Be careful what you wish for . . .

Be careful what you wish for . . .

If life were just a question of wanting something badly enough, the world would be filled with lottery winners and people in love.

**********

Once upon a time there was a young girl named Daphne. Now Daphne is undeniably a beautiful name, full of wonderful sounds and possibilities; but the girl hated her name. In fact, she hated just about everything about herself. The other kids called her “Daffy,” her skin was too pale and had too many freckles, her hair was too red, her hips were too wide, her brother was too bratty, her parents too parenty. Daphne felt unhappy and unlucky; she was just the most uncomfortable girl around.

**********

We’ve all heard of fairy godmothers who step in and change unfortunate’s lives; what we don’t realize is that there are also creatures who step in just to mess with you.

**********

One day Daphne was sitting all by herself on the playground eating a tuna fish sandwich. She was feeling unsociable. All of a sudden Daphne realized that she was no longer sitting alone, across from her at the table was an old woman dressed in gauzy Gatorade green with glitter. Now normally if something unusual like that happened, Daphne would be alarmed or frightened, but the woman’s dress was just so outlandish and wild that she laughed instead.

“Well that’s a fine way to greet your fairy godmother!” The woman said with an irritated tone.

“Oh! I’m sorry. It’s just that you . . . startled me.” Daphne said in between chuckles.

“You don’t sound startled, but . . it doesn’t matter. Since I’m here, what is it that you wanted?”

“Wanted? There isn’t a dance or a party or a ball or anything coming up; it isn’t close to Christmas or my birthday. I don’t think I ‘wanted’ anything in particular.”

“Pfffff.” The fairy sneered. “You’ve been moping around, feeling sorry for yourself, ‘wanting’ for months. It just took me awhile to get here. What did you want?”

With such an open slate to write on, Daphne found herself complaining about everything from her hair and freckles to her brother and her parents . . . “and this school . . well it could be cleaner and prettier and I could be on the honor roll. . .”

“Enough!” The fairy swung an arm at her. “I get the picture.” The woman snapped two fingers and with a loud bang and a puff of smoke she disappeared and in her place was another girl who looked just like . . . Daphne. “It’s done.” Said the Daphne creature.

“But wait a minute. You look like me.”

“Not anymore. Since you aren’t going to be using your looks, I didn’t think you’d mind if I borrowed them.” The school bell rang and the Daphne creature ran to the classrooms.

Daphne got up to follow, but she felt heavy and unbalanced – which was a new “un” for Daphne. She looked down to see what was the matter and her body seemed very large and she was wearing . . . gauzy Gatorade green.

“Uh oh.”

She moved to class as quickly as her unfamiliar body would carry her and when she got outside the classroom, sure enough, the Daphne creature was sitting in her seat, thumbing through her history book. Daphne moved to step into the class and protest, but the teacher saw her and said that strangers weren’t allowed on the school grounds. Then he threatened to call the police.

“I don’t think that was my fairy godmother at all,” she thought. “I think that was a witch in disguise.” But Daphne didn’t know what to do about it. She couldn’t go home; her parents wouldn’t recognize her and they’d probably have her thrown in jail. Just crossing the street to sit on a bench and think about it, she was given a dollar by someone who thought she was a crazy homeless person, two small boys threw rocks at her and a dog tore her skirt. The chances of her solving her problems were just so unlikely that Daphne would have given anything to be herself again – pale skin and freckles and all.

Daphne sat on the bench all afternoon. She saw when her classmates came out for 2:30 break. She saw the Daphne creature kiss Peter Wolf on the mouth; she saw when she pushed Patty Muffet into the mud.

“At this rate, I’ll be even more unpopular if and when I return to my body.” She slouched uncomfortably on the bench. Her back ached from sitting in uncomfortable positions. If Daphne had thought her hips were too large before, now they were just enormous. She pushed against them as if to make them smaller and her hands got caught in the dense fabric. The dress had pockets! Eagerly, Daphne emptied the pockets. There was a bus transfer pass, a dime and a wintergreen lifesaver covered in blue lint. Nothing that could help her; she couldn’t even eat the lifesaver because it was . . . . disgusting. She felt more unhappy than she had ever felt and Daphne began to cry.

**********

It’s always darkest before the dawn. When God shuts a door, he opens a window. When you see the fork in the road, take it . . .

**********

A tear fell on the lint-covered lifesaver.

“Great,” Daphne thought, “I’ve made it even more disgusting.” She rose to throw the lifesaver into the trash. The blue lint began to swell and puff up like nerf material in her hand, but much heavier. Although she was against littering, Daphne was forced to drop the thing onto the ground. In just moments, there stood a beautiful fairy with a wand and a glittering blue dress.

The woman eyed Daphne for a minute or two, looking like she might zap her with her wand, but then she shook her head. “Where is she? You’re not her. I suppose she tricked you too. Where’d the gauzy green witch go?” Except she didn’t say “witch,” she said a meaner word with a “b” that Daphne wasn’t allowed to use.

Sometimes the less said the better, and Daphne thought maybe this was one of those moments so she wordlessly gestured to the school bus that she’d seen the Daphne creature board. The blue fairy fwacked her on the head with her wand, shrunk to the size of a hummingbird and flew just as quickly as one after the bus.

Daphne looked down at her body. “You know, my hips aren’t really that big.” She began to walk home, uncomplaining even though she had missed the bus.

**********

I’d like to say that Daphne’s parents and brother immediately noticed a change in her. I’d like to say that Daphne’s friends were so busy talking about the weird old woman in a green dress on the school bus that they didn’t remember the awful things “she” had done the day before. I’d like to say that Daphne never complained again.

But she did . . . . the very next day when she got back her score on an Algebra test the witch had taken.