Freckles

After years of training he finally gets his first assignment.

Freckles stumbled home just before dawn after celebrating his graduation from Magical Creatures Academy. It had taken him only forty-three years, mostly because every instructor insisted he was a spectacularly slow learner. Freckles preferred the term “thorough.”

The following morning, someone pounded on his bedroom door.

He buried his head beneath a pillow.

“Go away! I’m trying to sleep!”

The knocking stopped.

“That’s better,” he mumbled.

Without warning, the pillow vanished.

“Hey! What’s your problem?”

Standing over him was the Assignment Supervisor, Mr. Whatkiss, arms folded like an angry gargoyle.

“You’re late,” barked Whatkiss. “Your Job Assignment interview was four hours ago!”

Freckles yawned. “I’m sure you saved something special for me, right?”

“Oh, absolutely. Something magnificent for the fellow who graduated seventy-third out of one hundred after only forty-three years.”

Freckles brightened. “So…what is it?”

“You’re the new Tooth Fairy for North America.”

“I don’t want it!”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“For starters, collecting teeth is disgusting! Do you know where they’ve been? Then there are the children. Don’t get me started. And I’m not wearing sparkly wings and tights. Besides, it’ll ruin my late-night partying.”

Whatkiss sighed dramatically.

“Fine. Let me check the remaining openings. Ah yes. Troll under a bridge…in Siberia.”

Freckles shivered.

“Alrighty then. Tooth Fairy it is.”

That night, grumbling the entire time, Freckles collected his first tooth.

Beneath the pillow he discovered a handwritten note beside the tooth.

Dear Tooth Fairy, I left two cookies because grown-ups probably get hungry too.

Freckles smiled despite himself.

He quietly left extra coins, finished both cookies, and realized children weren’t nearly as troublesome as adults. Maybe this ridiculous job would pave the way to him getting his dream job…Cupid.
It could happen.
One thing he learned at the Academy.
Don’t ever give up!
WC 296