Dream Killer

I browsed titles looking my current reading interest as Ani searched her section for who know what and soon retuned clutching three gaudy colored boxes to her chest, announcing, “Here these are the ones I want.’

“ Good luck “ I countered. “ You only have five bucks. Lets see what you’ve got.

Ani’s cache revealed some sort of magic kit from the Harry Potter School of Magic, or something like that, all I remember the box had Harry Potter inscribed on it and it cost $9.95; then there was a cutesy, little girls first journal with locking mechanism $6.95( my personal choice) and the Fairies Detective Kit $13.95.

The Fairies Detective , of course , was what she settled on. It had to be it cost the most therefore the Fairies Detective Kit had to be the best. My best efforts at selling Ani on the merits of personal journal, life accounting and a locking document where you private thoughts would be yours and yours alone locked up by your very own $6.95 key. Ani swayed, I think she really liked the key and the lock but she liked the Fairy Detective Kit more. The kit, aside from a beautifully illustrated box contained, one Fairy Field Guide, one micro magnifying glass. One very small fairy capturing net and multiple vials of colored fairy dust( sparkles). O come on, please I thought to myself $13.00 for artwork and purple, silver, gold and green glitter ?
“ Please grandpa, please grand pa, please, a real fairy kit”
“No, no way besides you only have $5.00.”
“But you have money. Couldn’t you cover the rest?”
“I only have three dollars” opening my wallet .
“ Yeah, but you have credit cards”
“OK ,but no coffee shop” Then I went too far, I stepped over the line I said, “ Its just make believe, there’s not fairies really—you know that” I said in that adult, authoritative dream killer voice all adult’s use when they are backed up against s perceived wall and want to win the battle against the little kid with the cold, benign logic of unadulterated grownup fact. “ Fairies aren’t real, they’re just made up” The words just jumped from my mouth—saw clouds cross Ani’s big brown eyes, she pulled back a little, stilled her quivering lower lip—trying to look tough in this very public Barnes and Nobel, “Yes there are Fairies and I want to find them and I like the sparkles.”

I was a monster, I reigned myself in. I could see this little girl did believe in fairies, Ani, my Ani who was into reading, selling cokes by the side of the road and playing computers games on my lap top still believed in fairies , all the fairies, garden, tooth and Christmas, and she was going to find them. She did not glare at me as I thought she might, as I thought she should but looked up with hurt, forgiving eyes of a believer looking at an unbeliever, forgiving because after all grandpa is a grown up and grownups do not know any better. Ani sighed( as she does often with me) and aid, “Come one lets go” and led me up to the check out stand, where she presented the Fairy Detective Kit and one Barnes and Nobel gift card and one Zions Bank Check card, to Miss Julie, whose face exploded with the brilliance a million plastic suns as she swiped both cards and places one Fairy Detective Kit into a Barnes and Nobel green sack.

This morning one of the calls which came in on my info line was a little girl full of excitement, “ Grandpa, grandpa I found one!!! I found one, I found a fairy In our computer room…there’s a little sparkle down by the computer…it’s a fairy.”