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It was another lovely evening in the lovely garden outside their lovely home, and Erik was enjoying it in solitude. At least, he thought it was solitude until he heard a most unlovely noise.
There was a rustle in jellybean bush, and Erik glared at it. A moment later, another gremlin crawled out of it on all fours. Erik snarled at him, fear spiking through his small body. He hadn’t seen another gremlin this far from the forest before. What was he doing here? This wasn’t good!
“What are you wearing?” The other gremlin sniffed, giving Erik’s finely tailored suit and cravat a disdainful look.
“It’s called fashion, you uncultured numpty,” Erik hissed.
The other gremlin laughed heartily.
“Erik, darling, it’s almost time for dinner,” Christine’s voice floated through the window.
“You need to leave right now,” Erik warned. If Christine caught sight of this interloper, it was all over.
But the other gremlin grinned.
“Perhaps I’ll stay for dinner, Erik,” he smirked.
Erik rolled up his sleeves and pulled a long red rope out of his coat pocket.
“We’ll see,” he said darkly.
Christine paid no mind that Erik did not show up for dinner—her angel often skipped meals, coming and going as he pleased. He showed up for bedtime, creeping in and curling up at the foot of the bed later that night.
Erik gave no thought to the intruder past that. He had been there, and then he wasn’t—and Erik’s way of life had been safely preserved. He didn’t think anything of it until two days later when he was sitting on the floor watching the chatterbox with Christine and Raoul.
He was laying on the floor with his little legs propped up on the couch, watching the screen upside down. Christine and Raoul were sitting normally, watching the news.
There was an avalanche of cotton candy in the next town over. A turtle infestation at the local library. Elected officials were disappearing and alarm clocks were being found in their place. It was a usual news day. But then another story came up on the screen.
“A new disease is spreading through the gremlin community—highly infectious and highly deadly, it’s also preventable with a simple vaccine which can be found at any health station. This disease currently only infects gremlins, and officials are urging them to get vaccinated. Humans, fairies, gnomes, centaurs, and other species are currently safe from this contagion,” the reporter said. “The vaccine not only offers protection from contracting the disease, but if taken before symptoms appear, can even heal an existing infection.”
Erik stared with a gaping mouth at the chatterbox screen. A gremlin disease?! He glanced up at Christine, who just looked bored as she watched the screen. He glanced at Raoul, who had his arms crossed as he glared down at Erik.
Erik sat up, still reeling. But he couldn’t say anything. Christine thought him an angel—what would an angel have to fear from a gremlin disease?
But Erik was very afraid. He didn’t want to die!
He agonized over it all evening. What if he was already infected? He was surely going to die! It was highly infectious… If the other gremlin had it, then Erik had surely caught it…
He wanted to weep and gag and cough and weep even harder. He stayed in the kitchen all night, panicking.
That was where Raoul found him when he entered the kitchen later that night for a midnight snack.
“How are you this evening, Vicomte?” Erik said politely, wringing his little hands.
Raoul cast him a suspicious look.
“Fine,” he replied. “Why aren’t you asleep? What mischief are you up to?”
“Must it always be mischief?” Erik asked plaintively.
“With you? Yeah.”
“I was just thinking about the disease that’s spreading,” Erik confessed, his shoulders sagging.
“Oh? Yeah that sucks I guess.” Raoul rummaged in the pantry for some cookies.
“I was just thinking how awful it would be if I had it,” Erik continued.
“You could just get the vaccine,” Raoul said around a bite of persimmon chicken cookie.
“I’d have to go to the health center,” Erik said, a hint of despair creeping into his voice.
“Yeah.”
“A vaccine is a shot, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve never had a shot before,” Erik said nervously. “What do they do?”
“Well, there’s a needle, and they fill it up with some stuff, and then they stick the needle into your gluteus muscle, and then you’re fine.”
“My what?”
“Gluteus.”
“Where’s that?” Erik was confused.
“Your butt.”
Erik looked offended at the very word. His hands went protectively to his butt, as though they would ward off any stray needles.
“Anyway, you probably don’t even need your shot. You can only catch it from others like you, right? And you live here with us. You’ve not even been in contact with anyone who might spread it.”
Erik started to chew nervously at his long nails.
“That’s just it,” he fretted. “There was someone like me here recently… He could have given it to me.”
Raoul’s face fell.
“Are you serious? Oh, please tell me he’s not still hanging around here. I couldn’t handle another one.”
A fleeting grin formed on his little face, a glint coming into his eyes.
“Ha ha! Ha! No no, I assure you, he has… taken his leave as it were,” he assured him, grinning as though he were telling a great joke before suddenly becoming troubled again. “I need that vaccine, Raoul.”
“So? Go get it then.”
“I—I can’t.”
“Well, die, then. What do you want me to do?” Raoul looked with annoyance at the bag of cookies, noticing it was almost empty now. How was Erik’s weird gremlin stuff his problem in the middle of the night?
“I want you to go with me to the health center.”
“What? Why? Go yourself.”
“I can’t!” He fretted, on the verge of tears. “You have to go with me!”
“Ok, ok, I’ll take you tomorrow,” Raoul grumbled.
“No! It has to be tonight! Right now! What if I start having symptoms? It’ll be too late!”
Raoul sighed heavily. It was exasperating, but Erik had a point.
“And Christine will be very upset if I die,” Erik added ominously.
“Shit,” Raoul grumbled, putting the almost empty cookie bag back on the shelf. “Alright, let’s go.”
“Raoul,” Erik begged. “I’m scared.”
Raoul stared at him for a moment.
“Once you get the vaccine there’s nothing to be scared of.”
“I’m scared of the vaccine,” Erik all but sobbed.
Raoul ran a hand through his hair, huffing. He reached down and picked up Erik, who clung to his nightshirt sleeve and buried his face in the fabric.
“Come on. I’m not letting Christine get hurt by anything. You’re getting that vaccine.”
Erik whined and moaned and cried during the entire swan cab ride to the health center. Raoul picked off the stray feathers from them both as he tugged on Erik’s hand to pull him up the steps of the health center entrance, but Erik refused to go in.
“Come on!” He cried at him. “It’s gonna take two seconds!”
But Erik collapsed in a small heap, sobbing and wailing into his hands. Raoul closed his eyes, irritated.
Just then a gust of wind blew across them. Raoul looked up, the night getting strangely bright suddenly. The wind had blown away the heavy cloud coverage that had persisted all afternoon and evening, and it revealed that the cotton candy avalanche had caused the moon to be unexpectedly full.
Raoul blinked, dazzled by the sudden moonlight, then looked down at Erik. This unusual moon weather had had the same effect on him as a regular full moon. Erik was now taller than Raoul.
“Look,” Raoul said, peeved. “You’re big now. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
He grabbed Erik by the hand and proceeded to drag up the stairs, a feat made all the more difficult by his newfound size.
“Erik,” he pleaded. “You gotta. Let’s make a deal, okay? You don’t have to get your shot.”
“You’d let me die?!” Erik shrieked.
“No!” He wiped his face, frustrated. “Just—don’t think about the shot right now. All you have to do right now is stand up. Can you do that?”
Erik hesitatingly stood on shaky legs, cowering.
“There! Great job… champ,” Raoul offered awkwardly. “Now you just have to walk up the stairs.”
“And then?” Erik asked petulantly, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
Raoul narrowed his eyes at him.
“We’ll worry about that when we get there,” Raoul said ominously.
With much coaxing and hand patting, Erik made it inside the health center.
A health mechanic greeted them and asked what they were there for.
“My, er, friend is a gremlin and he’d like to get his vaccine, please,” Raoul told them.
Erik suddenly howled and turned and ran, fleeing the health center. Raoul cast an apologetic look at the mechanic and ran after him.
He found Erik outside, leaning up against a tree and covering his face with his hands as he sobbed.
Raoul jabbed a finger at him.
“Christine isn’t going to like it if you die,” he reminded him.
Erik sniffled hard then straightened up. He kept his gaze on the ground, but he followed Raoul back into the health center.
The mechanic already had the paperwork ready to go, and Erik took one look at it and howled again, but Raoul blocked the door.
“Pull yourself together!” He hissed. “Do it for Christine!”
Erik nodded, rubbing at his eyes.
“Okay. I’m ready,” he said, his voice shaking.
The mechanic looked from Erik to Raoul.
“Is this the gremlin?” The mechanic asked.
“Yes,” Raoul said flatly.
“Why is he big?” The mechanic asked.
“You know,” Raoul said, a cross look coming over his face momentarily. “I ask myself the same thing every month.”
The mechanic shrugged and finished writing on the paperwork before handing it to Raoul.
“Fill these out while I go get the vaccine,” they said, and left the room.
Erik was trembling as Raoul handed him the papers to read. The bright green and pink and blue neon lights buzzed on the walls, and Raoul stifled the urge to tap his foot. Erik was clearly struggling, and he couldn’t help that it was past one in the morning, he guessed. Raoul just wanted to get this over with.
“What’s this?” Erik asked, aghast.
“It says the vaccine is composed of tiny fairies. They do stuff to yogurt cells and clear out any infection and then they leave your body, uh, through the nose.” He glanced at Erik’s lack of nasal structure, but there was a hole there and that was all the fairies needed, really.
“Raoul!” Erik looked on the verge of despair. “What if the fairies refuse to treat me because I’m so ugly?”
Raoul stared at him a long time, then asked a question he had wanted to ask for even longer.
“Are you very much more ugly than most gremlins, then?”
Erik hissed and swatted the papers at him before signing his name at the bottom with a crayon he found on the floor.
The mechanic came back a moment later and Erik burst into tears at the sight of the needle.
“I can’t!” He cried. “I won’t!”
Raoul was beginning to despair. The mechanic hesitated, unwilling to vaccinate an unwilling participant.
“Lean over the table,” the mechanic offered. “It’ll hurt less if you’re leaning on something.”
Erik begrudgingly leaned over the table, grumbling under his breath in between bouts of tears.
Raoul grabbed his clawed hands and looked him in the eye.
“You can do this, Erik,” he said encouragingly. “It’s going to be over in a minute and then you don’t have to worry anymore. You’ll be healthy for Christine. Think of her!”
Erik looked at him hopefully.
“You think so?”
“I know so,” he said firmly. “You are going to be fine!”
Erik nodded, sniffling, then dropped his pants. The mechanic jabbed the needle into his muscle. Erik wailed, more out of fear than pain, and then, a mere second later, he sneezed out a great cloud of sparkling gold dust.
Later, as they rode on the swan cab back home, Erik looked sour as he rubbed his hand over his butt where the injection had happened. The mechanic had assured him that the fairies were in his system the normal amount of time, and that no, they hadn’t left earlier because of his appearance.
Erik was safe from any disease. Raoul was glad but exhausted. He could see now why Erik hadn’t wanted to go by himself.
They slunk into the house, trying to keep quiet, but Christine was already awake.
They both paused an instant in the hallway, taking in the fact that she was up and in her chair by the fireplace and reading a book. She glanced up from her book to look at them.
“Erik!” She said, surprised. “You’re big!”
Erik suddenly burst into great sobs once more, running and falling at her feet, resting his head on her lap as he cried.
“Oh! My darling, whatever is wrong? Did you get hurt somewhere?”
Erik nodded his head, face still buried in the flounces of her skirt.
“Where?” She asked, smoothing a hand over his poor head. “Tell me where, Angel, and I’ll kiss your injury better.”
Erik lifted his face and opened his mouth to tell her where the injury was, but before he could tell her, Raoul cleared his throat loudly for almost a full minute.
“He’s fine,” Raoul dismissed.
But Christine didn’t look certain, not when her Angel was bawling his shining eyes out at her feet.
“Anyway,” Raoul continued. “The moon was weird tonight so I guess he’s big or something. We were just out on a walk and he uhhhh bumped his knee I think. He’s fine though. Isn’t that right, Erik?”
Erik babbled something incoherent.
“Oh, I’m glad you’re fine, Angel,” Christine said, still petting his head.
Erik looked up at her with shining eyes.
“I shall always endeavor to be fine for you, my Christine,” he murmured.
Raoul rolled his eyes. Erik was nothing if not dramatic—some might say overdramatic. But he had to admit, he was pretty glad that Erik was going to be fine, too.