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So last night, I’m running behind on my toddler’s schedule and I forget to read ‘Goodnight Farm’ – yikes! There I am, in the dark, feeding Frank his last bottle: the night light stars are softly glowing on the ceiling and the light, sleepy music is lulling us both into fuzzy mode. My eyes suddenly widen – oh no – I forgot the bedtime story and Frank is such a stickler for the night time routine…

We came up with this, which although simple, I kind of love:

Once upon a time there was a little pixie and his name was Frankie. Frankie lived in the pixie area of the woodland (which was an area marked by a high contrast in light and shade), and whilst most pixies can be naughty, Frankie was exceptionally good. He was: well mannered, kind and generous, and that meant the minuscule faeries would often flit out of their sunny part of the woods and visit him.

He lived by himself and they felt that he needed company. Not only did he live alone , he struggled with maintaining his magical garden and he was also terrible in the kitchen. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t lazy – oh no. Poor Frankie was full of good intentions but he would start things and then get terrible distracted and begin something else. Half a wall, or a half sewn flower bed was a common site! Not to mention a mixing bowl full of something he’d started but it had never made it to the oven…

The faeries took pity on him and would flit about in his garden with their delicate and beautiful wings until they chanced upon an unfinished project, then they would use their magical powers to not only finish planting a bed of flowers but to also sew a real star into the centre of each one. Frank’s flowers were more amazing than any of the other flowers from the neighbouring pixie gardens.

Being extremely grateful, Frankie would repay the fairies with the one thing he was good at: sewing. Most deftly, he would spin and sew the most beautiful fairy clothes for them and he enjoyed doing this so he tended to complete everything he started for a change.

One day, one of the faeries was trying to cut back a particularly vigorous hawthorn bush that had been sprinkled with a ‘grow fast’ spell that an errant pixie had clumsily dropped from high up in a tree. The said pixie had no idea that the dust had dropped out of his pocket! The bush was quite out of control and, as usual, Frankie had started pruning the branches but the prickles had reminded him that he needed to tend his roses…

This fairy: Shashalala, caught a precious wing on one of the prickly thorns and it had ripped it clean in half. It hadn’t hurt but now the fairy couldn’t use the gossamer wing at all and that made them feel sad which was an  alien emotion; faeries usually feel full of joy one hundred percent of the time. Shashalala sang a melancholy song which was a blue/grey colour for people who could see music. The sound carried on the wind like a sycamore leaf until it reached Frankie’s pixie ears.

The song was almost too sad to listen to. Frankie dropped a sock he was darning and ran to the source of the woe. It broke his heart to see. He must take this fairy in and help to fix it like Shashalala had helped him.

He spent the following three days and three nights darning the special fairy wing. Why did it take so long? Faeries have magic woven into every single particle of their wings and one wrong stitch would mean not only would Shashalala be unable to fly, she would not be capable of any magic either. Both were unthinkable for such a creature. He must get it right.

After the three days and the three nights, Frankie was tired but happy with his work. Of course the fairy was delighted and overcome with gratitude for what Frankie had done for her but Frank thought it was no big deal – he liked to help others whenever he could.

Frankie and Shashalala shared fairy tea and passed a highly enjoyable afternoon catching up on all the latest magical gossip…