Once upon a time, there was a town in Spain where people lived in the desert, in a city on a mountain. The people were all very friendly and went for walks every evening in the warmer weather, where they greeted their friends and neighbours. In the winter, it was very cold and the people stayed home.
One winter's night, in a home above a dance school, a little girl was playing with her toys after supper when she found two loose floorboards. She thereupon decided to write to the fairies. Now what, you may ask, does finding two loose floorboards have to do with writing to fairies? Why, everything! The fairies must live under the floorboards, she said to herself, and I will write to them and make my living by writing fairy stories.
Now, people in this town ate a lot of pork. In fact, you would see cartloads of pigs going through town. If you went to a restaurant, they would serve you pork. And if you asked for a combination plate, they would serve you three kinds of pork.
But the little girl's family had no food in the house one day. No pork, no nothing. Oh, no. Her father was a carpenter, but there was a recession on and nobody was buying furniture. So she scribbled a hasty letter to the fairies on a scrap of cardboard.
Dear Friends,
My family and I are poor and can afford no food. Would you please be kind enough to send us some?
Love,
Your friend, the little girl who lives in the house
She pushed the folded-up cardboard note into the gap in the floor, replaced the floorboards and waited. To her surprise, there came a rapping at the inside of the floor. What could that be? she thought. Surely they have not replied so soon.
What she found was a note written on paper that seemed to be made out of cobwebs.
Dear One,
Here are the things you need! Enjoy!
Love,
The fairies that live under the floorboards
Well, you can imagine the joy in the house when she received the news. She called to her mother and father to come look. They read the gossamer note and together all three looked to see what was in the opening.
Out jumped an eggplant with arms and legs and danced about the room. It did a fandango, reaching its arms up in the air, making flourishing movements with its hands and stamping. The family held up their hands in amazement.
Then followed a bag of flour, an onion, and three pork chops. They swirled about the room doing a flamenco zambra. The flour danced out a riddle with the rhythm of its feet, and the onion and the pork chops danced out the answer.
A lettuce and three radishes, an assortment of mushrooms, some olives and a tomato came after. The lettuce glided along the floor with its train of leaves trailing after, and complex rhythms of staccato stamping followed as it danced tientos. The other groceries stood around and clapped counter-rhythms. What a wonder!
"Mother, make the supper!" requested the man, quickly stoking up the stove to cook it with and hardly believing his good fortune.
"I can hardly believe this," laughed the woman as she put on her apron and set to work preparing the food.
"I can believe this," said the little girl and set the table for supper.
The second night, the fairies had more - more juicy, delicious dinner ingredients. This time, salt pork jumped out of the hole, along with artichokes, spinach, oranges and chickpeas, green beans and a green pepper who danced happy sevillanas in twos. Again the family rejoiced. They ate like kings!
The third night, pork meat balls came out and danced a jota. The male meat ball twirled the female meat ball around. They held up their arms and played castanets while they did jumps and touched their heels and then their toes to the ground.
Next came potatoes and eggs, fantastic salad greens, olives and anchovies. All danced a circle around the family, in a Catalan sardana. The mother quickly gathered them up and made a meal out of them.
Night after night, during the recession, the food jumped up out of the hole in the floorboards and soon the daughter had an idea.
"Why don't we try and sell some of the beautiful food for money?"
"Yes," said her mother, "but where would we sell it?"
"We could set up a stall inside my carpenter's shop," suggested her father.
She presented this idea to the fairies, and this is the reply she received.
Dear One,
We would like to help you but we're only little. Perhaps we can help you start a farm, for that amount of groceries would be very hard for us to produce.
Your friends,
The fairies
The houses on the mountain were built very close together several hundred years ago.
"Well, there's no room to grow much at the back of the house. There's no space," said the man. "But some people in the town have window boxes.. and we could start a farm. Yes, I think that would work."
The little girl clapped her hands cheerfully and spun around.
First they had to haul the earth and manure, the seeds and several garden tools. (The fairies faithfully supplied these.) They grew herbs in the window boxes and they started a farm outside of town. It was hard work but they did it.
The father even went to the Alcazar, the castle on top of the mountain, to get special permission to have water from the aqueduct, which brought water to the desert town.
The family dug irrigation ditches and tilled the earth, mixing in compost and manure. It was very hot work. They planted all kinds of seeds.
The fairies gave them pigs and chickens. (Spaniards love eggs. They are crazy about them.)
The family weeded assiduously, and the plants grew. They fed the chickens scraps and fed the pigs a mixture of grains and beans.
Soon it was time to begin harvesting the produce.
In the mornings the mother gave her daughter lessons. In the afternoons the little girl sold vegetables and fruit, three kinds of pork, eggs, flour and cornmeal and sat on her perch and scribbled stories between customers. (Then she took a siesta.)
Meanwhile, the recession ended and her father decided to become a farmer permanently, because, as he said to his family, "The world needs more farmers". The family had the fairies up for dinner every night. The girl finished writing her fairy story collection after many rewrites and sent it to a very busy publisher, snowed under with mail, who published it.
THE END
What a lovely story! I think this has to be one of the best you've written.
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