The day nothing much happened 3/4

Jennifer Jane's Mum stood still, wondering how she ought to go about making a wish.

'I want to meet the Tooth Fairy,' she thought but nothing happened.

"I want to meet the Tooth Fairy," she said out loud, "please," she added as an afterthought. Still nothing happened.

"Please would someone show me how to meet the Tooth Fairy," she shouted as loudly as she could.

Nothing!

'I suppose grown ups can't make wishes', she thought rather crossly. She was sure Jennifer Jane never had this sort of trouble.

"Now look here," she shouted, "I'm Jennifer Jane's Mum and I want to meet the Tooth Fairy please."

Still nothing seemed to happen at first, then she noticed a cloud rapidly coming her way and getting lower and lower as it got nearer.

"Aha, that looks like Frosty and the cloud transport that Abigail used when she took us to the Witches' Home."

She was quite right. Five minutes later she found herself standing in front of long rows of low sheds, while Frosty's cloud rapidly went back up into the colder air that snowmen prefer. Walking towards her was a fairy in uniform.

"Hello," called Mary, "you're the Tooth Fairy, I recognise you from the party."

"Actually being the Tooth Fairy is only a small part of my job," came the reply. "I'm Lieutenant Moonshine and I'm in charge of the Wish Warehouse. It's a very responsible job. In fact we've just had a long meeting discussing your case and whether or not we should put your name on the Wishing Register. Fortunately you said you were Jennifer Jane's Mum just in time and that settled it. Come inside and I'll show you round.”

Lieutenant Moonshine pointed out the great books of registered wishes, which showed where each class of wish was stored, the shelf number and its position on that shelf. Then Mary was shown the daybook, which recorded the wish that had been made, who had made it and the time and date when the box had been opened.

The walk through all of the sheds took a long time.

"There don't seem to be many fairies working here considering the size of the stores," said Mary.

"One of our main problems," said Lieutenant Moonshine, "staff shortages."

Just at that moment a bell rang very loudly. Most of the fairies in the building went outside, leaving only two still working. One of them looked inquiringly at Lieutenant Moonshine.

"Carry on," she said, "we'll just watch, it'll be a good example of time dilation to show our guest."

The fairy opened one of a row of boxes on the bench and everything became very quiet, otherwise nothing seemed to happen.

"Look at the clock on the wall," said Moonshine “and then look at your watch."

Mary did as she was asked. "Quarter past two," she said.

She watched as the two fairies searched through book after book of stock lists. After about ten minutes she looked at her watch again. Twenty five past two, nothing unusual, it seemed about right. She looked again at the Warehouse clock. It said sixteen minutes past two.

"Your clock's gone wrong," she said.

"No it hasn't," said Moonshine, "the clock on the wall is driven by a master clock outside the building and that shows the real time. In here time has changed so that we can do ten minutes work in one minute. It helps us get over the staff shortages, but too much of it makes you feel very tired."

At last the fairies found the location of the wish they were searching for. One of them jumped on a bicycle with a small shopping basket on the handlebars and rode off along the long rows of shelving. She was soon back with the correct box. She blew the dust off the lid and opened it.

With the release of the wish all the ordinary everyday noises returned and the rest of the fairies came back inside and continued with their work.

Mary looked at her watch again. Inside the Warehouse the fairies had worked for twenty minutes but the wall clock showed that only two minutes had passed.

Lieutenant Moonshine showed Mary into her office and shut the door.

"I'm afraid you'll have to reset your watch when you get home," she said, "but you do see part of our problem. We're expected to deliver a wish very soon after it's made and we just don't have enough fairies available. We even miss poor old Forget me Knott, although I must say she was sometimes more of a liability than a help."

"She's doing very well as an apprentice boat builder at the goblin boatyard on the Therdle," said Mary.

"Yes so I've heard. Amazing really, she couldn't tell her left hand from her right when she worked here, she was absolutely useless as a dispatcher. We also have a problem with all the fairy mums. They're really our biggest worry. Each baby has to be looked after by it's mother until its about seven or eight years old and can be trusted to behave and do what it's told. Young fairies can still fly you see and they have to be watched very carefully until they can understand all the dangers they have to face. Let them out of your sight for a moment and they're out of doors flying. We can't fly after them because we get too heavy when we grow up. It can be very hazardous out there and some of them never come back."

"So you see the problem," she continued with a smile, "too few fairies, too much work to do and too much subjective timing makes everyone tired and irritable and prone to make mistakes."

Mary looked thoughtful. "When Jennifer Jane was a baby I was able to go back to work and take her with me. The firm I worked for had a creche with a couple of nurses to look after all the children, for any mum employed by the company."

"Wouldn't work for us," said Moonshine, "it's difficult enough looking after the kids on a one to one basis let alone two of us looking after about twenty."

"Let's think about it," said Mary. "Put aside one room to use as a creche and bar all the windows so they can't fly away."

"We could put a lot of cushions on the floor so that they wouldn't be badly hurt if there's an accident," added Moonshine.

"Put in a low false ceiling so that a mother can always reach up and get to a child who won't come back down."

"Have an inner and outer door so that the minders can get in and out without letting a baby get outside."

"I reckon one mother could supervise about four children at a time under those sort of conditions."

"Do you know I think it might work," said Moonshine, "a system like that would give us another fifteen workers in the Warehouse."

"They could take it in turns to do the minding," said Mary, "then every mother would be able to look after her own child on a regular basis."

"Let's give it a go, it sounds like a jolly good idea, how about celebrating with a nice cup of tea!"

"Sounds lovely," said Mary, "milk but no sugar for me please."