It was about 8am when I got up, a bit earlier than my usual time for a Saturday, because Starla and I were going to go shopping today. I had just put on my clothes when I heard a thud come from the bathroom. I rushed in and saw Starla down on her hands and knees, her clothes looking slightly baggy on her.
“Starla, what’s wrong!” I asked.
Starla looked up at me, a terrified expression on her face. “Lillian? No, not now! Why’d this have to happen today?”
“What’s happening? What are you…?” I then saw that Starla’s clothes were even baggier now. That’s when it hit me; she was shrinking.
As Starla’s clothes slid off her body, I saw that her long blonde hair was turning mostly pink but for a few streaks of lavender. Her ears poked out from behind her hair as they became pointed and, just as she stopped shrinking at about 9 ½ inches, large butterfly-like wings sprang from her back, around her shoulder blades. They were the same colors as her hair.
My knees gave out and I fell on the seat of my pants. I watched in stunned silence as Starla stood up, let out a depressed sigh, waved her hand across her pile of clothes causing them to vanish and reform on her body in her size and look up at me; an image of worry across her face.
Finally, I spoke up. “Starla, you’re a fairy?”
Starla sighed again. “Yes Lillian, I am. It’s the only secret I’ve ever kept from you.”
“But why would you keep something like this from me?” I shouted. “We trusted each other with some pretty big secrets before and we’ve never betrayed that trust before.”
“We are forbidden to tell any humans about us, no matter how much we trust them. It’s the price we must pay for living here. I was about to reinforce the spell keeping me in human form, as I always do in the morning, when it gave out. It’s happened before, but you were always sound asleep. Heck, sometimes I’d stay in fairy form for a few minutes and fly around a little when you had to go into work early.” Starla let out an angered sigh. “But I just HAD to use the bathroom first, didn’t I? And now you know that I’m a fairy.”
“No one has to know about this.” I said. “We’ve kept secrets before, and we’ll keep this one.”
“From humans, maybe; but there’s no keeping this a secret from the fairies. They most likely know already.” Tears welled up in Starla’s tiny blue eyes. “I’m sorry Lillian, but because of my stupid mistake, I have to take you to the fairy world.”
“Why?” I said more worried than I’d ever been before. “What’s going to happen to us there?”