Redundancy 3/8

Robert had flown Polly back to the Witches’ Home after they had returned the unwanted bags of teeth. He’d had a word with Lieutenant Moonshine and asked if he could take a small supply of teeth with him back to his workshop at the Witches’ Home so that he could try out some ideas of his own for using them. He’d also asked if Polly could go with him because ‘girls often have better artistic ideas, but need someone to help with the tools.’

Moonshine was only too pleased that someone was trying to think of ways to use up the teeth, so Polly travelled with Robert and was feeling very proud of him as she followed him in to the workshop.

She watched in fascination as Robert mounted one of the teeth in a big block of hard wax before fitting it into a small lathe. Then he put a large magnifying glass in front of the cutting tool and worked away for ten minutes or so. At last he stepped back triumphantly and beckoned Polly over to have a look at his work. She gasped in amazement, seen through the magnifying glass was a beautiful little vase.

“Of course I could make lots of beads in different shapes, or even tiny sets of chessmen. Have you got any other ideas?”

“Oh I think that’s wonderful, you are so clever! I don’t think anyone could possibly improve on that. That sort of thing would be lovely on a charm bracelet.”

Robert smiled happily; he could always rely on his friend to say nice things. However, he wasn’t quite so sure that miniature vases or chessmen were really the answer. There would have to be an awful lot made every hour to make any profit, even though the raw material was free. Neither did he think the witches would allow him to spend very much time using the workshop machinery unless he could show that he was solving the surplus tooth problem.

“I’ll make a few more, then we’ll have to try and find someone interested enough to look at the samples. Who knows they might even come up with a suggestion as to what things they’d prefer!”

Over the next few days, Robert and Polly travelled round the Lurbridge area in every spare moment they had together, trying to sell samples of their beads and charms. Nobody was interested!

“Very pretty I’m sure, but my wife don’t have no time for little things like that. They’d get lost the first time she washed the laundry.”

“She could put them in a safe place and only wear them on special occasions. Rather like jewellery, but a lot cheaper,” argued Polly hopefully.

“Special occasions,” would come the reply, “what special occasions? Village fair once a year?”

After days of trying, Polly was getting close to tears. She could see the happy times she was spending in Robert’s company rapidly disappearing.

“We’ve tried everywhere we can reach in our time off and there’s nobody interested, I suppose we’ll just have to give up the whole idea.”

“Now there’s a thought,” replied Robert, suddenly breaking into a smile, “who do you know who has the best ideas?”

Polly thought for a moment while she struggled to blink back the tears. Robert seemed so sure of himself all of a sudden, yet a moment ago he’d been nearly as miserable as she was. She went carefully through all the fairies she knew, before the answer came into her head. She smiled back at Robert, then they both burst out, “Jennifer Jane of course,” at the same moment.