Petunia and the Fairy Godmother

PETUNIA AND THE FAIRY GODMOTHER
By Rose East

The Fairy Godmother shifted in her billowy chair, straightening her back and sighing. Her normally pleasant, grandmotherly face wore a weary and dissatisfied expression, and her made-for-smiling lips turned down at the corners. Her job had become boringly routine, and she thought that if she never saw another handsome prince, virtuous poor girl or a frog again, it would be too soon. Just recently, she had begun to wish that girls were more sensible and thought things through properly before embarking on the risky path of matrimony.
‘Why can’t they be more rational and sensible,’ she asked her best friend, the Bad Fairy, who was slouched in a black, basilisk-skin chair, painting her nails black.
‘Explain,’ said the Bad Fairy.
‘Girls. Why do they embark on matrimonial alliances with oodles of foolish notions about romance? It invariably leads to disappointment and disaster. What has love to do with a successful relationship? And you had better return that chair to its original design before you go’
‘Black is the new white with pink hearts,’ said the Bad Fairy.
‘Not bloody here it's not,' said the Fairy Godmother testily, 'and I don't much like that disembodied, leering headrest either.'
‘S’relaxing, designing furniture. I’ve got a stressful job, making people unhappy all the time. You can’t imagine what it does to the psyche,’ said the Bad Fairy smoothing down her gauzy black dress and plonking her booted feet on the desk. The Fairy Godmother stared disapprovingly, but did not protest. ‘Anyway, that’s a bit unromantic isn’t it? Your job is all about granting heart’s desires and making dreams come true.’
‘Well I’m fed up with it. I’m sick to death with silly girls’ unrealistic expectations. A sensible young woman should have a checklist, of worthy attributes like reliability, shared interests, a steady job, thoughtfulness and respect from peers.’
‘Many mass murderers have fulfilled those criteria,’ said her friend, but the Fairy Godmother was not listening. She was leaning back in her comfortable chair, eyes raised to her starry ceiling in contemplation. After some more contemplation and gazing starrily, she was galvanized into action. Sitting up and clapping her hands together, she said, ‘Right; the next insipid little nobody I’m allocated is going to get a dose of sensibleness. She will be given the magic dust of common sense, thus allowing her to choose the right person, someone who will be a good provider, who will share her values and aims, not someone who smiles seductively and has large pecs.’
‘Fax coming through,’ said the Bad Fairy, ‘probably your next victim.’
The Fairy Godmother glared at her before reading aloud, ‘Petunia Pepper wants to meet a prince who will whisk her off to his castle where they will live happily ever after. To this end, she has applied to appear on a reality TV show, “Some Day My Prince Will Come,” in the hope that she will be the chosen one. Well, Petunia Pepper,’ snorted the Fairy Godmother, ‘I’ll soon settle your hash,’ and with that, she swept out of the window in a swirl of stardust.

Petunia Pepper, a small, pretty unassuming girl was sitting with the three other contestants, on the set of Some Day My Prince Will Come. The chairs were uncomfortable and the studio hot and airless, with a funny smell of both perfume and plastic. The girls had been briefed and interviewed beforehand, and Petunia worried she had not expressed herself very well. For instance, when it was her turn to explain why she had applied to come on the show, she said, ‘Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamt of being a princess,’ only to be interrupted by a brash, scruffy looking bloke who said, ‘don’t say that love, they all say that. Think of something original, something to grab viewers, that’ll get them to sit up and take notice of you.’
Petunia did not see why she could not just tell the truth of what was in her heart, but she duly sat and thought…and thought.
The brash bloke was becoming impatient; looking at his notes he said, ‘It says here you have a collection of tiaras, you could say something like, “I’ll be wearing one of my tiaras on our date; what else I wear will be entirely up to you,” see what I mean?’
Poor petunia was horrified. She couldn’t say anything so forward and vulgar, ‘I’m sorry,’ she stammered, ‘I couldn’t say anything like that, it’s not the kind of person I am.’
‘Please yourself,’ said the bloke, ‘but could you just rephrase it a bit, say something about being your mum’s little princess.’
‘I can’t do that either,’ said Petunia, blushing, ‘it wouldn’t be true; mum never said anything like that. How about if I say something about my curtseying every day in front of the mirror?’ The bloke gave up.
As Petunia looked at the other girls, she was struck by how much make up they were wearing and how short their dresses were. She suddenly felt plain and dowdy, and wondered if they were the sort of people princes wanted these days? However, there was no time to ponder, the show was on a tight schedule and they were ushered on stage. Petunia felt hot and uncomfortable under the bright lights, and worried that she would look pale. She noticed one of the other girls, the one with the hair extensions and large expanse of orange-coloured midriff on view, looking her up and down with an amused expression. She felt herself shrinking, wishing the floor would open and swallow her.
The idea behind the show was that a prince would choose one of the four contestants without seeing them and go on a date; usually something worthy like visiting a children’s hospital or opening a nursery. He had to choose a potential princess on the strength of the girls’ answers to questions on royalty and questions about themselves.

The show began and Petunia felt even more discomfited. The other girls were so sophisticated and witty. Their answers made the prince laugh, and she wondered if she could sneak off without anybody noticing. When it was her turn, she was so nervous she thought she was going to faint. Nevertheless, the questions on Royalty were easy; she answered every single one correctly and began to relax a little. Then came the personal questions.
‘What do you think is your best quality? The one that would make you an ideal princess?’ asked the prince. He had a honeyed, deep voice, full of warmth and humour, with just a hint of a European accent.
‘I’m good at curtseying,’ said Petunia then felt stupid as everybody laughed.
The next question was more difficult, ‘how would you cope with lots of people staring at you?’
Petunia, who was not at all enjoying having people staring at her, answered without thinking, ‘Oh it is awful, I feel so self-conscious and awkward,’ she then stopped, realising her mistake, ‘what I mean is that...’ what did she mean? There was silence, and a few murmurs from the audience.
‘And my final question is,’ said the prince, ‘how many serious boyfriends have you had?’
‘None,’ she replied honestly, ‘because I’ve never met my prince,’ and never will now she thought, my chance has gone, how could I have been so pathetic. She sat in mute misery with the other three glamorous contestants, all of whom looked as if they expected to be the chosen one. It therefore came as a complete and utter surprise when, after much deliberation, on the part of the prince, it was she, Petunia, who was chosen. As she stood in front of the curtain waiting for it to rise, and reveal her prize, her euphoria began to evaporate, and she thought, ‘I bet he’s five foot one with popping eyes, a receding chin and long, stringy hair in a ponytail. However, when the curtain was raised, she realised that her imaginings could not have been further from the truth; he was dreamy. His name was prince Charles; no not the Prince Charles, but a Romanian Prince Charles, a minor member of the royal house, living in penury and bravely making do with only two palaces, minimum household staff, and one summer lodge in the Carpathian mountains.
As soon as they were introduced, Charles looked into Petunia’s soulful brown eyes and noticed, with pleasure, her modest demeanour; while Petunia gazed at Charles, falling for his warm smile, wavy dark hair and complete absence of a ponytail. They fell in love there and then.
The date was a like a wonderful dream; they shook hands with people, threw Champagne at ships, hugged lepers and waved a lot. When they came back on the programme a week later to report how things had gone, it was obvious that things had gone exceedingly well. They sat close together, holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes, smiling and generally making everybody else feel extremely jealous. Unfortunately at this point, the fairy godmother appeared and, shaking her magic wand, scattered sensibleness all over poor Petunia, before disappearing in a flash, so that people believed they had imagined it, or thought it was the lights or something.
The interviewer, who had a curious, waxworks-type complexion, leant forward smarmily and said, ‘So, Prince Charles, how did things go? You two look very lovey-dovey.
‘Marvellous,’ he said, ‘Petunia is the loveliest girl I have ever met; she is modest and dignified, utterly charming and unassuming. I have already asked her to meet my family.’
The interviewer beamed and turned to Petunia.
‘So, Petunia, have you found your prince?’
Petunia opened her mouth to say ‘yes,’ but a strange, alien feeling had come over her. She felt sensible, level-headed and rational. She felt like the sort of person who frowns at silly jokes and tells people to act their age. An acute sense of embarrassment enveloped her at finding herself on such a silly TV show, and exposed to terrible discomfiture. As for Prince Charles, it was true that he was handsome and pleasant, and a Prince, but what had they in common?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said sensibly, I cannot imagine why I chose to come on this show; it seems rather empty-headed entertainment of the worst kind of reality format; and as I see it, my only option is to leave immediately and save myself further shame.’ And with that, she stood up and, without a backward glance at the stricken Prince Charles, walked out of the studio.
The place was in uproar; Prince Charles was so upset he could not speak. The interviewer turned to the producer saying, ‘should make a brilliant show, just need to spin it out a bit, perhaps scenes of the prince’s castles so that viewers can see what Petunia has turned down.’
The press ran the story and Petunia, to her embarrassment, became famous. ‘Celebrity is the last resort of the weak-minded,’ she opined to a reporter, but did agree to just one interview, in the hope that they would then leave her alone.
‘I just realised that we had nothing in common,’ she said, ‘a relationship should be based on shared likes and dislikes by people from a similar background, you know, equals. When one person has most of the money, this can be translated into power over the other, less well-off partner. It would never have worked.’
‘Aren’t you sorry for Prince Charles?’ asked the reporter. ‘He is broken-hearted by all accounts.’
‘Hearts don’t break; that is just a foolish, romantic notion.’
‘Why then did you go on the show?’
‘I just can’t imagine. It was as if I were a different person then.’
The collection of tiaras went to the charity shop, and her curtseying skills became rusty with disuse. Prince Charles tried to contact her, but she refused to speak to him. He gave an interview to the same newspaper as Petunia, saying that she was the only girl for him, and that if she would only give him a second chance, he was sure he would be able to calm her worries. He even offered to sell one of his palaces to make himself a bit more common, but Petunia was having none of it. It was not a sensible thing to do, running off with someone from a different country and a different class.
Petunia joined a dating agency and found a suitable man called Kevin who had a steady job as an osteopath; he talked earnestly about spines, lesions and headaches, and fixed Petunia’s stiff neck. They had the same outlook and both liked doing the same sort of things, like walking along the canal, listening to the shipping forecast, and attending traction engine rallies. They had applied for an allotment and were saving all their money towards a deposit on a modest house near her fiancé’s mother.
‘Yes,’ thought Petunia, ‘he is the perfect man for me, who needs all that romantic nonsense?’
The two dozen red roses sent by Prince Charles were given to Gladys next door to cheer her up after her hernia operation.
‘Why didn’t you like Prince Charles?’ asked Gladys kindly, ‘did he do something objectionable on your date, dear?’
‘He wasn’t suitable, the relationship would not have worked,’ said Petunia sensibly, but felt unaccountably unhappy without quite knowing why. Back home, she sat in her kitchen, drinking a glass of water. She fancied a coffee, but it was now late afternoon, and caffeine might prevent her from having a good night’s sleep, it would not be prudent. She thought about trying on her tiaras to cheer herself up, then remembered that she had given them all away. A walk was what was needed; it would clear her mind of all that silly pining. The delightfully named Brambly Wood was near her house and, donning an appropriate jacket and footwear for the conditions outside, she left the house.
Following an unfamiliar, narrow path, she suddenly encountered a remarkably vicious-looking thicket of briers, with big, fierce-looking shoots, some the thickness of her thumb. As she stood wondering, a pale woman with black hair wearing a gauzy black dress and black, high-heeled boots came into view. However, it was not the inappropriate walking gear that Petunia found remarkable. It was the wings and wand.
The woman turned her head slowly to look at Petunia. ‘Hello,’ she said in a silvery voice, ‘I thought I’d left her somewhere here.’
‘Who?’ said Petunia.
‘The sleeping princess of course. Though she’s probably just a pile of dust now. I’d forgotten about her you see, until the Fairy Godmother reminded me.’
Petunia frowned, ‘Don’t you keep records? Don’t you put reminders on your phone? There are computer programmes that are especially constructed for small businesses; there is no excuse for forgetting things these days. How can you expect to do a good job if things are not in order?’
‘Fairies don’t have filing systems; especially Bad Fairies.’
‘You can’t be a fairy; good or bad, they don’t exist. Nobody sensible believes in them.’
‘Well I am a fairy,’ said the Bad Fairy, then stopped, and peered more closely at Petunia, making her feel both uncomfortable and weird, ‘It’s Petunia isn’t it?’ she said, ‘I thought you looked familiar. You are, I must admit, depressingly sensible, and not too happy either I’ll bet.’
‘It is not logical; I’ve nothing to be unhappy about. I’ll get over it.’
‘Tell you what,’ said the Bad Fairy, ‘I’ll have a word with the Fairy Godmother, this is all her fault.
‘What is?’ asked a bewildered Petunia.
‘You are under a spell. One that makes you sensible.’
‘But I can’t be, there is no such…’ All of a sudden, Petunia remembered her abrupt change after the brief visit from the shadowy figure. She shook her head and tried to push the thought from her mind. ‘I’m not under a spell, only children believe in that sort of thing. My fiancé is the right man for me. We ticked nearly all the same boxes on the Logical Dating questionnaire,’ Petunia noticed the fairy raise her eyes to heaven.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t marry that man. Surely you remember how you felt about Prince Charles? He genuinely loves you, just as you love him.’
‘I admit that I was quite keen on him, but it would not be prudent for us to marry, we have nothing in common.’
‘I will have to try to persuade the FG to undo that spell,’ said the Bad Fairy.
‘I don’t think you are suited to your job of being a Bad Fairy,’ said Petunia. ‘You’re exhibiting all the wrong traits.’
‘Someone had to do it,’ said the fairy, ‘although you have a point, I should be doing dastardly deeds, not good turns. You’ll just have to just a good fairy to help you.’ The Bad Fairy then melted away in a dark mist and, for some reason she could not fathom, Petunia felt upset at the fairy’s change of heart.
There was a noise behind her and Petunia turned to see a prince, also inappropriately dressed in tights, curly shoes and a gold circlet, armed with a chain saw. She stared open-mouthed as he started it up and began cutting cutting a path through the brambles. Pausing for breath, he looked over his shoulder at Petunia and said passionately, ‘I know it has been three hundred years, but I love her and will marry her, even if she is just a pile of dust.’
Petunia, suppressing the thought that marriages between princes and piles of dust were probably not legal, suddenly realised that she had indeed been bewitched; that it was all true, fairies, spells, magic and the like. There and then she decided that she would try hard, to become fanciful, fey and romantic again. As a preliminary, she tried simpering. This went quite well and she felt sufficiently encouraged to attempt looking up from under her eyelashes, and clasping her hands to her breasts whilst holding her head on one side A feeling of foolishness threatened to overcome her, but she ruthlessly pushed it aside.
‘So far, so good,’ she thought, ‘just take it one day at a time.’
It was a long, hard road beating the curse, as she came to call it, of sensibleness; but beat it she did. She rid herself of the osteopath and got back together with a delighted and relieved Prince Charles. They then married and lived happily ever after as only silly people who believe in fairies can.