“The Coffee Fairies”

By Maddie Kurtz – January 2010

All is quiet in the castle. Carl is sound asleep upstairs snoring like a wildebeest and Leda is in undisturbed slumber in the parlor. The king and his courtiers are away at one of his gazillion hunting lodges and Marianne is away in Bologna counting the number of hens in some noble’s castle. When these rare nights of solitude I like to find some way to make myself useful. Usually I spend this night making records, reviewing apprentice’s notes, etc.,etc. But tonight I find myself drifting down memory lane.

Being an older gentleman, I find myself becoming more inclined to write about my long life. There are many things one can say about my achievements. Occasionally at some banquets a person might look at me and exclaim that I was for example, the same scribe that documented the Foam Wars or that I was that man who rescued a baron from a rampaging were-rabbit. But tonight I feel a little playful. Hmm…. What shall I write about…..? Ahh! The coffee bean drought of  ’45. Now that’s a story! Hmm…… How to begin….

In what Leda, my 18 year old daughter, would call the olden days, I was, as were everyone around me, a coffee addict. Every year the most delicious, most mouth watering coffee from Chaldea would come to Lord Cobblestone’s manor. Being scribes there, I and my fellows would get three cups of it a day to motivate us to work more. Although Lord Cobblestone was very strict to the portions of coffee each person got, we always took for granted the thought of the delectable beverage to ever stop being served.

We were proved wrong in early fall of ’45 when Chaldean farmers were starting to gather coffee beans, a horrible plague of locust ravaged the trees. There were NO beans at all. Now before we continue, let me debrief you on how important coffee was to the daily lives of us scribes. With all this caffeine flowing through our veins, we were working double time on our projects; eventually Lord Cobblestone made this the new status quo. If a scribe did not complete his or her status quot, they didn’t get paid. If we lost our coffee, we would slack behind from loss of energy, and then we would lose our lively hood.

Well, that is what happened. We could no longer have enough energy to work through the night on big projects. When us scribes slacked behind, the orders were not written, the peasants did not know what to do without orders so our whole country’s economy came to a halt. We were fish out of water. If we did not get our coffee soon, there would be anarchy!

Kids are always told about fairies like they aren’t real, but they are! One night, about one month after the crisis started, Nelson found four cups of coffee at each of our desks. At first we thought we were hallucinating. As we smelled the rich aroma with its heavenly scent, we felt a charge of adrenaline rushing through our veins. Valerie reached for the cream. Haverty grabbed her wrist. “Let’s try it before we accessorize it.” So we all took a small sip of it. Now don’t get me wrong, we never drank coffee black, but this stuff was so silky and smooth that it did not need anything. We savored every drop and we finished every project.

No one knew about this coffee, for we had made a gentleman’s agreement (which Valerie was highly objective to) to keep it a secret until we found the source of this life saver. So after a week of this mysterious caffeine surge, we snuck in the scribery at midnight to see what was happening…

The floorboards creaked as we snuck down to the stairs. As we neared the room, we heard high-pitched, indiscernible chirps and the sound of grinding. We silently opened the door and peeked in. Two fairies were sitting chatting as one ground coffee beans and the other made coffee. Coffee fairies, Coffius Fairae, a rare fairy that lived in Chaldea, but had not been seen it the wild for 100 years due to habitat destruction. Their hair was milky white and their skin was brown. Their delicate wings were transparent, like stain glass. Finally we knew

The fairies visited us every night for a year, until Chaldea harvested its first crop of beans since the locust. We never saw them again, but after figuring out, we pleaded with Lord Cobblestone to make a national Coffee Fairy reserve in Chaldea. When the plan was approved, 100 captive fairies were released into a gated coffee tree grove. Every year, park rangers will gather their best coffee bean to sell to tourists to fund the park. You might say, this story has a happy ending, for us, and the fairies.

By Garth Wendolven

Head Scribe

“The Bejeweled Turtle”            

by Maddie Kurtz – December 16, 2007

Once I was walking in the park

I saw a bejeweled turtle’

And it was eating a lark.

I asked myself, why don’t I

Pick it up and sell it away.

But the bejeweled turtle

Said, “You wont live another day!”

I said “yeah right”, but

Then I started floating like a kite.

The bejeweled turtle opened its shell,

And what was inside it made me yell.

There was a turtle with a looking glass

It saw things in the past.

The other little turtle inside the shell

It had a dagger ‘neath its tail.

It was the warrior

I wouldn’t want to cross that turtle.

It made my blood start to curdle.

The bejeweled turtle said to me,

“Leave me alone or you will see

Why it would be best to flee.”

But in my stubbornness I would not go,

Now I rue the day I did not do so.

The warrior turtle brandished its sword

Then I uttered a prayer to the Lord.

Since the turtle could not see its knife

It might miss me and I would keep my life.

Unfortunately that did not work out

The warrior turtle sought another route.

The looking glass turtle became a mirror

The warrior turtle could see me much clearer.

The world went black and I woke up with a start

Laying on the ground in the park.

The bejeweled turtle was on my chest

Oh please could I just have a rest.

She cried in a very loud voice

“I choose were to go it’s my choice.”

She said “give me to someone you love”

“And I will go as peacefully as a dove”

So I decided to give her to you

She is very valuable so take care of her, please do.

With all the love in the world to you

Now I must bid adieu.

Love your little granddaughter Maddie

Including Ms. Pauline, Mommy and Daddy.

Mustn’t forget dear little Ebby.

We all love you and to help we’re always ready.

The last line of this poem will not rhyme

I love you very much.