threatening them both at the same time, I'm gonna react twice as fast!"
Anna smiled too, a sudden realization both startling her and making a strange small glow take hold inside of her. Cosmo, yes, wasn't all that smart. But he had also been genuinely panicked for not only Poof's safety, but her own as well. She could hardly even grasp the idea of a caring father so fiercely protective of his own child, but that plus of a child he had known for less than a full day?
It was inconceivable, but, as Cosmo smiled in both confidence and obvious relief that he had saved Poof and Anna from the cheese sea monster, Anna realized that it was also true. Cosmo wasn't faking it. He really did care. He cared about Poof, and he cared about Anna.
Poof was also smiling at the confidence in Cosmo's eyes, his irritation at both him and Anna slipping away a little bit. Not entirely, of course—it was still an incredibly stupid and dangerous thing to do and Anna was brushing it off with a nonchalance that made Poof fearful that this kind of thing was probably going to happen again—but at the same time, her somewhat inappropriate response to the danger had raised Cosmo's confidence level significantly, and that was always a good thing. Cosmo was smiling, truly, widely, self-assured, and Poof couldn't help but smile too, despite the catastrophe they had only just barely averted.
Anna was smiling at Poof, too.
Poof blinked in confusion. "Why are you smiling at me?"
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Aren't you mad at me?"
"Should I be?"
"You should be mad at someone."
"I should?"
"You know… for ruining your fun, being a killjoy, not being able to help you when you were almost eaten… saying his own name as a swear word, poof poof…" Poof winked at Anna mischievously.
Anna laughed and crossed her arms playfully. "Well, alright, I am still a little mad at you. But if I'm gonna be really mad at anyone for what happened, it should be me! I wished for it!"
"But I made it!" Cosmo cut in proudly.
"Alright then," smirked Anna, "then I'm mad at all three of us, so we're even, so we can put this behind us and enjoy the rest of the day without any major peril at our heels!"
"That's music to my ears!" said Poof.
"You wish, we grant!" said Cosmo.
"Just think before you wish," Poof added quickly.
Anna smiled. "Don't worry. I don't need a wish to make my day with you fun. Come on! You showed me what you can make, Cosmo, now let me show you what I can make!"
…
There was a public playground close to Anna's house that she liked to visit on nice weekend days, and while the swingsets and slides were fun and all, Anna's favorite place to be at the playground was at the rows of picnic benches, her jars of Play-Doh spread out in front of her.
"I do this at home, too," said Anna to the green and purple squirrels watching her with interest as she sculpted Play-Doh footguards to stand watch at the door of her Play-Doh mansion, "but when the weather's nice and not too hot I like to make Play-Doh sculptures outside more. It's not as impressive as a sea of cheese," she added with a laugh, "and if I let the Play-Doh dry it'll just crack and my sculptures get ruined and then I just have to buy more Play-Doh, so my sculptures never last."
"They can now," Poof reminded her. "Dad and I can just poof you up some more Play-Doh when you need it!"
Anna shook her head. "Nah, remember what I said? When Play-Doh dries it just gets brittle and the sculptures don't last. I just wish I had some real molding clay."
"Done!" grinned Cosmo, waving his wand, and POOF!…
"UGH!" Anna jumped back with disgust, holding her nose and staring dumbfounded at the jar of clay before her, trying not to breathe in the offending smell too heavily, or examine just what was growing both in and out of the jar. "What is that?"
"Molding clay, of course!" replied Cosmo indignantly. "And I made it as moldy as possible!"
"For poof's sake, Dad," moaned Poof in a pinched voice, for he was also holding his nose and turning his head away in revulsion, "that's not what she meant!"
"I meant molding!" agreed Anna. "Molding as in sculpting! Not molding as in fungus-covered!"
"Well, you could have been a little more specific!" Cosmo snapped.
"What would make you think I would want this?"
"Ha! You actually think I can think?"
"Even you should know that nobody wants this!" Poof cried. "Ugh! This is so totally rank!"
"The talking purple squirrel is right," said a man passing by the bench, holding his nose and giving Anna, her squirrels, and her moldy clay a disdainful look before walking away.
Anna blinked, although without letting go of her nose. "Wow, are people just getting stupider?"
"I'm contagious!" grinned Cosmo.
"Wish this away, please," moaned Poof. "If I have to smell this any longer I think I'm gonna be sick…"
"I wish the moldy clay was gone," mumbled Anna. "Obviously."
Cosmo pouted. "So much for me creating awesome things…"
"Get rid of it, Cosmo!"
"Alright, alright!"
A POOF cloud that announced "GONE!" and the sudden ease of breathing again showed that Cosmo had granted Anna's wish.
"I don't know what you two were complaining about," he muttered grumpily. "I mean, it didn't smell that bad. I was breathing it all in and didn't feel any…" Cosmo's eyes suddenly grew woozy, his head wobbled unsteadily, and with a helpless groan he collapsed in a dead faint.
"Oh no! DAD!" cried Poof.
Anna rolled her eyes. "You guys just like to make simple things completely chaotic, don't you?"
Poof anxiously scratched behind his head, still examining his unconscious father with worry. "We're kinda experts at that, yeah," he admitted.
…
"I need some cilantro, plus some tapioca pudding—heated, not cold. It'll take me awhile to make it. But if I put the cilantro on his forehead while waving the heated pudding in front of his nose, he should wake up." Poof shrugged awkwardly in response to Anna's confused, questioning gaze. "Mama used to do this all the time, and it always worked."
He had poofed the three of them back to Anna's room, and himself and his father back to their fairy forms. In one hand he was holding the cilantro he had conjured, with his wand grasped in his other hand, keeping an eye on the pudding simmering on the stovetop he had also poofed up.
"You sure he'll be okay?" Anna asked with concern.
Poof nodded. "Yeah. We fairies bounce back pretty quickly. A little pudding and he'll be good to go. I just have to get it hot enough. For some reason, cold pudding doesn't work."
"It's certainly been an interesting day, and it's not even noon yet," Anna mused.
Poof barked out a harsh laugh. "But now you see why you have to be careful, right? And I'd say that if any fairy was your fairy godparent, not just Dad. Magic's really powerful, but the more powerful something is, the more chaos and disaster you can create with it."
"But the more wonderful and amazing things, too, right?" Anna asked.
Poof smiled at Anna as if he was surprised she had even asked. "Of course. That's the whole point."
"So you're not here to make my life miserable?" shot back Anna with a playful grin.
"Oh no, I am," Poof replied smugly. "But Dad's here to make your life wonderful."
"You two are just like double negatives, cancelling each other out!"
"Hey now, I'm fun too! I'm Cosmo Uhsmith's son, you can't ignore genetics that strong! It's just that someone has to be the responsible one here!" Poof was still grinning, though.
Anna laughed. "You're too much of a geek to be one hundred percent responsible. There's hope for you yet." She stood up on her rolling chair and began placing her containers of Play-Doh on the shelf above her desk computer, the cases all carefully color-coded.
"Why don't you get real molding clay? And I mean sculpting molding," Poof added with a wink.
Anna laughed again, but shorter this time. "Believe me, I've asked for it for Christmas and my birthday for years now. Mom won't get it for me, though. The stuff I want, the real artist-grade stuff, is pretty expensive, and…" She sighed as she climbed back down and looked at her collection, all sealed tight in their containers. "And she thinks that since I'm just a kid, Play-Doh should be good enough for me. So I make new sculptures every day, and then I mush them back to gobs and put them away and do it all over again the next day. It works fine that way, I guess, but someday… someday I just want to make something that'll last."
Poof was quiet as he stirred the pudding, musing over Anna's words. "You know," he finally said, "you could try wishing for your clay again. Be real specific about it, and Dad should get it next time."
Anna looked at Cosmo, still passed out on the ground, and shook her head with a small smile. "You know, I think I'll wait. I think I've given him a hard enough day as it is."
"That's for sure," sighed Poof. He let a small smile flicker across his face again. "It's been a good day, though, after you ignore the fact that you and I nearly got eaten by a cheesiosaurus and Dad got knocked unconscious by a hideous stench."
Anna rolled her eyes sarcastically. "Yeah, once we ignore those minor details…"
"Yeah, minor," smirked Poof.
"Everyday occurrences."
"Nothing out of the ordinary there."
"God, could you two be any more boring?"
Their smiles were now much fuller and more genuine.
Poof took a small sample of the pudding. "I think it's hot enough now," he said. "Put the cilantro on Dad's forehead, and I'll hold the pudding over his nose."
Anna grabbed the garnish and gingerly placed it over Cosmo's forehead. Cosmo still looked completely unresponsive. "You sure this is gonna work?" she asked again.
"About ninety-five percent sure, yes." Poof hovered over with the saucepan of fresh, hot pudding and held it over Cosmo's nose.
And, with a sudden jolt, Cosmo sat up, rubbing his eyes in confusion. "Whoa, where am I?"
"In my room," said Anna. "And I'm your goddaughter, remember?"
Cosmo laughed. "Well, of course I remember you, Anna-Banana! Hey, do I smell tapioca pudding?"
Poof smiled and pointed to the saucepan. "Right here, Dad."
Cosmo raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Who are you?"
Poof blinked.
"Just kidding!" grinned Cosmo. "Of course I know my Poofy! And you made lunch! Good thinking, I'm starved!"
"Me too," admitted Anna, licking her lips.
Poof looked at the pudding, then back at Cosmo and Anna, smiling again. "Me three."
Chapter 4: All Shook Up
Chapter Text
Anna had gone to school alone the next day. Both Cosmo and Poof wanted to accompany her—"Oh, we go to school with our godkids all the time, and disguise ourselves as pencils or notebooks or flying zucchinis!" "No, Dad, you mean backpacks!" "Oh yeah, I always get those mixed up."—but Poof had curbed his enthusiasm enough to suggest that they might want to wait a little bit until Anna got more used to her fairies, and didn't do anything that might arouse suspicion.
Poof had reason to worry, Anna had to admit as she rode the school shuttle back home when her classes were done. Even without her fairies, Anna had acted stranger than usual that day, and the few people who paid enough attention to her to even be able to note a change in temperament noted it.
"How was your weekend?" Anna's best friend, Gretchen, had asked.
"Cheesy and moldy and Elvis-y," Anna had instantly replied.
"What?"
"Uh, I mean… boring. Boring and uneventful as always, why would it have been anything else? Especially not cheesy or moldy or Elvis-y." Anna laughed nervously.
And Anna had laughed out loud again that day, thinking of Cosmo's elated and spontaneous round of "Found a Peanut" that he had led Anna in singing. They had sung it for two and a half hours before Anna finally had to call it quits, but Cosmo went through all fourteen verses two more times before Poof, at the very end of his frayed and tattered rope, finally ended it by smacking Cosmo over the head with his Elvis pillow. And then, what an epic pillow fight the three of them had had! Anna's laughter as she recalled the incident the next day in the most inappropriate setting, a school assembly going over etiquette rules, had earned her a strict reprimand from her surly, no-nonsense, no-sense-of-humor teacher, Ms. Evans. Anna had been lucky to escape without a detention.
So, yes, Poof had been right, again, Anna conceded as she stepped off the shuttle and onto her front lawn. Having her fairies around to distract her at school probably would have gotten her into more trouble, and would have maybe even made people suspect their presence. But no, here at home her secret was safe, and she wasn't going to do anything to reveal their existence to anyone—
She opened the door to find BW-164, her robot babysitter programmed to turn on the moment Anna got out of school, spluttering around the living room and chasing around Cosmo and Poof, completely undisguised—and both fairies were laughing without a care in the world.
"AAAAAUUUUGH!" shrieked Anna.
"AAAAAUUUUGH!" yelled Cosmo, throwing his wand back with such surprise and force that it bounced off BW-164's metal head and ricocheted to hit Poof's very non-metal head. "I didn't know it was 'scream-as-a-greeting' day!" Cosmo added with a cheerful grin, loudly enough to be heard over Poof's sharp yelp of surprise and pain. "Your turn, Poofy!"
"What's going on?" shrieked Anna. "I mean—I mean, BW-164, where did these fairy like creatures who I have never seen before in my life and have no connection with whatsoever come from?"
Poof was still rubbing his head, but he smiled reassuringly at Anna. "Relax, Anna, we're not blowing your secret."
"Your secret that you have a fairy godparent and a fairy god…brother that you're not supposed to tell anyone about!" Cosmo added.
"COSMO!" shrieked Anna. "What do you call THIS then?!"
"Anna. Relax." Poof continued to grin at her. "There's an awesome little loophole in that very first rule. No one can know you have a fairy godparent… no person. To be a person, a person has to be living. And robots aren't living." He kicked BW-164 in the head, the robot growling dangerously and lunging for Poof. Poof just blinked away to a new location.
"It's my favorite loophole!" said Cosmo. "It's so much more fun to torment people when they actually know you're doing it!"
"Torment?" Anna repeated.
"You know. Get her… him… it… whatever back for making your life miserable!" laughed Cosmo. "It's the best part of my job, and when the babysitter's a robot, it's even better!"
"And you think this is a good idea?" Anna asked Poof incredulously.
"Duh!" laughed Poof. "Like Dad said, this is what makes the job fun! For us and for you!"
"Now make a wish!" cried Cosmo excitedly.
Anna glanced at BW-164.
"Childling Anna," the robot said to her in its monotone voice that still somehow contained a touch of irritation, "these two creatures that claim to know you are endangering your, and more importantly my, well-being, and as such I will have to alert the authorities—"
"No!" shrieked Anna in despair. "You can't!"
"Make a wish!" Cosmo and Poof both shouted.
"I, uh—I wish BW-164 was turned off!" Anna yelped.
POOF!
Bzzt. The robot slumped over.
"Finally!" sighed Cosmo. "Come on, even I would have done something faster than that!"
"And that's what you can do," said Poof. He raised an eyebrow. "I mean, that was a really boring wish, and completely unsatisfactory, but it's the right idea."
"Come on, why would I want to torment a robot?" Anna said. "I mean, it's overly controlling and stifling, but it's only doing what it's programmed to do. Isn't making it suffer for doing its job a little… low?"
"No," said Cosmo with a shrug.
Poof, however, rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. "Maybe… it might be… a little," he admitted.
"I'm not vindictive and vengeance-seeking. Yet," Anna quickly added. "Besides, all I want is for it to be shut off so it won't bother me."
"And that you did!" grinned Poof. "And now we can play!"
"Play? Play what?" asked Anna.
"NINJAS FROM SPACE!" proclaimed Cosmo, waving his wand and turning the entire room into something that looked like a space station from a B-grade movie.
"What the—" Anna looked around the room and blinked a few times, her eyes still adjusting to the lack of sunlight.
"It was dawn," she suddenly heard Poof narrate dramatically. "I was in my towel when—THE NINJAS ATTACKED!"
Anna jumped back in surprise as Poof jumped down from somewhere on the ceiling, garbed entirely in a black ninja robe, his wand transformed into a nunchuck, both ends topped with a familiar gold star. "En guarde, Anna-Banana ninja from the planet Veftron!"
"Ninja? I'm not a ninja!" Anna protested.
"You're not?" Poof shot back playfully. "Well, you're sure dressed like one, poof poof!"
Anna looked down at her body, finding that she was dressed identically to Poof, a nunchuck of her own grasped in her hand… although hers looked like two pieces of banana held together by a chain.
"You know…" Anna looked back up at her ninja assailant Poof and smiled deviously. "I don't really like bananas."
"And what are you going to do to that terrible, terrible ninja-clad fairy standing before you who gave you the banana nunchuck in the first place, huh Anna-Banana?" Poof taunted.
"I'm going to…" Anna threw back her head and laughed. "I'm going to beat the stuffing out of him!"
BAM!
Anna and Poof tackled each other, each dropping their nunchucks as they wrestled with each other on the floor. Anna was about the same size as Poof and was finding that she could be a fierce fighter when the game of the day depended on it—this was the first time she had really ever played like this with anyone before—but Poof, being an adult or at least very close to adulthood, was more solidly built than Anna and had a distinct advantage.
Plus, Poof thought to himself with a grin as he pinned Anna to the ground, with all his experience volunteering in the Fairy World daycare centers, he certainly knew how to roughhouse. And if he could pin down a fairy child that had magic at his or her disposal, pinning down a human child was a piece of cake.
She was a feisty one, though. Poof had to struggle to keep her hands from smacking him as she pounded the floor in mock frustration.
"I'll get you! I'll get you!" cried Anna. "Wait a minute! Since when do ninjas wrestle? Where are our nunchucks?"
Poof eyed the nunchucks, still on the ground where they had dropped them, a few feet away.
Anna looked up at him and grinned. "You really gonna let go of me?"
Poof gave her a growl of challenge. "I can get them and get back to you again faster than you can blink."
"Without your wand? Ha. I wanna see you try."
"Oh, you will, banana warrior, you will. And you'll regret that you ever even thought of challenging me."
"It seems to me, pooftastic ninja from space, that you're afraid to let me go, since all you've done is talk to me and you haven't even tried to go for them yet."
"Oh, Anna, you are going down."
"Bring it, Poof. Bring it."
They eyed each other tensely for two more seconds, and then—
Poof zipped off of Anna and to the nunchucks, scooping both his and Anna's up in his arms, but Anna was on her feet in an instant, tackling Poof with a running leap and a battle yell. With one hand pinning him down, she flung up her other for her nunchuck, but Poof was faster than her, zipping it to his mouth before she could even touch her weapon and—
"Are you eating my nunchuck?" Anna shrieked in disbelief.
Poof quickly shoved the rest of Anna's banana nunchuck into his mouth, and smirked mischievously at her as he wiped mushed banana from his face. "It may interest you to know," he said, his voice muffled as he still had partially chewed banana in his mouth, "that I do like bananas."
"Well then, I'm gonna eat yours!" Anna snatched up Poof's wand-turned-nunchuck before Poof had a chance to defend it and eagerly clamped her mouth down on it—and dropped it, rubbing her jaw in pain. "Ouch!"
"It's a little tough to bite through solid polished oak, huh?" grinned Poof.
"And it's even tougher to bite through the shiny black porcelain of my mask!"
Both Anna and Poof jerked their heads to the side, gaping in staged horror at the creature hovering before them, wearing a black metal plated suit and a mask that brought to mind Darth Vader… and speaking in a voice strangely similar to Cosmo's.
"What do you want, you foul evil fiend of… evil?" Poof cried out dramatically.
"I want your allegiance!" responded Cosmo with his best evil laugh. "I want your devotion! And I want your checkbook, I'm a little late on my payments and I just used up my last check! Oh, and why didn't I get a banana?"
"What are you, some sort of generic evil villain who's come to destroy us?" Anna asked. "Can't you see we're a little busy destroying each other?"
"I don't just want to destroy you!" laughed Cosmo. "I want to destroy the UNIVERSE! Wanna help me?"
"I'd never join you and your disgusting scheme!" Poof spat out.
"But you must!" said Cosmo. "I am your father!"
Poof's eyes bulged in horror. "That's not true," he said. "That's impossible!"
"Is so true!" Cosmo responded bluntly. "And I've got the stretch marks to prove it!"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Poof moaned in despair, throwing his head back and clenching his fists.
"Join me, and we can rule the galaxy together as father and son… and make every day Taco Tuesday!"
"Aha!" cried Poof, pointing a finger at Cosmo. "How could we make every day Taco Tuesday when Tuesday only comes once a week?"
Cosmo finally lifted his mask so he could better show his playful smirk. "If we ruled the universe, we'd make every day Tuesday! We'd have that kind of power!"
"That—that is the most foul, despicable plan I've ever heard!" Poof spat out. "Changing the very fabric of time like that to make every day Tuesday! Anna!" He pulled her close in confidence. "How do you feel about forming a temporary alliance against our common enemy?"
"I need another nunchuck," said Anna in a no-nonsense tone of voice. "You ate my first one."
"You say 'nunchuck', I say 'poof'!"
BATTLE WEAPONRY POOF POOF!
Anna looked down at the nunchuck that had appeared in her hand… one that was distinctly banana-ish, just like the last one. "For crying out loud, Poof, what kind of damage do you expect me to do with this?"
"Bananas? I love bananas!" Cosmo lunged for Anna's weapon.
But both she and Poof were too fast for him. They pinned him down, one on each arm, and this time they both managed to keep a hold of their nunchaks at the same time.
"Hey, not fair!" Cosmo cried, struggling underneath them. "It's two against one, and I don't have any nunchucks OR bananas at all!"
"Oh, how tiring it is, watching a grown man… a grown fairy… beg," sighed Anna, smirking and lazily laying against Cosmo's arm.
"Come on, Dad, even with bananas or nunchucks, you'd still be no match for us," said Poof, also having to exert little effort to keep his father pinned down. "You're a weakling, and we're young. So ha."
"I am not a weakling—wait, yes I am—but you're not young—wait, yes you are—"
"Face it, evil-emperor Cosmo," said Anna, "we beat you."
"We won," smirked Poof.
Cosmo dramatically jutted his chin in the air—he probably would have thrown his head back if he were upright and the floor wasn't in his way—and kicked his feet on the ground. "POOF PLUTO UHSMITH AND ANNA—wait, what's your middle name?"
"Marie!" grinned Anna.
"—AND ANNA MARIE HOFFMAN, YOU TWO WHIPPERSNAPPERS GET OFF ME RIGHT NOW OR I'LL…" Cosmo paused thoughtfully. "Whippersnappers? What the heck is a whippersnapper?" He redirected his intense yet playful grin back at his son and goddaughter. "Well, whatever it is, that's what you are!"
"And I'll show you what a whippersnapper I can be, and I'll feed you this stupid banana nunchuck I have too!"
"Awesome! I love bananas!"
Suddenly, though, Poof abruptly let go of Cosmo's shoulder and snapped back to attention, his playfulness gone. "Responsibility… senses… tingling…"
"Aw, and you were showing such promise, too!" groused Anna.
"Responsibility senses? What are those?" Cosmo asked.
"They're helpful in keeping us out of trouble!" Poof cried. "And as fun as this has been, and we should definitely do it again sometime soon, but Anna, I think your mother's coming home!"
Anna's eyes widened and her pupils shrunk. "Uh-oh. I wish the house was back to normal!"
Both Cosmo and Poof quickly waved their wands, and in a flash all traces of the ninja space station were gone, and the shut-off BW-164 was still in the corner of the room—
"Oh no!" cried Anna. "What's Mom gonna think when she sees the robot's been shut off? I'm not allowed to fiddle with its controls! I wish the robot was turned back on!"
"Good thinking!" grinned Cosmo, waving his wand.
"Not good thinking!" moaned Poof, facepalming.
With a jerk, the robot instantly came back to life, and eyed Anna, Cosmo, and Poof as intently as a pair of red lasers serving as artificial eyes can. "As I was saying, childling Anna, I will have to alert the authorities—"
"Not good thinking!" Cosmo suddenly cried out in agreement with Poof.
The sound of a hovercar pulling up to the garage showed that Poof's responsibility senses were right on track.
Anna gripped her head in a panic. "Oh no! What can I do? If I turn it off Mom'll just turn it back on and it'll blab my secret! And if I leave it on it'll blab my secret anyway! I'm caught in a trap!"
"I can't walk out!" Poof suddenly burst into song. "Because I love you too much, baby!"
Anna and Cosmo both glared at him.
Poof blushed apologetically. "Uh, sorry about that." He tensed up a bit and pointed an accusing finger at Anna. "It's your fault, though! Stop quoting Elvis songs around me!"
Footsteps approached the door, and Anna quickly pushed aside her slight irritation at Poof and desperately tried to come up with a plan in the precious few seconds she had left before her mother opened the door—
"I wish the robot spoke gibberish!"
Three things happened nearly simultaneously.
First, a POOF cloud that proclaimed, confusingly, "ENDOFSIHDFSODHFS" covered up the entire room.
Second, just as the cloud cleared, Anna's mother opened the door.
And third, a green pillow and a purple pillow with large, worried eyes suddenly appeared on the couch.
"Hey, Anna," said Mrs. Hoffman breathlessly and distractedly, hardly even looking at her daughter. "I got off work a little early—how was school?"
"Fine," Anna said quickly.
"Did she behave, BW-164?"
The robot urgently pointed to the two pillows. "Reanafafdsm erwoindf fodnaidfo quafnd!" it cried.
"What?"
"Wafceifs zonfaoifs mofienrw!"
"Oh great," sighed Mrs. Hoffman. "The robot's on the fritz again." She finally took notice of what the robot had been pointing at. "Where did those pillows come from?"
"Uh… my room?"
"Don't remember those ones…" Mrs. Hoffman shrugged it off. "Oh well. Take them upstairs with you, will you? I've got a lot of housework to get done and I don't want your creepy pillows staring at me."
"Not a problem." Anna was thankful for the excuse to haul tail out of there, anyway. She snatched up Cosmo and Poof and ran up to her room, taking the stairs two at a time. Once in her room, she slammed the door behind her and flopped back against it with a shaky sigh of relief.
The pillows quickly reverted back to their fairy forms, Poof looking just as strung-out and relieved as Anna.
"Good wishing!" he said to her with a shaky smile. "Very good wishing! You keep that up and no one will ever find out you have fairies, poof poof!"
"You just keep up those responsibility senses of yours so that my close calls don't become direct hits," Anna said, trying to get her breathing under control.
"Aha!" Cosmo suddenly cried out. "I've got it!"
Both Poof and Anna stared at him questioningly.
"Your mom was my eighth grade liquid transformations teacher!"
Anna sighed. Poof facepalmed.
"No."
…
Anna lay in bed that night, grasping her stuffed frog, Jeremiah, close to her chest, making a concentrated effort to breathe slowly.
She kept thinking about the near exposure of her fairies earlier that day, and each time her mind ran over those few tense moments before she made her gibberish wish, she found her throat constricting anxiously again. Pulling Jeremiah even closer to her, she snorted, closing her eyes and trying to be reasonable. It was okay. Her mom hadn't found out. It had happened hours ago and everything was still fine.
Why was this still bothering her so much?
No, bothering wasn't the right word. It was…
Anna gulped. Scaring her. The close call of that afternoon scared her. It was still scaring her.
Scared? What did she have to be scared of? If Cosmo and Poof were taken away, that meant there would be no more chances of her getting eaten by a sea monster, or getting knocked out by a moldy stench, or even get stuck having to defend herself with a banana nunchuck. It would mean no more of Cosmo's moronic non sequiturs and Poof's bursting into Elvis songs at inappropriate times. It would mean…
…it would mean a return to the boring, lonely, miserable existence she had had without them.
Anna turned her head and looked at the fishbowl. It was nighttime, and Cosmo and Poof were likely asleep already, having had already said goodnight to Anna. Cosmo even tucked her in, and Anna couldn't remember the last time someone—anyone—had done that.
She couldn't remember the last time…
"No one's… ever played with me like that before," she murmured softly. "Because no one's ever… cared enough to spend that much time with me."
And that was why she was scared, she realized. She was scared of losing that. She was scared of losing them. Even if losing them also meant regaining a sense of safety and stability.
She didn't have to give up safety and stability in order to keep Cosmo and Poof, she realized. All she had to do was listen to Poof's warnings, since he was turning out to be right more often than not. Well… listen to them most of the time. Where was the fun in doing things cautiously all the time? She wasn't about to throw caution—and common sense—to the wind as Cosmo seemingly had eons ago, but…
Anna felt herself smile in a sudden, happy thought.
Yes, Cosmo was an idiot, and Poof was a worrywart. But that didn't stop Cosmo from being caring, and that didn't stop Poof from being fun.
And she liked them that way, she realized.
…
Poof was also laying awake in his bed that night, also clutching a stuffed animal (although his was Dog the monkey, not Jeremiah the frog), also confused at his feelings from that day.
He had been responsible, of course. He had to be. With his mama gone now that job fell to him. He hadn't complained. It came naturally, in fact. He didn't even have to think to worry and warn and nag, it just all happened on its own. And that was good; someone had to do it.
But for those few tense minutes as a pillow, as Anna was so brilliantly salvaging her secret, Poof had only felt another sense of dread mount in his stomach… or at least, where his stomach would have been if he hadn't been a pillow at the time.
Worry? What was there to worry about? Anna was erasing all suspicion so well that there was no question that he and Cosmo wouldn't be revealed. No, the worry was of something else. It was of how quickly Anna's laughter during their game had changed to panic.
Panic brought on by that stick-in-the-mud, Poof.
It was necessary, Poof reminded himself. For poof's sake, if his responsibility senses hadn't tingled, her mother would have walked right in on the three of them in their space ninja game and the jig would have been up, just like that. It was good that he had stopped them.
But he had still stopped them. He had still stopped their fun. Anna probably thought he was nothing but a killjoy now.
Poof flipped over to his other side. Well, so? It wasn't important that Anna liked Poof. He wasn't going to be staying for the long-term, after all. It was important that she liked Cosmo, and she did, very much it seemed. And if Poof and his dad were—what was it Anna had said?—double negatives, "cancelling each other out", it stood to reason that she'd gravitate more to one of them and feel animosity towards the other. And Cosmo was her godfather. She was supposed to like him. If someone had to be the bad guy and kill the fun, then Poof had to be that guy. There was no question.
But still.
Poof sighed as he thought about how much fun he and Anna had had that day. He was used to playing with kids, true, but the fairy children he played with at the daycare were much younger than Anna. He liked the toddlers, the kindergarten human-equivalents, the littler ones. Anna was older, more mature, an age group that Poof wasn't all that familiar or comfortable with. But, and despite Anna's suspicious nature that she had completely unloaded onto Poof, despite their butting of heads… Poof liked Anna. And, he realized, he wanted Anna to like him, too.
No. That was out of the question. Anna had to like Cosmo, not Poof.
Can't she like both of us? Poof inwardly questioned.
Was that even possible? Liking both sides of the double negatives?
Dad and I might be different… but we're not THAT different.
Poof rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling.
The real question was, was it possible to be the responsible one yet still have a child like you?
Oh, Mama, how did you do it? he silently wondered.
…
"I'm lonely."
Cosmo's words fell flat in the darkened room. He snorted out a short, harsh laugh, pressing his palms more firmly against the mirror. "Duh. I'm so lonely I'm talking to myself. Except I like to think you can hear me, somewhere. I hope you can. But I hope you can't, because I don't want you to know how much of a fool I'm making of myself." He laughed harshly again. "Who am I kidding, you knew that from day one."
He stroked the side of the mirror.
"I'm lonely, Wanda," he whispered. "It's worse now, at night. In the daytime it's not so bad. I have Poofy, and now Anna, and there's sometimes where I almost forget…"
He swallowed heavily.
"I don't want to forget, though," he choked out. "Even though every time I remember, it kills a part of me."
He exhaled slowly, shakily, and pressed his forehead against the mirror as well, tears running down his cheeks.
"This is when I miss you the most," he whispered. "This is when I'm the most lonely. I need to know, Wanda… am I doing okay? You used to tell me. At night, you'd tell me if I did okay, or if I screwed it up. Usually I screwed it up. I never liked it when you told me that… but now I'd give anything to have you tell me again, because that would mean…"
He sniffled, his crying growing stronger, making it harder for him to even whisper.
"It would mean that you're here again," he finally choked out.
He breathed in. Breathed out. The tears didn't stop.
"I'll tell you how I did. I screwed up. I know I did, because I always did. I always do. I… you're not here, that's all the proof I need to know I screwed up. It's my fault you're dead."
He opened his eyes and glared bitterly at his reflection.
"I didn't deserve someone like you, so maybe it serves me right. But you didn't deserve to die. If one of us had to die, it should have been me."
He closed his eyes again.
"It should have been me," he repeated in a whisper.
He was used to this pain. For over a year now it had been gnawing at him, eating him up from the inside, tearing apart everything inside of him, only to seemingly patch it up only to tear it apart again and again and again. Yes, he was used to it. It had been all he had felt for all this time.
He didn't know why it hadn't destroyed him yet.
Maybe…
Cosmo opened his eyes again.
Maybe it hadn't destroyed him yet because he wasn't letting it.
He could have died. Oh, could he have died. Big Daddy had torn the stuffing out of him when he had learned of Wanda's death. And Cosmo had done nothing to retaliate, nothing to protect himself. And when he woke up in a hospital bed, groggy, confused, aching in every way imaginable—physically, mentally, emotionally—he wondered why anyone was doing anything to keep him alive.
"You're probably wondering what I'm doing here."
Big Daddy sat on the edge of Cosmo's hospital bed, the question coming out of his mouth gruffly.
Cosmo stared blankly at Big Daddy, not answering his question, for one reason because he still had a ventilation tube in his mouth which made talking difficult, and for the other reason that the answer was obvious. Of course he was wondering. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered enough to even get Cosmo to speak. He had only just regained consciousness, and the nurses had encouraged him to try to speak, but he didn't even make the effort. It wasn't worth it. Nothing was worth it. There was nothing to say. He didn't deserve the power of speech at all. He didn't deserve to live.
"You bastard," Big Daddy spat out at him.
Cosmo continued to only stare blankly. Quit telling me things I already know.
"You deserve far worse than this. I was too easy on you. I should have pounded every organ in your pathetic, worthless body out of you and smeared them on the cement. And right now, I should be making up for my failure to rub you out like you deserved the first time and actually finish the job."
Cosmo's blank stare continued.
"But I'm not." Big Daddy glared at him dangerously. Normally Cosmo would have shrunk like a lily at the sight, but nothing was fazing him. Big Daddy continued to glare, as if waiting for Cosmo to actually respond.
Cosmo didn't respond. He couldn't respond.
Because Big Daddy was absolutely right.
But he wasn't doing anything.
"And do you know why?" he finally asked.
Blank stare.
"Because of our one and only shared concern. We used to have two, but you in your utter imbecility killed one. And I would avenge her, if not for our surviving connection. My grandson. Your son. As pathetic as it is, he needs you."
Cosmo's stare was still blank, but he managed to blink twice in rapid succession, showing the first flicker of reaction.
"Do you know that boy has been here every day, in this room, with you, at your side, for hours on end? You've been here for four days now and Poof's been in the hospital more often than he's been out of it. He's even spent a few nights curled up sleeping on that chair. Dammit, Cosmo." Big Daddy broke his glare and focused intently on the floor, his voice becoming even shorter and tenser than it had been. "If it weren't for that kid I would have killed you in one go. But he needs you. And for the love of linguini, for him you'd better get better. You'd better fully recover. That poor boy's been living a nightmare this past week… and I'm partially to blame," he muttered, almost inaudible.
Cosmo closed his eyes.
Oh no, not this. Not this. You do need to kill me, Big Daddy. Poofy doesn't need me. He doesn't need a dad who's a murderer. He doesn't deserve a stupid, incompetent moron like me for a dad. He'd be better off without me. Everyone would be. Can't you see that? I'm an idiot and I get it, why can't you? Why can't Poof?
"So." Big Daddy quickly looked up at Cosmo again. "I'm letting you live. Not for my sake, not for Wanda's sake, and most certainly not for your sake. I'm letting you live for Poof's sake."
Cosmo opened his mouth.
"I deserve to die," he croaked out.
Now it was Big Daddy's turn to stare blankly.
"For killing Wanda. For letting her die. I wish you'd killed me."
"I agree," Big Daddy finally said. "You do deserve to die. But your son needs you. And you'd better buck up and fulfill your responsibilities to him, especially now that Wanda's gone."
Poofy doesn't need me.
He'd be better off without me.
Why can't you see that?
Why can't anyone see that?
It's my fault his mama's dead!
My fault…
My fault…
Big Daddy had only been gone from the room for five minutes before Poof burst in, a shaky smile of relief breaking across his face. "Dad! Dad, you're awake!" And he instantly zipped himself to Cosmo's bedside and grasped his hand and wiped tears away with his other hand. "You're awake, and the doctors say your condition's improving, that you're gonna make it, and they're hoping to get you outta here in a few days, isn't that great?" Poof continued to smile through his tears, his voice still breaking, and he squeezed Cosmo's hand again, reassuring himself every bit as much as reassuring his father. "You're gonna be okay, Dad. Everything's… everything's gonna be okay."
Oh, not everything.
Nothing can be okay without Wanda…
"I should have died then," Cosmo said softly, his hands and forehead still pressed against the mirror. "I should have just let myself die. But… but your daddy was right, Wanda. I couldn't… I couldn't leave Poofy. I thought after you died there'd be nothing to live for, but then there was Poof, and…"
He opened his eyes again.
"And he made me go back to godparenting again. And I'm actually… happy. I'm happy with him and Anna. Would you want me to be happy? Do I deserve to be happy after what I did to you? After what I did to the twins?"
The twins. His throat constricted again. They'd be nearing their first birthday now, if they had survived. If Cosmo had been smart enough to save them. But he hadn't been.
"I think about them and I…" More tears. "And I cry…" He finally had to move one of his hands off the mirror to wipe his tears away before he could speak again. "I let our children die, and I shouldn't have, they would have been so wonderful… of course they would have been, with you as their mother…"
For the first time since retiring to his bedroom, Cosmo smiled. It was a sad smile, a smile made through heartbroken tears, but it was still a smile.
"And I know that because of Poof. He's responsible and I know he thought I meant that in a mean way the other day, but I didn't, he's just as capable and fun as you… and he's so smart, Wanda, you'd be so proud of him…" Cosmo sniffled loudly and wiped his eyes, his nose, then pressing his wet and messy hand against the mirror again, leaving a mark.
"And you should be here with him. You should be here seeing what a wonderful fairy he's become. And I won't kid myself, I had nothing to do with that, it was all because of you…"
He looked at the mark on the mirror and sighed.
"I'm crazy, talking to myself."
He hovered over to his bed and wrapped the covers around him, hoping that this night would be the night he didn't long for Wanda's warm body pressed against him, her breath on his neck, her hair grazing his shoulders.
Nope. Not this night. The bed felt so empty.
"Can I be happy without you, Wanda?" he whispered into the silent room. "I feel happy in the daytime now. Now with Poof. And now with Anna. Is… is that alright? Do I deserve that?"
Another question crossed his mind, one that he feared the answer to was "no".
"Do they deserve me?"
Chapter 5: Memories
Chapter Text
Anna had never realized how much fun a person could have. Every day after school it was the same—zipping past her still gibberish-speaking robot babysitter to find whatever world Cosmo and Poof had created for them to play in. Aliens, pirates, safaris, Elvis's bodyguards ("Poof, this was your idea, wasn't it?" "What gave it away?")—Anna never knew what to expect, only that whatever it was would be completely epic, and completely wonderful. Saturday and Sunday were spent in their entireties away from home, traipsing about the park, Cosmo and Poof making every seemingly little thing an adventure in of itself.
Come Monday, Cosmo wasn't the only one who wanted to go to school with Anna. Anna wanted them to come with her, too.
"I still don't think that's a good idea," Poof had said, however, nervously scratching the back of his head like he always did. "You'll just want to fool around with us, which you can do all the time here, but when you're at school, you need to focus. Your grades are important."
"Ha! No they're not! I got terrible grades and look where I am now! Enjoying life, baby!"
"Dad. It took you twelve years of schooling to get through senior high. With a huge gap between the ninth and tenth years because you actually dropped out for years."
"So? What's your point?"
Poof sighed and turned back to Anna. "We'll come tomorrow, I promise. I know you said you have a science test today, and we don't want to distract you."
"Why does he have to be so responsible?" Anna muttered under her breath, standing in the gym for PE class that day, hardly daring to look up. Of all the days she could use a fairy godparent to get her out of a jam, today was the day.
It was dodgeball day.
"Hey, Hoffman." The school's female bully, Valerie Frost, who was at least twice Anna's size, smiled unpleasantly at her, clutching a dodgeball in her hands. "Think fast."
It was a fair warning, but not fair enough, for Valerie had hurled the ball at Anna before the words were out of her mouth.
BAM!
"OW!" shrieked Anna, toppling over to the ground and rubbing her stinging jaw.
Wait—something was moving in there!
Horrified, Anna brought her palm to her mouth and spit whatever it was out. It was… a tooth. A small, bloody tooth.
"My tooth!" she shrieked. "You knocked out my tooth!"
"Valerie, you know you're not allowed to aim for the face in dodgeball," the PE teacher said, in an almost bored tone.
"I wasn't aiming for her face, honest," said Valerie, not very convincingly. "Besides," she sneered at Anna, "I just did Anna a favor. She's gonna get a visit from the tooth fairy now!"
"Enough, Valerie. Anna, go to the nurse's office and get cleaned up. And take your tooth with you." The PE teacher pushed Anna out of the gym without a second thought, not even noticing the few drops of blood from where Anna's tooth had just laid.
Still pressing her palm against her jaw to stop her bleeding, Anna took a look at the tooth in her hand. "Least it's a baby tooth… but it wasn't even loose!" she muttered. She hadn't had any loose teeth for awhile, but she could tell by flicking her tongue over the painful, bleeding area in the back of her lower left jaw that this was one of her molars, none of which she had lost yet. Well, scratch that. Now she had lost one. And by lost she meant "had it forcibly knocked out of her jaw". That darn Valerie… she had been aiming for her face…
Hold on.
"She's gonna get a visit from the tooth fairy now!"
Valerie had meant it sarcastically, of course. And even just two weeks ago Anna would have scoffed at the idea of the tooth fairy coming to visit her. She was a little too practical to believe in things like that.
But… fairies did exist. She now had two of them warping reality every time she came home.
So if they existed… who's to say that the tooth fairy didn't exist, too?
Anna stepped into the bathroom and into one of the stalls, grabbing some toilet paper to stop the bleeding in an attempt to not drip all over the nurse's carpet. Believing in the tooth fairy… it was a crazy notion, but it was also a notion that just might be true. Stuffing the toilet paper in her mouth where her tooth had been, Anna smiled at the thought. She'd have to ask Cosmo and Poof about it when she got home—
Wait a minute.
She frowned.
How could she know that Poof would tell her the truth? He'd lied to her before. Her first impression of him had not been a positive one. And while she really had no cause to believe he was still lying, especially because whenever she doubted him, usually regarding one of Da Rules, he would poof up the big book and point out exactly why what she and/or Cosmo wanted to do wasn't allowed… she had no cause to trust him either.
Oh, come on. Poof likes me. He wouldn't lie to me.
Anna moved out of the stall and to the sink and sighed at her forlorn expression gazing back at her from the bathroom mirror. But Poof was also a stickler for being responsible. And if there was some rule that prohibited mention of a tooth fairy if one existed—a silly-sounding rule to be sure, but there were sillier ones that Anna had already discovered—Poof would uphold it.
And as for Cosmo, while Anna was of the opinion that he probably wasn't smart enough to lie, he also might not know the truth, either. Everything was touch-and-go with Cosmo.
If she wanted to know the truth, Anna realized, she'd have to find it on her own.
So she washed the blood off of her tooth, carefully wrapped it in another sheet of toilet paper, and tucked it in her pocket before heading off to the nurse's office.
And, except for her obligatory discussion with the school nurse, Anna didn't bring up the incident again the rest of that day. Not with Gretchen. Not with her mother.
And not even with Cosmo and Poof.
…
11:50 PM that night, and Anna's eyes did not want to stay open. But she made herself keep them open anyway. Even if that meant bringing her hands to her eyelids and forcibly holding them up herself.
She had to congratulate herself, though, she thought with satisfaction. She had pulled this whole scheme off very smoothly. Her tooth had stayed hidden in the pocket of her skirt the entire day, neither Cosmo nor Poof suspecting anything out of the ordinary. When she had gotten ready for bed she, like most children, simply flung her clothes in a pile on the floor and left them there, and thus left her tooth on the floor as well, still safely there as Cosmo and Poof had told her goodnight.
"Now remember, Anna-Banana," Cosmo had said to her as he pulled the covers up over her shoulders, "if you have a dream about piranhas and linoleum tiling, you need to tap-dance to Spice Girls songs while crossing your fingers for good luck. That's the only way they'll go away! And I'd hate to wake up and see you wake up and be dead by piranhas."
"But what if I don't have tap shoes?" Anna asked.
Cosmo's eyes bulged in fear. "You don't have tap shoes? Here!" He waved his wand, and with a POOF! a pair of metal-soled shoes appeared on Anna's nightstand. "There! Now if you have that dream, wake up and get these and then go back to sleep, and you'll be fine!"
Anna laughed. "I'll try to remember that. Thanks, Cosmo."
"You're welcome! I want you to be safe, even in your dreams!" He reached down and fondly stroked back a strand of her hair. "Goodnight, Anna-Banana. I hope you don't dream of piranhas, but if you do, you'll be prepared."
Anna smiled. "Goodnight, Cosmo. I hope you have sweet dreams too."
"I hope you dream of Elvis," Poof said to Anna, grinning at her. "There's no dream sweeter! Well, goodnight. See you in the morning."
"Goodnight, Poof! I'll let you dream of Elvis."
Poof grinned. "I always do."
He and Cosmo both poofed back into the fishbowl, and Anna had lain in bed very still for about fifteen minutes until very quietly and carefully crawling out of bed, pulling her tooth from her pocket, and placing it under her pillow. And then she situated herself seated at the foot of her bed, figuring that if she got back in bed, it would be impossible to stay awake.
And, as the hours ticked by, and Anna forced herself to stay awake in the darkened room, clutching Jeremiah close to her, her eyelids fluttering… No, no, stay awake!
This is dumb. I should have just asked Cosmo and Poof about the tooth fairy. Even if they did lie, I'd know whether or not the tooth fairy exists or not when I wake up in the morning and find money under my pillow!
But wait, that wouldn't mean that the tooth fairy left it. Cosmo or Poof could leave it. Even Mom could leave it.
But none of them know I lost a tooth!
This really is a lot of pointless effort just to know if the tooth fairy exists.
I mean, really, in the grand scheme of things, is this all that important anyway?
Important.
Jeremiah, you're important.
You're a frog!
I love frogs…
"Kid! Kid, wake up! What kind of crazy girl are you, sleeping on the floor when your bed's right here?"
Anna's eyes shot open, the time on her alarm clock now reading 12:00 precisely, and blinked in trying to fully take in the figure that had shook her awake. She was a tall fairy, with mint-green eyes and hair, wearing a leotard and tiara with tooth decorations…
"Tooth Fairy!" Anna cried. "I was waiting for you!"
The Tooth Fairy blinked in surprise. "You were?"
"Yeah! I lost a tooth today, and—"
"No you didn't!" The Tooth Fairy quickly pulled out a clipboard and flipped through a number of papers. "You're not scheduled!"
"But I did!" Anna insisted, lifting her pillow and revealing the tooth underneath. "One of my molars!" She then opened her mouth and pulled her lip back to reveal where the tooth had been.
The Tooth Fairy hovered over to Anna's mouth and peered in. "You weren't scheduled to lose that one for another month!"
"Well, it didn't come out on its own! I got reamed in dodgeball today and my tooth got knocked out!"
"Well, that explains that… but you should still be on my list!" The Tooth Fairy bit her lip as she fruitlessly searched for Anna's name again. "How did I miss this? Shoot, now I'm gonna have to go back to headquarters and go over tonight's tooth losses again! Santa's got the right idea, checking his list twice… I'm short on time enough as it is, and now—"
"Wait a minute!" cried Anna. "If you didn't know that I lost a tooth, then what are you doing here?"
"I need to talk to your fairies," said the Tooth Fairy bluntly. "Cosmo and Poof Uhsmith. Where are they?"
Anna pointed to her fishbowl.
"Of course." The Tooth Fairy carefully picked up the fishbowl… and then shook it with such a jerk that half the water sloshed out. "COSMO! POOF! WAKE UP!"
Two sleepy, dazed fish tumbled out of the castle.
"Ugh, my dreams are getting more and more jostling!" Cosmo complained.
"I'm all shook up…" Poof's voice trailed off as his eyes more fully opened and caught sight of the Tooth Fairy. "Uh, hi, Janice."
"Janice? Who's Janice?" Cosmo rubbed his eyes and got a better view of the Tooth Fairy, then laughed. "Poofy, you need to get your eyes checked! I don't know who Janice is, but the only person who's here besides Anna is the Tooth Fairy!"
"Tooth Fairy is my occupation, not my name!" the Tooth Fairy—Janice—sighed in exasperation. "Although it's a common misconception… Anyway, I think you know why I'm here, Poof."
Poof chuckled nervously, scratching his tail with his fishy fin. "Uh, because you just wanted to chat with me, and—"
"I don't have time for this," Janice grumbled. "Look. As I understand it, Jorgen said he wanted weekly updates. And how long have you been with your assignment?"
"Nine days!" Anna piped up.
"Ten days, actually. It's Tuesday now." Janice motioned towards the clock. "You're late. And Jorgen's not the most patient fairy in the universe, he's about ready to level a major city he's so agitated. You've got ten minutes to get your report ready, and—"
"Oh, no, no, it's ready, really!" Poof quickly disappeared into the castle and darted back two seconds later with a few sheets of paper in his fins. "See? Right here!"
"Good," said Janice. "Now give them to me and I'll get them to Jorgen."
"Uh." Poof gulped nervously. "Wouldn't you rather just get a verbal report from me that you can repeat to Jorgen? Everything's fine, and—"
"Poof," Janice interrupted harshly. "If you don't give me those papers, then I guarantee you in a few hours Jorgen himself will be here and forcibly pry them from your little fishy fins. Now would you rather willingly give them to me, or let Jorgen have his way with you?"
MEEK AND TERRIFIED POOF POOF!
"Well, when you put it that way…" Poof, back in his normal fairy form, nervously handed the papers over to Janice.
"This is gonna be interesting," murmured Janice, reading through Poof's report.
"I don't understand something," said Cosmo, also poofing out of the fishbowl and back to a fairy. He suddenly laughed at himself. "Heck, I don't understand a lot of things! But if Jorgen wanted something from Poof, why didn't he just come here and get it himself? That's what he always does!"
"Oh, believe me, he wanted to," said Janice. "But I persuaded him to give you a few days of a grace period, and then to let me come and give you a gentle nudge before resorting to more drastic measures." She quickly finished reading the last page of Poof's report and sighed, looking back up at him. "Really, Poof—"
"Please, please, please don't show that to Jorgen!" Poof pleaded. "Let me type up another one! A fake one! You can vouch for me and tell him it's real, he'll believe you, poof poof! Just don't—"
"Really, Poof!" Janice smacked Poof over the head with the papers. "What are you going on about? This is fine. And it won't anger Jorgen any more at all. In fact, it'll placate him."
Poof blinked in utter shock. "It… will?"
"Of course. Now—"
"But what about the—the—"
Janice laughed. "What, do you mean that whole cheese sea fiasco? Jorgen already knows about that. And again, I had to hold him back from blasting his way down here, and by the time his temper cooled, he realized that it really wasn't that big of a deal. This is an outstanding report, really… well, by Cosmo standards, anyway," she added, glancing at Cosmo, who was intently digging a finger through his ear at the moment. "Your dad's doing fine, Poof. Stop worrying."
Despite having a finger in his ear, Cosmo caught the last part of that. "I'm doing fine? Really?" A huge grin broke over his face. "OH YEAH! DANCE PARTY!" He began pumping his fists to the left, to the right, to the left again, unable to contain his joy. "Go Cosmo, go Cosmo, go Cosmo, it's my birthday, oh yeah, DANCE PARTY!"
"You just need to turn in your reports on time," Janice admonished Poof. "This Saturday, you'd better report to Jorgen yourself with the next one. I don't know if I'll be able to hold him back again. You have nothing to worry about if you just do what you're supposed to do."
"Um, I'll do that," said Poof abashedly. "And tell Jorgen I most humbly and meekly apologize for my lateness."
"Yeah, you'd better," said Janice. "Well, looks like I'm done here, and I need to get going—"
"Hey!" Anna blurted out. "What about my tooth?"
"Oh, right! Still can't believe I missed that…" Janice sighed. "I'll be short a coin, but I guess I have to go back to Fairy World and give this report to Jorgen anyway, so I'll just pick up another one while I'm there… and more thoroughly examine my list for tonight." The star on her wand glowed brightly for a moment, then reverted back to its normal luster. "Now look under your pillow, dear."
Anna yanked her pillow off the bed. Where her tooth had been now sat a golden dollar coin.
"One dollar? That's it?" Anna cried indignantly.
"Look, honey, just because I'm the Tooth Fairy doesn't mean I'm made of money."
"Yes it does!" cried Cosmo. "You're the only fairy who can make money appear out of thin air!"
"It doesn't quite work like that, Cosmo," sighed Janice, "but I really don't have the time to explain it. Now, remember, Poof—if you're late again it'll be Jorgen who comes after you, not me. So get these reports turned in on time, comprende?"
Poof nervously gave Janice a salute. "Yes, ma'am."
Janice took three more seconds to throw three different facial expressions at the three people in the room—a reproachful glare at Poof, an exasperated eye-roll at Cosmo, and a friendly smile at Anna, all in that order—before disappearing with a twinkly-sounding POOF!
"Heeeeeeeeeey!" Cosmo suddenly blurt out. "Wait a minute!" He looked at Anna. "When did you lose a tooth?"
Poof, who had been nervously biting his fingernails, pulled his hand away from his mouth to give Anna a questioning look. "Yeah, really! Why didn't you tell us?"
"I got creamed by a dodgeball in gym today, and it knocked out one of my teeth, so I stayed awake after you two went into your castle because I wanted to know if the tooth fairy really existed, and… I didn't think you'd tell me," Anna finished, her explanation sounding incredibly lame to her.
"That's an incredibly lame explanation!" Cosmo said.
"Why wouldn't we tell you?" Poof asked, sounding more confused than anything else. "We are fairies, after all. We're the most expert authority you have on the tooth fairy! Might I emphasize—tooth FAIRY!"
"Well," said Anna crossly, "how do I know that there's not a rule in that stupid book of yours that forbids you to tell me about the tooth fairy and you would have just lied to me if I asked you, huh?"
"Anna, I do not lie to you—and—and even when I do, I have very good reasons for it—poof poof!"
"Even so, even if you were the most honest, trustworthy guy around, har-dee-har-har, maybe sometimes I like to figure things out for myself without having to rely on my 'all-knowing' magical fairies!"
"Did you just insult our intelligence?"
"Maybe I did!"
Cosmo quickly darted between Poof and Anna (who by this time were in each other's faces, glowering) and pushed them away from each other. "Children, children!" he cried desperately. "Stop all this fighting!"
"But Dad!" Poof protested. "She called us stupid!"
Cosmo shrugged. "Well, I am stupid, so she's right!" He blinked. "Half-right." He quickly turned his head towards Anna, his eyes narrowed dangerously. "But Poof isn't! Stop calling my son stupid!"
"I wasn't!" cried Anna. "I wasn't calling either of you stupid! I just like to find things out for myself when I can, alright? And I did! I found out about the tooth fairy while both of you were still asleep!" She suddenly stopped, her angry expression easing up a bit. "What was all that about, anyway?"
"It was about my stupidity, of course!" said Cosmo.
"Wouldn't you rather figure that out for yourself, too?" Poof muttered harshly.
"Kinda hard for me to do that when I don't have a clue of your fairy politics, or who the heck this Jorgen guy is—"
"I'll tell you, I'll tell you," Poof said quickly. "Janice—the Tooth Fairy—was here to get my weekly report, as you probably gathered. She's married to our boss."
"Jorgen?" Anna ventured.
Poof nodded, surprising Anna with a fearful look in his eyes. "Pray you never meet him. Although…" He shot a quick glance at Cosmo, then looked back at Anna apologetically. "With Dad as your godfather… you'll meet him. It's just a matter of time. Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't just come here himself. Janice must really be pulling some strings in our favor. She's about the only one who can change Jorgen's mind."
"Uh, I have a question too," said Cosmo, raising his hand. "What's this about a weekly report?"
Poof shrugged, still looking apologetic. "Well, remember when Jorgen assigned Anna to us? He told me that he expected weekly reports."
Cosmo's eyes brightened. "Wait, was that right before he rearranged my face?"
"Yep."
"Oh yeah! I remember now!"
"Anyway, so I actually did have it ready by Saturday, but…" Poof barked out a nervous chuckle. "There was just so much near-calamity on my report that I was terrified to give it to Jorgen. I was afraid it would reflect badly on Dad. I guess it didn't, though, if what Janice said is true. She seems to think you're doing fine, and that Jorgen does too. So… I guess I had nothing to worry about, poof poof." He let out another laugh, still a nervous one but with a twinge of relief this time as well, and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.
"That's it? That's what all the fuss was about? That and my tooth?"
"If you want to look at it that way… then yeah."
"I don't get it," Cosmo said, scratching his head. "What was in that report that you were so afraid of showing to Jorgen, Poof?"
"The truth," said Poof. "I just wrote down everything that happened exactly as it happened. And don't get me wrong, Dad, I think it's been fantastic so far, but Jorgen… well, you know how he is. He gets so bent out of shape at the slightest hint of rule-breaking—"
"And you don't?" Anna interrupted sarcastically.
To her surprise, both Cosmo and Poof burst out laughing at that.
"You kidding?" Cosmo cried.
"Trust me, Anna, compared to Jorgen, I'm a free-wheeling rebel without a cause!"
"An extremely weak, puny, helpless free-wheeling rebel without a cause!"
"That's for sure, poof poof!"
"Yikes," said Anna softly.
"Yikes is right. So you know why I was so scared. But… I think it's okay now." Poof gave a small smile. "We still get to stay with you, Dad's doing a good job, and I haven't been pounded into next week."
Cosmo suddenly threw his arms around Poof in a tight hug. "Oh, Poofy, don't worry about me! As long as you're still here and not pounded into next week I'll be fine! I'd hate having to wait a whole week to see you again!"
Anna yawned deeply, realizing again just how late it was. "Well, since the excitement's over and we're all in the correct time frame, and it's far past my bedtime—"
"Far past all of our bedtimes," Poof agreed with a yawn of his own.
Cosmo released Poof and wrapped Anna up in an equally all-encompassing hug. "Goodnight again, Anna! Sorry we woke you up. Remember what I said about the tap shoes."
"You didn't wake me up, and I will. Goodnight!"
Cosmo and Poof both smiled at Anna—although both smiles were sleepy ones and Poof's was still a little abashed—before disappearing with a POOF back into the fishbowl.
"Wow," Anna said softly, picking up Jeremiah from the ground. "How am I supposed to fall asleep after all that?"
She crawled into bed, pulled the covers around her, closed her eyes, and—
APOLOGETIC POOF POOF!
Anna's eyes fluttered open when she heard the familiar "poof" noise, Poof hovering before her.
"Anna?"
"Yes, Poof?"
"We can do whatever you want tomorrow. As long as it's not against the rules, I promise to not object at all."
The corner of Anna's mouth twitched upwards.
"Will you and your dad come with me to school tomorrow?"
Poof smiled.
"Of course."
"That's what I want."
"Then that's what we'll do."
Anna's smile faded as she more closely examined Poof—she had no doubt he was being sincere; that wasn't the issue. And it wasn't even how tired and nervous and frightened he still looked underneath his smile. It was how the emotions looked on him. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but in that instant she suddenly realized that throughout this night's ordeal, Poof had looked…
…young. That was it. He looked young. Very young.
"You're just a kid, aren't you?" she murmured.
Poof laughed weakly. "Anna, I don't even know what I am anymore."
"How old are you?"
"Fifty-two."
Anna let out a low whistle. "Oh, my mistake. You're definitely not a kid."
"Anna, you're forgetting that I'm a fairy. We age differently than you humans. A fairy doesn't become a legal, fully-grown adult until age fifty."
"Oh. But—but still, then, if you're fifty-two—"
"Listen, Anna. You humans would consider an eighteen-year-old a legal adult. But if you saw an eighteen-year-old walking down the street, would you think, 'Oh, there goes a well-rounded, world-wise adult I can count on'?"
"Of course not. I'd think 'There goes some poor sap of a kid who's been flung into the world and doesn't have a clue of what to make of it or himself'."
Poof smiled sadly. "Exactly. That's me."
Anna wrapped her arms around Jeremiah tighter, gazing up at Poof thoughtfully, almost mournfully, as he continued to look at her with a sad smile. The worry-wart, Elvis-loving fairy had never looked as vulnerable to her as he did at that very moment.
"I know no one's writing progress reports on you," she said softly. "But if I was, I'd say you're doing a great job too. Both of you are."
Poof's smile grew more grateful. "Thanks, Anna-Banana."
…
"I don't even know what I am anymore."
That was a lie, Poof thought as he lay awake in bed, Dog the monkey tucked under one arm and Monkey the dog tucked under the other, unable to fall back asleep despite the lateness of the hour. It was the word "anymore" that made it so. Using "anymore" implied that he once did know.
He had never really known.
"Didja finish the book? Wasn't it great?"
Nine-year-old Troy Adkins held out his hands expectedly, grinning, but his thirteen-year-old "fairy godbrother" clutched the book Troy had leant him in embarrassment, his cheeks turning red. "A-actually, Troy," Poof said in a small voice, "I thought it was confusing. There were too many big words and not enough pictures—"
"Pictures?" Troy laughed. "What are you, a baby? A lot of the books I read don't have any pictures at all in them!" Troy snatched the book away from Poof's hands and flipped through it, showing the large print and picture on nearly every other page to prove his point. "And you thought this was confusing? Wow. You're even stupider than your dad!"
Poof's cheeks turned even redder with anger, but his anger was overpowered by the hurt tears that immediately sprung to his eyes. Troy looked a little taken aback at Poof's reaction, but his temporary remorse hardly lasted two seconds before he laughed lightly again, taking the book and putting it back on his shelf.
Sniffling back tears and trembling in anger—anger at himself for being a crybaby every bit as much as anger at Troy—Poof grabbed his proto-wand. He wouldn't get a real, full wand until he was twenty, and the proto-wands could only accommodate small amounts of magic, and his mother had warned him a billion times to only use his wand for little things—
—and apparently, attempting to magically force the book to smack Troy in the face was not a little thing. The book exploded.
"AAAHHH!" shrieked Troy, jumping back from the smoldering pile of ash that had once been his book. "Poof! What the heck was that for?"
Poof angrily wiped tears from his eyes. Well, that hadn't been what he was going for, but… "Y-you deserved it, poof poof poof!" he yelled, waving his wand again and transporting himself back inside the fishbowl castle. At least he could do that.
Now back in his room, he stared at his reflection in the mirror, his heavy breathing growing more and more pronounced as his reflection glared back. He was short, quite a bit smaller than Troy, his hair was always rumpled and a mess, his eyes were puffy and his nose was running and his lips were trembling and he looked like a stupid little baby who couldn't read and couldn't do anything the way he wanted to do, Troy was right, he was stupid, stupid, stupid!
"STUPID!" he shrieked at his reflection, pounding at the glass, kicking it, grabbing his wand and swinging it against the frame. "STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!"
The glass cracked and shattered. Poof winced away from it instinctively, but a shard still cut against his thumb, and that in addition to everything else finally unleashed his uncontrollable, helpless wailing.
And I sound like a BABY! was all he could think as his crying continued, sucking on his thumb, screaming and shrieking, small bits of broken mirror collected around him…
"POOF! What happened?"
It is, of course, an instant source of comfort to see one's mother in a time of distress, no matter what one's age, and Wanda had Poof wrapped up in her arms in an instant, and Poof unleashed his wailing onto her shoulder, Wanda waving her wand and instantly fixing the mirror and worriedly running her hands up and down Poof's small, trembling body. "What happened, sweetie? Are you hurt?"
"My—my thumb," Poof choked out between his sobs, showing her.
Wanda poofed up a bandage and instantly wrapped it around Poof's cut. "Anywhere else?"
Poof shook his head. "Uh-uh."
"You'll be okay, baby. You'll be okay. It's just a little cut. What happened to the mirror?"
Poof sniffled back more tears, his anger at himself coming back full-force. His eyes narrowed and he looked at his mother both defiantly and desperately. "Mama, am I stupid?" he blurted out.
Wanda looked at Poof softly, stroking his hair. "Poof, sweetie—"
"AM I STUPID?!" Poof shrieked again, pulling away from his mother and glaring at her through his tears.
A few tears were welling in Wanda's eyes as well as she gazed sadly at her son.
"No, sweetie. No. You're not stupid. You're a very, very smart boy."
"Troy said I'm stupid!" Poof shouted. "He said I'm even stupider than Daddy!"
Wanda's eyes narrowed and her lips thinned, and Poof recognized the sentiment instantly. His mother may have called his father an idiot almost daily, but if anyone else tried it in an insulting way, they were in for a smackdown. "I'll have a word with him," she said shortly. "Troy's wrong, Poof. You're not stupid. And neither is your father."
Poof half-sniffled, half-snorted in incredulity and anger.
"Well…" Wanda corrected. "Okay, I will grant you he has his moments, but he's more far too easily distracted than anything else, and—"
"So I'm not stupid the way Daddy's not stupid?" Poof shrieked. "That means I am stupid! Because I am! I can't read the books Troy does and understand or do the things he does and I'm older than he is, poof poof! I'm stupid!"
"Poof!" Wanda grabbed Poof's hands before he had a chance to fling them… somewhere. Poof had a feeling that he would have been aiming for his face had he gotten the chance. But his hands were held in place now, his mother looking him directly and intently in the eyes. "Poof, you can't compare yourself to Troy. He's a human. You're a fairy."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Poof demanded.
"Troy will be an adult when he's eighteen years old. You won't be an adult until you're fifty. You've got a lot more growing up to do than he does. And that's not a bad thing. It's just that we're different from humans. When I was thirteen I was a lot like you. So was your daddy, I'd imagine. But humans have far shorter lives than we do. They have to grow up faster. Troy was probably already at your stage of development when he was only six or so. And so are most humans. That doesn't make you stupid, Poof. That just means you're a fairy, and you don't age like a human. It's perfectly natural."
"But I'm older than he is… I should be smarter…"
"You should be nothing of the kind. You may be technically older than Troy by a few years, but in your stage of development you're more the equivalent of a six-year-old human child. And let me tell you something, dumpling. You're one of the smartest thirteen-year-old fairies I've ever known. And you're more mature than even many six-year-old humans I've met. Even some thirteen-year-olds."
"You're just saying that because you're my mama," Poof sniffled.
Wanda smirked. "Yes, I am your mama, which means when it comes to you, I'm always right!" She wrapped her arms around him again, Poof not pulling back this time, and stroked back his hair and kissed his forehead. "I don't want you to compare yourself to anybody, Poof. Not just any human, because it's not a fair comparison. But to nobody. I just want you to be the best Poof you can be. And always remember that you're a very smart, mature, fun boy, and no matter what Troy can do that you can't, I'm still very, very proud of you."
"You're just sayin' that 'cuz you're my mama… poof poof…" But this time Poof was smiling, and even though he and Wanda were cheek-to-cheek in a hug, he could tell by Wanda's gentle laugh that she knew he was, and that she was smiling too.
"Is your thumb feeling better, baby?"
"I'm not a baby, Mama!"
"Poof." Wanda pulled away from Poof again to look him in the eyes, but this time smiling warmly. "No matter how old, how mature you may get… you'll always be my baby."
Count on mothers to make you feel better.
Isn't that what mothers are supposed to do, though?
What if what she said wasn't true?
Poof hadn't intended on dwelling on the issue, but the next day, while Troy and Wanda were kept busy with the former's homework and Cosmo was left with the task of entertaining Poof by juggling marshmallows, Poof blurted out to him, "Daddy? Do you think I'm stupid?"
The marshmallows dropped to the ground. And Cosmo frowned slightly. "Why are you asking that? Did someone call you stupid?"
Noting the sudden defensive tone of his father's voice, Poof instantly shook his head. "No, no," he lied—he really didn't want Cosmo to get angry at Troy, they had a pretty tight bond—"it's just that sometimes… sometimes I feel… stupid." Eyeing the marshmallows on the ground, he added thoughtfully, "Poof poof," and scooped up one and plopped it in his mouth.
Cosmo laughed, his defensiveness gone. "Well, duh, Poofy, everybody feels stupid sometimes!" he said, grabbing and eating another one of the marshmallows. "There's just some people like me who feel stupid all of the time! Well… most of the time. So do you feel stupid all—or most—of the time?"
Poof blinked. He hadn't thought about it that way before.
"No, not really, just some of the time," he admitted.
Cosmo grinned. "Well then! There you go!" He eyed the last marshmallow still on the ground hungrily. So did Poof.
And then Cosmo quickly reached for it, and—pushed it towards Poof. "Here, you can have it."
"Thanks, Daddy!" Poof happily brought the marshmallow to his mouth.
"Poof?" Cosmo suddenly said, his tone uncharacteristically very serious for him.
Poof looked up, swallowing the marshmallow.
"I know stupid, trust me. I don't know much else but I know everything there is to know about stupid. So I know you're not stupid. Even I know that."
Poof looked at his father thoughtfully for a moment.
"You're just saying that because you're my daddy," he finally said, grinning as he realized that he had said nearly the exact same words to his mother last night—twice, in fact.
Cosmo shrugged. "Maybe. But it still feels like it's right!"
Poof laughed, his high-pitched laugh that pealed through any lingering sorrows that might have remained.
Curled up in a cot at Oberon Boarding School, scratching out a letter by the light of his flashlight, huddled up under his blanket, Poof felt he sure could use some laughter right then after his terrible day.
"'Hello Mudda… Hello Fadda… here I am at… Camp Hellhole'," Poof muttered to himself as he wrote.
Oberon was where all fairies were sent to begin their fairy training. Usually this was when they were age twenty. Poof was only nineteen, however. Nineteen—but about ten, for a human. He was always keeping track of where he was for a human, as he had never really known how to gage himself by fairy standards.
"This isn't good for Poof," he had overheard his mother say to his father one evening. "He keeps trying to live up to human standards. He's trying to grow up far too fast. The sooner we get him to Oberon, the better."
"But that place is an awful impound of misery and woe! And middle school and high school are even worse!" cried Cosmo.
"But they're in Fairy World. And Poof needs to be in Fairy World. He keeps thinking of himself as a human. He's trying to be like the nineteen-year-olds he sees when in reality he should be acting like the ten-year-olds. He needs to be around his own kind, Cosmo. This just isn't good for him."
"But he's having fun! He likes it!"
"It doesn't matter if he likes it or not, Cosmo! In the long run it won't help him! It's time he went to Fairy World!"
"But we're in Fairy World right now!"
"I mean stay here. Once we get our next godchild assignment… Poof won't be coming with us. He needs to start his training."
"Wanda! We can't do that! What'll we do without Poofy?"
"Listen, Cosmo, this will be hard on me, too! But he can't spend all his time just playing around with us anymore. He's gotta start learning how to make it on his own. You want what's best for him, right?"
"Of course. And you… and you always know what's best."
Poof had sighed helplessly then. He had sighed helplessly when his parents had said goodbye to him and left him at the school, his feeling of abandonment made only worse when he learned that his parents' new assignments were none other than Timmy Turner's own children. He had sighed helplessly as his overbearing grandmother and overbearing grandfather had helped get him settled—and then immediately got into an argument while finagling over who got Poof which weekend ("Shut your piehole, Cosma, the boy needs to learn the family trade!" "The family trade of trash? I think not! Poofy-Woofy will be staying with me and attending to me, and there's no room for argument!" "Uh, look, Grandma, 'Poofy' I can tolerate but 'Poofy-Woofy' is where I draw the line, please don't call me th—" "Lady, have you got another thing coming!"…). He had sighed helplessly after that first wretched day, being the only student there—oh sure, there were plenty of other young fairies, but Poof was the oldest of this next generation after all, and he was being sent to school a year earlier than usual…
The first letter he had received from his parents a few days later, then, would have lifted his spirits anyway, but the contents inside did even more so.
In the neat, tidy handwriting of his mother, there was this note:
Dear Poof,
I hope you're adjusting well at Oberon! I know things must seem pretty scary and overwhelming to you right now, but things are going to get better very soon. Next year you'll be getting your wand, and there will be so much for you to learn. It might not seem like it now, but this is the beginning of a wonderful opportunity for you. Once other kids start joining school with you, you'll make friendships that will last a lifetime. And don't even ask me how I know if anyone will like you. How could they not like you? And when they know sweet little you, they'll end up loving you too!
You've faced a lot of tough situations in your short life so far, and you've always met them head-on and come out on top. I know you'll do the same here. And don't ever forget that I am always very, very proud of you and I love you very much.
We're all looking forward to spending time with you when your first term break arrives. Tommy and Tammy can't wait to meet you! And Timmy's doing very well, from what your father and I have observed. Would you believe he still collects Crash Nebula memorabilia?
Hang in there, Poof. I know you can do this! Keep on winning and keep on smiling!
Love,
Mama
And, in the nearly illegible scrawl of his father, written around Wanda's message in the margins and wherever else it would fit:
POOFY! How's school? How's the dorms? They're dark and stinky, aren't they? How's the food? It was nasty when I was there! Hey, in the cafeteria there's a loose tile on the wall near the girls' bathroom where I used to hide candy and other food that actually tastes good! Have you found it yet? You could do that too! Your mama's telling me not to tell you that! Now she's telling me not to write THIS! Now she's just rolling her eyes at me! Hey, guess what? We were at the grocery store with Timmy and Tommy and Tammy and your mama and I were disguised as Tommy and Tammy's backpacks and I saw a newspaper article that said GHOST OF ELVIS REVIVES DEAD KITTEN! Your mama said it was bunk, but it reminded me of you anyway! I wish you were here so I could show you! Miss you!!! Love you!!! -Dad
As usual, his mama was right. Things did get better. At least for a few years. Soon other students joined him and, for the first time, Poof was surrounded by eighteen-, nineteen-, twenty-year-olds who actually acted like kids. Just like him.
But then one day everything suddenly came crashing down.
Timmy was dead.
And Cosmo and Wanda were back in Fairy World, shocked, crushed, heartbroken.
"We should have been there for him," Wanda moaned, curled up in an armchair in their Fairy World dwelling, Cosmo and Poof hovering near her, not used to seeing their family rock so helpless, neither of them knowing what to do for her. "We should have done… something. Anything. Anything to let him know we were still there… part of him still remembered us… And what's worse, now we've abandoned Tommy and Tammy too… we've failed them…"
"M-maybe I failed, but not you," Cosmo said with difficulty. "You never fail."
Wanda looked up at Cosmo with hopeless eyes, and Poof's heart broke even more at the sight. "We failed them. We left them when they needed us most. Their daddy's dead and they're all alone…"
It was unfortunate, but understandable, Poof would reflect in later years. All four of them—Cosmo, Wanda, Tommy, Tammy—were so shaken by Timmy's death that their defenses were down, and it was only a matter of time before someone discovered the fairies, they being too shocked to remember their disguises, their godchildren being too crushed to make efforts to conceal them.
Poof got out of staying at "Camp Hellhole" after that. His move back in with his parents was only temporary, Wanda had insisted at first, but months turned to years, and while he continued attending school, after classes he returned home to live with his parents. He was still a child, after all, and he needed them. And he could tell, by the looks in their eyes, that they needed him, too.
When his fifteen years at Oberon were finished, Poof insisted on waiting before enrolling in middle school, so that he wouldn't have to take classes by himself for the first year again. Wanda relented. Poof was thirty-six, nearly thirty-seven before finally starting junior high.
It was in senior high when he started volunteering. Not knowing exactly what he planned on doing with himself just yet, his mother had suggested testing the waters, and the adolescent tried his hand volunteering at a few different tasks, but one soon began to take up all his time—the daycare. Poof quickly discovered his talent with caring for the youngest of fairies, and he enjoyed it immensely.
Even fairies at that young age were expected to be educated, and a trip to the hospital to cheer up the patients was a perfect educational exercise, as well as a way to get them out of the building for a day. Touring the halls, seeing the general practitioners' offices, peering and cooing at the newborn babies, made the hospital seem happy and carefree… until little Quinlan, only six years old, had piped up that her grandfather was in the hospital and that she wanted to visit him while she was there.
"Oh yes, that's right, Faustus Sidebottom, I know him," the daycare director, Coralia, had said. "Poof? Would you mind taking Quinlan to the surgery ward? Just bring her back to the daycare when you're done."
"But I—" Poof began in protest.
"Ta-ta!" In an instant, Coralia had led the other young fairies down another corridor and disappeared.
Quinlan grasped Poof's hand. "Are you gonna take me to see my grandpa now, Poofy?" she asked with wide, hopeful eyes.
Poof sighed, but put on a smile for Quinlan, and squeezed her hand back. "'Course I am. Come on. Let's go find him."
He raised his wand, poofed the two of them to the surgery ward, and began flittering past the doors, looking for the name of Faustus Sidebottom on one of them, hardly paying attention to the doctors, the nurses, his mother—
"Mama!" he cried out in surprise. "I didn't know you were volunteering here today!"
Wanda quickly got over her shock at seeing Poof in the hallways with a laugh and a smile. Her arms were full to overflowing with flowers, stuffed animals, and boxes of candy. "This is my favorite place to volunteer, Poof, you know that! Just like yours is the daycare! I'm surprised to see you out of it, in fact!"
"Not exactly." Poof jerked a shoulder in Quinlan's direction. "We're touring the hospital today and this little gumdrop wants to see her grandpa. Faustus Sidebottom. Do you know where he is?"
"Sure do. This bouquet of dahlias is for him, in fact! I'll lead you to him."
The three fairies floated down the hallway, Wanda leading the way and Poof following, Quinlan's tiny hand still grasped in his. "Here we are," Wanda said, stopping at door number 903.
Quinlan held out her hands. "I wanna give Grandpa the flowers!"
Wanda hesitated. "These are pretty heavy, honey. Do you think you can manage them?"
Poof smirked. "Of course you can manage them, Quinn! Tell Mama Wanda that you're a big, tough, strong fairy!"
"I'm a big, tough, strong fairy, Mama Wanda!" Quinlan said confidently, jutting her chin out. "I can do anything!" With that, the toddler floated over to Wanda, plucked the vase of dahlias from her arms, and, somewhat awkwardly but successfully, floated in the room to visit her grandfather.
Wanda smiled, although somehow managing to throw Poof a reprimanding look at the same time. "You sure worked your charm over on that one! Once you start studying childcare at the Fairy Academy, you'll have managing children down to a science."
Poof groaned, knowing exactly where this was leading. "Mama, do you have to… constantly rag on me like this, every single time you open your mouth? I'm not ready yet—"
Wanda's smile was gone. "You can't keep putting this off, Poof! And don't use your age as an excuse, there's plenty of fairies younger than you currently enrolled in the Fairy Academy, and—"
"Age has nothing to do with it, Mama, I'm just not ready!"
"You're fifty years old, Poof! You're an adult now! It's time you start thinking about your future!"
"I am thinking about it, poof poof! I just don't know what I want yet! What's the hurry, anyway? I've got time! I've got all the time in the world!"
"You do not have all the time in the world, and just wasting your—"
"We're immortal, Mama!"
"Then how do explain this?" Wanda snapped angrily, throwing her arm back behind her, indicating the hospital hallways. "If we were truly unable to die then why would we have a hospital in the first place? Don't get cocky and think just because you'll never get old, you can't die! Two people have died in wing G alone today!"
"Come on, Mama," snorted Poof in irritation, "they were in freak accidents. The chances of that happening are like a billion to one!"
"Exactly! And when you don't age, when you're immortal, when you will live a billion days… then something like that will eventually happen to you, Poof!"
"Oh, please, hold the phone! Am I understanding you right? Are you trying to tell me that because I'm immortal, I'm guaranteed to die?!"
"If you'd stop and think about it, you'd realize it's true! Look at your family, for Pete's sake! You have only two living grandparents! The other two died millennia before you were even born! And you have no great-grandparents still alive! You realize that the oldest living fairy is only about eighteen thousand years old? Stop with the god complex! We are all going to die someday. If not due to some freak accident, then it'll be when the universe collapses in on itself, I don't know, but—"
"How did this conversation turn into an argument over life and death?" Poof shrieked, in total indignation and incredulity. "Must you… must you be a poofin' Debbie Downer all the poofin' time? Why do have to let a simple, inconsequential thing like my education turn into some lecture about how we're all gonna die someday and the universe will cave in and nothing matters? If nothing matters, then why should I go to school in the first place? Why can't I just volunteer for the rest of my life? I like what I'm doing now, poof poof! If having a job is so great, why are you and Dad still moping around and ignoring yours?!"
Wanda's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Your father and I are on sabbatical. That's different. We have jobs that we will return to… soon. Soon. And we are actually doing something with ourselves as we sort this out—"
"And I'm not?! Is my volunteering nothing compared to your volunteering, bringing hospital patients flowers and watching them die and clean up their vomit? Oh, and Dad's weird-ass watercolor paintings mean something important? Could've fooled me—"
"Poof, if you don't stop this right now I'll—"
"You'll what? Make me? I'd like to see you try, poof poof! I'm an adult now, you said so yourself, I don't have to listen to you—"
"I am your MOTHER! YES YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME!"
A doctor who was hovering down the hall suddenly grasped both Wanda and Poof by the shoulders and pulled them away from each other. "Could you two please keep it down? This is a hospital, you know. Sick and injured and dying people don't need to hear your argument."
Poof glared at the doctor, then glared back at his mother, who was so angry herself that her nostrils were beginning to smoke. Opening his mouth to continue their argument in quieter, more clipped tones, he—
The door to 903 opened, and little Quinlan poked her head out. "Poofy? Are you done yelling yet? Grandpa doesn't like it… and I'm ready to go back to daycare now…"
Poof grabbed her hand. "Gladly."
Wanda's nostrils were still literally smoking, but her voice was a bit more subdued as she said, "Poof, please, just—"
But Poof didn't stick around to hear what his mother attempted to tell him. With a POOF POOF OF INDIGNATION, he was gone.
It wasn't that he thought she was wrong. It was that he feared—that he knew—she was right.
Because it made sense. In a twisted, sick way, it made sense. When you live forever, an infinite life, with no old age to buffer freak calamities, then that which has a trillion to one chance of happening… will happen. And if not that, then something else.
Wanda was right. They would all die someday.
And Poof had never considered that before.
He had never had his own mother talk about the inescapability of their deaths. Of her death.
For the first time in his life, he had been forced to contemplate the death of his mother.
And it had shaken him to the very roots.
It couldn't happen. Except it could. And it would.
And Poof had never expected it to come so soon.
The hospital this time, a year later, felt as far from joyful and comforting as anything could. The dorms at Oberon were cheerful halls of merriment by comparison. And as Poof sat hunched in a chair outside of the ICU, his knees pulled to his chest, his eyes fixated on the floor, the flurry of doctors rushing in and out of the room, the beeps and whirrs of machines and powerful magic needed to keep the patients in this wing alive, and even then it wasn't a sure thing, with the injuries as critical as this—
"Poof? Poof Uhsmith?"
Poof lifted his head to see a smartly-dressed fairy he didn't know hovering above him.
The fairy extended his hand. "Phineas Opplemeyer. I'm your parents' attorney."
Poof mechanically brought his hand to Opplemeyer's. Opplemeyer grasped it quickly, but held on to it a bit longer than the expected norm.
"My deepest condolences, son. Your mother was a wonderful, caring soul. You don't see the likes of her too often. I know she'll be missed by a whole lot of folks." His voice wasn't exactly soothing, but at least it was soft and sincere. He turned to the closed door next to them, the urgent bustle of the doctors and nurses inside filtering out to them as a middling mull of inarticulate noises. "How's your father doing?"
Poof gave the attorney an icy stare. "Besides the fact that he's in a coma, his ribs are broken and his lungs are punctured, there's a fracture in his skull, and he's in critical condition, he's doing just fine, thanks."
"That bad, huh?" Opplemeyer released Poof's hand and dug into his briefcase. "I know things are tough for you right now, and I won't bother you with all the details just yet, but I wanted to give you a heads-up over your parents' will." He produced the document from the briefcase.
Poof stared at it blankly.
This cannot be happening to me.
"Right now, there's really not much we can go over anyway, until we know which way your father's gonna go. Either way, though, it's pretty straightforward, seeing as you're their only child. If he survives, this'll be the last you'll see of this document for awhile. But if he doesn't make it… well, again, pretty straightforward. They've left everything to you, of course."
Poof couldn't even blink.
This cannot be happening. Please tell me I'm not hearing this. I can't be hearing this.
"Again, right now…" Opplemeyer slid the will back into his briefcase. "All we can do right now is wait. I certainly hope I won't be having to pull this out again, but… worse comes to worse, I wanted to give you a heads-up."
I'm not hearing this. I'm not hearing this.
"One more thing you need to consider." Opplemeyer pulled out another folder from his briefcase and handed it to Poof. "Thankfully your mother did the vast majority of the considering for you, as I know this is the last thing anyone wants to have to think about at a time like this, but… you need to think about funeral arrangements. Your mother left pretty detailed instructions for what she wanted." He paused for a moment. "I would say your father did too, but the instructions for him are mostly your mother's as well. Your father wasn't… isn't… exactly the best at planning things."
Poof's eyes fixated on the folder in his hands without really taking it in.
"Go away," he finally murmured. "Please."
Rude. That was rude. Mama will have my hide.
No, no no no, she's dead, she's dead and Dad's in critical condition and I'm holding their funeral arrangements…
This CANNOT be happening.
Opplemeyer placed a hand on Poof's shoulder. "I'm sorry, son," he said softly, before waving his wand and vanishing in a POOF.
This isn't happening.
Not now, please, if they have to die, don't let it be now, I'm too young, I'm just a kid, I can't…
Fifty-one years old is not a child. Certainly not by human standards, and not even by fairy standards.
Then why did he feel so helpless? So alone? Like curling up and crying and rocking back and forth and—and—
That night a year later, curled up in a similar position on his bed, his stuffed animals held tightly in his arms, Poof felt tears trickle down his cheeks.
"What am I?" he whispered.
He was a worrywart; he was a dork. He was a playful freewheeler; he was a killjoy. Janice and Jorgen thought he was irresponsible; Cosmo and Anna thought he was too responsible. He was an adult; he was an awkward adolescent; he was a baby.
"No matter how old, how mature you may get… you'll always be my baby."
What was he? He was… he was Poof. That was the only thing he knew for sure. He was Poof. And Anna thought he was doing a good job. And his dad would miss him if he had to wait a week to see him.
And for now, until he figured out just what and who he was, that would have to do.
Chapter 6: Burning Love
Chapter Text
Poof had been worried throughout the day that he and his father accompanying Anna to school still might not be such a good idea. She was still getting used to the fairies, after all, and in a new situation with them it might take her awhile to stop intently staring at her new green and purple school supplies. And as for Cosmo, who knew how he'd react? Poof just prayed that his dad would remember to act inconspicuous in a public setting.
To his surprise, however, he found that his worries were mostly unnecessary. Anna sat attentively in class and only occasionally threw a guarded smile to her pencils, and Cosmo had so long been accustomed to keeping his fairy godparent status a secret that he did nothing but grin back at Anna, and Poof was able to grin back too, his fears thankfully alleviating.
There was only one real issue that arose that day, when Anna's teacher had so mercilessly inflicted upon her students a pop quiz, and Anna had desperately whispered to her pencils, "I wish I would ace this test!"
Pencil-Cosmo lifted his wand, but the fizzing out noise and wilting showed Anna that that wasn't possible.
"Can't," whispered Pencil-Poof in response to her questioning glare. "That's cheating. It's against Da Rules. Also it's just not the right thing to do anyway."
"I didn't need a lecture…" Anna mumbled, but picking up Poof in resignation and looking over her test.
1. In what year did the Boston Tea Party occur?
"I am so screwed," Anna whispered.
Poof suddenly moved himself, scratching out a 1 on the paper, than a 7, then another 7, then a 3—
"What are you doing?" Anna said, almost forgetting to keep her voice down. "I thought you couldn't help me, it was against Da Rules!"
Poof grinned slyly at Anna. "It's against Da Rules for Dad to just give you an A. But I'm not your fairy godparent, and there's nothing stopping me from giving you an answer or two."
"But…" A disbelieving smile came over Anna's face. "I thought you just said that it wasn't the right thing to do!"
"I guess I left my principles at home today."
"I thought the principal was in the office!" Cosmo blurted out.
"There, I gave you a good start. You're on your own now, kiddo." Poof winked at Anna.
"I think I didn't completely bomb that pop quiz, at least," Anna remarked as she walked home from school, opting against the shuttle-bus even though she lived over a mile away, throwing a glance behind her at the green and purple birds following her. "I mean, I don't think I aced it, but I don't think I failed it, either."
"Maybe we're spending too much time playing," Poof said. "I think you should study more. Then you'll be more prepared for tests and quizzes and stuff."
"Or you should play the 'not-study' game, play video games for seven hours straight, and watch your brains ooze out of your head!" Cosmo countered cheerfully.
"I like Cosmo's idea better," smiled Anna.
"Your idea of fun is having your brains ooze out of your head?" Poof asked her, sounding a little disgusted. "That doesn't sound like a good idea at all to me! It sounds gross!"
"Oh, trust me, Poofy, brains are overrated," said Cosmo. "Then again, not that I've ever had one in the first place, so I can't really say that with one hundred percent certainty…"
"Hey, look!" Anna stopped abruptly. They had finally made it back to her house, and parked outside the garage was her mother's hovercar. "What's Mom doing here?"
In an instant, Cosmo and Poof had re-disguised themselves as a green backpack and a purple notebook tucked under Anna's arm.
"Maybe she went home sick?" Poof offered.
"Or maybe her office building was leveled by aliens and she got the day off?" Cosmo said.
"Maybe we're gonna find out. Come on!" Anna quickly bounded up the porch steps and flung open the front door, quickly rounding the corner to the kitchen. "M—"
"…please, Cole, you can't be serious…"
Anna froze; then recoiled from the kitchen doorway and simply tentatively peered around it, her mother not aware of her presence. Mrs. Hoffman was sitting on the very edge of one of the chairs at the kitchen table, hunched over in despair, clutching the receiver of the phone like a lifeline against her ear, her eyes dejected and frightened.
Anna instinctively clutched Poof closer to her chest as she observed the scene.
"Yes, I got the check, I always get the check—Cole, listen, that's not the issue. It's not just money. I don't give a shit about the money anymore, alright? I need you here. Anna needs you here. Your own daughter barely even knows you, and shoving money in her face doesn't count. …Yes, yes, I know how tough it is for you, but what about for us? Just come home, Cole, please. I don't blame you for anything… …what?" Mrs. Hoffman's voice came out hardly above a whisper. She was numb with shock for a few moments as Anna's father apparently explained something to her from the other end, hardly even blinking. "A… a divorce?" she finally whispered. "Cole, no, really, I don't want a divorce, I just want you back, I… Cole?" She pulled the phone away from her ear, revealing the harsh silence of a dead line. Dropping the receiver to the ground, she helplessly buried her face in her hands.
Anna stared at her mother in an unblinking shock of her own for a few moments, too confused, too flabbergasted to make any movement at all either towards or away from the situation she had just seen. She was holding Poof so tightly against her body with the one hand, and grasping one of Cosmo's straps with the other hand, that the two fairies normally would have protested, but they said nothing, only staring at Anna with surprise and concern.
Finally, Anna quickly spun around and, forcefully but quietly, marched up the stairs and to her room, quietly shutting the door behind her.
Cosmo and Poof instantly poofed back into fairies—and Cosmo just as instantly flung his arms around Anna, sobbing.
"Oh, Anna!" he cried. "Poor, poor Anna! I'm so sorry that your daddy's a huge jerk! I know what it's like to not have a daddy, my daddy died when I was just a baby, but—but still, I think it would be almost worse to have a daddy who's alive but doesn't care about you!"
"It is," snapped Anna harshly. "It is. I don't care about me. I don't need that jerk. What a shithead. I care about what he's done to Mom. He knows how much Mom clings to him, what an idiot, my mom I mean, but she worships him for some God-knows-why reason, it's like after her dad died when she was a kid she just needed some big strong male to save her, and for some reason she picked him… and…" Anna's voice broke. "And that worthless bum is my father…"
"Oh, Anna," Cosmo whispered again, still holding her tightly. "You deserve a better daddy than him. You deserve the best daddy in the world."
"And… and your mom," Poof added softly. "I would say she needs to open her eyes, but they say love is blind… but a divorce, really—"
"Really, why didn't they divorce years ago?!" Anna screeched harshly. "No, wait, I know why, it's because Mom's still waiting for him to come back and Dad's too cheap to hire an attorney. They should have divorced years ago. Dad doesn't care about me. He didn't even send me a card or anything on my birthday the last two years…" Anna's voice broke again, and she sniffled back angry tears.
"Oh, Anna!" Cosmo cried yet again. "My poor little Anna-Banana…"
Anna continued to sniffle, carefully wrapping one arm around Cosmo's shoulder, in both a return hug and an awkward gesture of gratitude. Poof was looking at her sympathetically, but also wringing his hands in worry, and Anna could guess why. She could imagine how angry and bitter her face must have looked right then. But it wasn't entirely angry. It was also calculating. Oh yes, was it calculating.
She had always hated unintentionally bearing one-sided witness to her parents' conversations. She had always hated that there was never anything she could do about it.
But now there was something she could do.
"Cosmo," she said quietly, "I need you to do something for me."
Cosmo pulled away from Anna enough to give her a reassuring, comforting smile. "Of course, Anna, I'll do anything!"
"I'm about to make a wish." Anna looked over at Poof. "This had better not be against the rules. I don't think it would be, anyway."
"What is it?" Poof asked.
Anna took a deep breath, then looked back at Cosmo. "I wish my dad was nicer."
Cosmo looked to Poof.
Poof gave the two of them a soft smile, lifting his wand. "I'll help with this one. Twice the magic will mean twice the niceness."
Cosmo and Anna both grinned, too. Cosmo raised his wand.
NICE! CARING! ATTENTIVE!
"Yes!" Anna cried as soon as the poof smoke cleared. "Now just wait," she said with a grin to Cosmo and Poof. "He'll be showing up here soon. He lives in California, so it'll take him a few hours to get here, but now that he's nice, he'll come up and see us, he has to. Just you wait."
…
Two days later…
"WHERE THE HECK IS HE?!" Anna screeched as she returned home from school to yet again find only her mother's hovercar in the driveway.
"He could be busy, Anna," said Poof. "Just because he's nicer doesn't mean that he can drop everything to come see you."
"No, that's exactly what it should mean!" cried Anna. "He's my father, her husband, if he's nicer then that means he should care about his family—I bet your magic didn't work this time!"
"It worked!" Cosmo protested. "Our wands didn't make that farty noise! It totally worked!"
"Maybe you should ask your mom if he called or anything," Poof suggested gently. "Really, just because he's nicer doesn't mean that—"
"Enough already!" Anna stormed up to the house with such force that her Cosmo backpack fell off her shoulders and dragged behind her, Cosmo yelling, "OUCH! PAVEMENT BURN!" as he skidded along the concrete. Anna flung open the door and marched past the still gibberish-speaking robot (still pointing drastically towards Anna's backpack and notebook and shouting "Pqeroinafsoirweq afoiqerwn werns!") and up to her mother, balancing her checkbook at the kitchen table.
"Mom!" Anna cried. "Have you gotten any phone calls in the past day or two that I should know about?"
Mrs. Hoffman looked at Anna and blinked in confusion. "No… why, are you expecting a call?"
"I'm expecting a lot heck more than a call, that's for sure!" Anna snapped. "You're sure there's nothing that you need to tell me about someone suddenly showing an interest in me?"
"Anna," sighed Mrs. Hoffman in exasperation, "I don't have a clue of what you're going on about, but could you please let me—"
The phone rang, cutting her off.
"A-HA!" Anna crowed triumphantly, pointing to the phone.
Mrs. Hoffman quickly grabbed the receiver. "Hello? —C-Cole! What are you—"
Anna grinned in satisfaction, but her confidence began inching away as her mother's facial expression never changed from shock to happiness—if anything, Mrs. Hoffman was looking more and more flummoxed at what she was hearing.
"—Wait, Cole, say that again… You what? This… this is so unlike you—…Yes, I know people can change without warning, and if this is really what you want, then—…I—I understand that, but don't you think you could just stop by and visit us before you—…no? A-alright then, I… what?" And yet again Mrs. Hoffman pulled the phone away from her ear with only the silence of the line gone dead answering her disbelief.
"Wait a minute," said Anna, blinking in confusion. "What was that all about?"
"I… I wish I knew," her mother admitted, staring at the phone in utter confusion. "That was your father, and—and he's traveling to the Congo to help impoverished orphans. Since… since when has your father cared about anyone even in this country like that? He said he's given most of his money to the homeless shelters in his town, and he was going to come up and see us, but he realized that the African orphans need him more than we do, so the obvious nice thing to do was to go to them instead…" She gave the phone an incredulous stare, as if it was the machine's doing rather than Cole's. "What on earth has gotten into him? I'm… I'm gonna go grocery shopping now and attempt to forget any of this ever happened…"
Anna was speechless with shock as her mother, in a daze, left the house, but her expression changed to one of irritation quickly. She glared at her backpack and notebook. "What's going on?" she demanded. "This isn't what I wished for!"
Cosmo and Poof quickly transformed themselves back into fairies.
"You just wished for your dad to be nicer," Poof explained, looking a little surprised himself. "And that's what my dad and I did. I wouldn't have thought it would have happened this way, but I guess it makes sense—"
"You did this on purpose!"
"No! For poof's sake, we did nothing of the sort! You wished that your dad was nicer and that's what he is, poof poof! He's pretty much the nicest guy in the world, giving away his money and helping orphans like that!"
"But that's not what I wanted! I wanted him to be nice to my mom and me!"
"Maybe your mother was the judge that sentenced me to an eternity of cleaning toilets," Cosmo suddenly remarked.
Anna and Poof both glared at him.
"I swear, I'll figure this out eventually!"
"Well, you might have granted my wish," Anna said, getting back on track, "but this isn't what I wanted! And if Dad's too distracted by other people to care about his own wife and daughter, then I guess I'll have to bring him here! I wish—"
"Wait!" cried Poof in a panic.
Anna raised an eyebrow. "Now what?"
"If you wish him here, he'll see us, and that'll blow your secret!"
"Fine!" cried Anna. "I wish he was somewhere in this city, in Reno, Nevada, that wasn't in this exact spot! Is that acceptable, Mr. Authority?"
"It should be," said Poof, as he and Cosmo raised their wands.
HERE POOF! THERE POOF! EVERYWHERE A POOF POOF!
"Okay, now where is he?" Anna demanded.
Poof shrugged. "We don't know. You weren't specific, so we just brought him somewhere within the city limits."
"I was aiming for the zoo, personally," added Cosmo.
Anna groaned. "Well, I've gotta go find him before he decides to free all the animals!"
The radio in the kitchen suddenly blared a breaking news story. "Just in, a breaking news story that we will blare to you!" the reporter blared. "A man has quite suddenly appeared near the zoo and is rushing towards the nearest airport, saying something about having to get to Africa, but he keeps getting distracted by his need to help little old ladies cross the street and rescue kittens from trees! This good Samaritan may well make our town a better place before he boards his plane to Africa! Details at eleven."
"Oh man!" cried Anna. "Dad's completely out of control! He's so nice that he's completely forgotten about Mom and me! I've gotta get him to the house somehow!"
"But how are you gonna do that?" Cosmo asked her. "All your dad cares about anymore are people in dire peril or starvation or other life-threatening conditions that totally deserve anyone's complete attention! You and your mom are safe and well-cared for here!"
Anna's eyes glimmered with an idea. "Hmm. Then I'll have to bring him here with the calling card that he responds to."
Poof's eyes widened, realizing what Anna was planning to do. "Anna, for crying out loud, have you lost your poofin' mind?"
"Poof, I need you to lure my dad away from whoever he might be trying to help and to my house, okay? I'm gonna—"
"No," Poof interrupted.
Anna glared at him. "No? What do you mean, no?"
"I mean no! What you're asking me to do is dangerous and foolhardy and completely and utterly stupid, and I'm not gonna let you do it!"
"Cosmo!" Anna blurted out. "I wish Poof would do what I say!"
"Oh great," muttered Poof.
Cosmo struggled against his wand, but it was already glowing. "S-sorry, Poofy," he said. "She did wish for it…"
"Fine, I'll do what I can!" Poof said with a defeated sigh. "Just don't do anything stupid!"
He vanished in a "I'VE BEEN COMPELLED POOF POOF".
"I sure hope I don't let him down," Cosmo said with worry.
"Okay. Now for phase two. We need to get outside." Anna quickly bounded back out to the front lawn, Cosmo following her in confusion.
"Okay." Anna began pacing as she thought aloud, Cosmo nervously hovering above her. "My dad has become some sort of do-gooder. To get him here, I need to do something that he actually responds to. I'm not starving, so that's out, but what I can do is put myself in danger—much more eminent danger than some little old lady crossing the street." She looked up at Cosmo. "Do you remember that cheese sea monster that nearly ate Poof and me?"
"I wish I could forget!" Cosmo exclaimed in horror. "I'd never been so scared in my—"
"I wish there was a monster here that was, I don't know, ten times bigger and scarier than that one!"
Cosmo gasped. "Anna, what are you—"
"Do it, Cosmo! I wish!"
Again, Cosmo struggled even harder against his glowing wand, but to no avail. "A-Anna," he said, putting all of his strength into holding his glowing wand back from granting Anna's wish, "I'm a total idiot, and even I know that this is a terrible wish!"
"It is not! It'll make my dad come! Now give me a monster!"
Cosmo's strength finally gave out, and POOF!…
The monster Cosmo conjured was ten stories high, with nine heads and nine eyes on each head, and each head overflowing with razor-sharp teeth. It let out a mighty roar that shattered glass, and reached most of its fifteen arms towards the relatively tiny Anna.
"ANNA!" shrieked Cosmo.
"This is perfect!" cried Anna, standing her ground. "Now don't do anything! My dad has to be the one to rescue me! Don't do anything that'll mess this up!"
She was suddenly scooped up and held high in the air, dangling above the monster's nine hungry, open mouths.
"…Maybe I didn't think this through too well," Anna squeaked in sudden horror.
The monster released her, and Anna tumbled with a scream into a mouth.
She somehow managed to grasp onto one of its teeth before falling down its throat—a tooth that was at least thrice her size and slippery with saliva, and her grip immediately began to give out. "DAD!" she shrieked, but her tiny voice was lost in the monster's mouth and the deafening roaring all nine mouths were still making. It gnashed its jaw, knocking Anna free of its tooth, and she bounced onto its tongue. The monster, having finally picked the bite-sized speck from its teeth, flicked her back down its throat with a simple movement of its tongue.
This was the stupidest thing I've ever done. And it'll also be the LAST thing I'll ever do.
"DAD! HELP ME!" Anna screamed feebly one last time before allowing the darkness to swallow her up—
A jab to the monster's throat suddenly dislodged Anna, and before she knew it she was shot out of the monster entirely, hurling through the air, ten stories high, falling like a brick—
And then she was caught up in someone's arms, saved at least for now, her dad had finally…
…they were hovering…
Trembling, Anna wrapped her arms around Cosmo's neck tightly, frightened tears tumbling from her eyes. Cosmo grasped her protectively, even though one arm was also holding his now giant wand, the pointed edge of the star still jammed against the throat of the head that Anna had nearly been swallowed by.
Enraged, the monster roared with all nine mouths, fire even shooting out from one of them and igniting a tree.
"I—I wish that thing was gone," Anna squeaked out.
POOF!
And just like that, the monster vanished. The air was empty again. And the deafening roars were replaced by near silence, only broken by the flickering of the alit tree and the sobbing of both Anna and Cosmo as they continued to hover in the air, Anna still clinging to Cosmo helplessly.
"I don't care if I messed it all up," Cosmo whispered harshly, his tears running down Anna's hair. "I don't care if it messed up your plan. I'm not gonna let you die."
Anna could do nothing but weep into Cosmo's shoulder.
And so they remained for a few moments, holding each other and sobbing, until Cosmo gently lowered them back down the ground.
Anna finally noticed the burning tree.
"I—I wish that tree was put out!" Anna choked out from her sobs, her wish hardly comprehensible. But when Cosmo turned his head to see what she was looking at, he quickly waved his (now normally-sized) wand, and a huge watering can appeared in the air and drenched the tree in water, stopping the fire before it traveled to the house.
"Don't… ever…" Cosmo grasped Anna even tighter, but his voice suddenly grew an angry, authoritative edge. "Don't you ever make a wish like that again, Anna Marie Hoffman! You almost died! And what if I'm not around to save you, what if I'm too stupid to save you, because I am, and if anything happened to you I'd… I'd…"
He let go of her and glared at her, shaking with anger and fear. Anna, still sniffling back tears, realized with a shock why his reaction was so familiar to her. It reminded her of when she had been about four years old and had carelessly wandered into the street, and her mother had, with a hysterical shriek, yanked her back from the incoming traffic and screamed at her to be more careful, to look before crossing the street, to not wander off… an anger that was fueled and intensified by parental fear.
And that was exactly how Cosmo looked at that very moment.
"I… I'm sorry, Cosmo," Anna whispered, wiping her eyes. "You're right, that was a really, really stupid wish."
"Listen to me next time! Because trust me, I know stupid!" He flung his arms around her again and Anna again buried her face into his shoulder, their tears of fear slowly morphing into tears of relief.
But just as Anna felt her breathing and heart rate finally get down under control—
BOOM!
"COSMO, YOU MORON!" a voice nearly as loud as all nine of the monster's roars bellowed.
Cosmo and Anna let go of each other and both gasped at the sight. Towering before them was the most muscular, imposing-looking man Anna had ever seen, wearing tight, army-camouflage clothing, steel plated boots and armbands, and brandishing a giant wand staff, even bigger than Cosmo's wand had been just a few moments earlier.
He snatched up Cosmo from the ground and brought him to his face level, all the better to shout in his face. "Why do I think for even a second that you are able to handle a godchild? Is this not exactly what you did with your last, seven second assignment? HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING?!"
"N-no, Jorgen, I mean, I know it was stupid! I tried to stop Anna from making the wish! But she did and I had to grant it!"
"NO YOU DIDN'T!" Jorgen bellowed. "It is against Da Rules to grant any wish that will knowingly put a human being in danger!"
"B-but my wand was glowing! I couldn't stop it!"
"Cosmo's right," Anna piped up, finding her voice. "I made him grant it. I didn't know it was against the rules. And it was a really, really stupid thing of me to do…"
"I don't understand it," Jorgen muttered harshly, unceremoniously dropping Cosmo to the ground with a thud. "For nearly two weeks there have been no major screw-ups, minus that ocean of cheese thing, and yet you pick now to suddenly be a moron again? Up until now, you have actually been following Da Rules!" He suddenly looked around the yard in surprise. "Wait a minute. Where is Poof?"
"I, uh, I sent him to go bring my dad here so he could see me in danger and save me," Anna said, flinching as the words came out of her mouth.
"She wished that one, too!" Cosmo said. "Poof and I tried to stop her, but…"
"That explains everything," growled Jorgen. "With Poof wished away, the deviousness of the godchild and the stupidity of the godparent come out in full force! PUNY HUMAN CHILD! WISH HIM BACK!"
Anna gulped, knowing it would be suicide to argue. "I-I wish—"
But the words weren't even out of her mouth when an irritated "ENOUGH ALREADY POOF POOF!" serendipitously brought Poof back right when they needed him—and glaring at Anna in complete exasperation. "Anna, I quit! I told you I'd give it my best shot but your dad is absolutely poofin' impossible, poof poof! I tried to pull him away from the little old lady he was helping but when he felt my hand and somehow realized that my temperature is about two degrees above the average for you humans—which I might add is the natural body temperature for us fairies—he gave me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and administered complete first aid on me, and when I tried to get away he kept pulling me back from the street, and he kept on heroically saving me when I wasn't in any danger at all, poof poof poof! I did my best, but I just couldn't take it any more, and I was only doing this in the first place because you made me and I certainly wouldn't have done this otherwise because the truth is your plan's a crazy one and I wouldn't be surprised if… Jorgen!" he yelped, finally taking notice of his boss's presence. "I—I knew this was a bad idea, but I didn't think it would be this bad! …Dare I ask what happened?"
"Ask her!" Jorgen bellowed, pointing his wand staff at Anna. Anna squeaked out a noise of terror and jumped back a few steps. "She caused the existence of a ferocious monster and needlessly put her own life at risk, not to mention the lives of any other person who certainly would have stumbled upon this scene had it continued, she set a tree ablaze—"
"Hey!" Anna protested. "We didn't start the fire!"
"It was always burning since the world's been turning!" Poof sang out.
"THIS IS NO TIME FOR SINGING ELVIS SONGS!" Jorgen roared.
Poof scaled back in fear too, but still managed to throw a reproachful look Jorgen's way. "That's Billy Joel, not Elvis. I do listen to other singers too, you know!"
Jorgen pointed at Poof in irritation. "You," he said, "are distracted and off-the-wall and too tightly wound and you are the least of my problems. You—" He pointed at Anna—"are a foolish, inconsiderate child abusing the use of your fairy godparents and by all rights should have them taken away! And you—" He pointed at Cosmo. "You are a moron who cannot keep your own godchild out of harm's way—thus failing your most important duty as this girl's godfather!"
"I—I thought the most important duty was to grant her wishes!" Cosmo cried out, his lip trembling. "And that's what I did! E-even though I knew it was a bad wish and I tried to stop it, and I would've if I'd've figured out how! But I did what she wanted me to do! E-except when I didn't, she told me to not do anything because I would mess up her plan, but when the monster swallowed her I did something even though she told me not to!"
"Cosmo saved my life!" Anna cried out, standing up straighter and looking Jorgen more squarely in the eye. "Yell at me all you want, I know what I did was stupid, but Cosmo did not fail at keeping me safe from harm! If it weren't for him I'd be dead now!"
"If it weren't for your stupidity, Anna Hoffman, none of this would have happened in the first place!" Jorgen shot back.
There was silence for a few moments as the four of them breathed heavily.
"Look," Poof finally said to Jorgen. "Don't all godkids go through a mess like this? I mean, cut the kids some slack, they have seemingly all-powerful fairies that can grant almost their every whim. All godkids make some crazy, stupid wishes! It's because they're kids! And I'm sure that Anna's learned her lesson from this. This can't be the worst disaster a godkid ever wished up, could it? Actually… from personal experience, I know it isn't," Poof murmured, his eyes suddenly becoming downcast.
Jorgen seemed to grow thoughtful. "Hmm. I suppose you do have a point."
"Poofy's always right!" Cosmo said cheerfully.
"And Cosmo, if it is true that you saved your godchild's life, you are showing real progress. There may be hope for you yet. DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN!" he finished with a roar, sending Cosmo's facial features askew again.
"Mmphpphft!" Cosmo nodded in agreement.
"And that goes for you too!" Jorgen bellowed at Anna. "I am letting you off the hook this once, but consider this your first and final warning!" BOOM! And with that he was gone.
"I'm not letting you off the hook, though," Poof growled at Anna as Cosmo began pushing his face back into shape.
"Oh, come on, I'm sorry!" Anna protested. "I know it was a stupid wish! And didn't you just tell Jorgen that all kids do dumb stuff like this when getting their fairies?"
"Yeah, but I thought you were smarter than this!" snapped Poof. "How could anyone in their right mind think that the best way to get their dad's attention is to from what I've gathered conjure up a huge monster and let it eat you?! I guess only if what you were really hoping was for him to give you a nice eulogy at your poofin' funeral!"
"Oh, put a lid on it!" Anna snapped.
A huge garbage can lid suddenly appeared in Poof's hand, and he slammed it down on the top of his head.
Both Anna and Cosmo stared at him in surprise.
Rubbing his head and swishing the lid away with his wand, Poof gave Anna a sour look. "Anna. You wished that I would do what you say. And you still haven't unwished it. So unwish it now, please?"
"Wait, I only meant for that one order… but you really have to do what I say? I mean, anything?"
"Unwish it, Anna!"
"Cluck like a chicken, Poof!"
"I said—bwack-bwack-BAWKAAAAAW!"
Anna and Cosmo both collapsed in a fit of laughter.
"Dad!" cried Poof. "This isn't funny!"
Getting his laughter under control, Cosmo wiped a tear of merriment from his eye. "I suppose it isn't… Anna, you need to…" He took another look at Poof and burst out laughing again.
"Dad!"
"Sorry, Poof," said Anna, her laughter not letting up at all, "but—but that was hilarious!"
"Well, okay, maybe it might have been, but can you please unwish this so I'm not your little puppet anymore? Nobody's that cruel!"
"Alright," laughed Anna. "Cosmo, I unwish my wish of making Poof do what I say. You can give him his free will back."
Cosmo picked up his wand, and POOF!
…a giant orca crashed into the lawn.
Anna and Poof were dumbfounded.
"…oh," Cosmo finally said sheepishly. "I thought you said Free Willy."
…
The next morning, at breakfast…
"I guess your father finally made it to Africa," Mrs. Hoffman said, looking over the newspaper. "The paper says he did get to the airport… eventually." The article, titled "PHILANTHROPIST SAVES PURPLE-HAIRED YOUTH EIGHT TIMES IN TWO MINUTES", had made front-page news.
"He didn't call you and let you know he arrived safely?" Anna asked. Her green saltshaker and purple peppershaker looked questioning as well.
Mrs. Hoffman snorted. "Of course not. He's too busy saving lives to take time out to make a call, I'm sure."
"Of course." Anna grabbed the saltshaker and salted her scrambled eggs.
"AARGH! MY BRAINS!" Cosmo shrieked.
"I've gotta get to work," Mrs. Hoffman said, quickly setting the paper down, putting her dishes in the sink, and hurrying towards the door. "You'll have to get yourself to school—"
"As always," Anna mumbled.
"You're a responsible girl. And I have no time. Bye." She bolted out the door without another word.
Anna sighed and took a gulp of orange juice.
Cosmo poofed himself back into a fairy and grabbed the paper Mrs. Hoffman had left lying on the table. "Look, Poofy, you made the front page!" he exclaimed. "And they even got your picture, too!"
Poof also transformed back into a fairy and examined the front-page picture. He was taller than normal in the photo, obviously being in his human disguise, and sported a look of annoyance as he tried to break free from Cole Hoffman's grasp, the latter heroically pulling him away from a slight crack in the sidewalk that he so easily could have tripped on and broken his spine. "Unfortunately, yes," Poof muttered.
"I'm so proud of you!" Cosmo grinned, pulling Poof towards him in a one-armed hug. "I need to buy like seventeen thousand copies of this paper so I can put them in your scrapbook!"
Poof looked mortified. "Oh please, Dad, do you have to?"
"Yep! Because as your father, it is my goal in life to humiliate you at all possible turns!"
"But do you have to buy a zillion copies?"
"Duh!"
Poof sighed in resignation. "Don't forget. Human disguise."
POOF!
Now Cosmo was the one who was taller, his crown and wings gone and his wand tucked inconspicuously in his pants pocket. "Okay! I'm off to every place in town that sells newspapers! Don't wait up for me!" He tucked Mrs. Hoffman's copy of the paper under his arm.
"Just don't be weird about it," Poof pleaded.
"Weird? Of course not! 'Cool' is my middle name!" With one last confident laugh, Cosmo stepped out of the house as well. "HEY WORLD, I NEED EVERY COPY OF THIS PAPER YOU HAVE! HEY, RANDOM PASSERBY, DID YOU SEE THE PAPER TODAY?! LOOK! THAT'S MY SON ON THE FRONT PAGE! RIGHT THERE! HEY YOU! DID YOU SEE MY SON ON THE FRONT PAGE? HEY WAIT! YOU HAVE A PAPER! LEMME TAKE THAT, I NEED IT, THAT'S MY SON YOU KNOW…"
Poof facepalmed. "I can only take comfort in the fact that nobody here knows me."
Anna grinned. "I know you."
"You will say nothing of this, of course?"
"I'll never let you live it down."
Poof sighed and slid down in a sitting position in the chair Anna's mother had just occupied. Anna quietly got back to her eggs.
"Your dad's a nice guy, you know… although a little annoying," Poof said.
"Duh he's nice. You and your dad made him that way. You made him so nice he can't function if he's not helping people."
"Really, I'm sorry that wish didn't go the way you'd hoped. You… you can unwish it, you know." Poof raised an eyebrow at Anna, seeming surprised that she hadn't already done so.
"I did think about it," Anna admitted. "But then things would just go back to the way they were before. At least now, a lot of people who really need help are getting it. And Dad's got a purpose in life. Who am I to take that away from him?"
Anna took a big mouthful of her eggs again, looking away from Poof. Poof poofed up a plate of toast with strawberry jam and began munching on his breakfast as well.
"Anna," he suddenly said, "if I had actually succeeded in getting your dad here… he would have helped you. Honest he would have. Heck, he helped me eight times in two minutes when I didn't even need his help."
Anna looked up at him. "Helped me? What can a mere mortal do against a eight-headed monster? Or however many heads it had, eight or nine, somewhere around there, I was too scared to even think about counting them." She let out a hollow laugh. "My idea was inordinately stupid. Even if my dad was there, there was nothing he could have done about it. I was dead meat." She gulped down the rest of her orange juice and set the glass down, gazing distractedly out of the window. "If your dad hadn't been there to save me… I would be dead now."
Poof suddenly felt himself smile. "Hey, that's right. Your dad saved me, and my dad saved you. It's like, I don't know, some sort of karmic thing. They're even."
Anna chuckled lightly, turning back to look at Poof. Her dark mood lifted with her smile, her genuine smile, as she realized that the continued absence of her father didn't bother her so much anymore.
"Trust me, Poof, my dad's got a lot of catching up to do to be even with your dad."
Chapter 7: Viva Las Vegas
Chapter Text
After waking up the next morning, Saturday, to find that Cosmo and Poof were still in the castle and unresponsive to her call, Anna shrugged it off and headed towards the stairs on her lonesome, prepared to grab a quick bite to eat for breakfast and then run back up to her room to spend a usual fun-filled Saturday with her fairies.
She didn't even make it to the stairs, however, seeing as she tripped over the suitcase sitting in the hallway by her mother's room.
"Oof!" muttered Anna, picking herself back up and rubbing her sore elbow, looking in confusion at the luggage. "Mom? What's going on? Are we going on a vacation?"
Half a second later, her mother burst from her room in her usual frenzied hurry, another suitcase in her hand. "No. We aren't, and it's not a vacation. Work's just unexpectedly sent me on a conference to Las Vegas—"
"Las Vegas?!" Anna squealed in delight. "Awesome! I've always wished someday you'd take me there! We're gonna have lots of fun—"
"Anna!" Mrs. Hoffman sighed in exasperation. "What part of 'conference' don't you understand? You wouldn't want to come. I'll be spending all my time in meetings."
"Take me with you, please!" Anna begged, climbing up on the suitcase still sitting on the hallway floor and imploring her mother with huge, pleading eyes. "Don't you realize we've never really been on a real family vacation before?"
"Don't give me that guilt-trip. I take you to Wacky Land every summer!"
Anna rolled her eyes. "That's only twenty miles away, and you just sit on the benches in the park and talk work all day on your cell phone while I ride the teacups eight thousand times until you finally take me home!"
"Anna. Honey." Mrs. Hoffman reached down and stroked Anna's chin. "I promise you that someday I'll have the time and money to take you on a real vacation. But that's not this time. I won't be gone long. I should be getting back Tuesday night."
"What kind of mother are you?" Anna cried. "You're gonna leave me home alone for four days?"
"Robot babysitter," Mrs. Hoffman reminded her curtly, as if that solved any arguments.
Anna opened her mouth, about to remind her mother that the robot was still speaking gibberish and wouldn't be of any help in alerting the police or hospital if she should happen to get sick or in an accident or whatever, but then quickly closed it, remembering that if her mother ever did get around to fixing the robot, her secret would be revealed. Besides, her personal safety wasn't that much of an issue, Anna reflected. If anything did happen to her while her mother was away, Cosmo and Poof could take care of it. She wasn't really being left with nothing but an unintelligible robot to look after her after all, even though her mother didn't realize it. As good as Cosmo and Poof were about getting her into trouble, they were thankfully just as good as getting her out of it.
"Well then, bon voyage," Anna said, climbing off the suitcase and stepping aside to allow her mother a free path to the stairs. "Bring me back a T-shirt."
"Behave yourself. And get yourself to school on time Monday and Tuesday." Mrs. Hoffman gave her daughter a quick kiss on the forehead. "I'll be calling every night to check in on you. Bye!"
"Bye!" Anna waved as her mother hurried down the stairs and out the door.
Smirking, she walked back into her room. Perhaps she shouldn't smirk about her overworked, somewhat neglectful mother leaving her for four days with hardly a warning, but what a golden opportunity this presented for herself, Cosmo, and Poof! Four days with the house all to themselves!
"Cosmo! Poof! Are you guys awake yet?"
A green-eyed fish quickly darted from the castle, flashing his customary good-morning-smile. "Morning, Anna-Banana! Hey, did you know that you can fit eight newspaper pictures on one page of a scrapbook? I've been working on Poofy's, and I'm gonna need about thirty-two pages to fit all the newspapers I bought yesterday—"
"Where is Poof?" Anna asked.
Cosmo poofed out of the fishbowl and pointed to a calendar that also appeared with him. "It's Saturday! And you know what Saturday means!"
"…no school?" Anna ventured.
Cosmo laughed. "No! Well, yes. But it also means that we've been with you for two whole weeks! Which means that Poof needs to submit his weekly report, and if he doesn't do it today, Jorgen will pound him into next week! And if Jorgen pounds him into next week, he'll have another one due, and obviously he'll have had no time to work on it, so he'll be pounded into the next week, and over and over and over again, and so to avoid a time paradox by being forever pounded into the next week he decided to just get it over with and poofed to Fairy World first thing to hand-deliver the report to Jorgen!" Cosmo grinned. "Isn't he smart?"
"Uh, yeah," Anna said. "And he's definitely gonna wanna stick around for this week. We've got the house to ourselves for four whole days!"
Cosmo's eyes grew wide. "Ooooooohhhh! Are we gonna have a wild party and trash the place?"
"I'm not a teenager yet," Anna reminded him.
"Oh. Right."
"For now, I think I'll just sculpt some Play-Doh while I'm waiting for Poof to get back." Anna pulled her jars of Play-Doh from the shelf and pulled the lid off of the green can.
"Me too! Me too! Can I?" Cosmo asked, grabbing the container nearest to him.
Anna grinned. "Of course."
"Yay!" Cosmo pulled the red Play-Doh from the canister. "I'm gonna make a blob!"
"Good luck with that…" Anna smiled at Cosmo again before turning back to the small green figure she was sculpting, it beginning to take on a somewhat human shape.
"What are you making?" Cosmo asked her.
Anna looked at Cosmo knowingly. "You."
"Me?" Cosmo laughed. "But I'm not made of Play-Doh!"
"Duh. But I'm making the Play-Doh look like you. See?" Anna held out her creation, a small figure that did, strangely, resemble Cosmo, right down to the wings on his back and the wand in his hand. "A perfect miniature of you. Could you hand me the purple that's right by your hand? I'm gonna make Poof now."
"By my hand, or by the Play-Doh me's hand?"
"Your hand. Right there on the shelf."
Cosmo grabbed it and tossed it to Anna, who caught it perfectly.
"Good catch!" he said approvingly.
Anna laughed. "Now if only I could have that good of hand-eye coordination in PE!" She pulled the glop of dough from the container and instantly got to work.
Cosmo took a container of purple Play-Doh as well, absent-mindedly pulling the dough out and forming another blob, his eyes resting on the figurine Anna had just sculpted. It was a rather good likeness, he had to admit. Besides the fact that it was too short and way too green.
Why had she chosen to sculpt him, though? Of all the awesome blobs and goops and balls and… stuff that she could make, why him? Cosmo suddenly realized he was smiling a bit as he looked at Anna's creation. Anna seemed to think he was cooler than a ball or a goop… or even a blob.
"Two weeks," Anna mused, still forming her second figure.
Cosmo blinked. "Huh?"
Anna looked up at him. "It's been two weeks that you and Poof have been here. It's just… it seems like you've been here longer than that. It seems like you've been here… forever." She smiled as she delicately formed the last tiny wing, placing it and completing her Poof figurine. "There, finished. What do you think?"
"Man, you're fast! I haven't even finished my two blobs yet!" Cosmo squinted, examining Anna's Poof sculpture. "Yep, that's Poofy alright!" he finally said in approval. "Although maybe you should have made him look a little more bossy."
Anna giggled. "Here." She resculpted his arms so that they were in a grumpy, crossed against his chest position. "How's that?"
Cosmo blinked. "Now he just looks like a hip-hop rapper."
"Yo yo yo, poof poof poof," smirked Anna. She reached for a container of pink Play-Doh next. "Now I'll make me—"
Cosmo suddenly grabbed her wrist tightly, halting her before she could grab the jar. "No, not pink!" he yelped. "Don't use the pink!"
"Why not?"
"Because… because you just can't, that why," Cosmo said in a faltering voice. "U-use… use blue instead." He pushed a container of blue Play-Doh to her.
Anna pried her wrist from Cosmo's grasp with a look of confused annoyance on her face. "O-kaaaay then. Blue it is."
She returned to work, taking no notice of Cosmo staring at the pink container both sadly and angrily. Why had that particular shade of Play-Doh set him off like that? The color pink didn't hurt him anymore… as much… okay, so it still made him think of Wanda, but he had never reacted so negatively to the color before, even when the shade was the exact same color as her eyes, and the Play-Doh wasn't, it was much darker. So why did it…
He looked again at the green and purple figures Anna had previously sculpted, and realization smacked him in the face.
It wasn't the pink on its own. It was the thought of seeing it together with the green and the purple.
The very same reason that made working on Poof's scrapbook, which was filled with pictures of the three of them, so difficult.
Cosmo gulped, pushing the container of pink Play-Doh out of his line of sight.
"There we go," Anna was saying, placing the figurine representing herself between the Cosmo and Poof sculptures. "There's the three of us."
Usually she smiled when viewing her handiwork, but this time she could feel herself frowning. Frowning? They were good sculptures, she was proud of her work, they looked and felt like miniatures of herself, Cosmo, and Poof, what was there to frown about?
They wouldn't last, that was what. She's have to mush them back into nothingness and put them away again.
Dang, did she need some real clay.
"Cosmo?" she suddenly said, looking towards him, surprised to see that he was also regarding the sculptures with an almost sad-looking quietness. "Do you think you could handle me making a kind of big wish? I'll try to be specific."
Cosmo gave Anna a small smile—but it was still a smile. "And I'll try to be competent. What is it?"
"Well, I wish—"
POOF POOF!
Poof's return cut short Anna's wish. Despite having had presumably just dealt with the horror that is Jorgen, he looked quite cheerful, perhaps due more to the fact that he was holding three ice cream cones in his hands. "Hey Dad! Hey Anna! I'm back! And I stopped at 'Iggy's Ice Cream Imporium Yes We Know It's Misspelled' on the way!" To Anna, he added helpfully, "It's one of the best ice cream parlors in Fairy World."
"Poofy," said Cosmo sternly, "you know you shouldn't have three ice cream cones before lunchtime, they'll go straight to your glutes! And besides, you'll spoil your appetite!"
"I only got one for me! This one's for you. Cinnamon-toffee-mint chip-peanut butter-cheese, your favorite." Poof handed Cosmo a swirled brown, mint green, and yellow ice cream cone.
Cosmo instantly brightened. "Spoiling your appetite has never been so delicious! Thanks, Poof!"
Poof handed another cone to Anna. "I don't know what your favorite flavor is, except I guessed that it probably wasn't banana. So I got you chocolate chip cookie dough, because… everyone likes chocolate chip cookie dough."
"Except me," Anna grumbled.
Poof blinked in surprise.
"I'm kidding!" said Anna, breaking into a grin. "You're right, everyone loves chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, and I'm no exception! Thanks!" She grabbed it and immediately got straight to work.
"And strawberry for me." Poof began to lick on the third and final cone, smiling in contentment. "It doesn't get any better than this, poof poof."
"So how did your meeting with Jorgen go?" Cosmo asked. "Since you're here, I can tell he didn't pound you into next week, at least… unless it is next week!"
"It's not. And it was fine. I mean, it wasn't exactly the best report, but… seeing as he was actually there Thursday and already knew about that whole… incident…" Poof shrugged. "Compared to that, everything else was sunshine and roses. What have you two been doing?" Poof looked at the Play-Doh, noticing for the first time the three figures Anna had sculpted. "Hey, poof poof, that's us! That's really neat, Anna!" He frowned in confusion. "Why did you make me a hip-hop rapper, though?"
"I made gobs!" Cosmo said proudly, showing Poof his handiwork.
"Uh… that's nice, Dad."
"I'm glad you're back, Poof," said Anna. "We're gonna have an awesome weekend. We have the house all to ourselves for four whole days!"
Poof stared at her in surprise, surprise so strong it carried with it a touch of alarm. "Alone for four days? Where the poof's your mother gonna be?"
"She has some sort of conference to go to," Anna said. "And, you know, she's such an attentive parent, leaving me as far as she knows with only a robot that can't speak English to watch after me, and she wouldn't let me come with her even though she knows how much I want a real vacation with her, especially to a place like Las Vegas, and—"
"LAS VEGAS?!"
Poof's squeal of glee was so loud, so high-pitched, and so completely unexpected that both Anna and Cosmo were nearly knocked over to the floor in shock. Poof took no notice of their temporary discombobulation, however, still clasping his hands and making excited, high-pitched, girly noises of excitement. "We're going to Las Vegas?! I've always wanted to go there, poof poof! Aside from Graceland that's Elvis's home turf, poof poof poof! Think of all the tribute shows, the professional impersonators, the memorabilia, to actually be there at the Hilton where he—"
"Poof!' Anna interrupted harshly. "We're not going! Weren't you listening? Mom wouldn't let me come with her! We're stuck here!"
"No we're not!" cried Poof happily. "What part of 'fairy godparent' don't you understand?" He grabbed Cosmo's hand and lifted it and his wand clasped in it high in the air, Cosmo still too confused to react. "You can wish for us to go there!"
"Come on! Get real!"
"I am getting real, poof poof! We can have our own four-day vacation!"
"I can't believe that you, Poof, of all people, are suggesting such a crazy… irresponsible scheme! You really think it's a good idea for a ten-year-old girl to go traipsing around a city like Las Vegas all by herself?!"
"Who says you'll be by yourself?" Poof countered, waving his wand.
ATTENTIVE POOF POOF!
Both Poof and Cosmo were now much taller, their crowns and wings gone—in other words, once again in their human disguises. "Hey, I'm tall again!" Cosmo grinned.
"You won't be by yourself," Poof said to Anna. "You'll be there on a family vacation with your dad and very responsible older brother."
A beat.
"Me and Dad," Poof added helpfully.
"Who's gonna believe that I'm your daughter-slash-sister?" Anna asked in confusion. "I look nothing like you two!"
"So?" shrugged Poof. "With a combination of green and purple and brown, people will just assume that we're a family with very weird genetics."
"But Mom's in Las Vegas too! What if she sees me?"
"Come on, what are the chances? Besides, even if she does, we'll just do a memory wipe on her and she'll forget she ever saw you."
"But she'll be calling in here every night to check up on me! What's she gonna think when I don't answer?"
I'VE GOT IT COVERED POOF POOF!
"I've programmed your home number to forward all incoming calls to this cell phone," Poof explained as Anna examined the phone that had magically appeared in her hands. "It has caller ID, so when you see a call coming in from your mom's cell phone, you can answer it and pretend that you're bored out of your mind here at home."
"But… but Monday and Tuesday I'll be missing school!"
"It's okay. I got that covered in my previous poof too." Poof held out a note in his hand that read, "Please excuse Anna Hoffman from school Monday and Tuesday, as she will be on a family vacation. Signed, her very responsible caregiver."
Anna raised an eyebrow incredulously. "Oh, come on. That's forgery! You can't tell me that with all those thousands of itty-bitty rules in that book of yours, that something like forgery actually is allowed!"
"It's not," Poof replied bluntly. "But those are rules for fairy godparents, and I'm not technically your godparent. Besides, it's not a lie. I am in a sense your caregiver, and I'm very responsible—you and Dad tell me so every day, usually in an annoyed tone of voice. So the note's not false. And it'll get you to Vegas scot-free!"
Anna looked at the note, then at the cell phone Poof had made appear, then back at Poof, still apprehensive. "I don't know about this, Poof, I have this feeling that there's so much that could go wrong…"
"Oh, please, Anna, please make this wish!" Poof pleaded, throwing himself at Anna's feet—causing the latter to jump back a bit, still not quite used to Poof's disguised size that made him quite a bit bigger than she was. "You said yourself that you've always wanted to go to Las Vegas too! We have four days to do whatever we want and we've got this golden opportunity in front of us and we can have so much fun together, and I've taken care of anything, nothing will go wrong, nothing at all, poof poof poof!"
Cosmo, who had been studying Anna's Play-Doh sculptures of the three of them for most of that time, suddenly turned his head and offered his two cents on the matter for the first time. "You know, Anna, I can see why your mother didn't want to take you to Las Vegas with her, because really, who brings their kids with them to Sin City, and isn't that what I'm about to do too if you make this wish? But I still think you should make it. If you want to, of course. But there's all these shows and museums and buffets and stuff and… and stuffish stuff full of stuff that we can see, too, even though you're just a kid, and besides, it has to be a good idea! If it were a bad idea Poofy wouldn't have suggested it! Poofy always knows when something's a bad idea! Sometimes he even thinks good ideas are bad ideas! So if even he thinks it's a good idea…" Cosmo grinned, waving his wand and poofing a camera into his hands. "I'm gonna get so many good pictures for that scrapbook!"
Poof blanched. "Uh-oh, I just got second thoughts… Okay, second thoughts are gone now. I can handle Dad's embarrassing photo-taking. For Elvis, it's worth it." He turned back to Anna. "Please, Anna, make the wish! We're gonna have so much fun, just the three of us, you won't regret it, come on come on come on!"
Anna's worries were not fully alleviated.
It was an unknown adventure, to an unknown city, with the fairies she had only just met two weeks ago posing as her family. It was a crazy idea.
But.
But it was a family vacation, and even though Cosmo and Poof might only be pretending to be her family, it would still be family, in an odd sense of the word. And Anna did want to go to Vegas. And so did Cosmo, it seemed. And quite obviously, so did Poof. And Poof had, after all, taken care of all the minor details… now all that was left was for Anna to…
"Alright," she finally said with a smile. "Cosmo, I wish the three of us were in Las Vegas for four fun-filled days of family vacationing!"
"Oh, yes, yes, YES!" squealed Poof. "Thank you! Thank you! Hallelujah! Poof, poof, POOF!"
"We're hitting Madame Tussaud's first!" said Cosmo, also grinning, and waving his wand.
POOF! They were gone.
…
They stayed at the Hilton, looking over the Las Vegas strip every night in between watching movies on the TV, the three of them crowded on Cosmo's bed, their purchases for the day seeming to always get piled on Poof's bed, and Anna's rollaway bed only remembered when she finally tired out and her head hit her pillow. They crammed their room-service goodies in their mouths, somehow finding room for it after all the buffets they hit every single day, in between their sightseeing of all the hotels, exhibits inside the hotels, museums, Elvis tribute shows, the fountains at the Bellagio, the pirate show at Treasure Island, riding the rides on top of the Stratosphere Tower and around New York, New York… every day was packed to bursting with wonderful memories.
Memories that Cosmo was very happily, proudly, and meticulously recording via the snapshots on his camera, now on his fifth ten-gig memory card. Yes, that many memories.
"Poof! Anna! Stop right there! Lemme get a picture of you two eating your hamburgers in your 'I Heart Elvis' T-shirts in front of the fake Eiffel Tower here at the Paris Hotel and Casino!"
"Dad, you've already taken seven pictures that fit that exact same description!" cried Poof.
"Well then, I need eight! Smile!" Click! Picture number eight was obtained.
"I swear, I feel like a celebrity, what with all the pictures I've had taken of me," grinned Anna.
"So, where to now?" Poof asked. "Need I remind you two that this is our last day here… what time did your mom say she'd be back in Reno, Anna?"
"She said she'd probably be home around eight tonight, but I think we'd probably better get there around six or so, just in case she's early."
"That's what I was thinking, too," said Poof. "Can't be too careful."
Cosmo was busy going through the pictures he had taken, flipping through each one on the screen of his digital camera. "Look, there's the two of you five seconds ago! And there's the two of you fifteen seconds ago! And there's the two of you one minute ago!" He sniffed and wiped a happy tear from his eye. "Ah, memories…"
"Well, this picture's still my favorite," Anna said, whipping out a photo from her pocket that the three of them had gotten yesterday, from one of those novelty centers that pastes one's head onto other people's bodies. She laughed out loud at the image of herself as Larry, Poof as Moe, and Cosmo as Curly.
In unison, Cosmo and Poof pulled out their own copies of the picture and laughed out loud as well.
"We should get another one of these!" Cosmo said.
"We should do something we haven't done yet," Poof said. "Since this is our last day and all. And Dad, I do feel kind of bad that you haven't actually been able to hit the slot machines while we've been here since you've been with us the entire time."
Cosmo laughed. "Why would I want to hit a slot machine? They haven't been misbehaving, and besides, it would hurt my hand!"
"That's not what I meant. You know, play a few slots, all that. It seems weird to go to Las Vegas and not sit down at a machine at least once."
"I'm not going to," Anna said.
Poof gave Anna a playful nudge on the shoulder. "Well, duh, Anna-Banana, you're too young. But Dad isn't."
"You're not, either," Anna reminded him. "You're fifty-two."
"I am not," said Poof rather loudly, "I'm eighteen, I'm your eighteen-year-old older brother, and I'm human too, of course, why would I be fifty-two and some other species?!"
"You're overdoing it," Anna muttered.
"Ahem. Right." Poof coughed and turned to Cosmo. "But really, Dad, if you wanted to play a few slots, I could watch Anna."
"Why? What's she gonna do?"
Poof facepalmed.
"Can we go to Caesar's Palace?" Anna interrupted, pointing across the street. "We haven't been there yet. Maybe that can be our last hurrah before going home."
"There's shops there," Poof said thoughtfully. "Lots of shops. Maybe you and I could look around them while Dad's playing a slot machine."
"Now, just hold on a minute, Poofy," Cosmo said sternly. "Who said I wanted to play a slot machine? All they do is eat up your money! Even I'm not that stupid!"
"But they make boobity-boop noises and light up with bright colors," Poof reminded him.
Cosmo's eyes brightened. "Well why didn't you say so? Kaching, kaching, baby! Let's get to that casino!"
Anna and Poof both quickly swallowed the last bites of their burgers and nodded enthusiastically.
…
Leaving Cosmo at the slots with a promise to meet back up in an hour at the new "Et Tu, Crouton?" restaurant near the forum shops, Anna and Poof strolled around the shops, looking for something to amuse themselves… and coming up with absolutely nothing.
"All these shops are boring adult shops for stuff like clothes and perfume and stuff," Anna complained.
"Yeah, talk about dull," Poof agreed glumly. "Where's all the novelty shops?"
Anna pointed down the row of storefronts, where a large line of excited people were practically stampeding towards something down the hallway, beyond their line of vision. "Maybe down that way? That's where everyone else is going, at least."
Poof raised an eyebrow in worry. "Looks a little frightening…" He looked at the feminine, boring shops in front of him and sighed in resolution. "But better frightening than dull. Let's go check it out. And don't let go of my hand." He grasped hers protectively, surprising Anna a little bit. "I don't know what it is they're going for, and they might get rowdy, so…"
Anna laughed and gave Poof an affectionate nudge in the side with her elbow. "I'll be fine, Poof. Now come on! Maybe there's a sale and they're all getting to it first!"
Tentatively, the two began to move in the direction of the crowd, Anna due to her small size being almost continuously jostled by scores of hurried people racing down the halls, none of them even taking any notice of her.
"Jeez, are some people—OUCH!—rude," Anna grumbled as she yet again was rammed into Poof's side. This time, however, the man actually stopped and noticed that he had pushed someone in his haste.
But instead of apologizing… "Come on, why aren't you running?" he cried, an excited grin taking up his entire face. "I can tell by your shirts that you'd be flying if you could!"
Anna looked down at her "I Heart Elvis" T-shirt and then back up to the man in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Yeah, what do you mean?" Poof asked, the worry in his voice morphing into surprised hope.
"A mad scientist named Doctor Adam Baum has just announced that he's managed to extract Elvis's DNA and make a fully grown, fully functional clone of him!"
Anna scoffed. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever—"
"RUN, ANNA!" cried Poof, now running along with the crowd at breakneck speed, dragging a completely flabbergasted Anna behind him. "WE CAN'T MISS THIS, POOF POOF POOF!"
In about two seconds Poof had barreled their way to the front of the crowd, where a stage was set up in the center and a man in a lab coat was talking to the crowd, making large, dramatic gestures that punctuated every articulated, intense word of the speech he was making. "…years of scientific research in the cloning sector, and I thought, of all the great historical figures to bring back to life, who better than the King himself, Elvis Presley? So, after some totally legal and legitimate backhanded dealing to snare a bit of Elvis's DNA from snips of his hair and his dental records and his saliva left on his toothbrush and this and that that all you flippin' crazy… I mean, devoted Elvis fans have collected and preserved, I used him as my first try of my new technology, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand…"
For dramatic effect, he drew out the conjunction far longer than necessary, and Anna rolled her eyes—but every other Elvis fan in attendance leaned towards the stage in barely contained anticipation, drawing in their breath, their eyes the size of tennis balls.
Dr. Baum, with precise showmanship flair, finally flung back a curtain in the corner of the stage, revealing the most authentic-looking Elvis Anna had ever seen. "—IT WORKED!"
In a nanosecond, Anna was knocked to the floor and crushed by a horde of shrieking, ecstatic Elvis fans, all clamoring to the stage.
Perhaps by nature of being a fairy in disguise, Poof made it to the Elvis clone first, nearly tackling him in what can only be described as the greatest fanboy glomp of all time. "ELVIS! POOF POOF! I'M SUCH A HUGE FAN, POOF POOF POOF, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S YOU IN THE FLESH, POOF POOF POOF! POOF POOF!"
Irritated, and still knocked to the ground, Anna rubbed her temple and looked at the scene in exasperation, the absolutely delirious fans all shrieking in utter jubilation, her surrogate brother still heard over the rest in such an emotional state that his own name was about the only word he could get out of his mouth.
"Why do I have this sense of impending doom?" she muttered.
…
Cosmo's short attention span ensured that he didn't lose a great deal of money in the slot machines. He quickly lost interest in the boobity-boop noises and bright, flashing colors. Another cluster of bright colors drew his attention away from the machines and towards a small kiosk right were the shops began—bright, colorful, very tall and very thin containers stacked up behind what looked like a drink bar.
Curious, Cosmo approached a man who was drinking a slushy liquid from one of the tall glasses. "That's a really tall glass!" he observed. "And it's bright purple, too!"
"It's a half-yard of margarita," the man laughed in a slurred voice. "They sell 'em by the yard, too!"
"That would be, like, two of those!" Cosmo cried. "And it would be twice as long!" He zipped over to the bartender. "I want a tall one! In a green glass! No, wait! Make it a purple glass! My son has purple hair like that! You don't have any brown glasses, do you? My daughter has brown hair!"
The bartender stared at Cosmo incredulously. "You really want an entire yard? And you're all by yourself?"
Cosmo laughed. "Of course I'm not! I'm here on a family vacation with my kids! But they went off on their own while I sat at those boobity-boop machines with the bright, flashing lights, and—"
The man with the half-yard looked dumbfounded. "You let your kids just wander off? In Las Vegas, of all places?"
Cosmo waved his hand dismissively. "When you put it that way, it sounds completely irresponsible, which is why you shouldn't put it that way! They're not little kids, they're old enough! My son's like forty-seven million years old, and my daughter's, like… six."
The man stared.
"They're totally old enough! Now give me the tall, colorful drink that's almost the same size as me!"
The bartender probably still thought Cosmo was a moron, for many reasons, but he wasn't about to turn down a customer. "That'll be fifty bucks," he said, beginning to mix crushed ice and margarita mix in the yard-long container.
"That's a lot of money!" Cosmo complained.
"It's a lot of booze," the bartender countered matter-of-factly.
Cosmo shrugged and smiled. "Can't argue with that logic!" He peeled out a fifty dollar bill from his wallet. "Now booze me up, baby!"
The bartender traded Cosmo the yard for his bill. "This is gonna be interesting."
…
Anna, still sitting on the floor, pressed her hands against her ears in a feeble attempt to block out the noise and sighed impatiently. Elvis had been revealed a good ten minutes ago and the fanboy and fangirl shrieks had yet to die down.
"Please, please, please!" Dr. Baum was attempting to shout over the din. "I believe Mr. Presley would like to say a few words!"
The noise instantly dimmed. Anna, in relief, removed her hands from her ears and stood up, craning her neck to try to see past the throngs of Elvis fans.
One Elvis fan in particular, however, was easy to spot, thanks to his purple hair. And also thanks to the fact that he was literally latched on to Elvis's arm.
Dr. Baum slid out of sight as Elvis surveyed the crowd. "Thank you, thank you very much."
A couple of girls in the audience shrieked and swooned.
"I'd like to say a few…" Elvis's voice trailed off and he turned and looked questioningly at Poof, clutching his arm like a lifeline and grinning at him through adoring eyes. "Could I have a little personal space here, please?"
"I want to bear your children," Poof breathed in awe.
"Uh… you're a guy."
"I know…"
Elvis sighed in irritation and managed to shake Poof off his arm. "Now then… I gotta say it's wonderful, real wonderful to see so many of my fans here, after all these years… I was expecting a bigger turnout though… but you'll do…" He looked back at Poof. "You especially, I'm sure."
Poof squealed. "I think I just wet my pants!"
"Then maybe you'll wanna change them before you, and all the rest of you, do this one little thing for me…" Elvis looked back over his throng of fans. "I need you all to bring as many people as you can here to me and Dr. Baum to listen to the doctor's plans for global domination. Forcibly, if necessary."
Anna gasped.
The throng of Elvis fans were silent for a moment.
And then, in excitement and determination, they all clamored away from the stage, shouting things like, "Of course, Elvis!" "Anything for you!" "You're the KING!"
"Holy—!" gasped Anna in shock.
Concealed back in the shadows and away from the crowds, and serendipitously right next to Anna, Dr. Baum let out an evil chuckle. "It's working! My plan for global domination is working! And to think, all I needed to do was clone Elvis! Now his mass of fans will do anything he says, and he's telling them everything I'm telling him to say! Soon I will have enough people gathered to use my brainwashing ray on them, because the more people gathered, the more power the ray has, and then I will RULE THE WORLD!"
"Hey!" Anna snapped at him. "Your evil monologing will be your undoing! Because I'm not a mindless Elvis fan, and I'm gonna stop you!"
Dr. Baum looked taken aback for a moment or too, but then laughed dismissively. "A little girl like you against hundreds of ravenous Elvis fans, as well as Elvis himself? I'd like to see you try."
"Oh, I will," growled Anna. "My brother will stop you!" She pulled away from him and began pushing her way through the crowd. "Poof! Poof!"
"Anna!" Poof quickly made his way to her and grabbed her hands excitedly. "Come on! We've got lots of people to find and convert!"
"No, Poof!" cried Anna. "Can't you tell this is all part of an evil scheme?"
Poof scoffed. "What evil scheme? Come on, let's stop wasting time and go do Elvis's bidding!"
"I heard that Dr. Baum monologing! He's gonna brainwash everyone you bring here and make himself ruler of the world! And Elvis is his minion! Now—"
"Don't say those things, Anna!" Poof interrupted angrily. "Elvis is no one's minion! He's Elvis! There's no way he could be evil!"
"Poof!" shrieked Anna. "Doesn't this whole scheme seem suspicious to you? You of all people should be getting a bad vibe from this!"
"You just can't trust anyone, can you?" Poof snapped. "Now come on! We've gotta go—"
"Poof! The entire WORLD is at stake here!"
"What Elvis wants, Elvis gets!"
"I can't believe this!" Anna grasped at her scalp in frustration and quickly-growing panic. "I can't believe that you've actually fallen into this… I-I wish Elvis and Dr. Baum were gone!"
Poof crossed his arms. "Ha!"
"Do it! I wish!"
"Newsflash, Anna! I'm not your fairy godfather! So I don't have to grant your stupid poofin' wish! I'd never do anything like that to Elvis! Now if you're not gonna help me…"
"You're crazy and stupid and… argh!" Anna pushed Poof away from her.
"No, you're the crazy and stupid one, poof poof! And if you're not gonna help me I'll do it myself! I don't need your help anyway, poof poof!" Poof stormed away from her, quickly catching up to the last of the Elvis crowd that was leaving.
Anna stared, dumbfounded. Of all the times she had been irritated with Poof's adherence to the rules and being something of a spoilsport, this would have been the one time she would have welcomed his pedantic responsibility. But, for the first time since she had met him, Poof was throwing responsibility to the wind. No, more than that. He was strangling responsibility, ripping it up into itty bitty pieces, stuffing it in his mouth, and spitting it back out, only to grind it into the ground with his foot. All for the sake of Elvis.
There was only one person who could help her now, and as Anna quickly took off running behind the crowd of Elvis drones, towards the casino, she could only pray that her fairy godfather hadn't been swept up by the masses yet…
…
It should be noted that fairies have a remarkably high alcohol tolerance. The magic flowing through their veins acts as a slight buffer towards its sedating qualities, and a fairy can consume a much greater amount than a human can before feeling its effects.
However, a yard is still a hell of a lot of booze, even for a fairy… and Cosmo was not a particularly large specimen of his species.
He and the man with the half yard were, at that moment, slumped on the barstools at the kiosk, laughing drunkenly and not even noticing the throngs of people shrieking, "ANYTHING FOR ELVIS!" rushing past.
"You know, Barry, you and me… we're like old buddies who've… never met… but we're still like… that, you know?" Cosmo slurred with a half-smile.
"I hear ya, Cosmo, I hear ya," said Barry, with a drunken half-smile of his own. His half yard was completely gone, and Cosmo had only a little bit of his yard left that he was slowly slurping down. "You and me, we're like… yeah, you know?"
"I gotta tell ya, Barry…" Cosmo clumsily threw an arm around Barry's shoulder. "And tell me if I'm being too forward here, but… I love ya, man."
"Naw, not forward, it's the truth! I love ya too, pal."
"That's right. That's right. We're pals, and we stick together, 'cuz… we're pals."
"After all we've been through, we need somebody to lean on… although you, you've had it far worse than I had…"
"Oh, it's been tough," Cosmo agreed, nodding. "After my wife died and my unborn twins didn't make it either and my son thinks I'm a loser and my daughter who isn't actually my daughter doesn't trust me and my dog ran away and my car won't start and I've got a hangnail and…" He hiccupped. "Dang, is this stuff good," he laughed. "I think I want another. You know, you're real nice, you know that?"
Barry hiccupped as well. "I think I want another too. The taste, you know, it's like… wow. It hits your tongue, and just…"
"Yeah," agreed Cosmo. "It's like…"
"And…"
"Yeah…"
…
Anna hadn't thought to stop to look for Cosmo at the margarita kiosk. She hadn't even noticed it was there as she rushed past and made it to the edge of the casino, frantically scanning the slot machines for her godfather's striking green hair. "Cosmo?" she yelled. "Cosmo? Where are you?"
She quickly ran over to the Et Tu, Crouton? restaurant and peered both inside and out, scanning all the surrounding area as well. "Cosmo?" she called again desperately. "Cosmo! Where are you? I need you!"
Still nothing. Her breathing growing quicker and more frantic, she climbed up on one of the tables situated outside the restaurant, getting a better view over the entire casino. "Cosmo!"
Still nothing.
Anna took a deep breath, remembering the other name Cosmo responded to, the name that as part of their guise for the past few days Anna had begun calling him as well, a name that she was surprised to find came rather easily to her. If Cosmo wouldn't respond to Cosmo, then maybe he'd respond to…
"Dad?"
The mull of people talking and slot machines boobity-booping was all that answered.
"Dad!" Anna shrieked again.
"Get off the table!" a waiter suddenly snapped at her.
"Oh… sorry…" Anna quickly jumped back on the floor, the waiter sniffing at her and moving along, not seeming to care at all that the young girl obviously was alone and couldn't find her father. Anna's breathing quickened again.
Think, Anna, think! What else will bring Cosmo here? I know things like cheese or pudding or peanuts would, but I don't have anything physical, I need to rely on…
Peanuts?
Anna opened her mouth.
"Found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut just now," she began to sing, in a voice that was restrained due to her sense of panic. She gulped, stood up straighter, and sung in a louder, yet still shaky, voice. "Just now I found a peanut, found a peanut just now. Picked it up, picked it up, picked it up just now, just now I picked it up, picked it up just now. Cracked it open—"
"Cracked it open, cracked it open just now—"
Anna jerked with surprise to see that a woman passing by had stopped to sing it with her. Smiling at her in encouragement, Anna's voice grew even louder with confidence as their two voices blended. "Just now I cracked it open, cracked it open just now. It was rotten, it was rotten, it was rotten just now, just now it was rotten, it was rotten just now. Ate it anyway, ate it anyway, ate it anyway just now—"
By now three other people had joined them in singing the annoying song. Anna stepped forward, now smiling more fully, her previous dread now giving way to hope. "Just now I ate it anyway, ate it anyway just now," they sang, as more and more people began to spontaneously join in. They could now be easily heard over the slot machines. "Got a tummy ache, got a tummy ache, got a tummy ache just now, just now I got a tummy ache, got a tummy ache just now. Operation—"
And then a very slurred, very drunken, yet still very familiar voice lustily jumped in.
"Operation, operation just now… hey, that was always a fun game, the guy with his nose lighting up…"
"Cosmo!" Anna cried in relief… but her relief didn't last long.
"Hey—hic!—hey Anna-Banana!" Cosmo clumsily threw an arm around Anna's shoulders. "Hey Barry! I want you to meet my daughter, Anna! Although I'd say he already knows you pretty well," he chortled to her, "since I showed him all those pictures I took of you and Poofy!"
"Oh no," moaned Anna.
"Hey Anna!" said Barry, lifting his half-yard to her in greeting. "Your dad's a great guy, you know?"
"Uh… yeah. Come on, Dad, we need to get going…" Anna grabbed Cosmo's wrist and led him down into the forum shops.
"Already? Aw, man… See ya later, Barry! Wait, I never showed him the pictures from Madame Tussaud's—"
"No time!" Anna frantically picked up her pace, taking notice of the many returning Elvis fans dragging along unknowing bystanders of their own. "Less talking, more running!"
"Why can I only see about three feet in front of me?" Cosmo slurred.
"Just keep your eyes on me!" Anna cried, elbowing her way through the crowd. "Keep your eyes on me and don't let go of me!"
"You're being very rude, Anna, cutting in line like this!" Cosmo scolded. "You need to—hic!—apologize!"
"No time for that! We're going home! But before we do I need you to take care of one thing for me… aha!" They had finally reached the front of the crowd, where Dr. Baum and Elvis were both watching the crowd of drones flood back in with pleased, sinister smiles.
Cosmo hiccupped again. "Whoa! Those are the three most good-looking Elvises I've ever seen!"
"Not you too! Look, you see that—you see those three Elvises up there and those three scientists? Well, I wish—"
"Anna! You changed your mind! Awesome! And you brought Dad!" Poof had elbowed his way up to the front as well, with about ten totally bewildered people literally tied up in rope behind him. "I'm glad you're finally seeing the Elvis light, poof poof!"
Anna snorted harshly. "Not likely. I only brought your dad here because he actually has to do what I say. I wish—"
Poof forcibly tackled Anna to the stage before she could get the words out.
Unfortunately, in his haste to protect Elvis, he paid no attention as to where exactly he and Anna would be headed. They toppled into Dr. Baum and Elvis, knocking the two of them to the ground in the process.
Still, though, Poof hardly noticed. Blind with rage at Anna, he pounded his fists into her chest, shouting, "DON'T YOU DARE! DON'T YOU POOFIN' DARE!"
As hard as it may be to fathom, Dr. Baum was even more upset.
Saving Anna from further beatings, Dr. Baum yanked both her and Poof up by the collars of their T-shirts—but, to Anna's horror, she found herself facing a threat far worse than an angry Poof. "NO ONE KNOCKS DR. BAUM TO THE GROUND WHEN HE IS ABOUT TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! NO ONE! YOU KIDS WILL BE THE FIRST TO DIE! —OUCH!"
Dr. Baum dropped Poof and Anna to rub his scalp right where Cosmo had whacked him with his now empty yard glass. "Hey!" Cosmo snapped. "Nobody threatens my kids, you big fat—" Attempting to lunge towards the evil doctor, the inebriated fairy unfortunately didn't even make the first step, instead falling flat on his face to the stage.
Dr. Baum stared.
"Okay, you'll get away with it for a few minutes while I compose myself and make the room stop spinning like a merry-go-round, and I can even hear the music too, but once I get back up—"
Anna scrambled over to Cosmo, pulled the wand from his pocket, and forcefully placed it in his hand. "I wish Elvis and the evil scientist who threatened us were both gone!" she hissed.
POOF!
The whole Elvis-loving crowd (and their captives) all erupted in confusion as the doctor and the King suddenly and mysteriously vanished.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Poof shrieked at Anna. "WHAT THE POOF HAVE YOU DONE?!"
The crowd of people was still completely overwhelmed by the sudden disappearing act, but Anna knew that their time of escaping undercover wouldn't last long. Yanking Poof to her with one hand and grabbing Cosmo's wrist with the other, she said quickly, "I wish we were back home!"
POOF!
And they too vanished from the scene.
Chapter 8: Don't Be Cruel
Chapter Text
Returning back to Anna's calm, quiet room, in calm, quiet Reno, Anna might have been safe from the dastardly Dr. Adam Baum and his evil Elvis clone, but she was not spared the wrath of the absolutely livid Poof.
"YOU!" he shrieked, tackling her again and pinning her to the floor with his pounding fists. "LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE, YOU POOFIN' IDIOT, LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!"
Anna, for her part, was attacking back with every bit as much rage and vigor as Poof was unleashing on her. "Look what I'VE done?! Look what YOU'VE done! The entire world was about to be taken over by a crazy, evil man and you did NOTHING TO STOP HIM! You HELPED HIM! YOU'RE the idiot! YOU'RE THE IDIOT!"
"I was helping Elvis! NO ONE STANDS IN ELVIS'S WAY, POOF POOF! Dad will back me up—" Poof turned and looked to his side to see Cosmo passed out on the floor, back in his normal fairy form as was Poof, his yard glass still clutched in one hand and his wand in the other.
Poof facepalmed. "Oh, for poof's sake!" He quickly poofed up a branch of cilantro and a bowl of tapioca pudding perched on a stovetop and angrily began to stir it, throwing a fiery glare at Anna. "You had to wish us back now! Do you know how much magic it takes to transport people from place to place? With Dad as drunk as he was, the wish knocked him unconscious! What do you have to say for yourself NOW?!"
"He'll recover once you do that stupid tapioca thing!" Anna snapped back. "If I hadn't made that wish we would have been discovered, or worse, the entire world would have been doomed!"
"The world was not in any danger at all, Anna! The only 'danger' it was in was the 'danger' of billions of people getting to bask in the glory that is Elvis, and that's no danger at all!"
"No danger at all?! Poof, that Elvis was taking orders from a man who was going to kill us!"
"He wouldn't have! He's Elvis!"
"He was not Elvis! I hate to break this to you, but Elvis has been dead as a doornail for nearly a hundred years! The sooner you accept that, the—"
"That was Elvis! His DNA, his body, his voice, his EVERYTHING! And you do not go against what Elvis says!"
"Yeah, well I've got news for you—Elvis is STUPID!"
Poof gasped.
"He is!" Anna continued, completely livid. "I'm ashamed to be wearing this stupid shirt!" She pulled out another shirt from her dresser and stomped off behind her bed to change, still managing to shoot Poof a glare before ducking out of sight. "The only thing stupider than Elvis are his crazy, brain-dead FANS!"
"TAKE IT BACK! TAKE IT BACK!" Smoke was shooting out of Poof's ears. "Elvis is the GREATEST! THE GREATEST!"
Now changed, Anna stormed back into eyesight, throwing her "I Heart Elvis" T-shirt to the ground. "POOF! What's more important to you, Elvis of THE SAFETY OF THE ENTIRE WORLD?!"
Poof blinked. "Is this a trick question?"
Anna was, by now, shaking with rage. "What's more important to you, Poof, Elvis or me?! Elvis or your dad?!"
That, finally, gave Poof pause.
Anna kicked the crumpled T-shirt on the ground, sending it skidding across the floor. "I nearly get trampled by ravenous Elvis fans, I hear it straight from the evil genius's mouth that it's all part of some evil plot to take over the world, your dad gets so drunk he can't even walk straight, and all you can do is drool over some guy in a white jumpsuit! Stupid of me to think you were more responsible than that!" She sat down on her bed and turned away from Poof, crossing her arms and slumping grumpily. "I guess I know where your priorities are," she mumbled.
The room was now deadly quiet.
Anna picked at her fingernails, her body still shaking, and she tried to sniffle as quietly as possible. Yeah, of course she'd cry.
Of course she'd cry! She'd just had the most suckish and scary day imaginable, and the two people who were supposed to help her either couldn't or wouldn't do anything!
Anna angrily blinked back tears. That's what I get for…
She pulled at her fingers distractedly, looking up at the ceiling.
For trusting them.
She took a deep, shaky breath, as quietly as possible—
—and that was the last quiet thing she was able to do for awhile.
BOOM!
"ALRIGHT, WHERE IS HE?!" Jorgen bellowed.
Anna spun around and jumped off her bed. "What the—"
"—poof?" Poof finished.
Jorgen didn't look quite as enraged as Anna and Poof had just been, but he certainly looked close to it. "Mass chaos in Las Vegas, hundreds of innocent captives, the sudden disappearance of a clearly evil mad scientist and his Elvis clone, just before said evil scientist and Elvis wind up in my living room?!"
"That's where he sent them?" Anna cried in confusion.
"This can only be the work of one idiot and one idiot alone!" Jorgen finally noticed Cosmo, still passed out on the floor. "And of course he is unconscious. But I will not let that stop my fun! Uh, I mean, my… my quest for justice." He plucked Cosmo off the floor by the collar of his shirt, Cosmo still completely unresponsive. "There is only one punishment befitting such a colossal screw-up that this moron has caused, and that is… the eighth level of the Alighieri Punishment Chamber of Despair!"
"The what of the what of what?" Anna repeated.
"There is no punishment more severe!" said Jorgen. "Well, except the ninth level… but no one ever comes out of that one alive! Hmm, perhaps I should go with level nine… Cosmo has been through level eight before and has clearly learned nothing—"
"Jorgen, wait!" Poof interrupted.
Jorgen glared at him. "What? And make it snappy, you are cutting into my precious time that could be used to torture your father!"
"Don't! Don't put Dad through Alighieri! This wasn't his fault! It was…" Poof gulped. "It was my fault."
Jorgen blinked. And blinked again.
And then he broke out in laughter.
"Haaaaa haa haa haaaaa!" He wiped a tear of amusement from his eye. "That is a very amusing joke, Poof, but it will not stop me from punishing your—"
"I'm not joking!" Poof insisted. "It is my fault! Just ask Anna!"
Jorgen shot an inquisitive glare at Anna.
Anna balked a bit, but nodded. "Well… I'm not going to say that Cosmo's entirely in the clear, because he did get pretty drunk, but at least he didn't cheerfully assist that evil scientist and his Elvis clone in their global domination plan."
"You did WHAT?!" Jorgen bellowed at Poof.
Poof balked to a far greater degree than Anna, but managed to keep eye contact with Jorgen. "I… I did. I abandoned Anna in the process, too. Actually… I'm the one who talked her in to making the wish to go to Las Vegas in the first place, so…" He stood up a little straighter. "It's completely my fault. I even tried to stop Anna from making the wish to get rid of them. But once she finally did make it, even though Dad was totally smashed, he was able to grant it. And I…" He gulped nervously, but a brave determination was beginning to shine in his eyes. "Put my dad down. None of this was his fault. It… it was all mine."
Jorgen unceremoniously dropped Cosmo like a sack of bricks and grabbed Poof by the collar this time, Poof yelping a bit in dread. "You. You!" Jorgen twitched for a few moments, his mouth opening but no other words coming out. Anna, her back against her bed frame and her hands grasping the posts, was surprised to see that, while Jorgen did still look angry, something else was beginning to overpower his anger… disappointment.
"Of all the fairies I would have expected to make a screw-up like this, you were one of the last on my list! I sent you with your father to avoid catastrophes, not cause them! To think I made the mistake of thinking that you inherited your mother's intelligence!"
Poof winced.
"As I said… a mistake this colossal requires the punishment of level eight, and as you have admitted fault…" Jorgen looked down at Cosmo, then back at Poof. "Are you absolutely certain you are willing to take the blame for this?"
Poof firmly looked Jorgen in the eyes. "A-absolutely. One thing both my parents taught me was to tell the truth. And the truth is that I'm the one at fault."
"Very well," growled Jorgen. "Any last words?"
Poof turned his head to Anna. "Anna… the cilantro on his forehead, and the pudding waved by his nose once it's hot enough, okay?"
"I remember," said Anna, her voice coming out short and clipped.
"And please…" A trickle of fear flashed in Poof's eyes. "Once Dad wakes up, whatever you do, don't let him come after me. Keep him in this room until I get back, okay?"
Anna blinked. "Uh, okay… anything else?"
Poof gulped, looking back at his father. "Tell him I love him…"
Anna jerked in surprise.
"Enough of this," growled Jorgen. "Precious punishing time is being wasted!" BOOM! Just like that, both he and Poof were gone, and Anna was left still pressed against the frame of her bed, breathing heavily with shock.
It would have looked peaceful and serene in comparison to what had just happened, if not for the fact that there was a pot of pudding simmering and floating in midair, and an unconscious green-haired fairy was still passed out on her floor.
Still shaking a bit, Anna moved away from her bed and pulled the pot of pudding from the air, dipping her finger in it. It felt pretty hot to her, although she didn't know exactly how hot it needed to be to be effective.
Well, it was worth a try, right?
She made her way to Cosmo, turned him so that his face was facing upwards, and gingerly placed the sprig of cilantro lying on the ground next to him on his forehead. Then, grabbing the pudding, she carefully waved it over his nose.
Cosmo's eyelids fluttered open groggily. He blinked, squinting from the light, blinked again, and slowly and painfully brought his hands to his eyes, rubbing them open and rubbing his forehead as well. "I… have… the worst headache I have ever had in my life," he mumbled.
Anna snorted impatiently. "Gee, I wonder why."
Cosmo sat up and continued to rub at his forehead. "I can't remember much after I ordered that really tall and bright drink… oh! There it is!" Taking notice of the yard glass in his hands, he gave it a look of confusion. "Did I really drink that whole thing?"
"I think that's pretty obvi—"
"Augh! Bathroom!" Cosmo disappeared with a POOF into the fishbowl.
Anna rolled her eyes and tapped her foot impatiently. And waited. And waited.
Yeah, he had drunk a lot.
Anna sighed, made her way to her bookshelf, and pulled out a picture book that had been a particular favorite of hers when she was younger.
She had nearly finished her third re-read before she could hear the sound of a toilet flushing from inside the fishbowl. A few seconds later, Cosmo poofed back out, looking a little relieved but still sore and groggy. "When did we get back to your house, anyway?" he asked. "I really can't remember a thing…" He looked at their suitcases stacked up in the corner and gave a half smile. "Good thing we poofed all our stuff back home right when we checked out of the hotel, because I sure as heck don't know how we got back here or why or why I feel so crappy…"
Anna glared at Cosmo.
Cosmo rubbed his forehead again, giving Anna a questioning look. "Where's Poof?"
Anna continued to glare.
"Where's Poof?" Cosmo's voice had so quickly morphed into a tone of worry that it caught Anna off guard.
"I-I wish that you'd stay in this room until I tell you you can leave," she quickly said.
"Where's Poof?"
"I just made a wish, Cosmo! Grant it!"
Cosmo quickly waved his wand in irritation, a POOF cloud proclaiming "FINE!" indicating that her wish had been granted. "There! Now where's Poof?!"
"You really can't remember anything that happened?"
"This isn't funny, Anna! WHERE'S POOF?"
"No! No, it's not funny at all! It's not funny to have your godbrother so in love with Elvis that he not only fails to do anything about an evil Elvis trying to take over the world, he also helps that Elvis AND tries to stop the only sane girl in the crowd who's trying to stop the world domination plan, AND it's not funny to have your fairy godfather, the only person who can help you, be so drunk that all he can do is trip over stairs!"
"WHERE'S POOF?! WHERE'S MY SON?!"
By this time Anna and Cosmo were in each other's faces, their noses inches apart. "The world was nearly taken over by some mad scientist and his evil Elvis clone, and Poof not only was letting it happen, he was trying to stop me from wishing them away! It's a wonder I was able to do it and wish us all back here, and now—"
"STOP TALKING WORDS THAT DON'T MEAN ANYTHING AND JUST TELL ME WHERE MY SON IS!"
Anna shrieked in rage, throwing her book down on the ground, it just barely missing hitting Cosmo on its way. "Your son is paying for what he let happen! Jorgen blasted in here and was mad as hell! And he was gonna punish you, but Poof finally bucked up and did something right for once and admitted to Jorgen that this whole mess was all his fault!"
"JORGEN TOOK HIM?!" Cosmo looked absolutely panicked. "JORGEN TOOK POOFY?! Please, please, Anna, don't tell me he's punishing him, please tell me he's just taking him out for ice cream, please!"
Anna snorted incredulously. "Oh, come on, Cosmo, after what happened and how angry Jorgen was, you really think he's gonna treat Poof to some ice cream? I don't think so! Now would you stop your yelling and—"
"He's not taking him to the Alighieri Punishment Chamber of Despair, is he?"
Anna hesitated.
"IS HE?!"
Anna looked at Cosmo sternly. "Do you want me to lie if that'll make you feel better?"
Cosmo screamed. So suddenly, so forcefully, so helplessly and full of rage and despair and terror that Anna jumped back a good two feet, tears springing to her eyes again.
"Not that! Please! Anything but that! I've gotta go rescue him!" Cosmo jerkily waved his wand, and—fzzt. "It's not working! WHY IS IT NOT WORKING?!"
"B-because I wished that you would stay here," Anna stammered.
"UNWISH IT!" Cosmo grabbed Anna by the collar of her shirt, tears streaming down his face. "For the love of all things cheesy, UNWISH IT!"
Anna was shaking and her cheeks were wet with tears of her own, but she still managed to shake her head and give Cosmo another glare. "No, I won't. Poof told me to do it—although his ideas are obviously pretty terrible ones usually—but what good will having two tortured fairies do?"
"UNWISH IT!" Only one of Cosmo's hands was clutching Anna's collar; the other, still grasping his wand, was frantically waving it, the fzzt sounds of magic failing not deterring him from trying over and over again, only frustrating him more and more with each failure. "Do you know what HORRORS are in Alighieri? The first level alone is an unspeakable nightmare! Please, please, Poofy is tough, but not that tough! If he has to go to Alighieri please tell me it's just the first level!"
Anna hesitated again.
"ANNA!"
"Jorgen's taking him to the eighth level!" Anna blurted out.
"NOOOO!" screeched Cosmo. "ANYTHING, ANYTHING BUT THAT!" Waving his wand still wasn't getting him anywhere, so Cosmo zipped to Anna's bedroom door—and was knocked to the ground as soon as he reached the door frame, as if he had just hit an invisible barrier.
Anna winced.
Cosmo sobbed helplessly, still trying to break his way through the open door and waving his wand frantically to no effect. "Let me go, Anna, please, PLEASE let me go! I need to rescue him! I NEED TO RESCUE HIM!"
"L-look," stammered Anna, "I don't wanna argue with Jorgen and I don't think you do, either. Poof messed up and he's paying for it, which will make him responsible, and don't you want to see your child grow up to be responsible?"
"HE ALREADY IS RESPONSIBLE!" Cosmo shrieked. "HE'S AS RESPONSIBLE AS A… RESPONSIBLE THING! I don't care if he becomes irresponsible and a total worthless waste if he doesn't go through with this, I just don't want him to go through the TORMENT!"
"But—but Cosmo, y-you went through the eighth level, Jorgen said, and you obviously got through it okay—"
"DO I LOOK OKAY TO YOU?!"
"Uh…"
"Please, Anna, please…" Cosmo fell to his knees and grabbed Anna by the forearms, pleading her through his tears. "Please unwish it, please let me go, please let me save him, he's my son, my only son, I love him more than anything, if you make me stay here and do nothing while he's being tortured I'll just die, he's…" He gripped Anna's arms tighter. "Please let me go! Unwish it!"
Anna gulped, tears streaming from her eyes every bit as much as they were from Cosmo's. But the earlier events from Las Vegas that day were still too fresh in her mind.
She shook her head. "No."
Up until that moment, Anna had been blissfully unaware of the immense magical power that was contained in her small, goofy, mentally negligible fairy godfather. But that was the moment that Cosmo, in all his frustration, his helplessness, his parental terror, let it all loose.
He screamed. The roof flew off the house. A mighty gust of wind howled through. Lightning flashed. Potatoes fell from the sky. Potatoes that were in actuality potato bombs that exploded upon impact with the ground. Horses whinnied. A fat opera singer belted out the final note of her aria. And it all whirled around and around and around as the forces and the noises, unfathomably strong to begin with, only grew in intensity.
"Cosmo!" shrieked Anna, her hands pressed against her ears and her eyes squinted shut. "COSMO!"
And then everything stopped.
Anna opened her eyes. The room was back to normal, save for both her and Cosmo's hair being completely windswept and unkempt. And Cosmo was staring at her imploringly, breathing heavily, and his question came out hardly intelligible through his sob. "Why won't you let me go?"
Tears were still spilling from Anna's eyes, the fact that they were wide with terror and fear aiding their ease in falling out so quickly. "Because there's nothing you can do, Cosmo. Even if you were there, there'd be nothing you could do."
Cosmo drew in his breath in despair.
Nothing.
Nothing he could do.
Just like last time.
How many times has someone you loved been in trouble, and you couldn't do a thing about it…
…because you were too STUPID?
A SMARTER fairy would know how to keep his family safe! How to keep them ALIVE!
No, no, NO!
Cosmo let out a wordless scream again, although managing to keep his magic in check this time. And then, glaring at Anna, he waved his wand, causing his mouth to be literally zipped shut, and hovered over the far corner of the room and slumped down, facing the wall, pulling his knees to his chest.
Anna sat down against the opposite corner, serendipitously right next to her bookshelf, and pulled out another book without even looking at what it was, blinking and wiping at her eyes. Well. Thank goodness for that zipper. If she had to hear any more of that screaming…
She angrily wiped her eyes again. She was still angry at Cosmo and Poof, Poof especially. But if she had to hear any more of Cosmo's pleading she feared she might give in and let Cosmo go after Poof. And, well, now was no time for compassion. Poof deserved what he was getting. Whatever the heck the eighth level was. Even if it really was as bad as Cosmo was making it out to be… Poof deserved it. And it seemed she had won. Cosmo had reverted to silence.
Cosmo had indeed reverted to silence. A forced one, true, with the zipper holding his lips shut, but on that token it was also a very deliberate one. He breathed through his nose, which was hard because both it and his eyes were still puffy and sticky from crying, and pressed his hands against his still pounding head.
It would be easier to breathe if he unzipped his lip.
But he knew how he spoke much faster than he thought. And if he kept talking, he knew he'd slip up and say the one thing that would make it all worse. The one thing that he'd never mentioned to Anna. The one thing that would turn her away from him for good.
Sometimes it was better not to talk.
He had said little while in the hospital. It hurt too much, both physically and emotionally. And when the doctors had finally released him—healing but not completely better, still unable to fly—and concerned friends and acquaintances had asked him how he was holding up, he never spoke, the closest answer ever given being only a hollow, mournful stare.
And his whole body still hurt.
It hurt to do anything.
Why hadn't he just died?
Why hadn't he followed Wanda, when he had had the perfect excuse, no, the obligation? He had killed her. Wanda, that amazing, wonderful, beautiful soul, his own wife who he was supposed to protect and nurture and cherish forever—and he had killed her—
"Wanda, Wanda!" he felt himself cry out, twitching in bed, the pain running through every inch of his body too much to handle, he needed Wanda to make it feel better, he—
"Dad. Dad." Poof gently shook Cosmo awake, Cosmo's twitching abruptly ceasing as he remembered where he was. "You need to get up now. Come on, let me help you—"
Poof helped Cosmo out of bed, with an arm braced against his back to support him. Slowly, painfully, Cosmo rose and got his feet on the ground, noticing with confusion Poof's more formal attire.
"I know you need your sleep, but the funeral's in an hour and we need to get there soon… Here, I thought this would be okay for you." Poof waved his wand and poofed Cosmo into a dark, somber suit of his own, nearly identical to what Poof was wearing.
Cosmo looked up at Poof wordlessly.
"Is that okay?" Poof asked.
Cosmo blinked. There were dark circles under Poof's eyes. Dark, tired, stressed circles.
"Did you want another suit?"
No, how could this have happened to his Poofy? His happy, carefree Poofy? His happy, carefree Poofy who still would be happy and carefree if Cosmo hadn't completely and totally ruined both their lives?
Poof gulped. "Dad, is this suit okay? …Just nod for yes and shake your head for no…"
Worry. Poof was completely overcome with worry. No wonder he had those circles under his eyes.
Cosmo nodded slowly.
"Okay. Good. Are you ready to go?" Poof grabbed Cosmo's wand from his nightstand and handed it to him, his other hand still resting on the back of Cosmo's arm, carefully supporting him.
Cosmo sighed and nodded again, his eyes downcast.
Although that was a bit of a lie.
Who is ever ready to go to his own wife's funeral?
He sat through the whole thing, stoic, unmoving.
He wasn't doing anything.
It was his wife's funeral, the last tribute to her, and he hadn't done anything.
"Poor thing, look how badly Big Daddy pulverized him," he could hear some fairies whispering to themselves at the reception, as various family, friends, and acquaintances mulled about the room, eating miniature turkey sandwiches. "With that along with his emotional state, no wonder he didn't contribute to the funeral arrangements…"
Cosmo said nothing to the fairies offering their condolences. He just stood there, a cane on the one side and Poof on the other, staring forlornly, wishing that he was dead too.
Poof spoke, though. Poof didn't leave Cosmo's side once during the funeral and reception. Poof thanked everyone for him, listened to their anecdotes of Wanda which always ended remorsefully, how heartbroken they were that such a wonderful woman and wife and mother had been taken from them so suddenly, so soon.
As if he needed someone telling him.
Cosmo had stared at the ground, hardly moving, for most of the rest of the reception, hardly even registering when he heard Poof say, "It's time to go, Dad," hardly even feeling him grasping his hand comfortingly.
She's dead. She's dead. And it's all my fault. I killed her. I killed my own wife. I don't deserve to live. I don't deserve to talk.
So he didn't.
After the funeral, weeks went by, empty, empty weeks that Cosmo passed by simply sitting in his chair and just staring ahead at nothing. Physically he was hurting less and less with every day. Maybe he could even fly by now. But it wasn't worth the effort. Neither was talking.
He was the universe's most colossal screw-up. He had let his wife and children die. He had done nothing to save them. What's worse, their deaths had been all his fault.
If only he had said no.
In the years following Timmy's death, Wanda had recovered from the blow slowly. Cosmo had done whatever he could to make her happy, to see her eyes glow again like they used to. And when she had asked him if he wanted another baby, she had been smiling, her whole body glowing.
"I've been thinking about this," she had said, her whole body radiating, and Cosmo could feel himself smiling too. "I do want another child, Cosmo. And now's the perfect time. We're still on sabbatical, so we can have the baby and raise it without having to juggle godparenting at the same time. We can raise it, and once it's grown up I think I'll be ready to go back to being a godparent again."
Cosmo smiled at her, loving the way she looked when she was happy.
"What do you think?" she asked him softly. "Do you want to have another baby?"
The answer was not really "yes". Cosmo hadn't given the matter much thought either way. Why would he need to? He already had more than he had ever dreamed he would or could obtain. He had a wonderful wife and son who he loved more than anything. He couldn't ask for more because he already had everything.
But another child…
Yes. He had to admit he wasn't exactly looking forward to being pregnant again, but if things were so wonderful with one child, think how much more they would be with two!
And besides…
"You really want another baby, don't you?" he asked, stroking her hair.
"Only if you do—"
"Forget about me. You really want one."
Wanda's cheeks flushed. "Well… yes."
Cosmo smiled warmly, leaning over and lightly kissing her on the lips. "Then I do too."
If only, if only he had said no!
Why couldn't he have been happy with what he had? Why did he have to chance getting more? Because he not only didn't gain a child, he also lost his wife.
If he had said no, Wanda would still be alive. He wouldn't have gotten her pregnant with twins. And the twins would never have existed, which meant that they wouldn't have had to die, either.
He could have prevented all of this with one simple "no".
There were so many times where he almost gave into the temptation to simply point his wand at his head and just end it all. Almost. But one very important thing always stopped him in the nick of time.
"Here, Dad. Lunchtime. I made you a grilled cheese sandwich. And I cut off the crusts." Poof hovered in front of where Cosmo sat huddled in his chair, holding a plate containing the sandwich and nacho cheese flavored potato chips on the side. Cosmo jerked his head up suddenly to see his son giving him a small smile. "And I ate them, too. You know. I know you don't like them, but I hate to see perfectly good food go to waste. Here."
Cosmo mechanically reached for the plate, his wand dropping out of his hands.
He had Poof. He might have lost almost everything else but he had Poof. And Poof was worth staying alive for. His life was empty and hollow and meaningless but he could tell by the look in Poof's eyes, the worry, the relieved smile when Cosmo would so much as look at him and acknowledge him, that he needed to keep on living for him. He had already so completely devastated his son's life; he couldn't let himself do any more damage to him. And, somehow, for some reason, Poof needed Cosmo. So Cosmo would stay for him.
He would endure those lonely, heartbreaking nights for him. Nights where he would lay awake in bed and sob and sob until he felt he couldn't sob anymore and finally pass out from sheer emotional exhaustion.
One such night Cosmo actually got the hiccups from crying so much.
He stepped out of his room, moving down the hall to get a glass of water from the kitchen, his footsteps heavy but sure. He could now walk without a cane, almost at his normal speed. Could he fly yet? Who knew. He hadn't tried. He didn't deserve the power of flight, nor the power of speech. For the weeks following Wanda's death he had remained earthbound and silent, not able to muster up the will to be otherwise.
He could hardly muster up the will to even walk to the kitchen that night.
He stopped.
And as he stopped, pressing a hand to his face in heartache as another quiet sob escaped from his mouth, he suddenly realized he could hear something else.
He was hearing more sobs. But they weren't from him.
And then he realized what door he was next to.
Not even bothering to knock and simply asserting his parental authority by pushing open the ajar door anyway, Cosmo stared into his son's room, utterly mortified, his shock silencing his hiccups.
Poof was sitting on the edge of his bed, hunched over and holding his Elvis teddy bear, harsh tears leaking from his squinted eyes as his body trembled with grief. He rocked back and forth, his sobs muffled but strong, as he wrapped his arms tighter around the only source of comfort he had.
Revelations, when they came to Cosmo, tended to come with a wham, the sudden new realization often overwhelming the fairy and nearly knocking him over, his brain unable to handle the blow. And Cosmo did indeed stagger back in horrified shock at what he was seeing, at himself.
I might have stayed alive for Poof, but I haven't BEEN THERE for him.
For the first time, Cosmo was seeing Poof as what he, as his father, should have been seeing from the beginning—a young man devastated and heartbroken by the death of his mother. A young man who, in spite of that, had to hide his grief and attend to his wreck of a father.
Cosmo realized, with a start, that Poof had in a sense just lost both his parents.
"Poofy—"
His voice was weak from his weeks of silence, and it came out along with a choked sob besides. But it was enough to turn Poof away from his teddy bear and to look at Cosmo in surprise, his cheeks wet with tears.
At that moment, Cosmo discovered that he could indeed fly.
In an instant he was at Poof's side, and their arms were around each other as they unleashed their sorrow into each other's shoulders, Poof holding on to Cosmo so tightly and his tears shaking both of them so greatly that Cosmo could feel his heart breaking even more, in a way he hadn't imagined possible. "Poofy…" he said again, but the word got lost in his throat, and his attempts to console his son were swallowed by his own heartbreak.
So they clutched each other and wept into each other's shoulders, each simply letting out his own sorrow with someone there to hold him as he did so.
But as Poof's cries grew softer, Cosmo's grew stronger.
It broke his heart to see his son cry. It always had.
And this time it had been all his fault. His fault for killing his mother! His fault for letting his twin siblings die! His fault for abandoning him when he needed him most! His fault for being a terrible, terrible father! His, his, HIS!
"Why didn't you let me die?" he whispered.
Poof lifted his face from Cosmo's shoulder. "W-what?" he choked out.
"Why didn't you let me die?!" Cosmo shrieked, pulling himself away from Poof. "Why didn't you let Big Daddy just kill me? I deserve to die! For what I did to Wanda, to the twins, to you! I DESERVED TO BE KILLED!"
Poof sobbed loudly again, his eyes wide and frightened. "Dad, please—"
Cosmo shot out of Poof's room and back to his own, throwing himself onto his pillow and weeping in despair.
I should have died.
Poof deserves a better dad than me.
Sitting in Anna's room a year later, his mouth still zipped shut, Cosmo helplessly wiped tears from his eyes, unable to do anything else.
He wanted to unzip his mouth, to scream and shout and sob and let all his hopeless frustration out. But he knew if he did, he'd start yelling at Anna. He'd start yelling the truth. That how dare she keep him here, when Poof needed him, he was all he had left, he couldn't take it anymore, after not being able to save his wife and unborn twins and now she's keeping him from saving his son?
But Anna couldn't know about Wanda.
Except she should. She deserved to know the truth about her godfather. And she didn't deserve to keep him.
But everything hinged on her; Cosmo had, for these past few weeks, finally felt happy again with her and Poof. They hadn't known each other for very long, but Cosmo still knew he would be devastated if they had to leave her, if Anna's few memories of them were to be wiped.
Cosmo's eyes grew wide. He had grown attached to Anna. Like he was to Poof. …Like he had been to Wanda… and to Timmy. Oh, sure, he had been fond of most of his godkids, some more than others… but the bond he and Wanda had had with Timmy had been something different. Something special. Something deeper. And it reminded him of the bond he was beginning to develop with Anna.
And look what had happened to Timmy because of that bond.
Cosmo unzipped his mouth and turned around, taking a deep breath—and saw Anna putting the last of her Las Vegas souvenirs up on her desk.
"What are you doing?" he asked her, his voice breaking from his crying.
Anna jerked a bit in surprise. "I thought I'd unpack all our stuff." She motioned to the now empty suitcases sitting by her bed. "It took awhile, but I'm all done now."
"Anna, I need to tell you something," Cosmo said abruptly.
Anna waited.
Cosmo blinked.
"Uh… but I forgot what it was… there were too many thoughts in my head and when that happens, I lose them all…" Cosmo sighed in irritation. "I hate being stupid…"
Anna sighed too. "It must not have been important, then."
"No, it was…" He looked around the room, trying to think of what it was. He had been thinking about Poof, he knew, so maybe… "Will you please let me go now?"
Anna sighed again. "No, Cosmo. Not yet."
Cosmo let out another sob. "Anna, please, I'm a total emotional wreck, I was sitting here flashbacking about—" He drew in his breath. "I remember now! Anna—"
Cosmo was cut off by a POOF, but it was one of the weakest-sounding poofs either he or Anna had ever heard. They both turned to the source of the sound.
"POOFY!" Cosmo cried in relief, flinging his arms around him. "Oh, thank goodness you're back, I was so worried! Are you alright?"
There was no answer.
Cosmo pulled away from Poof in dread. Anna, too, felt a sense of horror begin to mount in her stomach as she stared at Poof. His eyes were wide, unmoving, and completely blank, and he wasn't moving or reacting at all.
"Poofy!" cried Cosmo. "Say something! Say anything!"
"Poof?" Anna asked tentatively.
Cosmo glared at Anna. "This is all your fault! Look what you've let happen to him!" He grabbed Poof by the shoulders. "Poof, please, say something! It's me, it's your dad, now say something!"
Poof only continued to float blankly in the air.
Anna gulped. "Uh… were you like this after the—"
"I told you Alighieri is terrible!" cried Cosmo angrily, tears flowing from his eyes again. "Look how much it traumatized him! Look what's happened to my boy… and it's all your fault! If you had let me leave I could have saved him from the horror that is—"
"Anna! I'm home!"
"Oh no!" hissed Anna. "Mom's back! Get back in the fishbowl!"
Cosmo waved his wand, and—fzzt.
"I can't!" he cried.
The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs was disturbingly close.
"Why can't you—wait, my wish, I wished you couldn't leave the room! Even though the fishbowl's in the room—I unwish it! You can go anywhere you want now!"
The door opened just as Anna heard the POOF.
"Has everything—good gravy, what on earth is that?!"
Anna turned to what her shocked mother was pointing at and nearly let out a shocked scream of her own. Cosmo had gotten himself into the fishbowl just fine, but apparently he had forgotten to get Poof in as well.
Anna quickly jumped up and pulled Poof out of the air. "It's, uh, it's my new toy I bought when you were gone, a fairy doll with real hovering action! They're all the rage now. You know, everyone… everyone wants their own shell-shocked fairy!"
Mrs. Hoffman looked utterly baffled. "What did you say this thing was called?"
Anna hesitated. "Uh… Poof. It's the Poof doll. It's all the rage, believe me. Or, it will be, eventually. This is, uh, a prototype."
"That's one of the creepiest looking toys I've ever seen. Let me see that." Mrs. Hoffman took Poof from Anna, Anna shrieking in protest and Mrs. Hoffman yelping a bit in shock. "Good grief, it's warm! It actually feels alive! And it has weight, too!"
"Uh, yeah, they're going for realism here," Anna quickly said. "You know, realism for a purple-haired fairy."
"Poof," said Poof.
Mrs. Hoffman jumped in surprise.
"And did I mention he talks?" Anna quickly snatched Poof back from her mother. "Right now he's so shell-shocked that all he can say is his own name, but once he recovers a bit I'm sure he'll be able to say a few more words. He's one of those, uh, interactive toys."
"Look," sighed Mrs. Hoffman, "if that's the kind of toy you want, I won't object, just please keep it away from me, alright? I never wanna see that creepy thing again."
"Don't worry, you won't. How was your trip?" Anna's voice was growing faster and higher.
"Very boring, of course. Except today I guess there was a bit of commotion at Caesar's Palace involving some very realistic Elvis impersonator. Too bad I wasn't there to see that. Here, I got you a T-shirt from Excalibur." She handed Anna a rolled-up T-shirt. "How was your time here?"
"Boring, uneventful, nothing to report," Anna said quickly and dutifully.
"Did you give the robot any trouble?"
"Not a bit."
"That's a good girl." Mrs. Hoffman squeezed Anna's shoulder affectionately. "I'm gonna go unpack now."
"You do that."
"Poof," said Poof again.
Mrs. Hoffman recoiled a bit. "Can't you turn that thing off?"
"Unfortunately, no," said Anna. "You might wanna leave before he starts talking more. Trust me, he can get pretty bossy and pedantic."
"I'm not gonna ask," sighed Mrs. Hoffman, stepping out of the room. Once she had passed a decent amount away from the door Anna quickly ran over and shut it, leaning against it and heaving a sigh of relief.
Cosmo poofed out the fishbowl, looking completely shocked. "Wow, Anna, amazing save—"
"Cosmo." Anna testily pointed to where Poof was seated on the floor, her voice short and brusque. "Please take your son back to the fishbowl with you this time. I really don't want to see either of you again for awhile." She glared at him. "And do this on your own, don't make me wish it."
Cosmo pulled Poof towards him and shot Anna a look that was half reproachful, half challenging, and waved his wand, transporting both himself and Poof back into the fishbowl.
…
"Look, Poofy, look, marshmallows! You love marshmallows! And cupcakes! Tons of cupcakes, and I arranged them in the shape of Elvis! And here's Dog and Monkey and your Elvis teddy bear and… please, Poofy, say something!" Cosmo begged.
Poof simply sat, unmoving and unblinking, at the kitchen table, not even registering the presence of said items that Cosmo was frantically pushing towards him.
"Please!" Cosmo begged again. "Say something, say anything!"
"Poof," said Poof.
"Well, that's a start…" Cosmo took a few deep breaths, attempting to get his panic under control, and wiped tears from his eyes. "I know… I know how horrifying Alighieri is, Jorgen sent me through there a long time ago and I… actually, I don't remember what happened after I got out of there, I don't even really remember what it was like in there…" He shuddered. "I just remember it was completely horrible and—and I tried to save you, I really did, the thought of you there made me scream and rain potato bombs, but Anna wouldn't let me go, I mean literally, she wished that I was stuck in the room, and I was, even though I tried to save you…"
Poof's eyes finally moved; they flickered to the ground.
Cosmo gulped.
"I'm sorry, Poof," he whispered. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you."
There was silence for a few moments.
"When—when you were gone, I did some thinking…"
Poof looked up, his eyes finally showing a small bit of emotion—mild surprise.
Cosmo laughed weakly. "Yeah, I know, completely out of character for me… anyway… I kept thinking about…" His voice broke. "I'm a terrible father," he whispered harshly. "I always have been, because I never knew how to be one, I kind of need to learn things from watching someone else, and I never really had a dad, he died when I was a baby, and…" He swallowed unshed tears. "I've been really stupid and terrible to you. E-especially this past year. I thought… after your mama died… I thought I had nothing to live for…"
Poof blinked.
"And see? That's why I'm so stupid. It took me way too long to remember that I had you to live for, but even then I just made things worse for you. Even now. You… you could be doing your own thing right now, but no, you have to follow me and make sure I don't get into any trouble." He turned his head away harshly. "But then I get you into trouble. It's not… it's not fair to you, Poofy. You don't deserve this. And I don't think I've ever really… apologized…"
Poof continued to stare.
"I'm not good with words, but even then I should have been trying to tell you this stuff." Cosmo looked back at Poof, who continued to look on with surprise, anticipation, and a little confusion, his eyes not quite so hollow, his body not quite so stoic.
Cosmo brought his fingers to his mouth, his voice breaking again. "You just went through Alighieri… how you managed it I don't even… I need to tell you things, even though I don't know if they'll come out right—I love you, and I'm so proud of you, always and always, and it just…" He brought a hand to his forehead. "It frustrates me that I can't even figure out how someone as smart and strong and responsible and capable as you could be the son of such an idiot like me, and…" He moved his hand away from his eyes, suddenly realizing something. "I never did thank you for… saving my life, did I?"
Poof blinked twice.
"Of course I didn't. Because I was stupid and didn't realize I had something to live for. But I do, and it's you. So… thank you," he said quietly. "Thank you for saving me. Thank you for being there for me. I'm sorry it took me so long to realize…" He sniffled, feeling the tears well up again. "I really am stupid…"
Poof stood up, pushing the items on the table to the side.
And half a second later he had flung himself into Cosmo's arms, crying softly and gratefully into his shoulder. "Thanks, Dad," he whispered. "I love you too."
Cosmo sighed, his exhale letting loose a shaky sob of relief of his own, wrapping his arms around his son's shoulders with one hand stroking his tousled hair. "It's okay, Poofy, it's okay… everything's gonna be okay…" He kissed the side of his forehead. "It's okay… I'm sorry, I'm sorry for everything, I'm sorry for being so terrible and stupid…"
"You're not a terrible father," Poof murmured. "You're the best dad in the world and I'm glad you're mine."
Cosmo snorted. "You're just saying that…"
"Am not." Poof pulled away a bit to give Cosmo a shaky smile. "Or if I am, you're just saying what you said about me too…"
"Am not!" Cosmo cried. "I meant every word!"
"And so did I!"
They pulled each other close again.
"Are you gonna be okay?" Cosmo whispered. "I hate seeing you go through so much torment, and I hate it even more when I'm not seeing it and I can't do anything about it."
"I…" Poof shuddered. "Dad, that was… that was pure, unadulterated hell."
"I know!" cried Cosmo. "I mean, I don't know, because I don't remember anything about it, I just remember it was terrible!"
"You must have repressed those memories," Poof said with another shudder. "I hope I do too… oh my…"
"My poor, poor Poofy." Cosmo clutched Poof tighter. "I wish I could have saved you."
"It's… it's okay…" Poof pulled away to smile again, trying his best to look confident. "I mean, what doesn't kill me only makes me stronger, right?"
"And it didn't kill you?" Cosmo clarified.
Poof snorted out a weak laugh. "I don't think so."
"You still shouldn't have had to go through that, though. Nobody deserves that. Especially not you."
"No, I did deserve it." Poof pulled away completely from Cosmo and sighed in regret. "I put the entire planet in jeopardy."
"Did you answer in the form of a question?" Cosmo asked in confusion.
Poof sighed again, but continued. "Not only that, I completely ruined our vacation, and destroyed any trust that Anna has in us. She's now well within her rights to wish us away, and… it'll be all my fault if she does. I tried to help you, but I've just made things worse, and…" He stood up straighter. "I need to go apologize to her."
Cosmo gulped in worry. "She's really mad, you know…"
"Of course she is." Poof looked to the ground in shame. "I haven't exactly been the best big brother to her."
He remorsefully waved his wand and poofed out of the fishbowl to attempt to make amends with his surrogate sister.
…
Now that she could finally enjoy a true peace and quiet, Anna should have been able to put the whole thing behind her. She should have been able to read her books or sculpt her Play-Doh or play her computer games or whatever she wanted to do.
But all she could do was sit huddled on her bed, her knees pulled up to her chest, sniffling.
It didn't matter, it didn't matter, so she had nearly been pulverized by some crazy mad scientist because her two fairies who were supposed to look after her fell down on the job. Why should this hurt her? She should be used to it. Her dad wasn't there for her at all, and her mom was so busy she hardly had time for her either. Why should she have been so surprised that Cosmo and Poof hadn't done anything either? That they were…
Anna gulped, realizing in an instant what the problem was. Cosmo and Poof weren't like her parents. They did care. Which was why what had happened that day hurt Anna more than anything. Cosmo obviously, while not always knowing what the right thing to do was, at least would try—and if he was prevented from trying, as Anna had just witnessed, he'd literally tear the house apart. And Poof was responsible. He wasn't quite the killjoy that Cosmo seemed to imply sometimes, but he was always the one looking out for both of them, making sure they didn't misstep, averting so many crises…
…and yet causing this one.
Anna sniffled again, wiping her eyes angrily. And yet, weirdly enough, in this instance Poof had only proved again just how responsible he was. He could have let Cosmo take the rap. But he didn't. He owned up to his mistake.
She heard a soft POOF beside her, but she didn't look up.
"Anna?" It was Poof's voice, soft and apprehensive.
Anna still didn't look up.
"It's okay if you don't look at me or even say anything to me, I just want you to listen. I… I'm sorry. You're right… the world, and Dad, and you, should mean more to me than Elvis… and you do. I'm sorry it took me so long to realize it… and I'm sorry that it took a trip through hell to make me realize it. I… Jorgen's right. I really am stupid."
Anna finally looked up at him questioningly.
Poof rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes downcast with shame. "He… he kept calling me 'Cosmo Junior'. That didn't offend me, but what did offend me was that he meant it as an insult. Like I should be ashamed of who my dad is. But I… Dad's not the idiot, I am. At least Dad didn't completely turn against you for some stupid reason. I don't… I don't expect you to forgive me, so I won't ask, I just… I just want you to know that I'm sorry."
Anna shifted her position, suddenly feeling something in her pocket poke at her.
She pulled it out.
It was the picture from yesterday, of the three of them as the Three Stooges. Anna blinked at their expressions, goofy grins on all three of their faces, and remembered their uncontrollable laughter at seeing the picture for the first time, laughter that shook Anna so greatly that she had had to clutch Cosmo and Poof while gasping for breath.
"Poof?" she said, looking up.
Poof looked at her.
"I… I don't really think Elvis is stupid. I like his music."
Poof almost smiled at that. "Yeah, well, that's still no excuse for someone to blindly take orders from him."
"But… Poof, Elvis would never do that."
"But he did, and—"
"Poof, Elvis would never do that," Anna repeated. "So that man wasn't Elvis. He might have looked and sounded just like him, but he wasn't Elvis."
Poof finally felt himself not only smile, but let out a half-laugh. "Can't argue with that logic."
"Keep that in mind next time." Anna felt herself smiling too.
"Is… is there going to be a next time?"
"Well… not for awhile… but maybe next summer, you and me and your dad could have a real summer vacation. As long as you promise to not assist in any world domination plans. And I think it'll be my turn to pick where we go." She held out her hand. "Do we have a deal?"
Poof slowly began to chuckle in amusement and realization. "You know, Anna—I'm not trying to justify what I did, it was stupid and I deserved what I got—but it still turned out to be a good idea for us to go to Las Vegas in the first place, right? If we hadn't been there, and you hadn't stopped that evil scientist, he probably would have taken over the world!" He grinned at Anna. "You saved the world, poof poof!"
Anna straightened up in surprise and began to laugh too. "Hey, you're right, I did! I'm savior of the world!"
Still smiling, Poof grabbed Anna's hand in a handshake. "Deal," he said.
"Deal?"
"Summer vacation next year, the three of us. I'll hold you to it. That is, if you haven't changed your mind by then and decide you'd rather not risk your life with such crazy fairies like Dad and me…" He winked at her.
Anna winked back with a knowing grin. "After all we've been through already, I don't think anything more can surprise me. I'm ready for anything. Deal."
Chapter 9: A Little Less Conversation
Chapter Text
Perhaps it was thanks to her knowledge that she had almost single-handedly saved the world (true, she had needed Cosmo's magic to do it, but as Cosmo had been so incapacitated at the time he certainly wouldn't have done anything about it on his own), but for the next three days at school Anna felt a surge of confidence that she never had before. She spoke up more in class, became more aggressive in PE, and even stood up to Valerie.
Her best friend Gretchen certainly noticed a change, a change that Anna could only explain as "I feel like I've just saved the world." She couldn't go into more detail, unfortunately. The entire world had been saved by one Anna Marie Hoffman and nobody would ever know!
Except for Cosmo and Poof. They knew. And Anna didn't let them forget it.
"The savior of the world wins again!" Anna crowed triumphantly after yet another win on "Battling Alien Sea Monsters 8".
Cosmo, sitting to her side and with the other computer mouse, sighed in irritation. "Man, am I tired of getting my alien sea monster butt kicked!"
"Aw, that's too bad," said Anna, still grinning. "Because it's only 8:02 on a Saturday morning, and we have a whole day of butt-kicking ahead of us."
Cosmo winced. "Oh, my aching butt…" He poofed up a large, fluffy pillow. "I think it's gonna be needing this…"
BUSY BUSY POOF POOF POOF!
"Hey you guys, I'm—"
"Not listening," Anna interrupted Poof without even looking at him, focusing instead on her monitor, intently starting up another game. "No time. Too busy being awesome."
"Yeah, because ignoring people is awesome," Poof muttered, rolling his eyes. "I'm going to Fairy World. It's Saturday and I need to submit this…" He held up his weekly report and winced in shame. "This damning piece of evidence. Even though Jorgen already knows all about it obviously… I just hope he doesn't get re-enraged when reading it and decide to punish me again…"
Cosmo flung himself on Poof in terror. "NO, POOFY, DON'T DO IT! DON'T GO!"
"Look, Dad, if I—" Poof somehow managed to peel Cosmo off of him. "If I don't submit this on time, Jorgen will pulverize me again for sure. I think I'm gonna just slide this under his door and sneak away quietly."
"Good," smiled Anna. "That means you won't be gone long, so you can get back here right away so I can commence with the butt-kicking."
"The butt-kicking's gonna have to wait," said Poof. "I've got a few other things to take care of while I'm in Fairy World, so I'll be gone for awhile. I've got my volunteering gigs to check up on, I'd better check on the house too, I'm gonna meet a few friends for lunch—"
"Poofy! You can't leave!" Cosmo looked absolutely panicked. "What if something happens and I need someone smart to take care of it?"
"You can take care of things by yourself," Poof said with a confident, comforting smile. "A week ago you saved Anna from getting eaten without any help from me, remember?"
"Well, yeah… but you know it's still a bad idea to leave an idiot like me all alone!"
"You won't be alone. Anna's here. She'll keep you out of trouble and you'll keep her out of trouble."
"But—"
Poof sighed, waved his wand, and something that looked like a walky-talky appeared in both his and Cosmo's hands.
"Here. If there's some emergency and you really, really need me back, just press this button. Happy now? Can I go now?"
"Well, I guess you have everything covered!" Cosmo said cheerfully. "Have fun! Say hi to Vince for me!"
"Can do," smiled Poof. "I'll try to be back before supper!" POOF POOF! He was gone.
"That was just a cop-out," Anna scoffed. "He's just trying to get out of me kicking his butt. Looks like you're gonna have to take the heat instead! I've got games to win, Cosmo, and to win I need an opponent, and that's you!"
Cosmo yelped in a panic and quickly pressed the button on the device Poof had given him.
Poof instantly poofed back into the room. "What? What?" he cried frantically.
Cosmo pointed at Anna. "She's gonna kick my butt again!"
Poof facepalmed.
"Dad. Emergencies only."
"But this is an emergency!" Cosmo protested. "My butt is at stake here!"
"Your butt will be fine," sighed Poof, waving his wand and disappearing again in an "ANNOYED POOF POOF".
Anna smirked at Cosmo. "What, Cosmo, are you chicken? You afraid that I'm gonna thrash ya?"
"Hey now," Cosmo retaliated, jutting out his chin, "I've been playing video games since before you were even born! And I kicked major butt back in the day!" He pulled out an old picture of a distinguished looking naval officer. "Major Butt. He was in the navy. I kicked him because he stood up in front of me at that Packers game and I couldn't see anything—"
"Oh. Well then." Anna was still smirking at Cosmo as if challenging him. "If you're really that awesome, then you'll have no trouble beating me in the sudden death round, right?"
Cosmo blanched. "Uh…"
Anna pushed the computer's second mouse over to Cosmo. "Let's see what you've got!" Using her own mouse, she started the match, and immediately clicked her mouse buttons in such a way that made her character knock Cosmo's character to the ground in an elaborate body-slam.
"AAAHHH!" screamed Cosmo in shock, pressing his Poof-summoning button once more.
Poof quickly poofed back in. "What? What happened?"
"Look what she just did to me!" cried Cosmo, pointing at the screen. "Tell me how to beat her!"
Poof glared at Cosmo, unamused.
Cosmo gave a small chuckle of embarrassment. "That's an emergency, right?"
"Wrong." Poof disappeared again in a "SLIGHTLY MORE ANNOYED POOF POOF".
Anna continued to laugh deviously. "What I'm gonna do to you next will be an emergency, though."
That was enough to make Cosmo shriek yet again and push the button.
When Poof reappeared for the third time, he didn't even bother to ask. Instead, he deftly swiped the device from Cosmo's hands and gave it to Anna. "Here," he said. "You be in charge of this thing."
"But I like to push the button!" Cosmo whined.
"Exactly," muttered Poof. "That's why Anna's in charge of it."
The POOF cloud that signaled his departure this time proclaimed "DAD, IF YOU PUSH THAT BUTTON ONE MORE TIME I'LL SHOVE IT UP YOUR NOSE POOF POOF!"
Cosmo frowned uncertainly. "Do you think he's mad?"
Anna thoughtfully examined the area where Poof had just been floating. "Nah, just a little annoyed. He'll be over it when he gets back, though, I'm sure."
"You mean, in two seconds when I push that button again?" Cosmo reached over for it.
Anna quickly pulled it away from Cosmo's hand.
"No, Cosmo. That would only make it worse."
…
By lunchtime, Anna had kicked Cosmo's butt twenty-seven times in nine different computer games. Cosmo had looked absolutely relieved when Anna's mother called her downstairs for lunch, planting his fanny squarely on his fluffy pillow and mournfully remarking how much it was going to hurt to do any sort of sitting for awhile.
Cosmo didn't seem to be the only one in the house that day with problems.
Anna raised an eyebrow at her plate. "Mom, are you putting me on a low-carb diet, or did you just forget the bread for my sandwich?" she asked, staring in confusion at the bologna, cheese, and nothing else that her mother had presented to her.
"What?" Mrs. Hoffman, who had been distractedly bustling about the kitchen from the moment Anna had arrived and hadn't even acknowledged her as she came in, finally turned to look at both Anna and her plate and gave a gasp of surprise. "Oh, lordy, I really am out of it today! Here you go!" She tossed a grain item at Anna and hurried back to her PDA.
Anna sighed. Her mother had just tossed a bagel at her. Oh well, at least it was bread. "Can I have a knife to slice this?" she asked.
"There's one on the table, dear," said Mrs. Hoffman distractedly.
It was a fork. Anna sighed again, simply carefully tearing the bagel apart on her own and arranging her bagel sandwich. "Any particular reason as to why you're so… flustered?" she asked.
Her mother jerked up from her planner in surprise. "What? Oh, yes, that's nice, dear."
"Mom!" Anna cried. "Something's bugging you! What's going on? I think maybe you need to take a little break—"
"I am, and yet I'm not," sighed Mrs. Hoffman. "I'm unbelievably stressed, if you couldn't tell—"
"Then you need to talk about it!"
"I am. The card club is coming over this afternoon to help me unwind. But since they're coming, I need to clean up the house."
Anna paled. "The card club?!" Her mother got together every so often with three other women to play cards, but all three of these ladies were quite a bit older than Mrs. Hoffman (and even older than her own mother as well), none of them having ever been married or had any children, and they all latched onto the protesting Anna like lichens, babying her and presenting her with outrageously tacky and embarrassing clothing that they expected her to wear.
"Don't say 'the card club' in that tone of voice," Mrs. Hoffman admonished. "They're wonderful ladies."
"The last time they were here they lectured me for forty-five minutes on what to do when I have my first menstrual cycle!"
"Well, that's something that you're going to need to know pretty soon."
"Why do you have to talk to them? Can't you talk to me?"
"Two things," sighed Mrs. Hoffman. "One, sometimes adults need to talk to other adults, and this is one of those times. And two… how can I ever find the time to talk to you when you spend all day up in your room playing video games? Which reminds me, you need to get outside and enjoy this beautiful weather—"
"Oh no," said Anna, quickly biting into her sandwich. "If the card club's coming I'm gonna lock myself in my room until they leave."
Mrs. Hoffman sighed in frustration, rubbing her temples. "Anna, you are not helping my stress level at all here…"
"And you're not helping mine," Anna muttered through her mouth full of sandwich, quickly stuffing the last large bite in her mouth. "I'll see you for a very, very late supper!"
She quickly tore out of the kitchen and ran back upstairs to her room, wasting no time in delivering the bad news. "Cosmo, we're in trouble!" she said breathlessly.
Cosmo shrugged. "I'm always in trouble! But wait—why are you in trouble?"
"Quick, I wish my bedroom door was locked!"
Cosmo frowned. "But it doesn't have a padlock or anything!"
"Well then, do something about that, Fairy Godfather!"
"Oh!" Cosmo chuckled at himself, grabbing his wand. "Sometimes I forget."
LOCKED!
"Whew!" Anna wiped her forehead in relief. "Hopefully that'll keep them out."
"Keep who out?"
"The card club." Anna shuddered. "If I have to put up with Velma's cheek-pinching or Opal's boring anecdotes or Wanda's stinky perfume I'm gonna—"
She was cut off by a sharp yelp from Cosmo, who looked like he'd just been punched in the gut. "D-don't say that…" he whimpered with a trembling lip.
"Don't say what?" Anna asked, utterly baffled. "Velma's cheek-pinching?"
That got no reaction from Cosmo.
"Opal's boring anecdotes?"
No reaction.
"Wanda's stinky perfume?"
"THAT!" shrieked Cosmo, his face contorting with tears.
Anna gulped. "Jeez, it's not that bad…"
"Why must you torture me so?" sobbed Cosmo, his body shaking as he wiped at his eyes.
Anna blinked in confusion. "I… I'm sorry, Cosmo, I didn't know perfume set you off like this—"
"It's not the perfume, it's…" Unable to continue, Cosmo pressed his palms against his face and trembled with bitter, heartbroken tears.
Anna was utterly flummoxed, unable to discern what was hurting Cosmo so deeply and thus not knowing how to comfort him. "It's Wanda?" she offered tentatively.
Cosmo pulled his hands away from his face and wailed, answering Anna in the affirmative. "Wanda!" he cried helplessly.
Anna had never heard him sound like that before.
And then, her eyes widened in sudden realization.
"That was your wife's name, wasn't it?" she asked softly.
Cosmo shook with even more tears, burying his face in his hands.
"I… I'm sorry," Anna said awkwardly.
Cosmo looked up at her with huge, heartbroken eyes. "How… how did you know I was married?" he whimpered through his sobs.
"Well, for one thing, Poof told me, and for another…" She pointed at his left hand. "You're still wearing your wedding ring."
Cosmo drew in his breath. "What… what did Poof say?" he asked in a terrified whisper.
"He told me she died, and that I shouldn't say her name to you… except that idiot didn't tell me what her name was… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"
"He told you, didn't he?" Cosmo shrieked, startling Anna. "He told you everything! He told you I KILLED her!"
Anna gasped.
"You did WHAT?!"
"I KILLED her! I KILLED her! I'm a terrible person and I KILLED her!"
Cosmo couldn't speak anymore due to his huge, sloppy sobs. And Anna couldn't speak through her complete, all-encompassing shock.
And then, slowly but surely, her eyebrows began to knit in anger.
"You… did… WHAT?"
Cosmo wailed remorsefully one more time before disappearing into his fishbowl, but Anna hardly noticed. Her objection at the moment did not lie with him.
Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the summoning device and pressed the button.
Poof instantly appeared, looking worried. "What happened? What is it?"
Anna glared at Poof. "Why didn't you tell me that your dad killed your mom?"
Poof froze in dread. "Oh no. Oh no. What did he tell you?"
"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?!" shrieked Anna, angry tears springing to her eyes. "You could have mentioned that I'm living with a MURDERER!"
"Anna!" Poof grabbed Anna by the shoulders, his eyes pleading. "Please, please, tell me exactly what my dad said to you!"
"He told me he killed her! Because someone decided to not tell me his mom's name and so I didn't get a warning that as soon as I said 'Wanda' I was gonna get a murder confession—"
"Anna! Please! You know how Dad gets! You know he doesn't always say things right!"
"Did he kill her or not?!"
Poof trembled. "N—no, he didn't—"
"How did your mom die?"
Poof gulped, blinking back tears.
"Poof! I need to know!"
"Give me some poofin' time, we're talking about my DEAD MOTHER here!" Poof snapped back.
Anna recoiled.
Poof shakily wiped a tear from his eyes. "S-sorry," he said, his voice low. "Sorry about that. You're—you're right, you deserve to know." He took a deep breath. "Okay. Do… do you know where babies come from?"
Anna's jaw dropped, completely baffled. "What… what on earth does that have to do with anything?"
"It has everything to do with… look, it'll make my explanation at least partially easier if I don't have to explain that, too—"
"Y-you don't have to," Anna stammered. "I don't know all the nasty details, but I do know that they come from… um, an activity that one's not supposed to talk about in public."
Poof nodded. "Right. Good. Okay. Back… back years and years ago, fairy reproduction used to be just like humans'. Evolutionally fairies and humans come from the same common ancestor, so it makes sense. But as fairies began to grow more and more magical and more and more powerful, so did their babies. Even in the womb, before they were even born. They began to suck the magic from their mothers. And they began to do it faster and faster. Fairy pregnancy was suddenly only lasting a few weeks, then a few days, and then a few hours, and by that time they were sucking the magic from their mothers so fast that mothers were literally dying in childbirth. At that point, if you got pregnant, it automatically meant that you would die in mere hours, that's how much the babies had evolved."
"Is… is that how your mom died, then?" Anna asked. "Giving birth to you?"
Poof shook his head. "No. This was still like thirty, forty thousand years ago, mind you. And the babies weren't the only fairies who evolved. The mothers had to evolve, too. Their bodies got to the point where they'd force the unborn baby out of their body after it had only taken about half of her magic, to keep herself alive and all. But then this was bad news for the babies, since they were only half-formed and couldn't survive being, in human terms, so vastly premature."
"So then what?"
"So then… the males had to evolve too. No one really knows who the first father was who, upon seeing his unborn child get expelled from its mother, in desperation used magic to give himself a pouch where he could carry the baby to full term, but… it worked. And pretty soon all males were even being born with pouches." Poof lifted up his shirt a little bit and tugged at the loose flap of skin on his own belly. "See? I have one too. So that's how fairy pregnancy and birth works. After conception, the mother is only pregnant for a few hours while the baby takes half of her magic. Then her body forces the baby out, and the father gets the embryo in his pouch and carries it for the rest of the term. Technically, since the baby's in his pouch and not actually his body, the baby can't suck magic from its dad nearly as fast as it does from its mom, so the dad's pregnant for quite a bit longer than the mom… usually about three months or so."
Anna blinked. "That… is the weirdest thing I've ever heard in my life."
"Hey, it works," shrugged Poof. "It's not the best system, though, and for a long time having babies was outlawed. Jorgen likes to say it was because when my dad was born he caused such chaos—baby fairies can be pretty destructive until they've learned how to control their magic—but that wasn't exactly true. It was just… pregnancy was dangerous by definition, and back then even our medical attention wasn't the best. Mothers could still die from pregnancy. In fact, although nowadays a… normal pregnancy won't kill the mother, it'll still often knock them unconscious. I guess I knocked my mama unconscious when she had me."
"And back on the subject of your mother…" Anna folded her arms. "Not that I want to cause you suffering by reliving bad memories, but could you please tell me how she died?"
Poof nodded, looking away from Anna sadly. "I'm… I'm getting there. So… about a year ago, Dad and Mama decided to have another baby."
Anna raised an eyebrow. "And…?"
Poof gulped. "Did you notice I said normal pregnancies don't kill mothers anymore?"
Anna nodded.
"Well… Mama's pregnancy wasn't normal. It… it was twins."
Anna blinked. "Twins?"
Poof nodded. "One baby still takes the magic from its mother so fast that it knocks her unconscious, even though she forces it out of her halfway through. That's with one baby. With two, each one taking half her magic…"
Anna drew in her breath in realization. "The twins killed your mom."
Poof looked away again. "Yes," he whispered harshly. "The twins killed my mama. A twin pregnancy still automatically means death for the mother."
Anna blinked, the tears in her eyes escaping anyway.
"What… what happened to the twins?" she asked quietly.
Poof looked at Anna.
"They died too. Twins… twins don't necessarily have to die… Mama was a twin herself, you know… and if the father gets them to his pouch in time, he's able to carry them to full term without them killing him as well, since they take his magic so much slower. But Dad… Dad was so… so crushed by Mama's death that he just… forgot about the twins. And the embryos can't survive being outside of either parent for too long. By the time Dad remembered them… it was too late."
Anna gulped, making no effort to wipe her tears away.
"So." Poof again looked away from Anna and to the ground, his voice staccato and detached. "That's how my mama died. Dad didn't kill her, and he didn't kill the twins. But… if I were in his situation… I'd probably feel guilty too. It's understandable. There's nothing he could have done, with Mama especially. But…" Poof's voice broke and he closed his mouth, sniffling.
Anna sniffled too, although she kept the sound as silent as possible.
"Thanks, Poof," she finally said softly. "You can go back to Fairy World now."
Poof looked up at Anna. "Please, please go easy on my dad… things were going so well, so well, and now…"
"You can go back to Fairy World now," Anna repeated firmly.
"He needs this, Anna. He needs you. I know I told you to give him just one chance, but now I need to ask you to give him another—"
"Poof. You can go."
Poof exhaled, nodding slowly, and waved his wand and vanished.
Now alone, Anna took a moment to wipe at her eyes, sniffling the last few sobs from her throat, and composing herself before stepping up to the fishbowl.
"Cosmo?" she called.
No answer.
"Cosmo, come out. Please."
Still nothing.
Anna sighed. "I wish you'd come out."
POOF!
Cosmo appeared floating before Anna, also wiping his large, sorrowful eyes. "You… you're gonna wish me away, aren't you?" he whispered fearfully.
Anna shook her head. "No, Cosmo. I want something else from you."
Cosmo gulped and looked at Anna expectantly.
Anna took a deep breath.
"I want you to tell me about Wanda."
Chapter 10: Always on My Mind
Chapter Text
Oh, where to begin.
After having spent thousands and thousands of years with her, each one so filled with memories—many wonderful, many not so—Cosmo couldn't draw up just one. Even though memories of Wanda had been all his brain could wrap around as he had sat huddled in his bedroom in his fishbowl.
Memories that had all started with his clumsiness.
Sure, he admitted it. His immediate reaction was that he simply couldn't get over how absolutely gorgeous this girl was, this unknown girl with the beautiful swirly pink hair who had innocently stepped into the diner he worked at to grab a bite to eat with a few friends. Was it right to completely latch onto a girl by looks alone? Perhaps not. But it wasn't her looks that so completely sealed the deal. It was, after he had so completely and stupidly proved what an idiot he really was by dumping her entire order all over her… it was that even then, she had continued to smile at him.
And that was it. That was when he knew. She was it. The one, the only one he'd ever give his heart to, and if she wouldn't have it, then nobody would.
Now to get her to realize that.
The truth of the matter was that Cosmo was chronically inept at… well, anything that required someone to not be an idiot. Dating, making a girl like you, definitely fell into that category. But still Cosmo tried. He poofed up as many flowers and chocolates and stuffed animals as he could the next time he had chanced to see that gorgeous pink-haired girl, causing her to blink at him in confusion and ask, "What on earth are you doing?"
"I'm trying to get you to date me!" Cosmo explained breathlessly. "And this stuff's all supposed to be romantic! And I'm trying to be romantic to you because I want you to be my girlfriend because I love you. So… here."
The romantic gestures seemed to be lost on this girl. "But… but you don't even know me. You don't even know my name."
Cosmo considered this. She did have a point.
"Well, what is your name?" he asked her.
She gave him a look of disgust. "Go away!"
"Go Away?" Cosmo blinked. "What a weird name! But I like it! Okay, Go Away, what I'm trying to do is—"
He suddenly realized she had left.
So he looked for her. It had taken him three days to find her again, but once he did, on a crowded Fairy World street, he had been so overcome with joy, shrieking, "GO AWAY! GO AWAY!" and almost everyone within earshot had backed off nervously.
But Go Away had heard him, recognized his voice, and stared at him incredulously as he zipped to her side.
"Go Away! I found you! I've been looking all over for you, and—"
"What—what are you doing?"
"I just told you, silly! I've been looking for you, because… you make me happy. I know you've hardly said anything to me, but you still smiled even when I did something idiotic. Most people—well, most people smile, but that's because they're laughing at me. But you weren't laughing. You still just smiled. You… I don't wanna lose someone like that. So please, Go Away, if you won't take all my romantic stuff that I think people use when they're dating although I don't know because I've obviously never dated before, could you please just talk to me? I wanna get to know you better. And I want you to know me too. Even though the more you find out about me, the more you'll probably wanna stay away from an idiot like me."
"Wanda," said Go Away.
Cosmo blinked. "Huh?"
"My name's not Go Away." She was smiling, in a way that made it seem like she herself was surprised that she was. "I told you that because… because I wanted you to go away, not because it was my name. My name's Wanda."
"Wanda?" Cosmo tried out Go Away's—Wanda's—real name, and felt himself grin. "Wow, I like that way better than Go Away, Wanda! Wanda, Wanda, Wanda! Wait! Did you still want me to go away?" He felt his heart crash.
Wanda laughed, but it wasn't the mean laugh that Cosmo was so accustomed to. "No, no, I don't want you to go away. You… you really want to… get to know me?" She sounded completely astounded by the very idea.
"Duh," grinned Cosmo. "Who wouldn't?"
"I… no one's ever…" Wanda was still looking at Cosmo in complete disbelief—but disbelief with a flattered smile, and Cosmo could feel himself glowing—oh, how wonderful it was, he had never known how completely and totally marvelous a smile could be! "What's your name?" she asked.
Cosmo felt himself grin even more. "Come here!"
"What?"
"If you're Go Away, then I'm Come Here!"
And then Wanda laughed again. It was surprised, it was sudden, it was wonderful, and Cosmo felt himself laughing too. Up until that moment, he had never realized there could be such a glorious difference between being laughed at and being laughed with.
"Cosmo," he said softly as her laughter died down.
"What?" Wanda said again.
"My name's Cosmo. It's not really 'Come Here'." He grinned knowingly at her. "Unless if you like that better."
Wanda laughed again, and Cosmo wanted to sing for joy, he had never known laughter could be so beautiful. "No, I like Cosmo better. I like that very much."
From that point on, Cosmo had thrown himself into everything that was even remotely considered romantic.
He had never done any of this before. All he had done was observed other people dating, never dreaming that he'd ever be in that situation himself. But if running with girls through a field of flowers was what would make them fall in love with their boyfriends, then that was what he was going to do!
"Cosmo?" Wanda had coughed, gasped, and shouted in surprise all at once—a remarkable feat, but one that was becoming old hat for her in the months that she had been spending with Cosmo. "Where are we? Where have you—" She coughed again. "—taken us?"
"A field of flour!" Cosmo proclaimed excitedly. "Because it's romantic to run through a field of flour!" He grabbed a handful of the powdery substance and threw it in the air in ecstasy before taking off in a running leap. "Now catch me!"
"Cosmo, not this kind of… flour…" But then he had heard her joyful laugh again, that wonderful sound, and pretty soon she was chasing him, and they had laughed and shrieked with happiness, zipping after each other through the flour, until finally Wanda knocked Cosmo to the ground, and they continued to laugh as they rolled a few feet to a stop, Cosmo on top of Wanda. There was powdery white flour in her hair and on her nose, and her ponytail was coming undone, and her cheeks were flushed from laughter, and she was the most beautiful thing Cosmo had ever seen.
She smiled softly at him. "Cosmo… why haven't you kissed me yet?"
Cosmo couldn't help but laugh at that question. What an obvious question, and Wanda was supposed to be smart, she should know this without having to ask! "Because I don't know how, duh!" he said.
She brought a hand to his cheek. "That's not a good reason, sweetie. Kissing's easy."
"Things that are easy for other people are hard for a moron like me," Cosmo countered. He was surprised he could get such a long sentence out of his mouth. Wanda touching him like this was rather distracting.
"You'd be a natural, Cosmo. Do you want me to teach you?"
"Duh!" laughed Cosmo. He suddenly drew in his breath, seeing the seriousness behind Wanda's smile. "…W-Wanda, do you really mean…"
She lifted her face up slightly, touching her soft lips to his, holding them there just long enough for Cosmo to realize just what was happening to him before pulling away.
"See? Just like that."
Cosmo stared at her.
She was smiling, but… trembling a little. As if she was… nervous? Nervous? Wanda, the most confident, strong, capable fairy he'd ever known, nervous by the thought of kissing him?
Did that mean that she was…
Cosmo brought his hands to her face as well.
"Wanda…"
There was so much he wanted to say to her at that moment. He wanted to say that he knew. Well, he'd always known somehow, ever since he'd first seen her, but now the truth was firmly cemented in his mind, no going back, that she was the one. That he loved her, adored her, everything was right as long as she was there and he'd do everything that a stupid little fairy could do to make her happy for as long as she lived, he was hers hers hers if she'd only have him—
"Do you… think you know how to do it now? Kissing, I mean." Wanda's cheeks flushed again.
Cosmo hesitated.
And then he smiled at her.
"Noooooo… I think maybe you need to show me how one more time."
"Cosmo!" laughed Wanda, knocking him over and causing the two of them to roll a few more feet through the flour, this time both landing on their sides, facing each other.
They were still laughing when Cosmo brought his hands to Wanda's cheeks again, gazing at her, feeling her blush yet again at his touch, overcome with the notion that this amazing woman wanted to be with him, wanted to kiss him, was smiling and blushing and trembling at his very touch, him, an idiot, a moron, an imbecile who apparently couldn't even get a field of flour right. And he slowly but deliberately pulled her towards him and brought her lips to his, wanting to show his appreciation, his gratitude, his love in some way that he knew she wanted him to express—but was he a good enough kisser?
She didn't pull away.
She slid her arms around his shoulders and somehow sank deeper into him, still trembling—as was Cosmo, but neither let go, only breaking the kiss for a brief moment to look at each other to reaffirm what was happening before bringing their lips together again.
There was room for doubt. Cosmo was in love.
He had returned home in a blissful daze, proclaiming to all who would hear that he was in love—unfortunately, the only one there to hear was his mother, who was so horrified at the declaration that she locked him in his room, with those powerful magical locks that only Cosma herself knew how to break—and then two days later, late at night when everyone except Cosmo was asleep, Wanda had appeared by his window, waving her wand and making them open with one simple poof.
And then they had transported themselves again to a location far away from Cosma's prying eyes and ears, and Cosmo had thrown himself in Wanda's arms, babbling his love confession, one that he had spent the last few days practicing but was now in actuality coming out far more jumbled and stupid-sounding than he would have liked but he still couldn't stop himself. And Wanda had just smiled, clutching him back, silencing his babbling with a quick kiss and murmuring, "I missed you too. …And we have got to do something about your mother."
But even Wanda couldn't do anything about her. She was gone most of the time. She had a job, a real job. She was a fairy godmother. And when she was gone, Cosmo could feel himself going crazy with loneliness.
So he decided to go back to school and become a godfather too.
First he had to actually finish high school—a task that took most fairies only five years, but Cosmo, discouraged at his stupidity, had dropped out after nine years of struggling. But now, with a newfound purpose and with Wanda's tutoring and encouragement, he finished up his degree in only three more years and immediately enrolled in the Fairy Academy, with an emphasis in godparenting.
That was an unqualified disaster.
Everyone, especially Jorgen Von Strangle, was ready to kick him out of the Academy for good and sentence him to cleaning toilets for all eternity, and he probably would have been… if not for Wanda. Somehow, that small, deceptively unassuming fairy had stood up to Jorgen and demanded Cosmo be given one more chance, with her as his mentor. And, even more surprisingly, Jorgen had relented.
And, with Wanda helping him, Cosmo had passed.
But even with an official godparenting license, Cosmo was still kept in Fairy World. Jorgen was apparently completely averse to the idea of releasing him upon the world, citing bureaucratic backlog as to why Cosmo seemed to be forever lingering on the "holding" list. So Cosmo was stuck in Fairy World, and Wanda was godparenting on Earth, the two of them only being able to see each other between Wanda's godchildren.
Nothing was right without her. And everything was right with her. And the more Cosmo thought about her—and he couldn't not think about her—the more his subpar mind kept arriving at the same conclusion—he couldn't live without her.
He had to marry her.
But before that, he had to convinceher as to why she had to marry him.
And that would take some work. Why would someone as marvelous as Wanda want to marry such an idiot like Cosmo, someone who had actually put her in the hospital more than once thanks to his stupidity? In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he thought she shouldn't marry him. There were just far too many problems that he would cause for her when married that she could avoid entirely by just… avoiding him. Not that he would mean any of it, of course, but, well… he was a moron and did moronic things. Even when he didn't mean to. Especially when he didn't mean to.
He needed to write all this out, otherwise his proposal would be the most idiotic, muddled mess ever spoken by anyone in the history of the universe.
He had had his proposal all written up and tucked into his pocket, and was going to pull it out and recite it to her, passionately and sincerely and convincingly, the moment he saw her again when they agreed to meet up once she got off of her current assignment, at the very same diner where they had first met. But all coherent thoughts of it and what he needed to do were lost when Wanda poofed in and gleefully calling out Cosmo's name and wrapping him up in a hug, whispering "I've missed you" into his ear and rendering him unable to do anything but shiver at the sensation.
Wait a minute! DO SOMETHING, YOU IDIOT!
"I'VE MISSED YOU TOO!" Cosmo practically shrieked, hugging Wanda so tightly that she was unable to breathe for a few moments. "I've been lonely and lost and lovesick and lots of other things beginning with 'L' and—"
"Cosmo!" Wanda gasped breathlessly.
Seeing her face turning blue, Cosmo immediately let go. "Whoops! Sorry! Sorry!" Dammit! He hadn't even begun to propose and he was already messing this up.
Wanda rubbed at her neck, her face returning to its normal color, her eyebrows knitted in mild frustration… but then, to Cosmo's surprise, a gentle smile broke over her face. She seemed surprised at it too as she laughed. "I can tell you've missed me," she chuckled, smiling lovingly at him. "Wow, Cosmo, I… there's something… something I need to… Look, I love you, you know that, right?"
"I… I guess," Cosmo said, not realizing that this was something he knew until right at that very moment.
"And sometimes I don't even know why. You drive me crazy and you do the stupidest things sometimes and you make me almost tear out my own hair in frustration—but—but you also make me—happy! All those sweet, spontaneous things you do, things I can never predict, and even when they're stupid or dangerous, they're still…" She sighed, but it was a happy sigh, and Cosmo was stunned that not only was she happy, she also seemed to be at a loss for words. "And I thought that maybe once you were done training with me and I'd have my job to myself things would be better and easier since I wouldn't have to watch over you, and I guess in a sense it was easier, but at the same time… I've felt more and more miserable without you. I just feel so… lonely and empty without you. I feel… lost. But when I'm with you, even when things get chaotic, everything still just feels…" She laughed in resignation, her whole body glowing with love as she gazed at him. "Everything just feels right when I'm with you. So… so I think there's no getting around it. We have to get married."
Cosmo gaped, the words hardly sinking in.
Did she just ask me to marry her?
Did SHE just ask ME to marry HER?!
"Hey!" he suddenly shouted angrily. "How dare you?"
Now it was Wanda's turn to be stunned. "Huh?"
"How dare you ask me to marry you when I was gonna ask you the same thing? You to marry me, I mean, not you to marry you—'cuz that would just be weird—anyway—you stole my thunder!" He pulled the folded paper from his pocket, finally remembering it was there, and shook it at her face. "I had it all written out and everything, and—and—"
Wanda slowly began to smile in amazement. "You… you were going to ask me to marry you?"
"Yeah, but I can't anymore!" snapped Cosmo, folding his arms crossly. "Because you asked first. I did all that work, and—"
"You can still ask, you know."
Cosmo blinked. "Huh?"
"If it means that much to you…" Wanda smiled at him. "And you went to all that work, just to… So go on. If you want to ask me to marry you, then you can. I'll listen."
"You… you will?"
Wanda nodded.
"Okay… um…" Cosmo unfolded the paper, squinted at it, turned it around, squinted again… "Man, is my handwriting messy… um…" He cleared his throat and began to read. "'Dear Wanda'—of course you're not a deer, you're a fairy, but that's what it says here, anyway—'Dear Wanda, after you've left to be a fairy godmother I've been lonely without you, and I've been messing up at everything too like I always do, although when you're with me I don't mess up as much, although I still do mess up a little, just not as much, you know? And anyway, I need you with me, but I know you're busy being a godmother and that's good because you're a good godmother and all your godchildren love you, and they should because you're good at granting watches'—wishes! I mean wishes!—'and I'm not gonna make you stop being a godmother, because that's what you like doing and you're good at it, but if you…'" He gulped. "'If you married me I could do it with you, and then I wouldn't be alone anymore and I'd be happy because you'd be with me, and I want to be with you for the rest of my life because I love you and you make me feel like I can actually do stuff, although not as good as you, and'—oh no… I lost the second page!" Cosmo felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment and panic as he frantically dug through his pocket, fruitlessly searching for the rest of his proposal. "Um, okay, so the rest of it went something like how I know I'm a moron and I cause you a lot of trouble and you'll probably just be more irritated and constantly in danger if you marry me but… but…" He stammered frantically, trying to pull himself out of the hole he had dug. "But if you marry me, I can… I can do this!" He quickly poofed up a big box of chocolate—dark chocolate with almonds, Wanda's favorite. "Uh, okay, so I can do that when we're not married too, obviously, but…" Tears sprung to his eyes as he realized how quickly this was spiraling down. Even he wouldn't be stupid enough to say yes to a marriage proposal like this. "Look, Wanda, I love you, I wanna marry you, more than anything else in the world I just want you with me, and if I was your husband I'd try to… I'd just try. I'd try anything. Anything to make you happy. Even though I'll probably just mess things up and make things worse for you…" He finally turned away from her and helplessly buried his face in his hands. "I completely screwed that up!" he sobbed, forgetting that she was still there listening to him. "I'm such an idiot! I'M SUCH AN IDIOT!"
"Cosmo!"
Wanda pulled Cosmo's hands from his face, her eyes filled with worry, and she brought his hands to her lips and kissed them once, twice, bringing one of her own hands to his face to wipe his tears away. "Cosmo… sweetie…" Now she began kissing his lips. "My love… why do you think I'd say no after I already asked you to marry me?"
"Because you're smart, and a smart person wouldn't want to marry me," whispered Cosmo bitterly.
"A smart person would want a husband who's fun and full of life and who lets her pursue her own dreams while supporting her and being there for her… a smart person would want a husband who loves her. And that's what I want too." She kissed him again, longer this time, an act of affirmation.
"So… that's a 'yes' then?" Cosmo ventured in a hopeful whisper when she pulled away.
Wanda laughed, running her fingers along his tear-stained cheeks. "That is most definitely a yes. I love you, Cosmo… so, so much. And I can't bear the thought of living without you any longer."
As she kissed him again, Cosmo was still absolutely dumbfounded—she wasn't supposed to be this stupid; he wasn't supposed to be this lucky; was this just some sick joke his mind was pulling on him?
But it couldn't be, this all felt so real; she felt so real…
And finally he held her back, his hands stroking her sides, her arms, her wings, her hair; kissing her back on her lips and cheeks and chin and nose and lips again, in between whispering words, words that he loved her, he loved her, he'd try as hard as he could to be smart for her, he'd make her happy, he'd make her the happiest fairy in the world…
On the day of their wedding, those words had been at the forefront of his mind, but the day was so happy and hectic that he didn't have the time to ponder them until they were alone at night and he was floating by their bed and realizing that he was having to fight down the urge to cry. Not out of happiness, but out of fear, out of disgust at himself. Who was he to force himself into anybody's life, least of all Wanda's, Wanda, such a wonderfully kind and caring and patient and capable fairy who could have done so much better than him?
And then Wanda had reemerged from the bathroom, her wedding dress off and only her slip and negligee remaining, and she smiled at Cosmo almost shyly before floating over to him and planting gentle kisses on his face, her hands slipping up under his jacket and vest. She moved with both confidence and a touch of nervousness that Cosmo could detect from her trembling fingers, and while he himself was certainly nervous as well, having only heard about this sort of thing in a general sense but never having been this intimate with anyone before, he felt himself almost sink into her, following her lead with an ease that he wouldn't have imagined he would ever possess. They each led the other, gently and sensually, each easily finding the height of ecstasy within each other.
Cosmo had breathed heavily when it was over, his mind even more of a muddle than it usually was, and Wanda had settled down on top of him, her own breathing heavy as well and her face flushed, as her fingers began to subconsciously trace patterns down his chest.
"Is… is this what married people do?" Cosmo had breathed out in wonder.
Wanda smiled, more color rising to her cheeks, and nodded at him.
"Wow," breathed Cosmo. "I should have married you ages ago."
Wanda laughed.
"Better late than never, right?"
Cosmo sighed happily and wrapped his arms around her, stroking her wings. What… what an absolutely amazing experience, and to think Wanda had deigned to share it with him?
"You'll… you'll never do this with anyone except me, right?" Cosmo suddenly asked in worry.
"Of course not," murmured Wanda. "I'll only ever want to do it with you. You're my husband."
Her husband.
"I promise I'll be the best husband in the world," Cosmo whispered. Because she deserved nothing less.
But Cosmo had not been the best husband in the world.
He knew it. He had always known it. Throughout the years, years of godparenting, years of adventure, years of some frankly pretty boring stretches, Cosmo had been… well, a moron. And Wanda had often grown annoyed, irritated, angry with him, as anyone would have been. And Cosmo often realized it. He knew he was a moron. But often when he'd try to apologize to her, try to make it up to her, he'd only say something incredibly stupid, he'd only make things worse. Sometimes, Cosmo quickly discovered, Wanda needed her alone time. And that he'd give her.
Usually that was easy to do. Sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes it was hard even though Wanda would make it very, very easy for Cosmo to stay far, far away from her. Some nights she'd be so mad at him she'd poof up a separate bed for him and make him sleep there. Cosmo certainly wasn't stupid enough to try to curl up beside her on those nights.
But there came a time when she was kicking him out of their bed more and more. And one night, when yet again Wanda had left Cosmo in a bed by himself and Cosmo had curled up in bitter resignation, clutching his nickel for comfort, he suddenly realized that he could hear the soft, constricted sound of Wanda crying.
Cosmo sat up.
This was a conundrum. Wanda obviously wanted him away from her, but she was also obviously hurting. And shouldn't he try to make her feel better? They hadn't really been physically intimate in any way for quite awhile now, now that Cosmo thought about it, and cuddling always seemed to make her feel better—and make him feel better too, because the sound of her crying always made him want to cry too.
He threw off his covers and hovered over to their bed—and Wanda glared at him through her bitter tears.
"Leave me alone, Cosmo!"
"But—"
"Leave me alone!"
Cosmo could feel his anger at her flare up yet again. All he was trying to do was comfort her, and she just yelled at him for it! What did she want him to do, anyway?
She continued to glare at him… with one eyebrow raised.
They had been married, at this point, for nine thousand, eight hundred ninety-five years. And while Cosmo might not have been the brightest crayon in the box, while he might have been incredibly slow on the uptake of practically everything… he knew Wanda well enough to know what that look meant.
It was a challenge.
A challenge? A challenge for him to… do something? When she was clearly already furious at him, furious enough to banish him to a different bed, to rebuke him when he tried to comfort her? Even he wasn't stupid enough to try to test her further at this state.
But then again…
She was already angry at him. What was the worst that would happen? That she'd still be angry at him? He'd be at the same place he was now.
With that rationalization, Cosmo moved on top of her, slipping her nightgown off from her shoulders (normally he just waved his wand and poofed their clothes off of them, not having the patience for a longer form of foreplay, but it was too far away to reach at the moment) and hungrily kissing her neck. Wanda twitched angrily underneath him, but a soft moan escaped her lips as well. "Cosmo," she growled dangerously, gripping his back, lifting up his pajama top to do so.
"Stop crying, Wanda," Cosmo demanded, silencing both of them by forcibly bringing his lips to hers.
And so they had sex that night, the first time in weeks at least, and while Cosmo ended feeling satisfied, feeling whole, Wanda breathed slowly, her eyes still… sad.
Cosmo blinked.
"Now get off me," she muttered.
"—Wait a minute, Wanda—"
Wanda reached over to the nightstand, grabbed her wand, waved it, and in an instant and a poof Cosmo was suddenly back in the other bed.
Cosmo looked back at her, staring incredulously. "WAS I NOT GOOD ENOUGH?!"
Wanda turned her back to him, pulling the covers up around her.
"WANDA!"
No answer.
Cosmo clutched his nickel to his chest and also turned his back to Wanda, doing his best to cry as silently as he could.
He was so confused.
Hadn't he done what she wanted?
Was that what she wanted?
Why was she still upset?
Was he really not good enough?
The next night he'd been determined to be good enough. To be better than he'd ever been before. So after saying their goodnights to Timmy and poofing back into their fishbowl, Cosmo had wasted no time in pinning Wanda to the couch in their living room, not even wanting to take the time to make it to their room, muttering harshly, "This time I'll do it right," and blurting out more and more things as they did it again, right there on the couch, things that Cosmo had intended to sound like "I'll do it better for you, I can't understand why you're so unhappy but I'll make it better if you'll just tell me, just let me"… but they came out a jumbled mess. And Wanda again averted her eyes from him when it was over, staring at the floor, looking like her heart was breaking.
It suddenly became an almost daily occurrence, Cosmo desperately trying to prove himself, and every day seemingly coming up short. His patience with both Wanda and himself grew thin. He wasn't always saying the nicest things to her, and she wasn't either, and it just grew round and round in a terrible circle that never seemed to be able to break, and the sex should have helped—but it still seemed to only make things worse. And yet practically every day Wanda would be waiting for him, gazing at him with expectant eyes, eyes that compelled Cosmo to go through with the painful delirium of lovemaking once more, a delirium that ended with the last climax and with seeing Wanda's downcast expression.
One day, Wanda finally broke the circle.
"Do you only love me when I'm on this couch?"
She thought he only loved her while having sex. Cosmo had been amazed. Dumbfounded. Horrified at himself for letting this happen. It wasn't true, it wasn't true, that might have been the easiest time to show it but that didn't mean he didn't still love her the rest of the day, he had told her before they got married that he'd try for her and he hadn't, he hadn't tried hard enough, he had let her down, and that day he vowed he would do everything in his power to make it up to her. He would try harder than he'd ever tried before!
Too bad that was also the day he became pregnant.
And damn, did being pregnant do a number on one's hormones.
And so, during those three trying months with a little parasite inside his pouch leaching off of him, an irritated Cosmo had done little but constantly snap at his wife.
Not that she was helping matters.
"No!" screamed Cosmo, after once more being banished to the separate bed by a fed up Wanda. "I don't care what you say, I'm not sleeping in here tonight!"
"Well, I'm not gonna have you sleeping next to me and kicking me and yelling at me the entire night!" snapped Wanda. "You've told me twelve times today that my green bean casserole is horrifying, you've vomited it up four times, three of those times on me, and I'm really not in the mood to hear or feel or smell any of that again, dammit!"
"I'm not sleeping in that creaky and lumpy old bed again!" Cosmo protested harshly, defiantly crawling back in their main bed again, taking advantage of his large, protruding, pregnant belly to push Wanda from the middle.
"You are NOT sleeping with me and that's an ORDER!"
"I'm sleeping here! If you don't wanna sleep with me then you sleep in the other bed!"
"I don't think so, now get OUT!"
"I'M the pregnant one here! I should get the comfy bed!"
"You should not, you're being a complete IDIOT!"
"STOP YELLING AT ME! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!"
"I don't know what it's like?" Wanda laughed harshly and incredulously. "Excuse me, I was pregnant with it too!"
"Yeah, for like two seconds!" Cosmo countered, enraged. "You didn't have to get fat and bloated with it! You didn't have to have it parasite off you for nearly four whole months!"
"Three, you idiot, THREE! And how dare you imply that you're getting a worse deal than me? Might I remind you that that baby knocked me unconscious? Have you been knocked unconscious yet by it, have you?"
"You only had it inside you for a few minutes! I've had it inside me for what feels like FOREVER!"
"It was only in me for so short a time because if it had been in me any longer, it would have KILLED me!"
"WELL I THINK IT'S GONNA KILL ME TOO! EITHER THAT OR HAVING TO LIVE WITH YOU AND BEING FORCED TO SLEEP IN THAT LUMPY CRAPPY BED!"
Wanda, completely livid, forcefully pushed Cosmo away from her, causing him to nearly tumble out from the bed. "GO AWAY!"
Cosmo just barely caught himself, managing to stay afloat and hovering off the side. "COME HERE!" he yelled back at her.
Wanda stopped. She brushed a stray strand of hair from her face, still red from rage, but her eyebrows slowly unknotting as she stared at him incredulously. A breath of shock escaped from her mouth rather than a rebuke; she continued to stare at him as she pushed the rest of her hair away from her eyes… and suddenly she flung herself in his arms, at least as well as she could in regards to his heavily pregnant belly.
"I love you, you idiot," she whispered, sliding one hand up his neck and into his hair.
Cosmo glowed in triumph and amazement, stunned at how quickly he had turned their argument around with two little words. "Man, I've gotta use that trick more often, it really works," he marveled.
"Don't push your luck," Wanda murmured.
"I will push it," Cosmo insisted, "because it'll always work. Because you'll always love me. Even when I'm an idiot."
"That's true. That's absolutely true."
"Just like I'll always love you, even when you're being a bossy, mean, yelling nag, like you were just now. You know, you could stand to be a little nicer to me…"
"I'm stressed," sighed Wanda, not letting go of Cosmo. "We both are. We both have been for a long time, and this pregnancy is only making things worse right now. I'm sorry for yelling at you. You can have the good bed. You're right, you're pregnant and you should have the good one. And you're right, I don't know what it's like on your end. I'm sorry for yelling at you and making it worse."
"I'm sorry for…" Cosmo considered this. "For being all pregnant and hormonal."
"Don't worry, it'll all be over soon… and then the real stress begins," Wanda added darkly.
"What do you mean?" Cosmo asked. "I thought you wanted a baby!"
"I did; I do; I'm just saying…" Wanda looked at Cosmo knowingly. "A baby is a lot of work. It'll cry all the time, it'll be messy… and it'll be extremely dangerous like all fairy babies are until it learns how to control its magic. Being parents is not going to be easy, Cosmo, for either of us."
Cosmo looked down at his belly, biting his lip. He didn't like to look at it that often, the thought of a little person inside of him sucking up his magic quite frankly freaking him out a little bit, with only the thought of the eventual payoff being a baby the ray of hope and sunshine that kept him pulling through. But when thinking about having a baby, he hadn't really considered the things Wanda had; he had only really thought about the good things—a little one to play with, to teach, to cherish, to love…
"It won't be easy," Cosmo admitted, realizing that nothing was easy for him, so why should being a father be any different? But… "But everything will still be okay, right? We'll still love it."
Wanda smiled.
"Of course. We'll always love our child. Even when he or she is being difficult."
Wanda had been right, as always.
Babies were a lot of work.
Especially when Wanda had had to help Timmy fend off Vicky, leaving Cosmo alone with Poof, the baby fussing and not going to bed willingly.
Cosmo wearily rubbed his eyes, waving his wand and poofing a bottle in his hands. "A bottle of warm milk?"
Poof pounded his tiny fist against his cradle, his tired eyes narrowing in frustration, not sleepiness.
Cosmo tried again. "A bottle of cold milk?"
Poof whimpered in irritation.
"A bottle of room temperature milk?"
Poof let out a wail. The top of the bottle flew open, the milk in it gushing out like Niagara Falls. Unfortunately, Cosmo had been on the receiving end.
Cosmo wiped milk from his face and hair. "Well, at least I got my calcium intake for the day."
Poof let out a small giggle.
"Okay, no more milk. This isn't working. You ate enough today anyway. You need to go to sleep! Lemme see… what do I do when I need to go to sleep? I know! I try to read War and Peace!" Cosmo waved his wand again, poofing up the huge tome.
Poof took one look at the massive book and let out another shriek of protest. The book exploded in Cosmo's hands.
Cosmo coughed, his face blackened. "My thoughts exactly, Poof…"
Poof kicked his legs and flailed his arms in frustration, another wail beginning to rise up.
"No no no, don't cry, don't cry!" Cosmo pleaded frantically. "I know you're tired! I know you wanna sleep! Here! Maybe some lullabies!" He poofed up a stereo and pressed play. Brahms' Lullaby flowed from the speakers. "Here, how's that? It's Brahms! It's classical and smart!"
Poof whimpered, his eyes not closing and his frustrated expression not softening.
"Okay, here, try this one!" Cosmo desperately waved his wand again, and the stereo began playing different music. "Mozart!"
Poof wailed.
"Mussorgsky!"
Another wail.
"AC/DC!"
Poof shrieked.
"No, wait, not AC/DC…" Getting frustrated himself, Cosmo quickly began flipping through the very inappropriate lullaby music that seemed to have found its way to the stereo. "Nirvana, Van Halen, Weird Al, Elvis, Backstreet Boys—"
"POOF!" Poof suddenly shrieked.
Cosmo turned to him with a start. "What? You wanna listen to Backstreet Boys?"
Poof shook his head, throwing his hand back in an awkward gesture. "Poof!" he insisted again.
"Go back?" Cosmo waved his wand, backtracking the music. "To Elvis?"
A strange, happy smile came over Poof's face as the soft, gentle strains of "Can't Help Falling in Love" filled the room. "Poof poof," he murmured happily, his eyelids fluttering.
Cosmo blinked. "You like Elvis? Elvis is your lullaby? You're a weird baby!" He blinked again and shrugged, smiling. "Of course you are, you're mine!"
It was weird, and it worked. Poof had immediately quieted down, his eyes slowly closing in sleepiness, Dog the monkey clutched in one of his tiny arms.
Cosmo smiled, reaching into the cradle and stroking his son's cheek. "Weird baby. But my baby. My baby."
Poof was already drifting off to sleep, his breathing soft and deep, his tiny wings fluttering one last time before folding out against his back. Cosmo stroked his cheek again, bringing his finger down to Poof's hand. As babies will instinctively do, Poof grasped Cosmo's finger.
Poof was only about two weeks old, and Cosmo should have been growing accustomed to the new, staggering emotions every time he looked at his baby boy, but he still felt himself overcome with emotion as he gazed at him, tears constricting his throat. How crazy and unpredictable life was! All his life—well, all his life since meeting Wanda—he had believed that there would never be anyone else he'd care for even half as much as her. He simply couldn't fathom his heart having any more room for someone else. And yet… while his love for Wanda hadn't shrunk at all, his love for Poof, while not exactly the same, was still just as strong, just as powerful, just as real.
"…Take my hand…" Cosmo suddenly found himself singing along with Elvis in a soft voice. "…Take my whole life too… For I can't help falling in love with you…"
Poof, now asleep, still clutched Cosmo's finger.
"Goodnight, Poofy," Cosmo whispered, leaning over and kissing him on the nose. "I love you, more than you'll ever know. More than I'll ever know."
He managed to pry his finger away—although somewhat reluctantly—and turned off the lights, floating out of the room and down the hallway to his and Wanda's room. The door to the bathroom adjacent to their bedroom was closed and light was visible from behind it, so Cosmo gathered that Wanda had helped Timmy evade Vicky and she was now getting ready for bed—a task that could take hours.
"Wanda?" he called.
"I'll be out in a minute, honey," she answered.
"Poof likes Elvis," Cosmo said.
"What?"
"Poof likes Elvis. I was trying to get him to settle down and go to sleep but he wouldn't, but when I tried playing lullabies and accidentally played Elvis, he calmed down. He liked it. And he fell asleep listening to it." Cosmo hesitated for a moment, then added, "I just thought you'd like to know, in case you ever have trouble getting him to fall asleep."
"I'll remember that. It doesn't surprise me, though. Elvis had some beautiful songs."
"Yeah…" Cosmo grinned. "YOU AIN'T NOTHIN' BUT A HOUND DOG—"
"I was thinking more along the lines of…" Wanda's voice trailed off, and Cosmo leaned in against the closed door expectantly. He could just barely hear her softly hum a tune. It was a familiar one, but Cosmo couldn't quite figure out what it was.
But he began to hum along with her, the tune from both of them rising and falling in perfect harmony, reaching a high point in the music—and that's when the words suddenly hit him. "You were always on my mind," he sang aloud, "you were always on my mind…"
Wanda had stopped humming, but Cosmo continued to sing.
"Maybe I didn't hold you… all those lonely, lonely times… and I guess I never told you… I'm so happy that you're mine… if I made you feel second best… girl I'm so sorry, I was blind… you were always on my mind…"
The door opened. Wanda gazed at him in soft, loving surprise, her hair down and collecting around her shoulders, her makeup washed off, her eyes shining. "Tell me," she sang in an almost breathy whisper to him, "tell me that your sweet love hasn't died…"
Cosmo blinked.
"Would continuing to sing the song to you be completely cheesy and over-the-top, or would it be the most romantic thing in the world? Or should I just forget the song and kiss you and make love to you now and leave the song unfinished?"
Wanda cupped his face in her hands, bringing him to her and planting a sweet, mind-numbing kiss on his lips.
Cosmo blinked, a dazed smile forming on his mouth. "Okay, forget the song." He firmly wrapped his arms around her and gave her a kiss of his own, a kiss that soon turned into much, much more as the two of them found their way to their bed while simultaneously peeling off their clothing.
Cosmo couldn't forget the song, though.
Maybe I didn't treat you quite as good as I should have… maybe I didn't love you quite as often as I could have… little things I should have said and done, I just never took the time… you were always on my mind…
It was as if Elvis had reached into Cosmo's brain and had sung about all his failings.
He had to make it up to her somehow. He had to prove himself. Wasn't that what he had been trying to do all those months leading up to Poof's conception? He still hadn't made it up to her; he'd never make it up to her. So he should have been concentrating on just how to do this right this time.
But he wasn't. And that's what made it wonderful, more wonderful than it had been for ages.
He just let himself take her in, and she seemed to be letting herself just take him in, and he didn't think, not even the paltry excuse for thinking that usually passed through his head; no, he didn't think at all this time, instead just completely throwing himself into her, letting the instincts of pleasure take over. And he had writhed in delirium and bliss, and Wanda had too, and as they both hit their sweetly yearned for climaxes Cosmo suddenly concluded that he wasn't trying to prove himself to her this time because he didn't need to.
Their energies spent, they basked in the afterglow for a few moments, both unable to stop smiling, Cosmo's smile being tenfold as he noted that finally, Wanda's eyes were not downcast at the end. He brought his hands to her face and kissed her in gratitude.
"I love you, Wanda," he whispered softly, keeping direct eye contact with her. "I know I don't always do the best job of showing it. Or saying it. I… I'm sorry. You're…" He smirked. "You're always on my mind, baby."
Wanda smiled at him, lovingly and apologetically. "I don't do a very good job at that either, darling."
"Better than me." Cosmo sighed and slid down to her side, snaking one arm underneath her and the other on top of her, pulling her towards him in an embrace. "You're better at everything than me. Except at being a moron. Which isn't something anyone's proud of." He sighed again, harsher this time, and turned his head away from her. "You deserve a better husband than me."
"But I want you, Cosmo." Her hands slid up his chest and around his neck, forcing him to look back up at her, surprised to see how gentle and loving and patient her eyes were… no, why should he be surprised, because that was her, that was Wanda! "I've never wanted anyone else."
"Even now?"
"Especially now. You're my husband, my life partner, my best friend… the father of my child…" She kissed him softly. "And I wouldn't trade you for anything."
Cosmo stared at her incredulously. "You're… insane."
Wanda burst out laughing.
"If that's the price I pay in order to be with you, then I'll take it. I'll gladly be insane for the rest of my life, as long as you're the one who makes me insane."
And you made ME insane.
You still make me insane. Even though you're dead.
Cosmo touched his forehead wearily, feeling tears spring up in his eyes again.
"Cosmo?"
He warily lifted his eyes towards Anna, an innocent, questioning look on her face.
"I want you to tell me about Wanda," she repeated. "Please. I want to know what she was like."
Cosmo gulped. "Pl—please," he choked out, the word hardly audible, "please don't make me relive her death again—"
"I'm not," Anna insisted. "I won't. Poof already told me how she died. I wanna know what she was like when she was alive. What was she like? Can you tell me?"
Cosmo took a deep breath.
Anna waited, trying to be patient. It had been hard enough to see one of her parental figures be so discombobulated; having them both be so obviously hurt by something was a lot on the girl's shoulders. They needed to talk about it. Both of them did. And while her mother was getting that taken care of with her card club, her godfather seemed to have only Anna and Poof in close confidence—and right now, only Anna was there. And she was also curious. Curious about this shadowy figure in Cosmo and Poof's past… Cosmo's wife, Poof's mother, someone who had obviously influenced both of them an untold amount, but also someone who Anna would never know personally. This Wanda was a missing piece to the puzzle of her fairies, and she'd wait as long as it took Cosmo to finally say something—anything—about her.
Cosmo finally let out an exhale that sounded like the beginnings of a laugh. "She was such a nag!"
Anna blinked. "Huh?" That had not been what she had been expecting, especially so soon after Cosmo's heartbroken tears.
"She was!" Cosmo laughed weakly, wiping tears from his eyes. "You think Poof's a stickler, you have no idea! Wanda was always killing our fun! She'd always harp on about my 'hare-brained' ideas and how dangerous they were… you know, she was usually right, though."
Anna felt herself chuckle too. "That doesn't surprise me."
"I mean, she knew how to have fun. She wasn't boring all the time. Or… or even most of the time. It's just if I was having fun with something she had a bad idea about, she'd like force herself to not enjoy it. She hated being wrong! That must have been why she married me! Compared to me, she was always right!" His smile gone, he brought a trembling hand to his cheek. "And she loved me. I know she did. I just don't know… why she did."
"Tell me more about her," Anna prodded gently.
"She loved chocolate," Cosmo said, a small smile returning to his lips. "Especially dark chocolate with almonds. She'd be mad as a rabid hive of hornets but if you gave her dark chocolate with almonds she'd be happy again! Hmm… why didn't I do that more often?" Cosmo shrugged, but went on. "And usually she was really refined and clean and stuff, but when she ate chocolate she'd turn into a total pig and she'd have chocolate smeared all over her face—and she never even cared! That was the crazy thing. She didn't even care!"
He paused thoughtfully.
"She could poof up the best chocolate in existence. Even better than that Swiss stuff! She was good at… everything magic. Things I couldn't do—" He cut himself off, realizing what he had just said. "Well, duh, I can't do just about everything because I'm a moron—but things even smart fairies had trouble using magic for, Wanda would just wave her wand, and poof! She was good at just about everything! Except gardening." He winked at Anna, dropping his voice down to a whisper. "She wanted to be good at it, she'd always plant stuff at our house in Fairy World, but when we'd get back to check up on it between godparenting assignments it was all dead. But she kept trying! So we kept having all these dead plants in our yard—and I told her she should stop because she obviously sucked at gardening and she got so mad at me she made me weed the garden—without magic!"
"Cruel," remarked Anna.
Cosmo nodded emphatically. "She was! Some days she was literally breathing fire! But…" He stopped himself, shaking his head harshly. "No, no, no, Wanda was only ever like that because I was always an idiot and I made her mad. She wasn't really cruel. Not at all. She was the most caring fairy I've ever known. She volunteered at the hospital a lot when we took longer godparenting breaks and she was always just so gentle and patient with everyone… even me… especially me…" Cosmo sniffled back tears.
Anna touched Cosmo's shoulder comfortingly. "I wish I could have known her," she murmured.
Cosmo automatically lifted his wand a bit… and it fzzt'ed in his hand.
He gazed at her sadly. "So do I," he whispered.
"I'm really, really sorry," Anna said, not knowing what else to say to him.
"She would have loved you. Well, duh, I mean Wanda loved all our godkids, she was just that nice and loving and wonderful… but—but she did have her favorites—she would have never admitted it of course, but believe me, she did—and you would have been one of them. Believe me. She would have adored you. And you—" His voice finally broke again. "You would have loved her too," he sobbed into his hands. "You couldn't not love her, she was so amazing and strong and capable and brave and loving and marvelous and…"
"You… you really loved her, didn't you?"
Cosmo nodded, his palms still pressed against his face. "More than anyth—" Once again, he cut himself off, looking back up at Anna. "Wait, I can't say that. Before Poofy was born I could, but… I love him just as much as I loved her. It was… I mean, having a baby, you don't even know… I knew I'd love our baby, but I wasn't prepared for just how much, that it would be just as much as I loved Wanda… I didn't even think that could be possible…"
Anna blinked, realizing that tears were once again welling in her eyes. "If you loved her as much as you love Poof… then that's a whole lot…" Her voice broke there, too.
"A whole lot." Cosmo brought a hand to his mouth and closed his eyes, but didn't cover them this time. "I miss her so much… and it's almost worse because I still feel like she's here, in weird ways… Poofy reminds me so much of her—and that's a good thing, it's better that he's like her than if he was like… like me, but…" Unable to speak anymore, he gave into his sobs again.
Anna suddenly and impulsively wrapped her arms around Cosmo in a hug. "She sounds like a wonderful person," she whispered.
"She was…"
Anna held him tightly for a few moments, Cosmo's sobs growing softer and more under control.
"Do… do you have a picture of her?"
Cosmo brightened a tiny bit. "Yeah, of course!" He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and began flipping through various pieces. "I have it behind stuff like my godparenting license and credit cards and all these restraining orders because if I see it when I'm in the wrong frame of mind it'll make me completely lose all—" He stopped, finding what he was looking for, and gave a sad smile at the small photograph in his hands. "My Wanda," he murmured. "My Poofy."
Anna leaned over his shoulder to see the photo.
It was a family portrait, of Cosmo, Wanda, and Poof. Poof looked to be about Anna's age—although she didn't honestly know how that equated to fairy terms. Cosmo and Wanda were floating behind him, each with a hand on one of his shoulders and the other arm wrapped around each other.
Anna blinked, taking in Wanda first. She had pink hair that was pulled into a bun, her bangs large and swirly, and the same color pink eyes to match. Cosmo was right; she did look somewhat dignified, as if she carried herself with a sort of poise… and yet there was still a sparkle of fun in her eyes. In fact, she looked as though she was on the verge of happy laughter. All three of them did. She turned her attention to Cosmo in the photo, that same devil-may-care smile on his face that she had grown so accustomed to, his arms around his family lovingly. And the kid Poof looked so happy too… of course, how could he not be…
Anna felt a pang of jealousy stab at her gut.
"She looks so happy," Cosmo murmured, touching the photo-Wanda.
"Of course she is," Anna answered softly, not looking at him. "Why wouldn't she be? She's getting a wonderful, happy family portrait taken with her husband and son who she obviously loves very very much…"
"She never should have married me," Cosmo whispered harshly. "If she hadn't, she'd still be alive."
Anna looked up at him. "Look, Cosmo… these things happen, you can't blame yourself…"
"I should have said no!" Cosmo cried in despair. "When she asked me if I wanted another baby I should have said no! Because I didn't really want another, even though I didn't not one either—oh Anna, the way she looked at me when she asked, she wanted another baby so badly, I couldn't say no! But if I had she'd still be here! I killed her, Anna, I killed her!"
"No you didn't, Cosmo! I can tellthat you would have never killed her, you loved her!"
"So?" shrieked Cosmo, tears streaming down his face again. "That doesn't mean anything! I'm an idiot, Anna, an IDIOT! I'm so stupid I let her DIE! And the twins… the twins died too… I was too stupid to save them…" Cosmo shook with a helpless sob. "I'm a terrible father, I let my own children die! I let my wife die, I let my children die, everything I get close to dies!"
"Cosmo! That's not true! You still—you still have Poof!"
"PLEASE DON'T TORTURE ME!" shrieked Cosmo. "Don't you know I spend every second of every day TERRIFIED that I'm gonna be so stupid one of these days that something will happen to HIM, too?" He gasped for air, helpless sobs constricting his throat, and once again Anna felt herself crying with him. "If—" Cosmo choked out another sob before continuing in a harsh, defeated tone. "If anything happened to him because of me… I'd just die… but it will, I'm so stupid that it will… oh God, Anna, I'm such an idiot, I can't even take care of my own family… I KILLED MY OWN FAMILY!"
"Cosmo! STOP!" shrieked Anna, grabbing him by the shoulders.
"You're gonna wish me away!" sobbed Cosmo. "You SHOULD wish me away! Nobody would want a fairy godfather who KILLED HIS OWN WIFE AND CHILDREN!"
"No, Cosmo, no, I wouldn't want that!" Anna insisted. "But that's not you! I heard the story from you, and I heard it from Poof, and I don't believe you killed them! I want you as my fairy godfather, Cosmo!"
"I'm terrible! You don't deserve me!"
"You're not terrible!" Anna's voice was breaking now thanks to her tears. "You're wonderful and—and I would give anything to have my dad be just like you!"
Cosmo sniffled.
And he raised his wand in the air.
"Aren't… aren't you gonna wish for it?" he whispered.
Anna hesitated.
Something was stopping her. And it wasn't her belief that Cosmo would screw up the wish, because that wasn't a belief she had. It wasn't that she was terrified by the thought of unleashing a second Cosmo onto the world, even though that would be a very grounded fear indeed.
"No," she said softly, in sudden realization. "I'm not gonna wish it. Because I don't need to. I… I already have you."
Cosmo stared at Anna incredulously for a few seconds, his lower lip quivering.
And then, he abruptly dropped his wand and enveloped Anna in a tight, thankful hug.
"Your daddy's an idiot, Anna," he whispered. "An even bigger idiot than me. He'd have to be if he doesn't wanna spend time with you."
Anna curled her arms around Cosmo's back.
"I'm so glad you came to me, Cosmo. I don't want you to go away. And I don't care what you did before. I know you loved Wanda and you didn't want her to die, and that's all I need to know. I want you to stay with me."
Cosmo clutched Anna tighter.
"Anna? …You remember I said that Wanda had favorite godkids, even though she wouldn't admit it?"
Anna nodded. "Uh-huh."
"Well, I do admit it. And… and you're one of my favorites."
Anna grinned. "And you're my favorite godfather!"
"Uh… how many have you had before me?"
"You're my first."
"Ooh, steep competition!"
Anna continued to smile, squeezing Cosmo one more time before letting go to look him in the eye.
"Now that we've had that emotional bonding time, do you wanna play another video game? I'll let you pick this time. And I'll go easy on you."
Cosmo smiled warmly, waving his wand and poofing up an ancient gaming system.
Anna blinked. "What on earth is that?"
"An Atari!" Cosmo laughed. "And you are so going down!"
…
Poof, although emotionally shaken by his encounter with Anna, tried to finish up his business in Fairy World as quickly as possible.
He didn't like to leave his dad alone… especially when he was in the state of mind he must have been in.
He had made that mistake once before, and it had nearly gotten his dad killed.
When fairies had learned of Wanda's death, there were so many sympathetic offers of condolences that Poof felt actually made things worse. It was only a day after she had died and the feelings were still too raw, too cutting, and the pain was as sharp and fresh as it had been the first time with every time someone saying to him, "I'm so sorry to hear about your mother…"
So Poof had left.
He secluded himself in a far-off corner of Fairy World, right next to the power plant, curled up in a ball next to the huge industrial dumpsters, staring listlessly at the tufts of grass sprouting from the crevices in the pavement, trying to cry, this was the place to do it, this was the time… but he was still so numb with shock that he couldn't cry. He couldn't think. He couldn't register anything.
…except that huge explosion.
Poof snapped his head up, seeing a mushroom cloud appear in the air, disturbingly seeming to come from right where his house was.
Oh no.
It took him a second to frantically poof back home, and two seconds to throw himself between his grandfather and his father, before he even quite knew just what he was doing. And whether it was that or his shouting of "STOP, STOP, LEAVE HIM ALONE, LEAVE HIM THE POOF ALONE!" that finally tore Big Daddy away from Cosmo's limp form, Poof didn't know, and didn't care. He still hovered over Cosmo dangerously, pointing his wand at his grandfather, shaking with rage, as Big Daddy actually recoiled from him. The shocked onlookers were all dumbfounded. No one stood up to Big Daddy. Well, no one except his daughters… and his grandson.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM?!" Poof shrieked, his voice breaking with rage and despair. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY DAD?! GET OUT OF HERE! GET OUT OF HERE!"
Big Daddy wasted no time in waving his wand and poofing himself away, but if he had hesitated even a second, Poof would have gladly gotten rid of him himself.
With Big Daddy gone, Poof frantically fell to the ground and scooped up Cosmo's battered body. "Dad! DAD! Speak to me! Please! Don't you die on me too!"
And suddenly then he could cry.
Every foundation of his life was crumbling underneath him, every stronghold was tumbling before him, and he wailed in despair, unable to do anything else, forgetting even that there were others watching them… but thank God they were there, for someone had quickly and sympathetically transported them to the hospital, where Cosmo was whisked away to ICU… and, once Poof could move again, where he rushed to as well.
And there he stayed during those harrowing, nerve-wracking days with Cosmo still in his coma… either at his side in his room or waiting out in the ICU lobby. Of course, when his grandmother was there, he usually retreated to the lobby.
That was where he was, sitting on a chair with his feet pulled up to his body and his eyes staring at the floor, when he heard someone poof in. He didn't look up, as doctors and nurses were poofing in and out all the time.
"Poof?" a gruff voice said.
Poof looked up. It was Big Daddy.
"Get out of here," Poof growled.
"Look," said Big Daddy, "you… you deserve an explanation, and I don't expect you to understand, you're not a father, you couldn't understand—"
"No!" yelled Poof angrily. "I don't understand! I don't poofin' understand how beating my dad to a pulp will do anything to help my mama! You think that's gonna bring her back? You think that's gonna make things better?"
"It's not about making things better, it's about retribution—"
"Retribution? RETRIUBTION? So hurting or—or killing Dad would even out Mama's death and then everything would be just fine and dandy?"
"That worthless bum killed my daughter, and—"
"The pregnancy killed your daughter, poof poof! The forces of nature killed your daughter! Hell, if you wanna look at it this way the twins killed your daughter, but it wasn't Dad! You really think that—that Dad meant for this to happen?"
"Your father doesn't mean a damn thing of anything he does! He just spends every second of every day in a lollygagging daze and causes mass mayhem by simply existing! I knew he was bad news for Wanda the moment I met him! And he had to pay for what he did to her! Not just what he did just now, but for her entire lifetime of torment!"
"Lifetime of torment?!" Poof repeated incredulously. "You think my mama was TORMENTED? Did you ever ask HER how she felt her life was?"
"Don't take that tone with me, Poof!"
"My mama was happy! Happier than she ever was living with YOU, I bet! And lemme tell you something, poof poof, she sure as hell wouldn't be happy with you PUTTING HER HUSBAND IN ICU IN CRITICAL CONDITION!"
"Listen—"
"You listen! YOU LISTEN! How could you EVER think that what you've done was good? That this was a smart thing to do? Is THIS what you wanted? Mama's still dead, poof poof POOF! And she'd still be dead even if you had just LEFT MY DAD ALONE!"
"I had to do it! For HER!"
"What about for me?! I know she was your daughter… but I'm your grandson! And…" Poof brought a hand to his mouth, letting out a helpless sob. "Did you ever think about what you've done to me?!"
"Look—"
"I just lost my mother! And your way of helping me is to take my FATHER away from me too?!"
Big Daddy opened his mouth to argue some more, but he was cut off… and Poof normally would have welcomed the interruption, but this interruption wasn't at all a welcome one.
Mama Cosma stood in the doorway to Cosmo's room, glaring at Big Daddy in absolute outrage. "YOU! What are YOU doing here?"
"Maybe I'm here talking to my grandson, did you stop to consider that?"
"You SNAKE! You loathsome little SNAKE! After what you've done to my precious son, especially now that he's finally rid of that shrew of your daughter—"
"If my daughter was a shrew, it was only because she had to put up with that utter MORON that she was married to!"
"You think he hadn't suffered enough from being married to that bossy, overly-controlling—"
"Your moron of a son DESERVED what I did to him, and a lot more besides—"
"Why you—"
"Don't even—"
"I'm gonna—POOF!" Cosma suddenly grabbed Poof by the arm. "Tell this man who you have the misfortune of calling your grandfather to leave the premises!"
"The only misfortune here is that you have to have this piece of work as your grandmother!" Big Daddy countered, grabbing Poof by the other arm and yanking him towards him. "Tell her that I have the right to be anywhere I want!"
Cosma forcibly yanked Poof back to her. "Let go of my grandson, you toad!"
Big Daddy yanked Poof back, continuing their tug-of-war. "He's my grandson too, and I think given the choice between the two of us he'd rather be yanked towards me any day!"
"You deluded old fool! Come here, my little Poofy-Woofy—" Cosma had pulled Poof so forcefully that time that she actually yanked him completely out of Big Daddy's grasp—"and tell your fat toad of a grandpa that you'd rather stay in the hospital with me!"
"I know he won't say that, because he didn't inherit his father's brain or lack thereof, praise the Lord… Poof, tell this broad that you're staying with me!"
"He's staying with me!"
"Me!"
"ME!"
"ME!"
Poof finally managed to pull away from Cosma's grasp and stare at both his grandparents, coldly and disbelieving.
"Fuck you," he said calmly. "Fuck both of you."
Cosma and Big Daddy both gasped.
Poof waved his wand and vanished from the hospital, unable to take any more.
Back at home, he lay despondently on the ground, crying weakly for a few moments, fear and loneliness and heartbreak crushing him with such force that he could barely even cry, he could barely even move.
It took him a few minutes before his stifled crying finally subsided, and a few minutes after that before he could finally lift himself from the floor.
And that was when his grandparents both poofed into the room.
Poof stood up straighter, hovering higher off the floor, and gave them a cold, icy glare.
Mama Cosma and Big Daddy looked at Poof, then at each other, worriedly and expectedly.
"Well, go on," Big Daddy said to Cosma, nudging her.
"You go first, Todd, you have more to apol—"
"My name's Big Daddy."
"Your name is Todd, you egomaniac. You just insist on 'Big Daddy' because you get a hard-on when people submit and cower before you—"
"Look who's talking, mother-in-law from hell—"
Poof cleared his throat grumpily, interrupting the impending argument.
Big Daddy and Cosma turned back to Poof, looking almost apologetic.
"Right," Big Daddy said, clearing his throat as well. "Ahem. Poof, your… your grandma and I did some talking after you left, and I decided—"
"I decided!" Cosma snapped.
"No you didn't, it was my idea!"
"Oh, for poof's sake, knock it off, I don't care whose idea it was!" Poof snapped. "Just tell me what you wanna tell me and be done with it!"
Big Daddy gulped. "Ahem. Yes. Actually—actually we both came to the conclusion that… we both owe you an apology."
"Him more than me," Cosma added spitefully.
"God dammit, Cosma, can you keep your mouth closed for just five seconds?!" Big Daddy began to shake, his eye twitching as he glared at Cosma, before quickly composing himself as best he could and turning back to Poof. "I… I don't normally let people get away with saying the kind of things you said to me back there, but the thing is… you're right. And I'm… sorry." The last word came out under his breath, barely audible, and Poof blinked, surprised he had even halfway heard an apology from his grandfather. "I should have been thinking about what was best for you, but… I just wasn't thinking, I couldn't think, my little girl's dead and the only thing I could think was that the person responsible had to pay—"
"Dad's responsible for Mama's death?" Poof asked coldly. "How can you think that… you of all people? Or did you beat yourself into a coma when Grandma died, too?"
It was harsh, it was blunt, and Cosma once again looked uncharacteristically speechless at Poof's gall. But Big Daddy's reaction was even more unexpected. Instead of lashing out at either of them again, he simply recoiled, shame and heartbreak filling his eyes.
"And… and that's another thing," he said, his voice barely audible again. "I have been in your dad's situation. I did lose my wife to twins. And I know that the heartache that comes with it is worse than death."
The room fell quiet.
The silence was broken by Big Daddy swallowing heavily, clearing his throat, and straightening up, throwing a reproachful glare at Cosma. "Well, go on," he demanded.
"Go on with what?"
"It's your turn to apologize!"
"I don't even know what I'm apologizing for!"
"For God's sake, Cosma, my grandson—your grandson—OUR grandson is hurting and our actions earlier in the hospital didn't help him one bit!"
"Alright, alright!" Cosma snapped, throwing one last spiteful glare at Big Daddy before turning to Poof, her expression softening. "Poofy, dear, I'm sorry that your wench of a mother is dead and your horrible, horrible grandfather put your dear father in the hospital and—"
"DAMMIT COSMA, YOU'RE ONLY MAKING THINGS WORSE! REGARDLESS OF HOW YOU FELT ABOUT WANDA, REGARDLESS OF HOW I FEEL ABOUT COSMO, CAN WE PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT BOTH OF THEM ARE THE PARENTS OF OUR GRANDSON?!"
Cosma blanched. "I—I—I'm s-s-s… sor…ry, Poofy," she stammered out to Poof.
Big Daddy let out a sigh of relief, followed a half-second later by Cosma, both looking utterly grateful that their trial of admitting that they might have been wrong was over.
Poof folded his arms, sighing crossly and helplessly.
"Okay. Now that you've gotten that out of the way, just leave me alone. Stop talking to me. I don't wanna hear anything else you have to say." He lifted his wand, and—
"Wait!" Big Daddy cried, a blast of light coming from his own wand, hitting Poof's wand and sending it spinning out of his hands and thudding against the far wall. "You're not going back to that hospital. The doctors told me that you've been there nonstop for the past three days. You're staying here and getting a decent meal and sleeping in an actual bed."
Poof shook his head defiantly, hovering back to his wand—unfortunately too slowly, only accentuating Big Daddy's point. "No. I'm not leaving Dad."
"You're not doing him any good just hanging around there and bothering the doctors," Big Daddy replied bluntly, beating Poof to his wand and scooping it up in his hands. "You are going to stay here and get in a nap in your own bed. Even if it's just a half-hour one, I don't care. You're doing no one any good by depriving yourself of sleep."
"I hate to admit this, but he's right," Cosma said. "Don't worry about your poor daddy. We'll be there."
"We will?" Big Daddy asked, blinking. "I will?"
"Yes you will!" Cosma shrieked. "After what you've done to him it's the least you can do!"
Big Daddy sighed. "…Fine. Fine." He turned back to Poof. "Don't worry, we'll both be with your father."
"Gee, that just makes me feel so much better…" The sarcasm in Poof's voice was muted from his fatigue. He defiantly rubbed at his fluttering eyelids, trying to hide his exhaustion from his grandparents… and failing miserably.
Big Daddy spun Poof's wand in his hand with an almost showmanship-like flair. "You won't be getting this back until you get some sleep," he said, tucking it in his pocket. He then waved his own wand and poofed out of sight.
Cosma growled dangerously. "What a grade-A jerk! Don't worry, my little Poofy-Woofy, I'll get your wand back! You just get some sleep, dear. You look terrible. Get some rest. Grandma Cosma's got it covered!" She also poofed away.
Poof was too exhausted—physically, mentally, emotionally—to even make it to his room. He crashed onto the couch, unable to keep his eyes open any longer.
He wasn't even sure how long he had been asleep when he felt someone shaking him awake… he only knew that it hadn't been long enough. He mumbled inarticulately and turned away from the interruption.
"Poof. Wake up."
Poof groaned and stiffly turned over again to see Big Daddy hovering over him, holding Poof's wand out to him.
"Your father's conscious."
Poof bolted.
"His vital signs are improving, and the doctors were saying that they might be able to release him in a few days, although it'll be awhile before he'll be doing any flying. They're hoping to get him released in time for… your mother's funeral."
Poof snatched back his wand, poofing back to the hospital without waiting for any more of what Big Daddy had to say.
Things were going to be okay now, Poof had frantically convinced himself, had frantically convinced Cosmo, who had lain so still in his hospital bed, gazing at Poof with hollow, heartbroken eyes. Things had to be okay. They would get better. His mother was gone and it would be tough, but it would get better, it would get easier, it had to… right?
It had taken a year for Poof to finally begin to believe that.
And now, given the state he had been forced to leave Cosmo and Anna in… would everything fall to pieces again? Their futures, their well-being all lay in the hands of a ten-year-old girl, who could make the happiness they were finally regaining vanish with one single wish.
Poof poofed back into Anna's room, having finished all that he wanted to do in Fairy World.
"Dad? Anna? …Anna? Dad? …Hey, that's a palindrome…" Poof smiled before he could stop himself, but the smile quickly faded as he realized they weren't in the room.
"Guys?"
The closet door suddenly flew open, and Cosmo and Anna tumbled out, the fort they had built out of blankets and coats and shoes crashing down around them.
They didn't seem to mind, though. "Hey, Poof!" grinned Anna.
"Poofy!" Cosmo shouted happily, zipping to him and engulfing him in a huge hug.
"W-well jeez, poof poof, I wasn't gone that long!" laughed Poof with a confused smile, returning the hug.
"Is it time for me to kick your butt on my computer games now?" Anna asked.
"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute." Poof pulled away from Cosmo and gave two of them a questioning, confused look. "Is… is everything alright now? I mean, with all the…"
Anna smiled. "Everything's fine, Poof. Everything's more than fine."
Cosmo also smiled warmly and affectionately at Poof. "Of course everything's fine! Since you're back from Fairy World and still in one piece because you can actually stand up to Jorgen unlike me because you're brave and strong and smart and just like your mama!"
Poof smiled slightly, too.
"Thanks. Although I think I have a lot of my dad in me, too."
Cosmo blinked. "Who's that?"
Anna grinned and pulled her two fairies towards her in a hug. "Whoever you guys have in you, I'm glad you're both who you are and I'm extra glad you're mine! So how was Fairy World, Poof?"
"Great, but this is better, poof poof!"
"What did you bring us?"
"Bring you?"
"Last time you went to Fairy World you brought us ice cream," Anna reminded him.
"Ooh!" Cosmo exclaimed excitedly. "Ice cream! Where?"
"Jeez, what do I look like, some sort of… food gathering… thing?" Poof finished lamely. "But now that you mention it…" He reached into the pocket of his jacket. "I don't have ice cream this time, but I do have…"
"COOKIES!" Cosmo and Anna both squealed, dive-bombing Poof and snatching them up, Cosmo taking about ten and scooping them all up in his arms, babbling with joy. Anna, however, wisely chose to focus on just one at a time.
With Cosmo distracted by his cookies, Poof took this opportunity to give Anna a smaller, more grateful hug. "Thanks, Anna," he whispered. "Thanks for giving my dad another chance."
Anna wrapped her arms around Poof's shoulders.
"Like I said, I'm glad you two are mine. And I wouldn't want it any other way."
Chapter 11: Return to Sender
Chapter Text
The following week, Anna had her science fair project to work on with Gretchen, taking up not only a lot of her school time, but also her after-school time as well, time that she had been growing accustomed to spending fooling around with Cosmo and Poof. On Wednesday they worked on their diorama of the solar system at Anna's house, but Gretchen was freaked out by how intently Anna's fish with the huge green and purple eyes watched them, so on Thursday they worked at Gretchen's instead, heading there immediately after school. Cosmo and Poof… well, more accurately, Poof, elected to not accompany Anna to school that day, to avoid creeping Gretchen out anymore. Cosmo whined and complained, but Poof distracted Cosmo with bubble wrap and soon Cosmo had completely forgotten about school, Anna, Poof, or anything else.
Anna had enjoyed the one-on-one time with her friend, and the two girls spent nearly four hours at Gretchen's house, with almost half an hour of that time actually spent working on their project.
By the time Anna finally returned home, it was already growing dark. She jumped off the shuttle bus and hurried to the door, seeing that her mother's hovercar was in the driveway and hoping that she would be too busy going over her work (as usual) to spend much energy in chastising her for being so late in getting home.
Once inside, she crept to the stairs as slowly and quietly as possible. The light was on in the kitchen, and she stole an aside glance—her mother was at the kitchen table, her nose buried in a million different official looking papers, as usual. Relieved, Anna took a step towards the stairs, then another, then—
"Anna?"
Anna abruptly halted in her tracks at the sound of her mother's voice. "Hey Mom, thanks but no thanks, I already ate at Gretchen's, well I guess I'll be seeing you!" She jolted forward to dash up the stairs and away from her mother's lecturing—
"Anna, wait, I need to talk to you."
Anna stopped again, looking at her mother in surprise. She hadn't sounded at all angry. Instead, she sounded… exhausted. Stressed. Completely… defeated.
"Mom? What's the matter?" Anna took a tentative step into the kitchen.
Mrs. Hoffman removed her glasses and rubbed at her eyes with a weak sigh. "There's something… something I need to tell you, something that I should have told you earlier."
"Mom, you're scaring me."
Mrs. Hoffman slid her glasses back on and straightened up, giving Anna an apologetic and reassuring smile. "Sorry, sweetie. It's just… your father called a few days ago."
Anna blinked. Just a few weeks ago this would have been huge news to her… and it still probably was huge news, but all she felt to this piece of information was a strange lack of reaction altogether. "…Oh. …Uh, is he still in the Congo?"
Her mother nodded. "Yes, he's still doing mission work there… it sounds like he's gotten a lot done from what he told me, but he still thinks there's a million more things he needs to do to help them… I'm sure he's right…"
"Well, that's nice," shrugged Anna, giving her mother a comforting, yet still somewhat confused smile. "I mean, he has a purpose in life, and he's making a lot of people's lives better now that he's suddenly and inexplicably nicer. But I don't see what—"
"He said he hasn't been in contact with us because he's too busy with the people there, but he finally did get in a long-distance call to me the other day… anyway, he said that he realized that the nicest thing he could do for us was to quit stringing us along." She lifted up one of the sheets she was filling out, Anna realizing with a start that it wasn't one of her normal accounting spreadsheets. "We're in the process of filing our divorce," Mrs. Hoffman said, bluntly and matter-of-factly.
"…Oh." Anna was both unaffected and too affected at the same time. "Uh, and you're actually gonna… go through with it?"
Mrs. Hoffman sighed. "What else can I do, Anna? All these years I've kept praying and wishing he'd come back, but seeing as he's probably going to be in Africa for the rest of his life… really, why prolong the inevitable anymore?"
"That's… what I've been trying to tell you all these years."
"Have you know?" Mrs. Hoffman raised an eyebrow.
"Well… except the staying in Africa part…"
"I just wanted what's best for you, Anna," sighed Mrs. Hoffman helplessly, pressing a palm to her forehead. "I wanted to give you a nice, normal, happy upbringing, with a father. But you had your father for even less time than I had mine, and…"
"It's okay, Mom," said Anna, gulping. "I, uh… I think what's best for me is if you just let go of him and move on. I don't need him, really. As long as I have you and…" She snorted with a small, secret smile. "…and my goldfish, I'll be fine."
"You and those goldfish…" A small, far-off smile came to Mrs. Hoffman's face as well. "You know, your uncle and I had goldfish too… we were really fond of them… you know, I don't remember a whole lot about my childhood, but I do somehow remember that those fish had more personality than you'd imagine."
"I bet mine have more," said Anna. She looked at the papers in front of her mother. "So… you just have to fill all these out and you're single again?"
"There's a little more to it than that, and it'll take awhile and a lot of processing fees to get completely through the system and finalized…"
"Yeesh. So, uh… are you gonna change your name back?"
Mrs. Hoffman looked at Anna in mild surprise. "I… I don't know. What do you think?"
Anna hesitated. Her first instinct was to say, "Yes, duh, drop that jerk's name from you like a hot potato," but was having her maiden name, ie the name of her father, any better? After all, Anna's grandfather had abandoned his family too. Her mother and uncle and grandmother rarely spoke of it, but when they did, it was always about the "accident". Yes, with quotation marks around the word "accident", not that they made it that obvious, but Anna had still always heard the meaning in their tone of voice, the meaning that they didn't want to articulate or even acknowledge, but one that Anna still noticed. Although no one had ever come out and told her, she suspected that her grandfather's "accident" wasn't quite so accidental.
So was having his last name any better than having the last name of Anna's father?
Anna finally shrugged. "Uh… I dunno either. Look, I'm gonna… uh, go up to my room and talk to my goldfish, okay?"
"That's fine." Mrs. Hoffman gave a soft, sad laugh. "Maybe I shouldn't have changed my name at all when I got married. Although what that would have left for your last name, I don't know…"
Anna gave a wan smile before darting out of the kitchen and up the stairs, trying to make herself think. So. So she had just been told that her parents were getting divorced. She should have some reaction. Any reaction. Anger, sorrow, shock, heck, even joy! At least something!
Would this mean her last name would be changed, too? While she didn't like carrying around her father's name, it was the name she'd had for her entire life, and she had grown used to it… and besides, she wouldn't like carrying around her grandfather's name, either.
Maybe I should change my last name to "Uhsmith", Anna thought with a sudden, warm smile.
She opened the door to her room. "Cosmo? Poof?"
Her two fairies were hovering in the air, and so was the deck of playing cards between them, save for the cards they held in their hands. "Got any threes?" Cosmo asked.
"Go fish," replied Poof.
Cosmo pulled out a huge fishing rod and gleefully cast a line out of Anna's window. "Whee! I love this part!"
"What are you doing?" Anna asked, dumbfounded.
"Playing Go Fish, duh!" laughed Cosmo.
"At least, Dad's way of Go Fish," Poof added.
Cosmo's line immediately began to tug. "Ooh! Ooh! I got one!" He struggled against the fishing pole, cranking the reel frantically. "It's—ergh—a big one, too! —AAUGH!" The force of the fish flying through the window sent Cosmo spiraling backwards, but he still managed to catch the fish in his arms.
Examining his catch, Cosmo grinned in victory. "Holy mackerel, it's a mackerel!"
"Ooh!" said Poof, impressed. "Throw that in with the three tuna, six humuhumu-nukunuku-apua'a, and that hammerhead shark we caught earlier, poof poof!"
Cosmo proudly held the fish in his arms, despite the fact that it was still twitching and flopping wildly. "Tonight, my boy, we eat like kings! AAAHH!" The fish slipped and flopped right out of his hands, using its tail fin to smack Cosmo in the face before sliding right out the open window.
"Aw, man!" grumbled Cosmo. "The one that got away!"
Poof pulled out a scorecard with numerous tally marks on it. "More like the twenty-eight that got away."
"Oh sure, get technical," huffed Cosmo.
"Uh, do I want to look out my window?" asked Anna, raising a disbelieving eyebrow. "Are there really twenty-eight fish out of water flopping around in my backyard?"
Poof shook his head reassuringly. "Nah. They're magic fish. They go back to the Fairy World waters where they came from."
"So how was your day at school and at schoolwork at Gretchen's?" Cosmo asked.
"Huh? Oh—it was fine, I guess…"
"What's the matter?" asked Poof with concern. "You look a little out of it."
"Well, it's nothing—wait a minute, it's not nothing, it's…" Anna looked behind her shoulder for emphasis, forgetting that she had closed her bedroom door behind her and thus that was all she could see. Rolling her eyes, she looked back at Cosmo and Poof. "I guess my parents are finally getting divorced. Mom just told me. She was even filling out the divorce papers and everything."
"Ooh, if she runs out, she can borrow some of mine!" Cosmo said. "I've got a whole stackfull of them!"
"What?" cried Poof, flabbergasted.
Cosmo shrugged. "My mama kept giving them to me for my birthday year after year after year! I don't know why, I never wanted them… but you can't just throw out a gift from your own mother! Anyway, I think I've finally found a use for them!"
Anna, a bit confused, still managed to shake her head. "Uh, no, Cosmo, I think she's got enough. She's got like a whole mountain of papers down there."
Poof rubbed the back of his neck. "Gee, Anna, I'm really sorry to hear about your parents…"
Anna shrugged. "Why? It's not like anything's gonna change. Except perhaps Mom's last name. Although really…" She snorted harshly. "When you get right down to it… Hoffman, Turner, what's the difference?"
"TURNER?!"
Both Cosmo and Poof had shrieked the word incredulously, their eyes growing to the size of tennis balls. Anna blinked, completely nonplussed. Why hadn't her fairies come with an instruction manual, one that warned of the words that set them off, words like "Las Vegas" and "Wanda"… and now, apparently, "Turner"…
"Now what?" she said, sounding more impatient and irritated than she had intended.
Cosmo suddenly zipped right in Anna's face and grabbed her by the collar of her shirt. "Is your mom's name Tammy?" he demanded urgently.
Anna blinked again. "Uh, yeah… well, her full name's Tamera—"
"I told you!" Cosmo let go of Anna and turned to Poof, his eyes still wide, his voice a breathy, disbelieving whisper. "I told you I knew her!"
"Wait a minute! You know my mom?"
"I was her godfather!" cried Cosmo. "I was her fairy godfather! She and Tommy were our godkids once—me and Wanda were their godparents… and…" Cosmo brought his hands to his mouth, a sudden realization overtaking him. "And they were Wanda's last godkids EVER! Because… because after them, we were on break for awhile after…"
"Oh God." Poof was shaking his head in disbelief, his eyes still huge and dumbfounded. "Oh God. It's more than that, Dad, it's so much more than that… Anna, if Tammy Turner is your mom, then that means…"
Anna waited, too confused to demand a quicker reveal.
"You're Timmy Turner's granddaughter," Poof finally finished in a shocked, hushed whisper.
Anna blinked again. That reveal revealed absolutely nothing to her.
"Yeah, my grandpa's name was Tim," she said, crossing her arms impatiently. "But I don't see what this has to do with anything. He died when my mom and uncle were just kids. Were you his fairy godfather too, Cosmo?"
"WAS I HIS FAIRY GODFATHER?!" Cosmo repeated incredulously.
"Oh, Anna, you don't know the half of it!" cried Poof. "Fairies are still talking about Timmy Turner! Everything he did, all the adventures he got into, all the successes, poof poof, he was the greatest godparenting success of them all! No other kid had ever kept their fairies even half as long as Timmy! Especially after all the times he nearly lost them! But he still always managed to keep Mama and Dad, even with all the rule-breaking, all the rule-breaking—"
"Figures that's what you'd harp on," Anna cut in.
"Oh, Anna. You don't even know." Poof wasn't smiling; his eyes were still wide, shocked, and… sad. Wistful. Mournful. "He wished for so many crazy things, for so many wild schemes…" And here his voice broke. "He wished for me…"
"What?" asked Anna.
Poof shook his head, pressing one hand against his mouth, muffling his next sentence a bit, but Anna still heard it clearly. "He wished for Mama and Dad to have a baby, and so they had me."
Cosmo also had brought a hand to his mouth in shock, his voice breaking almost more than Poof's. "If I played favorites, Timmy would be my favorite… and since I do play favorites…" Cosmo finally broke down in sobs. "He was my favorite godchild!" he wailed.
Anna stared at her fairies, her confusion lifted only a little bit. "Alright then, so… so I'm, what, your third generation of godkids in the family or something? Why are you both so… horrified by this? I mean, if he was your favorite, shouldn't the fact that I'm his descendent be a good thing?"
"I let him die too," Cosmo whispered.
"Dad, no, you and Mama couldn't have done anything…"
"There's something you're not telling me," Anna demanded. "Something about how my grandpa died. And I'll tell you what, I'm sick of not knowing what happened. Mom and Uncle Tom and Grandma won't tell me, but maybe you will."
Cosmo and Poof exchanged nervous glances.
"How did my grandpa die?" Anna asked forcefully.
Cosmo sniffled. Poof gulped. Neither said anything.
"I wish you'd tell me!" Anna shrieked.
"He killed himself!" Cosmo shrieked back.
"Well, I'd already figured that out! But why did he do it?"
"It was because he forgot," whimpered Poof helplessly. "He forgot… us. When he turned eighteen, he was an adult and thus he couldn't have fairy godparents anymore, so Dad and Mama and I were taken from him and his memories were erased… and since Mama and Dad were his godparents for so long, nearly nine years, there was such a huge, important chunk of his childhood missing—"
"Wait a minute. Wait a minute." Anna's confusion had transformed into dumb incredulity. "You're saying that if a kid gets their fairies taken away, they forget everything?"
Poof nodded sadly. "Otherwise they might tell other people—"
"But—but only if they break the rules, right?"
"No, Anna, no! No matter how you lose your fairies—whether you wish them away, break the rules and lose them, or just outgrow them like Tmmy did, all your memories of them are entirely taken away, poof poof!"
"You mean," cried Anna, her cheeks beginning to turn red from anger and disbelief, "you mean that even if I'm the most perfect, obedient godchild in the world, and if I managed to keep you until my eighteenth birthday, then I still will lose all memory of you regardless? No matter what I do, in eight years I won't remember a THING about you two? What's the point? WHAT'S THE POINT?!"
"There's a point!" cried Poof desperately. "There's a huge point! Fairy godparents fill a huge void in children's lives, they give them love and happiness! And while the memories of the fairies themselves are gone, the sense of love and happiness remains with them as adults!"
"Oh yeah, I'm sure my grandpa had loads of happy and loving memories then!" Anna shot back bitterly. "That's why he killed himself!"
Cosmo wailed helplessly.
"Timmy was different, Anna!" cried Poof. "Most kids don't have their godparents even half as long as Timmy did! To erase all that from his mind just took too much from him—it—we were so important to him—"
"So by being there for him for such a long time, you doomed him!" Anna shrieked. "You condemned him to kill himself by giving him so much happiness!"
"Yes!" wailed Cosmo. "It's our fault he's dead!"
"It is not!" Poof countered, although not very convincingly, as tears were starting to run down his cheeks. "It is not our fault…"
Anna brought her hands to her face, finally beginning to cry as well, although her tears were harsh and angry ones. "I don't wanna lose you guys, I don't wanna forget you guys… but if that's what's set to happen to me from the get-go, why did you even come to me in the first place?"
She turned her back to them and angrily wiped the tears from her eyes, giving them the hint to stop talking to her—although they were both so emotionally shaken that they were making no attempts to say anything more, anyway.
Anna sniffled loudly.
Her grandfather. Her mother's father. Her mother had never really spoken much about him. All that Anna knew was that he had died when his twins had only been twelve years old, in a car accident that no one really spoke of, a single-car accident that Anna had always felt seemed oddly deliberate. What a jerk, she had always concluded. What a jerk to bail out on his family, his life, like that. To leave his daughter so distraught that she had gone through a string of unhealthy relationships in her teens and twenties, that she had married with blind optimism the one who had gotten her knocked up—Anna was born only five months after her parents' wedding day, she wasn't stupid, she could do the math—and to leave his son so scared of commitment and stability that he hopped from city to city—this year, New York City; next year, who knows?
But Timmy had had fairy godparents. What's more, he had had Cosmo. That silly, goofy, wonderful little oddball that Anna had grown so attached to in only a month. He had had Wanda, who Anna had only heard of but had no reason to doubt that she was a wonderful influence. He had even had Poof, who presumably in his youth wasn't the stickler he was now, but certainly still had to have had his sense of fun and complete joy of life.
But even they hadn't been enough to save him.
Anna gulped.
Who's to say that what happened to Timmy wouldn't eventually happen to his granddaughter as well?
And what's worse, if it did happen years down the line, she'd have no idea that it was history repeating itself. She'd have no recollection of this conversation at all. No memories of Cosmo and Poof.
Her heart clenched again.
She turned back around. "Poof? Do you have that stupid rule book handy?"
Poof wiped the last of the tears from his eyes and regarded Anna with a nervous glance. "I don't like the way you're asking that…"
"Well, before I make a wish, I like to know if it's gonna be shot down or not."
"I really don't like the sound of this."
"Just tell me if there's anything against time travel."
Poof blanched.
"Oh no, Anna, don't even—"
"Could you just answer my question before the lecture? Is there any rule against time travel?"
Poof gripped at his head anxiously, tufts of purple hair between his fingers. "No, there isn't, because sometimes it's necessary, BUT!—It's not generally recommended, there are so many problems that come from it, so many opportunities for time paradoxes that could put the time traveler's life—or worse, the entire universe in jeopardy—you go back and mess with just one little thing and you prevent the birth of your grandparent or something and you completely tear up the foundation of the future, it's just not a good idea—"
"Okay, okay, enough with the lecture!" Anna interrupted crossly. "Blah blah blah, it's dangerous, I get that, but it's not against the rules?"
Poof bit his lip. "…No. But—"
"Calm down. If I wish that we'd neither be seen or heard when we go back in time, would that be enough to stop you from freaking out?"
"Absolutely not! It's still a completely dangerous and—"
"I'm not going to change anything, Poof. I just want to observe. I want to know what my grandpa was like when he was my age. And why the heck am I arguing with you, anyway? If I just make the wish Cosmo has to grant it anyway, so—"
Poof tugged at his hair again, now a complete nervous wreck. "Oh poof poof poof, please please please don't do this, I beg of you…"
"I wish we could go back in time to see Timmy Turner when he was about my age, but that no one could see or hear us!"
"Dammit," hissed Poof.
Cosmo, who only just now had gotten his mournful shaking under control, shot Poof a reproachful glare. "Watch your language, young man!"
"Cosmo, I just made a wish…"
"A complicated one, too," murmured Cosmo, looking at his wand.
Poof sighed in defeat, raising his wand. "Time travel takes a lot of magic… I'll handle the technical details, Dad, you just help with the magic quotient…"
Cosmo raised his wand too. "I have no idea what's going on. But what's new?"
And the three of them disappeared with a "I HAVE A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS POOF POOF".
…
Anna rubbed her eyes as the smoke from the magic poof began to clear, coughing harshly. Even taking into account the poof cloud, she was surprised by how much more clogged the air felt. She had heard in school how polluted the air was before the invention of hypo-techtronic atmospheric purification systems, but wow, how on earth did anybody breathe back then?
Cosmo and Poof were both coughing too, their lungs trying to adjust.
Anna looked around, trying to get a feel of her surroundings. "Where are we?" she asked. "When are we?"
Poof turned his head around too, the bright, warm sun beaming down on all the nearly-identical looking houses of suburbia. "Dimmsdale, California, July tenth, 2002."
Anna gasped. "2002. Wow." She did a quick bit of math in her head. She was… fifty-two years in the past. Freaky. "So… so where's my grandpa?"
Cosmo wasn't looking at her, instead completely fixated in the other direction. "This house looks so familiar…"
Anna and Poof both turned.
Anna recognized it instantly as well. She had seen pictures of her mother and uncle when they were kids playing outside of this house—the house that her mother had always identified as her grandparents' house, where they had often been sent upon those many instances when their parents couldn't watch them.
"Timmy's house," Poof breathed quietly.
Anna nodded. "I recognize this place too. This is my… great-grandparents' house. There's a lot of photos of my mom and Uncle Tom playing in this backyard when they were kids." She nodded thoughtfully, taking it all in in person now. "Nice and big, too. No wonder Grandpa dumped them off at his parents' so often. But speaking of Grandpa, where is—"
"YAH-HOOOO!"
The back door of the house flew open, a young boy bounding out with pure joy. Anna gaped, dumbfounded. His eyes were blue, unlike her brown ones, and his hair was a shade or two lighter than hers, but other than that it was like looking at a male version of herself, right down to the small, round nose. She didn't have to be told that she was seeing her grandfather… but she was told anyway.
"Timmy…" both Cosmo and Poof whimpered in shock, in heartache.
"Summer vacation, parents are at work, Vicky's too wrapped up in her soaps to pay any attention to me, and I have the whole day ahead of me just to goof off and have fun!" Timmy turned his head around, completely unaware of the fact that he was being watched, and his smile quickly faded. "That is, I would be having fun if certain fairies of mine were out here and granting my wishes!"
Cosmo snapped out of his melancholy. "Wishes! Yeah! I can grant Timmy's wishes again!"
Poof grabbed Cosmo's wrist firmly. "No, Dad, remember, Timmy can't see or hear us!"
Timmy crossed his arms grumpily. "Cosmo! Wanda!" he barked out.
"I'm right here!" Cosmo protested. "Why can't you hear me or see me? It's like someone wished that I was invisible or something!"
"Dad, that's exactly what—"
A POOF cloud cut him off, and Anna jumped back in shock as Cosmo—the 2002 version of Cosmo—appeared in front of Timmy. Having two Cosmos in the same place was enough of an oddity, but she was even more surprised to see that despite fifty-two years having passed, Cosmo hadn't changed one bit. He was still even dressed the same.
"Sorry, Timmy," the past Cosmo said apologetically. "I kinda heard you being demanding and stuff out here, but Wanda was being demanding and stuff in there, and saying something that sounded like 'blah blah blah wands need tune up blah blah blah no big wishes today blah blah'—"
"Wait a minute," Timmy interrupted. "No big wishes? Then what the heck are we supposed to do today?"
Cosmo shrugged. "Well, since it's summer vacation and you have no responsibilities and it's a nice day…" He brightened. "You can make a ton of big wishes!"
Timmy grinned. "Well, if I heard it from you, then…"
Still hovering next to Anna and Poof, the present-day Cosmo rubbed his head in confusion. "Man, that green-haired guy looks so familiar, but I can't put my finger on it…"
"Wait a minute!" the past Cosmo shouted. His eyes narrowed, and he spun around, glaring at the future versions of himself, Poof, and Anna. "Ever get the weird feeling that you're being… watched?"
Cosmo, Poof, and Anna all shrunk back in wide-eyed terror.
Timmy blinked. "Uh, Cosmo, there's nobody there…"
"Oh, they're there… I can feel them." The past Cosmo's eyes flickered from the future version of himself to Anna to Poof, with an intensity that certainly made it feel as though he actually could see them. When he got to Poof, his eyes brightened a little bit. "This one's a fine looking young man, at least!"
Poof blinked. "Uh… thanks, Dad?"
"The eight prettiest kneecaps I've ever seen!"
Poof sighed. "I take it back…"
Timmy sighed, unknowingly at almost the same time as Poof. "Um, hello, Cosmo? If you're done talking to your figments of your imagination could you get back to granting my big wishes?"
The past Cosmo blinked and shook his head, smiling absent-mindedly again, seemingly having completely forgotten his suspicions of being watched, and turned back to Timmy. "Of course, Timmy! And the bigger and stupider the better!"
POOF!
Anna jumped back in surprise once again at the new figure who had appeared—the new figure she instantly recognized from the picture Cosmo had shown her. It was Wanda, looking positively exasperated, hovering in front of Timmy and Cosmo authoritatively. She also seemed to be holding a ball or something round in her hands—and when Anna saw it move a bit and open its huge, purple eyes, she jumped back even more, realizing with a start that that little moving ball had to be Poof as a baby.
If Wanda's appearance had shaken Anna, it shook her traveling companions even more so.
"Mama!" cried Poof, bringing his hands to his mouth.
"Wanda…" Cosmo wailed longingly.
Timmy and the past Cosmo also reacted strongly to Wanda's entrance, although their reactions were far more abashed and guilty than mournful.
"Cosmo!" Wanda chastised. "What did I just get done telling you?"
The past Cosmo blanched, shuffling his feet in the air and looking away from her nervously. "Uh, something like 'blah blah blah I'm being bossy blah blah blah'…"
Wanda sighed. "Why do I even bother? Timmy, we can't really grant any big wishes today. You've been making so many big ones lately that our wands need recharging again!"
Timmy crossed his arms. "Okay then, so why don't we all go to Fairy World and while you and Cosmo are getting your wands recharged, Poof and I can wander around aimlessly and hit all those awesome Fairy World shops, like 'Iggy's Ice Cream Imporium Yes We Know It's Misspelled' and 'The Cookie Shop That'll Probably Still Be Here Fifty-Two Years from Now' and 'More Toys Than Your Kid Will Know What to Do With'—"
"Poof poof!" baby Poof exclaimed happily at that last one, shooting out of Wanda's arms and to Timmy.
Timmy grabbed baby Poof's tiny hands and happily began to spin him around in a circle. "And we can get so many toys we'll have to build another room on the house, it'll be so awesome, oh and Wanda I'm gonna need to borrow your credit card."
"I will, too," the past Cosmo butted in.
With the four of them now somewhat paired off, Timmy and Poof paying no attention to Cosmo and Wanda's impending argument and Cosmo and Wanda paying no attention to Timmy and Poof's lighthearted playing, their three unseen, unheard observers from the future also split off to observe more closely.
Cosmo hovered near the past versions of himself and his wife, his lip trembling as he found himself witnessing something he thought he'd never witness again—an angry lecture from Wanda. Hovering as close as possible to his past self to get the fullest possible view of her fists clenching, her knuckles whitening, her eyebrows knitting—all things that had always made him apprehensive and fearful before, and indeed, the past Cosmo was shrinking like a lily in front of her—the future Cosmo did the exact opposite, gazing longingly at the riled Wanda, his breathing deep and disbelieving.
"I very specifically told you that we can't be granting any big wishes for Timmy today, and what do I come out to hear you saying? 'The bigger and stupider the better!' Sometimes I don't even know why I bother talking to you and not, say, a brick wall, because the results would be exactly the same!"
"I love you," whispered the future Cosmo.
"Timmy's going to be the most irresponsible person on the planet if you keep this up! It's our job to teach him to be responsible, to be productive, to not be so demanding! Now what do you have to say for yourself?"
"Tell her you love her," Cosmo begged his past self. "Tell her you love her and you'll never do anything to hurt her ever again!"
The past Cosmo blinked. "Your breath really stinks today."
"Cosmo!" snapped Wanda.
"That's not what I told you to say, you idiot!" the future Cosmo yelped angrily, smacking his past self in the head.
"Ouch!" yelped the past Cosmo. "I feel like someone just angrily smacked me in the head!"
Wanda sighed in irritation. "You must have just felt what I was just doing to you mentally." She took another breath to compose herself. "Okay. Let's try this again. Our wands have practically no charge left. Only enough to get us to Fairy World, really. Once we get them recharged Timmy can make all the silly, stupid wishes he wants and we can grant them, but not until we get our wands recharged. Otherwise we'll have no way of getting to Fairy World at all. So if you can just wait for a few hours, you can be as stupid and irresponsible as you want, okay?"
"Yell at me," the future Cosmo pleaded her. "Get angry at me and yell at me, yell at me until your face turns blue, I don't care, just please yell at me. You can yell at me every second of every day for the rest of our lives, just as long as that means you've come back to me…"
The past Cosmo sighed unhappily. "Waiting is boring!"
"But necessary. Can you please just accept the fact that I'm right?"
Cosmo shrugged. "Well, duh. You're always right." He hovered away from her, suddenly becoming interested in a caterpillar crawling on a leaf of a nearby shrub, seemingly forgetting about Wanda and her ultimatum altogether.
Wanda sighed in defeat.
If only she had known that, although the present version of her husband had forgotten about her, she was still being acknowledged—no, begged—by his future self.
"Wanda, please," he whispered helplessly. "Please look at me! Please hear me! Please come back to me! I need you! I'll never ever ever do anything to you to hurt you ever again, and you can yell at me and nag me all you want, I don't care, just as long as I have you back again, please honey, please… I love you, I'll never be mean to you ever again, I promise, just please come back to me…"
Wanda floated right past him, completely unaware of his presence.
Cosmo broke down in sobs.
Over in another corner of the backyard, the scene was far cheerier, with Timmy impatiently yet still happily poking at the ground with a stick, baby Poof watching him in awe. The adult Poof and Anna were watching, tentatively poking their heads out from behind a tree, seeming to have forgotten that they couldn't be seen.
"I'm gonna buy one of those exploding spinning tops that they sell at that fairy toy store," said Timmy happily. "And I'm gonna buy you about a billion more stuffed animals. All you ever seem to carry around is that monkey and that dog…"
Anna stepped out from behind the tree, slowly approaching Timmy.
"And then we're gonna cram all the ice cream we can down our throats and spoil our appetites!" Timmy continued.
Baby Poof suddenly looked upwards, right in the direction of the tree that his adult self was hovering next to. "Poof poof!" he exclaimed, zipping right over and hovering distinctly in adult Poof's face, looking him squarely and expectedly in the eyes. "Poof poof!" he said again.
The adult Poof recoiled in confusion, rubbing his head. Looking his own baby self in the eyes like this was weird enough, but he was even more weirded out by the notion that his infant self seemed to somehow know he was there. "Uh… poof poof?" he answered back.
"Poof poof!" said baby Poof, grinning.
Adult Poof felt a small, shaky smile come to his mouth as well.
WHACK!
"OUCH!"
Baby Poof pulled back his rattle with a sneaky grin, adult Poof still rubbing his sore cranium. "Poof poof!" said the baby again, giggling as he floated back towards Timmy.
Adult Poof growled in irritation. "Oh man, is he gonna pay for that… wait a minute, what the poof am I saying, I can't beat up a baby… especially when the baby's me…" His anger had now completely morphed into just plain confusion. "Huh?"
Neither Timmy nor Anna had witnessed the meeting of Poofs. Timmy was still happily poking at the ground, not really paying any attention to what he was doing, completely unaware that baby Poof had hovered off, too busy getting wrapped up in all the fun he was going to have in Fairy World that day. "And we'll go to the park and swing on those super-swings and go on the tilt-a-whirl merry-go-round and…"
And Anna was hardly listening to what Timmy was saying, now standing over him, glaring at him, her hands slowly but surely clenching into fists. "You," she hissed.
"…and we'll buy a billion balloons and float all over Fairy World, well not that you need balloons to float, Poof, you can already float…"
"You!" Anna said sharply, her face contorted in anger. "Do you have any idea of what you've done? Of what you're… gonna do?"
Timmy was still blabbing on and on, but Anna was yelling over his words, not even paying the slightest attention to what he was saying anymore. "I don't care what excuse you think you'll have! Do you realize what you did—what you will do—to your own children?! Just because your own life sucks doesn't mean you can just bail out on it and that'll make everything better! Do you know what you've done to my mom and uncle? Do you?! I know how happy you are, here with Poof, and Cosmo, and… and Wanda, you just don't have a care in the world, you don't even realize… How could you kill yourself?!" she finally finished in outraged disbelief. "After this wonderful childhood you had how could you kill yourself?! I know how much it must have hurt to… to lose your… your fairies…" Her voice faltered. "But…"
Timmy finally stopped talking, his smile fading as he looked around, unknowingly looking right past Anna. "Why do I have this weird feeling that right now I'm being chastised for my future actions?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know, maybe it's because YOU ARE!" Anna shrieked at him.
Timmy sighed and looked at baby Poof, who had hovered back to him. "Well, maybe I do deserve it. Maybe your mom's right, Poof. I can be kind of irresponsible. But I promise to try to be more responsible from now on, especially to the people that I love!" He grinned at Poof. "Are you gonna be responsible, too?"
"Poof poof!" affirmed the baby.
"Good! I'm sure you will be. I'm sure you'll never do something like, I don't know, beat up my granddaughter when she's trying to save the world from an evil Elvis clone."
Anna blinked.
The adult Poof rubbed the back his neck in embarrassment. "Uh… oops."
Timmy shrugged. "Or something else crazy like that. That was just a completely random example that I'm sure will never happen." He grabbed Poof and began bouncing him up and down, the baby shrieking and laughing with delight. "Anyway, I know you'd never do that to me, just like I'd never do that to you, because we're brothers and we love each other!"
"Timmy!" baby Poof exclaimed happily.
Adult Poof brought one hand to his mouth again, wrapping his other arm around his torso helplessly. "Timmy…"
Wanda floated up to Timmy, gingerly taking baby Poof from him. "We have enough charge in our wands to get you to Fairy World with us, that is as long as Poof helps us with the magic."
"Poof poof!" said the baby, lifting his rattle.
"Well then, let's go!" said Timmy, a genuine smile on his face. "Sure, I did have a lot of crazy ideas for wishes today… but to be honest, just spending the day with my fairies is just as wonderful."
Anna finally saw Wanda smile, warmly and affectionately. "And I can't think of a better way to spend a nice summer day than with my boys. Cosmo, are you ready to go?"
Cosmo floated up to them, holding the caterpillar in his hands. "Guys, I want you to meet Methuselah! Can he come to Fairy World too?"
Wanda rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling. "Of course, sweetie."
"Awesome!" exclaimed Timmy. "Let's go!"
Cosmo and Wanda raised their wands, Poof raised his rattle, and in a POOF all four of them were gone.
Anna was left standing in her great-grandparents' backyard, breathing heavily, her fists still clenched as she stared at the spot her grandfather had just occupied. Poof slowly hovered over to her, his posture aggravated but his eyes still wide with sadness.
"Why the poof did you bring us here?" he demanded helplessly. "What the poof did any of this accomplish? Feel better now that you were able to yell at him especially considering he didn't even hear you?"
Anna shook her head, her fists still clenched, but her face beginning to soften as well into honest confusion and worry. "All my life, knowing or at least suspecting what my grandpa did, I'd always hated him… I always thought he must have always been this nasty, mean person, even when he was a kid…" She looked up at Poof, the anger in her eyes gone. "But now I see that he was…" Her voice faltered, and she finished the sentence in a hardly audible murmer. "Just like me."
A weak sob cut her off, but it was from neither her nor Poof. They both turned to the far corner of the backyard, where Cosmo was still hovering, shaking with tears. "I saw her," he blubbered, "I saw her again, I never thought I'd see her again… and she left me again, I couldn't do anything, couldn't do anything, she's gone she's gone she's gone…"
Poof turned back to Anna. "Please send us back," he said hollowly. "You've done enough damage."
Anna looked at the ground and closed her eyes.
"I wish we were back in our own time and place."
…
Cosmo couldn't sleep that night.
Often when he couldn't sleep he'd pace the castle, but he didn't want to wake Poof… of course, maybe Poof couldn't sleep either, but if that was the case then he didn't want Poof to know he was pacing.
He had seen Wanda again. The one thing he had wanted more than anything else in the world this past year.
It was wonderful and terrible at the same time.
Seeing her, hearing her, but she not being able to see or hear him. Having to watch his past self be so completely oblivious, watch him just take her for granted.
And now that they were back in their correct time frame… nothing had changed. Wanda was still dead.
So was Timmy.
Cosmo sat up in bed, a sudden look of determination in his eyes.
Well.
Wanda and Timmy might be dead, and he missed them so much it made his chest ache, but all wasn't completely lost. Poof was still there. Anna was still there.
Tammy was still there.
He reached over to his nightstand, grabbed his wand, and poofed himself out of the fishbowl.
Anna's room was darkened, and Anna herself was curled up under her covers in a fitful, uneasy sleep, but there was a bit of light creeping into the room that seemed to be coming from the kitchen downstairs.
Poofing himself out of the room to avoid opening the door and possibly waking Anna, Cosmo hovered down the stairs and peered through the archway to the kitchen.
Tammy Hoffman sat at the kitchen table, typing away at her laptop, a cup of coffee by her hand, her eyes fluttering with exhaustion in the harsh, bright glow of her monitor. Her glasses had nearly slid all the way off her nose, but she either hadn't yet noticed, or was too tired to make the effort to push them up. A few pieces of paper were scattered around her on the table, with accounting figures that Cosmo could make neither head nor tail of filling them up to the margins.
Tammy Hoffman. Tammy Turner.
She had always liked math, even when Cosmo had first met her when she was only eight years old.
She certainly hadn't been the first godchild of his who liked math, but it still confused Cosmo every time they were assigned a child with that particular quirk. What kind of kid actually likes math? And it wasn't that she simply tolerated it, either; she actually enjoyed it. She'd spend a lot of dull afternoons pulling out her book of math and logic puzzles, whereas her twin brother could hardly get through a sudoku.
That had actually been what they were doing when Cosmo and Wanda first came to them, introducing themselves as their fairy godparents. Tommy had been excited and overjoyed; Tammy had first screamed from fright, then quickly grew suspicious that it all wasn't some wacky hallucination. Tommy was always a little more trustworthy and believing than Tammy had been; Tammy never believed anything without cold, solid evidence…
Tammy suddenly jerked her head past her monitor, aware that she was being watched, and stared at Cosmo incredulously, her tired eyes blinking in rapid succession.
Frightened, Cosmo did nothing but stare back at her with a dropped jaw… but finally, he found his mouth working, even smiling slightly at her. "Hi, Tammy," he said.
Tammy continued to blink.
And then she pulled her glasses off her face, rubbed her eyes, and slid her glasses back on, blinking again in confusion. "Do… do I know you?" she asked.
Cosmo's smile faded.
"You did once."
He waved his wand and poofed away without another word, leaving Tammy still blinking, staring at the empty space where Cosmo had been.
Chapter 12: Little Sister
Chapter Text
All day Friday, Anna had barely spoken to her fairies, and they had barely spoken to her. It wasn't a deliberate refusal of acknowledgement; they had said the usual "good mornings" to each other, and Poof had asked her if she wanted them to accompany her to school that day, and Anna declined, saying that she would be spending the afternoon at Gretchen's again, working on their science project. She actually ended up staying there until almost 8:30 that night, she and Gretchen getting the vast majority of their project finished, only taking a few breaks to fool around. Poof would have been proud of her if he had seen her, Anna thought with satisfaction.
When she returned home, her mother was busy, as usual, either working more or going through the divorce papers—and there was a lot of legal paperwork that she had to go through, so Anna simply mindlessly watched TV for an hour or so before her mother finally noticed what she was doing and told her it was time for bed.
And she got ready for bed willingly, and smiled at Cosmo and Poof as they hovered over her bed, ready to say goodnight to her.
"Hey, Poof," she said.
"What?" Poof answered.
"Tomorrow's Saturday."
"So it is…"
"That means you're going to Fairy World again to submit your report."
"Uh-huh. So what crazy things are you and Dad gonna do while I'm gone?"
"Nothing." Anna continued to smile. "I was thinking maybe this time we could go with you."
Cosmo's eyes widened in excitement. "Ooohh! I like that idea!"
"Uh, I don't," said Poof worriedly. "Why do you wanna go to Fairy World, Anna? I mean, I really won't be there long, and—"
"You were there long last time," Anna reminded him. "And why wouldn't I wanna go to Fairy World? You're always bringing us back such awesome stuff… and, apparently, Timmy Turner went there all the time. So why can't I?"
"Aw, come on, Poofy," Cosmo pleaded, unsurprisingly taking Anna's side. "We'd have so much fun! I could take you two all sorts of places, like the park and the amusement park and the Awesome Extra-Wonderful Amazing Childhood Museum of Coolness and Total Win!"
Poof's eyes grew wide. "I love that place…"
"And besides," said Anna, "it'd be different from Vegas. We'd be in no danger of meeting up with an evil Elvis clone there. Uh, at least, I assume so," she added thoughtfully. "I would imagine Jorgen got rid of him…"
Poof hesitated, his resolve clearly faltering. "Oh, Anna, I don't know, it just doesn't seem like a good idea…"
"Come on, Poof, pleeeeeeeeeeeeease?" Anna jutted out her lower lip and made certain her eyes were a huge as possible. "I really really wanna go! And I'm gonna go anyway, because if you say no and sneak out when we're both still asleep, I'll just wish that your dad will take me there anyway. And I'd rather all three of us go together."
Poof sighed in defeat. "Okay, fine, you win. You can come with me."
Cosmo's lower lip quivered. "What about me?"
Poof rolled his eyes. "Duh, Dad, you too…"
"Thanks, Poof!" grinned Anna. "I knew you wouldn't let me down."
Poof gave her a nervous smile. "Yeah, I guess we will have fun… I mean, what's the worst that could happen?" Realizing what he just said, he gasped in horror, clutching his head in a panic. "Oh poof poof POOF did I really just say that?! I've jinxed it! Every time someone says 'what's the worst that could happen' they very very quickly find out EXACTLY what the worst thing is that could happen! Oh no, oh no, oh no, poof poof POOF!"
"Aw, Poof, calm down!" said Anna disarmingly. "We'll be okay. We don't even have to spend much time there if you want, I just wanna see the place." She snuggled down into her pillow and pulled Jeremiah to her side. "Well, goodnight, you two! See you bright and early tomorrow morning!"
"…yeah, goodnight, Anna," said Poof, trying to smile. "Hopefully by tomorrow morning my feeling of impending doom will have quieted down a bit."
Cosmo pulled up the covers around Anna and kissed her forehead. "Goodnight, Anna-Banana," he said softly. "Sweet dreams!"
Anna smiled warmly. "Goodnight, Cosmo. Goodnight, Poof."
Poof's smile was now far more genuine. He and Cosmo gave her one more affectionate smile before they both disappeared into their fishbowl for the night.
Anna's smile morphed to one of pleased satisfaction.
Phase one of her plan was a success. Now, tomorrow, all she had to do was set it in motion.
…
"Okay. I've got this all figured out. I'll poof on over to headquarters really quick and get the weekly report submission done and over with as quickly as possible. Then we can stop for ice cream before heading to the awesome etcetera etcetera children's museum, and after that…" Poof sighed in frustration. "Why am I even bothering?"
Neither Anna nor Cosmo were listening to him, and apparently hadn't been from the moment the three of them arrived in Fairy World. Anna's jaw was hanging open, the girl completely dumbfounded by the magic and color of the fairies' home turf. And Cosmo… was gazing longingly in a shop window, where one of those caps with containers for holding pop or beer cans on the side and straws directing the drink to the wearer's mouth was displayed prominently.
"I've… always… wanted… one… of… those…" Cosmo breathed.
Poof grabbed Cosmo by the wrist, yanking him away from the window. "Well then, I know exactly what I'm getting you for Christmas. But we're not here to buy stupid stuff like that, we're here to show Anna Fairy World. Anna? Can you please close your mouth for at least five seconds?"
Anna quickly snapped her jaw shut, but her eyes were still wide with awe. "Wow. This place is… incredible! Just what the words 'Fairy World' would spring to mind! Which is ironic, since you two are far from what would spring to anyone's minds from the word 'fairies'."
Poof frowned. "Yeah, well, we like to keep at least a little of that mystical sparkle that humans seem to think fairies have. Anyway, like I was trying to tell you before, I'm gonna go to headquarters first thing and get that out of the way. I won't be gone long. Maybe you and Dad could go in that store and look at that weird hat thing."
"Wait a minute," Anna cut in. "I wanna go to headquarters too."
Poof looked dumbfounded. "Uh, no, you don't."
"Yes, I do!"
"No, you don't. I don't. Jorgen's there."
"He… doesn't scare me," Anna said, although unconvincingly, as her face lost a lot of its color from the mention of his name.
Poof raised an eyebrow. "Uh-huh. You stay here and make sure Dad doesn't buy anything stupid while I'm gone."
Anna quickly and abruptly pointed over Poof's shoulder. "Look!" she shrieked. "A statue of Elvis made entirely out of cheese!"
Both Poof and Cosmo spun around eagerly. "WHERE?"
It didn't give Anna much time to bolt from Poof's watchful eyes, but it was enough. As her fairies frantically flew off in search of the cheese Elvis, Anna took off in the other direction.
Now she just had to find headquarters.
"Hmm." She rubbed her temple thoughtfully as she quickly made her way past the many distracting shops and buildings that Fairy World had to offer. "If I were a tough, scary fairy like Jorgen, where would I keep my headquarters?"
She suddenly stopped and noticed, straight ahead and just a little to the right of her, an area of the bright sky that looked a little dark, dreary, and hopeless, especially compared to the rest of Fairy World.
"Ah. That must be it."
…
"Oh poof poof POOF!" Poof tugged at his hair frantically, his voice high with panic. "That girl knows us too poofin' well! She distracted us and now she's gone! We've gotta get to headquarters and stop her before she does whatever it is she wants to do—but wait, she doesn't even know where headquarters is! Anna! ANNA!" He let out a helpless squeak. "She's completely wandered off and I have no clue where she is! Dad! Dad! What the poof are you DOING?!"
"Is this the cheese Elvis?" Cosmo asked, holding out a moss-covered rock.
"No Dad, that's not shaped like Elvis and it's not even cheese! Forget about the cheese Elvis! Anna's gone!"
Cosmo's eyes bulged in horror. "Anna's gone?"
"That's what I said, yes!" Poof yelled in frustration. "She distracted us and ran off while we weren't looking, poof poof! I don't know why, but I'm guessing she's running off to headquarters since for some reason she wanted to go there with me, and I can't imagine why anyone would willingly go see Jorgen, but—"
"What if she's gonna rat us out?" Cosmo suddenly cried desperately. "What if she's gonna tell him that she doesn't want us as her fairies anymore? What if she's gonna ask for new ones? What if she's hiding the cheese Elvis all along?"
"No, Dad, come on, she wouldn't…" But Poof's voice got caught in his throat. She had made it a point to avoid having to talk with them all day yesterday…
"She's gonna send us away!" Cosmo wailed.
"No! No! We've… We've gotta find her, poof poof!"
"But where did she go?"
"I don't know! But if we don't find her soon, she might—"
"I don't know what is bothering you two so much," a British-accented voice interrupted them, "but you'll soon find it's the least of your troubles!"
"Once we're through with you!" another British-accented voice added spitefully.
Cosmo and Poof both turned to stare into the smirking, evil faces of their anti-fairy counterparts.
"OH FOR POOF'S SAKE, OF ALL THE TIMES YOU TWO COULD PICK TO BREAK OUT OF PRISON AND WRECK HAVOC, IT HAS TO BE—"
Foop tackled Poof, cutting him off before he could finish his frustrated yell of aggravation, and waved his wand, causing Poof to be pinned and tied to the ground a la Gulliver's Travels and the Lilliputians. "I've got the neurotic, bossy one, Father!" Foop proclaimed proudly, snatching Poof's wand from his hand.
Cosmo gasped, lunging towards them, but Anti-Cosmo zipped right into his path and pushed him against the wall with the black, pointed tip of the star atop his wand right against Cosmo's neck. He whacked Cosmo's arm with his elbow, causing his wand to fly out of his hands and skitter uselessly to a stop out of both his and Poof's reach.
"And I've got the over-emotional idiot!" Anti-Cosmo crowed triumphantly.
Cosmo, undeterred, swung his arm back, smacking Anti-Cosmo in the face. "Let me go, and let Poof, go, in either order, I don't really care—"
"Hey!" Foop yelled, zipping over to Cosmo and pointing his own wand against Cosmo's neck as well. "If my father wants to torture and kill you, then that's what's going to happen!" He looked to Anti-Cosmo eagerly and excitedly. "Can I kill him now, Father?"
Anti-Cosmo whacked Foop over the head with his free hand. "No, you imbecile! May I remind you for the hundredth time that he is the body double of me! If he dies, I DIE! Let's not forget what happened to your dear mother, after all! Although… that is of course why I wish to torture this idiot in the first place." He turned back to Cosmo, a dangerous spark in his icy glare.
Cosmo gulped as best he could with the tips of two wands pressed against his Adam's apple. "Uh, well, I do deserve it…"
"But we can't kill him?" Foop asked, disappointed.
"No!" cried Anti-Cosmo, exasperated.
"Well, hey, not that it matters anyway," Poof suddenly spoke up, still bound to the ground. He rolled his eyes, almost looking bored. "I mean, you wouldn't be able to kill him, Anti-Poof. It's a good thing you haven't even been given the chance, because who wants to fail?"
Foop's eyes boiled with rage.
"My name is NOT Anti-Poof! My name is FOOP!"
Poof snorted. "Bullcrap. Anti-fairies are named as the anti of the fairy that they're… well, the anti of. And you're the anti of me, and my name's Poof. So you're Anti-Poof." He then stuck out his tongue at his doppelganger defiantly. "Duh."
Foop zipped back over to Poof, smoke shooting from his ears. "Listen, you simpleton, I am the most special, powerful anti-fairy of them all! I could snap your father in half and kill him as easily as I could snap a twig! And as such I am deserving of a name that proclaims my greatness and evilness! A name that all will tremble before!"
"Oh yeah, 'Foop', sure sends shivers down my spine," Poof remarked sarcastically. "You and your overblown head. You've got to accept that you're just a blue, evil version of me. And I'm a pretty average fairy." He shrugged, or at least he shrugged as best he could with his arms still pinned to the ground. "There's nothing really all that special about me that makes me stand out. Maybe I stood out a little bit when I was born, but you know, now there's other young fairies—and anti-fairies. So now… I'm just your average fairy named Poof." He smirked mockingly at Foop. "Which means you're just your average anti-fairy named Anti-Poof."
"NO! STOP! I AM NOT AVERAGE!"
"Anti-Poof, Anti-Poof, Anti-Poof!" Poof taunted.
"SHUT UP!"
Anti-Cosmo wasn't liking what he was hearing either. Waving his wand to leave Cosmo chained to the wall of the building he had pinned him against, he was in an instant hovering over Poof, fiercely pointing his wand in his face. "How dare you even infer that any son of mine is average? The only average one here is you, you worthless pea-brain!"
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Cosmo shrieked, struggling wildly against his chains.
Anti-Cosmo turned to him with a look of incredulity. "What, now you think I'm going to kill your son? Of course I'm not going to do that!"
"Yeah, I am!" Foop declared.
Anti-Cosmo whacked him over the head again. "No, you IDIOT! How many times must we go through this? If he dies, that means you die too! Why am I the only one around here who gets that?"
"That's right, Anti-Poof," Poof said defiantly. "After all, I'm Poof, and you're Anti-Poof."
"STOP CALLING ME THAT!" shrieked Foop. "Father, please, if you won't let me kill him may I at least… maul him and cause him great bodily harm?"
Anti-Cosmo chuckled. "Why, of course, son! That's what this is all about!" He slammed his foot down on Poof's fingers, a painful sounding crack causing him to grin even wider.
Poof finally lost his confident composure and cried out in pain.
Cosmo might not have had his wand, but at that moment he didn't need it. His anger was more than sufficient to break his chains with even a miniature explosion. In an instant he had toppled Anti-Cosmo over, flinging punch after punch to his face. "I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE HIM ALONE!" he shrieked.
Unfortunately, in Cosmo's rage at Anti-Cosmo, he had forgotten that Foop was still left free to torment Poof. The purple-eyed anti-fairy spitefully kicked his counterpart in the head, Poof gritting his teeth from the pain of both it and his still stinging fingers. He didn't turn his head away, though. "Coward!" he spat out.
"What did you just call me?!"
"Coward! Does it really prove anything of how strong and menacing you are if you can only fight me when I'm helpless and chained to the ground? Not a fair fight at all, poof poof!Too scared of me to make it a fair fight, huh?"
Foop growled dangerously. "I'll show you who's the coward!" He waved his wand, freeing Poof in a flash—
—and Poof was ready for him. He tackled Foop, pinning him to his chest in a one-armed death grip, fumbling through his pockets for…
Foop struggled against him. "What are you—" He elbowed Poof's arm away—
—but not soon enough. Poof forcibly pulled Foop's head towards him with his stinging, broken right hand and slammed the headphones attached to his MP3 player over his ears. "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog!" he cried dramatically.
Foop howled in horror the moment the headphones touched his ears. "OH GOOD GOD, WHAT IS THIS INFERNAL RACKET? AAUUUGH! NOOOOOOOOOOO! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! NOOOOOOO!"
Poof winced. "If it were anyone else having this reaction to Elvis I'd be appalled, but well… you are the anti-me."
He rushed over to where both his and his father's wands were laying on the ground, snatched them up, and zipped over to the other battle, where Anti-Cosmo had quickly overpowered Cosmo and was smacking him with the star end of his anti-fairy wand, leaving gashes all over Cosmo's face.
But then—
A fairy wand awkwardly swept in and knocked Anti-Cosmo's wand out of his hands. Anti-Cosmo gasped in shock as Poof clumsily pointed his wand in his face with his left hand (Poof was right-handed, but his right hand was the one Anti-Cosmo had crushed with his foot and thus could hardly even grasp Cosmo's wand). "Leave my dad alone, bastard," he growled.
Anti-Cosmo had shrunk back a bit in fear, but still managed to glare dangerously at Poof. "Oh, really now, young man, you think that you stand a chance one-on-one with me?"
"Maybe not one-on-one, but… catch, Dad!"
Thanks to the fact that Poof's hand was broken, the toss he made of Cosmo's wand was an absolutely terrible one. But it was because of this that Cosmo, who was so uncoordinated that he couldn't catch the most perfect of throws, caught his wand perfectly.
"…two against one?" Poof finished, raising an eyebrow at Anti-Cosmo.
Anti-Cosmo shrunk back even more, now being stared down by a pair of wands.
"It's… it's two against two!" he spat out defiantly. "Foop! Get over here and help me!"
But Foop was twitching uncontrollably on the ground, shrieking as if in pain, the headphones still pressed against his ears. "IT BURNS! IT BUUUURRRRRNS!"
"Oh good God." Anti-Cosmo did a facepalm that put the many facepalms of Poof to shame. "If it's really that bad why doesn't that idiot, I don't know, take them off?! He's so much like his mother…"
"Enough of this!" Poof cried in frustration. The star on his wand glowed and in an instant, both Anti-Cosmo and Foop had disappeared. "Get them back to jail where they belong…" He tried to bring his hand up to rub his sore, aching head—but unfortunately, the hand he chose to try to move was his right one. "Aahh!" he gasped in pain, dropping his wand and grasping his right hand in his left.
"Poof! Poof! Are you alright?" Cosmo shrieked. "What's wrong with your hand?" Cosmo, of course, meant well, but unfortunately he grabbed Poof's broken hand in order to examine it.
"Ow ow ow ow OW!" yelped Poof.
Cosmo instantly let go, now looking twice as worried. "He broke it, didn't he? He broke your hand! He broke your hand! I'll get him for this—"
"Forget about me, Dad, look at your face!" cried Poof. "You look like you just went through a lawn mower! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine, but are you okay?"
"I'm fine! I will be, anyway! But Dad, your face!"
"I told you I'm fine, Poofy! But what about your hand?" Cosmo suddenly gasped with another realization. "And what about your MP3 player? It's gone now, too!"
"That's alright, I can get another one! And we can worry about my hand later! We've got to find Anna!"
"Anna?"
"She disappeared, remember? And by now she's probably either at headquarters or totally and completely lost!"
Cosmo's eyes bulged. "Oh no! Anna!"
"Come on!" cried Poof, reaching down to grab his wand and transporting them both to headquarters without another word.
…
Anna knew she was in the right place to find Jorgen because the closer she got, the more fairies she found nervously and fearfully moving in the opposite direction. And pretty soon, she could see a huge, imposing fortress on the horizon, a large neon sign on the top flashing "ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE (THAT MEANS YOU, YOU PUNY FAIRIES!)".
Anna nodded in satisfaction. "If this isn't it, I'll eat my non-existent hat."
She boldly strolled up to the front doors, having no one in her way to stop her, all other fairies seemingly staying as far away from the barracks as they could manage, and stopped at the doors… the fifty-foot tall, thick as five tree trunks, barred double-doors.
Anna bit her lip.
"Now what? These are way too heavy for me to open… in fact, these look like the doors to a giant's house. I can't even reach the handles, they're so high up…" She stopped, and directed her attention, rather than up at the looming doors, to right in front of her.
"Of course."
The doors, being so huge, had a sufficient enough sized crack at the bottom that Anna was able to squeeze right under them.
Once inside, the welcome mat was still anything but cheerful and inviting. The entry room was barely larger than Anna's closet (albeit with an outrageously high ceiling), with only a desk crammed between the huge entryway doors and a few other doors to presumably other offices and/or torture chambers. A nameplate on the desk read "BINKY (Jorgen's lackey)" but Anna couldn't see anyone at the desk.
"Um, hello?" she called out.
A small, round fairy head bobbed out from behind the desk, a few paperclips held in his mouth. "What the, how often do we actually get someone in here willingly—" Upon seeing Anna, he gasped in horror. "A HUMAN! A HUMAN made it to headquarters! SECURITY! SECURITY! THIS IS A MAJOR SECURITY BREACH!"
Security turned out to be exactly who Anna wanted to see.
One of the side doors slammed open, Jorgen Von Strangle glaring down at the intruder. "A puny human got into headquarters?" Upon seeing Anna, he groaned in irritation. "Anna Hoffman. Why am I not surprised?" He reached down and plucked the girl off the floor as if she were a string. "A better question for you would be: WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN FAIRY WORLD UNSUPERVISED AND WHERE ARE YOUR PATHETIC EXCUSES FOR FAIRIES?!"
Anna gulped, understandably terrified of the huge fairy, but she wasn't about to skirt around her mission. "Jorgen, do—do you make the rules?"
"Do I what?"
"The rules. That big book of nonsense that Poof always poofs up and quotes from whenever I try to make a wacky wish. Do you make them?"
"Of course not! That is blasphemy! Da Rules have been in existence for millennia!"
"W-well then, what's your job? Are you their enforcer?"
"Of course I am!" bellowed Jorgen, plopping her into his open palm. "Why else do you think I am in these barracks and scare the pants out of everyone who approaches?"
"So you're the one I go to if I have an issue with one of the rules, right?" Anna clarified.
Jorgen growled at her. "There are no issues with any of Da Rules!"
"Yes there are!" cried Anna defiantly. "I have an issue! A really big issue! Why is it that all kids lose their memory of their fairies when they grow up?"
"That is simple! Because adults cannot know about the existence of fairies!"
"Oh yeah? Why not?"
"Because…" Jorgen faltered. "Because they are adults!"
"Yeah, well, you're an adult!" Anna shot back. "Would it be so bad if you found out about the existence of a species you thought was only imaginary? What would be so bad about that?"
"Adult humans are useless, worthless, greedy pigs!" Jorgen yelled at her. "And were they to know of our existence, they would exploit us for their own gain! That is why!"
"Who says you have to do what they say if that were true? You're fairies! You can just, I don't know, turn them into popsicles if they start bossing you around! And besides, human kids aren't greedy and manipulative? Are you kidding me? The humans you fairies hang around are just as bad as the ones you avoid! So why do you do it? Why do you give kids fairies and just as their lives are going great you just snatch them away and completely ruin their lives?!"
"We do NOT ruin children's lives!"
"You ruined my grandpa's life!"
Jorgen blinked. "And who would that be?"
"Timmy Turner!"
Poof had told Anna that fairies still spoke of her grandfather, and when she said his name, Anna saw that he hadn't been joking. Binky, who had been cowering under his desk, let out a gasp of shock. "Timmy Turner?" he breathed in disbelief. "The Timmy Turner?"
The name even gave Jorgen some pause. "Timmy Turner? Timmy Turner is your grandfather?" He blinked again. "That certainly explains a lot…"
"And I'll tell you what," Anna continued fiercely, "I'm not gonna let what happened to him happen to me too! I know what happened to him, Jorgen! You took away his family, the backbone of all the happy memories of his childhood! You think you can just do that and assume he'll have a happy adulthood, with his family gone too? Timmy Turner knew something was missing! He didn't know what, because he couldn't remember, but he knew something was wrong! And what makes you think that just because someone becomes an adult means that they don't need a family who cares about them anymore? If that's what's gonna happen to me too…" Anna blinked harshly, her voice getting caught in her throat. "I won't let you do it!" she shrieked. "I'll fight you every day until I turn eighteen if I have to! I'm not gonna let you steal my memories away! And I'M NOT GONNA LET YOU TAKE AWAY MY DAD AND BROTHER!"'
Jorgen was, perhaps for the first time in his life, speechless thanks to a ten-year-old human girl.
Anna angrily wiped at her eyes. "Don't you dare take my dad and brother away from me, ever," she said forcefully. "What makes you think that when someone turns eighteen, they suddenly don't need people around who care about them anymore? Are adults not allowed to have parents or siblings anymore?"
Jorgen's eyes finally narrowed.
"That is not the issue in your case!" he bellowed. "What IS at stake here is that Cosmo and Poof have failed in their duties to watch after you! They apparently let you wander around Fairy World unsupervised! And as such I cannot allow them to continue in their present—"
POOF POOF OUCH!
"ANNA!" cried Cosmo and Poof in relief.
"COSMO! POOF!" Anna was just as relieved to see her fairies, but her relief turned to shock and horror when she saw their condition. "What the poof—I, I mean, what the heck happened to you guys?"
"We had a little run-in with Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Poof," Poof mumbled, glaring at Jorgen. "Someone isn't doing a very good job of keeping the anti-fairies contained…"
"DON'T TELL ME HOW TO DO MY JOB!" Jorgen bellowed. "Seeing as you two don't even know how to do YOUR job! How do you explain the fact that your goddaughter was wandering around Fairy World completely unsupervised?!"
"We were fighting anti-fairies!" Cosmo protested harshly.
"And besides, I'm a determined and stubborn little cuss and I gave them the slip!" added Anna. She didn't know exactly what anti-fairies were, but seeing as their presence seemed to be oddly helping their argument, she decided to not add the fact that whatever they were, they hadn't been there when she had left. "And who says I need to have constant supervision, anyway? I'm not a baby!"
"Maybe not, but Fairy World can still be a dangerous place, poof poof!" Poof admonished her. "What if the anti-fairies found you instead? And what the poof are you doing here, anyway?"
"She is fighting authority, that is what she is doing!" Jorgen bellowed.
"Are you insane?" cried Poof. "Don't you know? When you fight authority, authority always wins!" He paused thoughtfully. "Although, I've been doing it since I was a young kid and I come out grinning…"
Anna sighed impatiently. "Can you go even one day without quoting some song by some long-dead singer?"
Poof smiled proudly. "Nope."
"I'm not fighting authority," Anna insisted, turning back to look Jorgen squarely in the eyes. "I'm just telling authority that a certain rule of his stinks and he really should change it. Because believe me, I'll never, ever be happy for the rest of my childhood knowing that I'm gonna lose my fairies no matter what I do. And if you're not gonna change the rule…" She glanced behind her at Cosmo and Poof who were hovering near her protectively, gulped, and turned back to Jorgen, standing a bit firmer. "If you're not gonna change the rules, then take Cosmo and Poof away from me now."
Cosmo and Poof gasped.
"Anna!"
"Don't SAY that!"
"If you're not gonna change the rule, or at least look into changing it, then…" Anna continued to look at Jorgen firmly, ignoring the shocked protests of her fairies. "Then just take them from me now instead of prolonging the inevitable. I'd rather forget just one month of happy memories than forget an entire eight years. I won't let what happened to my grandpa happen to me."
There was a stunned silence for a moment or two.
"Jorgen, don't!"
Cosmo was finally able to move, floating right next to Anna and clasping her arm protectively. "Don't take her away from me, please! I feel happy again, and I never thought I would be after Wanda died, and I know it'll never be the same without her and maybe I shouldn't even try, but I did try, and this past month I really have felt… like I'm maybe getting better! And besides…" He looked at Anna and gave a small, incredulous smile. "She wants me! She told me herself! She wants me for her fairy godfather! And I… and I want her for my goddaughter."
And then, at the same time, they both flung themselves into each other's arms, tightly and affectionately.
"I love you, Anna. And I'm not gonna let anybody take you away from me."
"I love you too, Cosmo…"
Jorgen stared in dumbfounded shock at the scene unraveling before him.
This was the moment Poof chose to speak up again.
He floated right up to Jorgen's face, awkwardly holding out his weekly report with his one good hand. "Here, Jorgen. Here's your stupid weekly report. And do you want to know something? Every time I've sat down and worked on these things, I've always been struck with how pointless the whole thing was. If you wanted an idea of how Dad was going to do back on the job, then you should have just asked me. Because I know better than anyone else how he's going to do as a parental figure. Duh. I'm his kid. You should have just asked me! But no, you wanted it officially documented, so here it is." He sharply shook the papers once in Jorgen's face. "Read through this and through the other status reports I've given you and you'll see that the world's still spinning, and both Dad and Anna are okay and even better off from meeting each other." He painfully motioned towards them with his broken hand. "You just now saw it right before your very eyes, poof poof! And you'll see that the worst catastrophe that happened this whole time wasn't even Dad's fault at all. It was mine." He hovered back over to Cosmo and Anna, dropped his status report right next to Anna in Jorgen's palm, and waved his wand, gently lowering Anna back down to the ground. Cosmo quickly followed her, both of them looking up at Poof in awe.
"So," Poof finished, pointing at Jorgen with his wand. "So admit that my dad is a wonderful and capable fairy godparent and that he can do his job by himself and approve him back to full godparenting status. Do it. You have absolutely no reason not to."
Poof floated back down to hover on the other side of Anna, and the three of them, with determination and only a little bit of timidity, looked up at Jorgen, waiting for his response.
Jorgen regarded the three of them, his expression unreadable.
Anna gulped, worry beginning to settle in her stomach, but she still stood firm. She had told him what she wanted to tell him. She had presented her case. And if Jorgen felt that this made her too insolent and unruly to be allowed to keep her fairies… well, she had meant what she had said about not prolonging the inevitable, too. If he was going to take Cosmo and Poof from her now… well, better now than later. Despite how attached she was to them already. …Despite how much she loved them already. That meant it would only be more painful later. Better now than later.
Jorgen finally took a deep breath and turned his attentions to Poof.
"You realize that this is your fourth status report for me, right?"
"Uh… yes, it is," said Poof.
"You have been trailing and observing your father for a whole month now!"
"Yes, I have."
"And that means YOU ARE NO LONGER AUTHORIZED TO BE HERE!" Jorgen clenched his hand into a fist, the report instantly crumbling in it. "My original instructions, as you recall, were for you to follow your father for precisely one month, until he learned how to godparent again! And those conditions have now been fulfilled!"
Poof's eyes grew wide. "Those… those conditions have now been fulfilled?"
"That is what I said, yes!"
Poof looked to Cosmo, grinning from ear to ear. "Dad! Did you hear what Jorgen just said? He said you've learned! He said you don't need me watching you anymore! You're back to being a full-fledged godparent, poof poof!"
"But you are nothing of the kind!" Jorgen bellowed at Poof. "Now that the month is up you are no longer authorized to live with Cosmo and Anna! You have no training or credentials! And might I suggest, you lazy bum, that you finally actually enroll in the Fairy Academy? You have put off your further education for far too long!Now stop fooling around and go to school and GET A REAL JOB!"
Poof was barely listening. "It worked! We did it! YOU did it, Dad! You did it! Poof poof poof!"
"There is something that I never understood about you," Jorgen muttered with irritation to Cosmo. "Something about both you and Wanda. There was always something about your relationships with your godchildren, and they with you, that was different, but I never could quite put my finger on it… but now I know what it is. It's loyalty." He looked from Cosmo to Anna, and then back to Cosmo. "For most fairy godparents, it's just a job. But for you and Wanda… you two really did embrace the 'parents' part of 'godparents'. Whether or not that is a good thing I have yet to figure out… for while all your godchildren have been more fiercely loyal to you than any other fairies' godchildren, they are also far more troublesome and anti-establishment. What I do know for sure is that if this was due to Wanda's doing in the past, you had been her partner for so long that it has apparently rubbed off on you as well!"
"So I get to stay with Anna?" Cosmo asked.
"Oh for goodness' sake, YES!" cried Jorgen. "If I had wanted to fail you I would have just kicked you out of the godparenting program after your last debacle! But I kept my patience long enough to give you another chance, and thank goodness you didn't screw that up—because I have no patience left! Neither you nor Anna should even be here, and now that I have Poof's final status report he shouldn't be here either, he should be GETTING HIS LAZY BEHIND TO THE FAIRY ACADEMY AND ENROLLING! So all three of you GET OUT BEFORE I FORCE YOU OUT!"
"But—" Anna began.
"NOT QUICK ENOUGH!" Jorgen slammed his wand staff into the ground, and with an ear-splitting BOOM Cosmo, Poof, and Anna were suddenly outside the huge, closed doors of headquarters.
"Did you hear that?" Poof cried in jubilation. "Did you hear what he—OUCH!" Unfortunately, in his zeal, Poof had instinctively attempted to motion wildly with both hands, forgetting that one was still broken.
"Okay, okay, first thing's first, Cosmo, I wish your face was healed and Poof's hand was healed!" Anna cried.
POOF!
Poof's smile disappeared. "It's not always that easy, Anna, a lot of times injuries have to be forwarded to the hospital, because even with magic healing often takes advanced… medical… knowledge…" He stopped and stared at his right hand, with which he had been effortlessly motioning the entire time, slowly clenching it open and closed. "It… it's healed, it doesn't hurt anymore…" He looked up at Cosmo in astonishment.
Cosmo, his face now healed and free of gashes, grinned confidently. "Dontcha know, Poof? Your old man's pretty handy with a wand!" He paused in confusion. "Wait a minute, why didn't I just do that in the first place?"
"Who cares?" cried Poof, grinning in complete exultation again, sweeping his father up in a hug and spinning him around. "You did it, Dad, you did it!"
"Yeah, I'm an awesome healer!" exclaimed Cosmo.
"Not just that! You made through your first month of godparenting without Mama! And Jorgen gave you the okay to keep on doing it! I knew you could do it! Didn't I tell you you could do it? I knew you could, I knew you could, and now Jorgen knows too, poof poof! Aren't you proud?"
Cosmo's smile grew warmer. "Yeah, I guess so, but you know what I'm more proud of? What I'm the most proud of? I'm the most proud of having you for a son!"
"And I'm the most proud of having you for a dad!"
The two laughed in pure happiness as they gripped each other tighter.
"Uh, guys?" Anna spoke up, her eyes still wide with worry. "Not to break this up, it's sweet, really, but…" She pointed back to headquarters, her voice trembling. "I didn't accomplish anything back there. Jorgen didn't say he'd change the rule! I'm still gonna forget about you guys eventually! Maybe not now, but in no more than eight years I will!"
Poof let go of Cosmo and gave Anna a knowing smile. "Anna, don't worry! Do you realize the fact that after what you did just now Jorgen still let you keep us shows that you got to him? Maybe he won't do anything now, but he'll at least think about it, believe me."
"But that's not enough!" Anna protested. "I want to keep you guys forever, no ifs and or buts about it, and—but wait, he already sent you away! He said you can't be with us anymore!"
Cosmo gasped. "That's right! POOFY! DON'T GO!" He flung himself back at Poof, blubbering hysterically.
Poof gently pushed Cosmo away from him, still smiling. "Now hold on. He didn't say I couldn't ever see you again. He just said I'm not authorized to live with you while you're on the job, Dad. That's standard procedure, after all. I'm not going away. I'm just going to the academy. It's like college for you humans," he said to Anna. "And what college student doesn't come home on the weekends and quarter breaks, lugging back all his laundry, asking his parents for money…" He suddenly reached into his pocket, pulled out his billfold, opened it, peered inside, and chuckled sheepishly. "And on that note, Dad… can I borrow some money?"
Cosmo dug through his pockets. "I have a quarter. Is that enough?"
"It'll do for now." Poof took the coin and dropped it in his wallet, grinning at both his father and Anna. "I'm not going away forever," he assured them. "Far from it. You guys aren't getting rid of me that easily. Besides, Anna, do you know how valuable I'll be to you at school? I'm young and full of ideas. And I'll be surrounded by other young fairies full of ideas. This is how revolutions are started! I start a movement, say, 'Hey, poof poof, godkids shouldn't have their godparents taken away when they turn eighteen, and they shouldn't forget about them either, that's not right!' other people listen and agree with me, pretty soon we'll have a whole front that people and authority have to take notice of!"
"You really think that will work?" Anna asked.
"It's the most surefire method we have. Ideological revolutions are always born in places of learning." His smile faded slightly as he let out a light sigh. "Fairy Academy. I'm finally going. Jorgen's right, I've put it off for far too long… I still just don't know what I want to do with my life, though."
"Might I suggest going becoming a fairy godparent?" Anna said with a knowing wink. "You'd be a natural. And besides, it's in your blood."
Poof gave her a warm, grateful smile. "Well. I'll think about that, poof poof."
Cosmo sniffled. "I can't believe my baby's going to academy! Well, wait a minute, not my baby, my… adult… uh…" He cleared his throat and straightened up. "Before you go off and be a responsible adult, Poofy—I, I mean, Poof." In response to Poof's questioning glance, he explained, with an embarrassed twinge in his cheeks, "Because you are an adult now, you probably don't like me calling you such a babyish name like 'Poofy'…"
Poof laughed lightly. "Dad, 'Poof' is a babyish name."
Cosmo chuckled too. "I guess you're right. Like always!"
"If it were anyone else calling me 'Poofy', no, I wouldn't like it, but seeing as you've been calling me that forever… it'd be weird if you stopped now." Poof smiled at him. "You have special dad privileges, you know."
Cosmo brightened. "Awesome! Then I will use my dad privileges and call you 'Poofy' until the end of time! So anyway, Poofy, now that you're going to the academy I feel that, as your father, I should impart words of wisdom to you and all… even though I'm a moron and don't have any words of wisdom… and besides, I don't really think you need them. Whatever you decide to do while you're there, I'm sure you'll be fantastic at it! Just always remember the Uhsmith family motto!"
Poof blinked. "What's that?"
"Uh…"
"You… don't know it?"
"No, that's it! 'Uh'." Cosmo grinned at him. "How do you think we got the name 'Uhsmith' in the first place? When you don't know what to say, just say 'uh'! It will get you far! Got me pretty far, anyway!"
Poof smiled again too. "Uh. Sounds great. I'll remember that. And I'll take good care of the house, too. I promise not to trash it. And on that note…" Poof waved his wand, causing a "POOF POOF" cloud, but nothing appeared or changed.
"What… did you just do?" Anna asked.
"Moved my stuff from the fishbowl back to our house here in Fairy World."
"You can… move stuff from one place to another while you're in a third place?"
Poof skillfully twirled his wand in his hand. "I'm pretty handy with a wand too. In fact, I didn't even move all of it to the same place. There's one item I sent to me, if I got my aim right…" He patted down the lower pocket of his jacket, smiling in affirmation. "Yep. Got it. I actually bought this for you when I was in Fairy World last week, Anna… was gonna give it to you for Christmas, but I think you should have it now…"
He reached into his pocket and pulled out that something that made Anna's jaw drop.
It was a package of modeling clay. Real, professional modeling clay. Five chunks of varying shades of gray and five chunks of varying shades of brown, each the size of a brick—how on earth had Poof fit that package into his pocket, anyway?
"What do you think?" Poof asked.
Drool was beginning to collect in the corner of Anna's still slack-jawed mouth.
"I'm not an artist, so I don't know a thing about what makes good clay and what doesn't, but the guy at the store I bought it from says this is top-of-the-line stuff, and of course way more high-quality than anything you humans could make."
Anna was finally able to move, taking the package from Poof, still unable to speak or close her mouth.
Poof smiled gently at her. "Now you can finally make something that lasts."
Anna's eyes trembled. "I… I think I already have."
She let the package slip out of her hands and engulfed Poof in a huge, grateful hug. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you so much."
"Thank you," Poof murmured back. "…I always wanted a sister."
They continued holding each other tightly… that is, until they heard the click and saw the flash.
They both turned and looked at Cosmo in irritation.
Cosmo shrugged with an embarrassed smile, but not bothering to hide the camera. "Hey, come on, that was so a photo-op! You don't think I was just gonna let that pass me by, huh?"
Poof snorted sarcastically. "Great, now that that emotional moment was captured for all eternity…" He let go of Anna and twirled his wand in his hand again. "I'd probably better get going before Jorgen drags me there himself. And you guys had probably better get back to Earth soon too."
"Can't we at least stay for ice cream?" Cosmo asked.
"Can't you at least stay for ice cream?" Anna asked.
"I'd better not. Even without Jorgen breathing down my neck… I do need to get registered for classes, and I don't even know what my options are. I'll get to the academy, find out what classes they offer, figure out what I wanna try out… that'll take awhile… and then—"
"When will we see you again?" Anna asked.
Poof grinned. "Soon. Maybe next weekend. I'll keep in touch and let you know."
"How will you do that?" cried Cosmo, getting worried. "You'll be in Fairy World and we'll be… in Human World!"
"There's this wonderful invention called a telephone, you know… and we both have a cell…"
"And I still have this!" Anna added, pulling out the summoning device Poof had conjured last week.
Poof brightened. "Oh yeah, that's right, poof poof! In case there's ever some emergency when you need me, that'll bring me back right away."
"Can I hold it?" Cosmo asked.
"No," said Poof firmly. "Anna's in charge of it. Guard that thing with your life, sis."
Anna saluted. "Roger that."
Poof pulled Cosmo and Anna to him in one last, quick hug. "Love you guys. See you soon." He then pulled away, waved his wand, and—
"Poofy! Wait!"
Poof lowered his wand.
Cosmo still looked a bit unsure. "What if I mess up when you're gone?"
Poof smiled.
"You won't. You don't need me to teach you anymore. You never did. You knew how to do it all along."
And then he vanished in a POOF cloud that reminded him "YOU KNOW I'M ALWAYS RIGHT POOF POOF!"
Anna crossed her arms. "He isn't always right."
Cosmo looked at her questioningly.
Anna grinned, reaching down to pick up her clay.
"But I think he is in this case. Let's go home. I think we've done everything we've needed to do."
…
It seemed to Cosmo had Anna had done everything that day.
She worked on her homework. She ran downstairs to eat lunch and chat with her mother before she left for work. She began testing out her new art supplies (making comments like "This is the most amazing stuff I've ever worked with my entire LIFE" over and over again). She played video games with Cosmo—and won them all, of course.
And when supper rolled along, with Anna's mother still at work, working overtime that day, and Cosmo had asked Anna what she wanted for supper, worrying a little bit because the food he poofed up was always… of varying quality, let's put it that way—Anna had simply smiled, reached into the cupboard, and pulled out a bag of microwave popcorn.
"How about popcorn and a movie?"
"The popcorn sounds delicious," admitted Cosmo, "but I'm not exactly sold on the idea of eating a movie…"
They didn't eat it though. They watched it. And another one. They lounged on the couch all night, gorging themselves on popcorn (and the peanuts that Cosmo insisted on poofing up), smiling and laughing the entire time.
There was only one moment when Anna's smile had faded, and Cosmo had noticed it. "What's wrong, Anna-Banana?" he asked.
"Oh…" The corners of her mouth twitched upwards in a sad, apologetic smile. "I just miss Poof, that's all."
Cosmo's face fell. "Me too…"
"That's okay, though. He'll be back to visit soon." Anna's smile was fuller. "We'll have to make sure to watch a movie with him when he does. Maybe we'll even watch an Elvis movie in his honor."
"You know, I've seen every Elvis movie a billion times…"
Anna waited.
"…but if it's with you and Poofy, then I don't mind seeing them again one bit!" Cosmo finished.
Anna grinned, settling down into the couch with her popcorn. "Yeah, me neither."
Their conversation had slowly died off as the TV movie ran its course. It was an older movie, one of those feel-good chick flicks that paradoxically started with something terrible. A man who had shunned and ignored his children was trying to reconnect with them after the sudden, unexpected death of his wife. While this fictional character's situation was not identical to Cosmo's, the parallels were still not lost on him, and he quietly focused all his attentions to the screen, feeling all the more satisfied when the movie ended happily. The father had reconnected with his children. And while talking to them, apologizing for his actions, he said, "Just because things will never be the same without your mother… doesn't mean they still can't be wonderful."
The movie over, Cosmo only just then became aware that he was aware of something for the past ten minutes or so.
Anna had fallen asleep, her head leaning against Cosmo's shoulder.
Cosmo smiled at her affectionately.
This wasn't the first time this had happened in his godparenting career, to either himself or Wanda. And when it happened to Wanda, she would always sigh in contentment, stroking her godchild's hair for a few moments before carefully bringing the child back to his or her own bed. Even… even after Timmy's death, it had still happened in Fairy World, Poof often conking out on either one of his parents' shoulders or laps during a movie, and the still grieving Wanda would always give a genuine, loving smile.
Cosmo stroked Anna's hair.
"It never will be the same without you, Wanda," he murmured. "But I think… maybe… I'm gonna be okay."
He and Anna both breathed in tandem for awhile.
"If we'd have ever had a daughter…"
His hand paused, resting on Anna's temple.
"…I would have wanted her to be just like you," he finished softly, directly addressing Anna's sleeping form.
He carefully tried to pick her up, but remembering and quickly realizing that he wasn't the strongest of fairies, he instead grabbed his wand, hovering the still sleeping Anna in the air, and he floated next to her, holding her steady.
"Time for bed, Anna-Banana."
…
Tammy Hoffman had finally left the office, later than she had intended. Or wanted.
She hadn't exactly planned it this way. She had planned… well, she had planned to have a nice, old-fashioned, mother-father-child family, both parents working normal nine-to-five jobs that put food on the table and allowed them to spend time with their children.
What was more important, though… food, or time?
Time, of course, was more valuable. But providing for Anna meant investing her time elsewhere. Namely, work. But someday that would pay off. It was already, although in slow, hardly measurable increments. Tammy was able to give her daughter a nice house, three square meals a day, toys and games to keep her occupied, clothes on her back…
…although the cost was that sometimes she felt she hardly even knew her own daughter.
And now, with the divorce, and a divorce costs money… Tammy was going to have to put in even more hours at work. Even more hours away from Anna.
The divorce. What another nice stumbling block life had thrown in her path. Maybe part of her saw it coming, even years before Anna's gripes about her practically non-existent father made her opinion of the man so clearly known. Surprising as Cole's sudden move to Africa might have been… Tammy hadn't found it completely out of left field. The man could never stay in one place, with one idea, with one thing, for any length of time. Too many ideas in his head. Too many things he wanted to do. Maybe she had been nothing but a fool for thinking that perhaps a family, a child, would be the one thing he'd be able to stick with.
She had fallen desperately, hopelessly in love with that free spirit… a spirit that was too free.
Yes, she should have seen this coming. And part of her had. But that didn't make it any less stressful.
She was so stressed, in fact, that she was starting to see things…
It had been so odd, so sudden, the feeling that she was being watched that one night. And she was being watched. Of course, it was just her stressed, fatigued mind playing tricks on her, she knew that… but he had still seemed so real, that fairy. She wasn't even sure how she knew he was a fairy, come to think of it. He was flying—no, more like hovering—in the air, but when one thought of fairies, one thought of something like Tinkerbell, something small and delicate and beautiful. The fairy she had seen was about the size of a human child—about Anna's size, come to think of it—with brilliant green hair, and even a shirt and tie, for Pete's sake!
Finally arriving home, Tammy pulled up into the driveway in her hovercar, powered it down, and stepped out and towards her front door, sighing helplessly to herself. If that didn't make her crazy enough, what was worse was that she couldn't shake the feeling of déjà vu. That she had seen that fairy somewhere before. Not just seen, even… there was something just so, so familiar about him…
She shook her head to herself, stepping inside and shutting and locking the front door behind her. It must have just been some character from some cartoon that Anna watched or something. That had to be it. Despite the nagging feeling that her unfound memory of him seemed further back than Anna's lifetime. Maybe he was from a cartoon she herself had watched. Who knew? It didn't matter, this wasn't worth dwelling on, he wasn't—
She stepped into the living room, hearing that the TV was on, and gasped.
It was the fairy again, hovering in front of the TV, the remote in his hands.
He looked just as surprised to see her as she was to see him.
Tammy closed her eyes and shook her head again. Oh no. Not this again. This was just… she was imagining things, imagining a fairy was there to look after Anna while she couldn't, that's what it was…
The fairy abruptly pushed the power button on the remote, shutting the TV off.
Tammy took a deep breath, opening her eyes. "Is… is Anna alright?"
The fairy blinked at her.
"That's why you're here, isn't it?" Tammy clarified. "To look after Anna." It felt a little silly to talk to her hallucination, but maybe to figure out just why she was having it, that's what she had to do.
The fairy finally gave her a shaky, nervous smile.
"Yeah. She's fine. She fell asleep watching a movie and I put her to bed. She's out like a light!"
"Well… well, good, thank you." Tammy gave a soft chuckle at herself, shaking her head again. "You know, I'm still convincing myself that you're not real."
"That's good!" the fairy insisted. "Keep convincing yourself that! I'm not real at all!"
Tammy laughed again, although it was an incredulous, disbelieving one. Inexplicably, actually addressing him wasn't clearing anything up at all. In fact, it was only making her even further doubt that this was imagined. That… that the fairy really was there. And what's more… that smile, that voice, they were comforting in a tantalizingly familiar way, one that Tammy couldn't quite discern… It was maddening, like the sensation of a word being on the tip of your tongue, only a thousand times worse.
"I must really be a terrible parent, if some… some fairy who I'm still not convinced isn't real… or is real… has to come and be a parent for me."
The fairy's eyebrows raised in surprise.
"You're not a bad parent. Believe me. I've seen lots of bad parents, and you're not one of them. You're just busy." He grinned. "I've seen lots of those, too."
"I'm glad you think so… imaginary figment of my mind…" Tammy rubbed her temples. "But… could you let Anna know that… it might not seem like it now, but I'm doing this for her? She's… pretty much all I have left right now," she finished softly.
The fairy's eyes softened.
"I know how that is. And—and yeah, I'll tell her."
Tammy smiled hesitantly.
"You're very comforting, for not being real and all."
The fairy grinned at her again. "Thank you! I do try! Uh—since I'm not real, I'd better go now—oh, wait a minute! Anna was gonna tell you but since you're here I'll tell you myself. You're out of popcorn. And peanuts. Could you pick some up?" His eyes brightened. "Ooh! And maybe some cheese curds, too!"
Tammy exhaled with a half laugh. "Um… yeah, sure."
The fairy continued to smile. "Awesome! Thanks!" He pulled a star-topped wand out of seemingly nowhere and held it in the air, looking as though he was about to wave it… but then stopped, looking Tammy straight in the eye. "I'm not real, remember."
Tammy nodded.
"And you're a good parent, Tammy. Remember that too."
POOF!
He vanished.
Tammy groaned softly, rubbing at her forehead. Dear lord, she really was losing it…
And then, abruptly, disbelievingly, she lowered her hands from her face, staring wide-eyed at the spot the fairy had just occupied, her mind finally grasping the wisp of a slippery thread of memory.
"Cosmo…?"
flower_kat on Chapter 5 Fri 20 May 2022 11:33AM UTC
Comment Actions
deskdraik (Guest) on Chapter 12 Tue 18 Feb 2014 01:54AM UTC
Comment Actions
Sibiricus (Guest) on Chapter 12 Sun 02 Apr 2017 04:32PM UTC
Comment Actions
Sibiricus (Guest) on Chapter 12 Sun 02 Apr 2017 04:35PM UTC
Comment Actions
Commander on Chapter 12 Mon 03 Apr 2017 03:03AM UTC
Comment Actions
flower_kat on Chapter 12 Fri 20 May 2022 10:04PM UTC
Comment Actions
Commander on Chapter 12 Wed 25 May 2022 05:26PM UTC
Comment Actions
flower_kat on Chapter 12 Wed 25 May 2022 06:03PM UTC
Comment Actions
magicallyfuckingdelicious (flower_kat) on Chapter 12 Wed 25 May 2022 07:08PM UTC
Comment Actions
FountainPenguin on Chapter 12 Tue 25 Jul 2023 04:19AM UTC
Comment Actions
Commander on Chapter 12 Sun 30 Jul 2023 11:30PM UTC
Comment Actions