Once, there was this fairy, and her name was Clara. She lived in a hollow tree, and she made her own house. She lived there with her brother, Jim. Clara and Jim lost their parents in a fairy train crash, and now, they had nobody to take care of them. They had nobody to fly them to fairy school, and nobody to tuck them into their bed made of plastic bags, and broken markers, and tin cans, and other garbage at night. They had no one to take them to the library under the bush, the one where the librarian made books from tiny pieces of paper. The library was where Clara wished she could go most. Her parents were supposed to take her, but they died the day before.

One day, Clara was playing tag, with a magical ball of light, with her friends, Alicia, Grace, and Ava. Then her friends stopped flying around.

“Who is this picture of?” Grace asked, pointing to a flipped over photo in a frame.

Clara’s eyes started to water.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said as she secretly wiped her tears.

Clara ran to the bathroom to wash her face, and the girls flipped the picture over.

When Clara came back, she cried, “What are you guys doing?”

“Nothing,” they replied at once.

But Clara knew that the picture had said, “R.I.P. Clara’s mom, Sophia, and dad, John, to be remembered.”

“I have to go get my mom a present to get her a little happy,” lied Grace.

But this was an excuse. She really wanted to go gossip about Clara’s family to everyone.

“My mom and I have to do some homework,” said Alicia. “I have to go.”

But she didn’t really have to do homework. It was just an excuse.

“I feel so sorry that your parents died,” whispered Ava.

Clara felt a tad better that Ava said that because Ava didn’t usually speak very much.

“You should tell Alicia and Grace’s moms what they did. I know that they will gossip to everyone.”

As Clara flew Ava home, she felt sad and left out. But she also felt a little happy not to talk to them because her friends were being bullies to her and looking at her secret, private stuff. She wasn’t sad when they had left.

Ava said to Clara, “It would be okay if you and Jim stayed over at my house for a while, until you go to an orphanage.”

Clara felt happy and got all of the stuff out of her mind. She felt brave and ready to stand up for herself.

They picked up Clara’s brother, Jim, and left the hollow tree that was their old home and went to an apartment in Ava’s magic tree, which was on the fifth floor. The wallpaper was sparkling like a silver diamond in the sky. The bathroom was shiny purple. There were shimmering, blue shells hanging from the ceiling. It was like walking into a rainbow. Clara loved it. Ava’s mom said they could live there and not go to the orphanage. Ava’s mom, Carina, was so nice, and she gave them fairy delicious ice cream with fairy dust sprinkles for dinner.

Then, right after she ate the ice cream with the fairy dust, she got a little tired. When she woke up, she was back outside of her treehouse. Maybe I went to the wrong house, thought Clara. Clara heard people talking inside the house. It sounded like her mom and dad. She looked in the window, and she saw them. It felt like her stomach was on a really, really fun roller coaster. All she wanted to do was open the door, but it was locked and her key didn’t work.

She tried knocking, but they didn’t hear her. Clara was confused.

“Mom! Dad!” she yelled through the crack of the door. “I’m over here!”

But they still didn’t hear her. She tried climbing through the window, but that didn’t work, either. Wait, she thought. Those are my parents, but they aren’t answering me. Why can’t they hear me? Clara started to cry. She shed big, star-shaped fairy tears and let out long wailing squeaks.

When Clara woke up in the morning, she was one year younger, eating breakfast with her parents. She was so surprised. This must be a dream, she thought. Are these fake people, or are these real people? Clara wondered.

She ran up to them and hugged them, and they hugged back! They weren’t holograms. She was so excited, she wanted to scream. Her mom smelled like pretty perfume.

“Oh my god!” Clara screamed. “I never even knew that.”

“Why are you hugging us?” asked her mother.

“We’ve been here the whole time,” laughed her father.

Clara kept pinching herself to see if this was just a dream.

“Ow!” she cried.

Clara knew that this was real because the pinches really hurt. Clara wanted to tell Ava that she saw her parents, but it was one year earlier, and she didn’t know Ava then. She couldn’t tell her because she ate the magic fairy dust that was in the fairy delicious ice cream that made her go back in time.

Finally, her wish came true to go to the library. She held on to her parents hands tightly, not ever wanting to let go.

THE END