The Case of the Stolen Oreos

It should have been a simple night out. Tamsin, her twin brother, and their best friend Finn were just going camping in their backyard. There should never have been a reason to glamour Finn. Again.

But then Finn just had to bring junk food with him.

They should have made him leave it in the house. Pitou had even told him to do it, but Finn had laughed and said "What if we get hungry in the middle of the night? Are we going to sneak back into the house? No, I'm bringing snacks! Grab this, will you, Tammy?"

And so Tamsin had rolled her eyes, and loudly asked why she was even bothering to go with them, adding "Don't call me Tammy, Fintan," which she knew that he hated. Boys were so dumb. If Arianna hadn't been away visiting her grandmother, she would definitely not be here right now. She took the bag of chips though, knowing that anything so full of salt wouldn't be likely to attract the attention of any of the nixies in their area. They were more interested in sugar, and so far, Finn hadn't grabbed any of the chocolates or jujubes.

The tent was pitched on the very back edge of the Duchesnes' property, right up against the beginning of the ravine. Tamsin's dad had helped her and her brother set it up, lingering a long time. "We should be using the rowan poles for this, chérie," he had said. "You never know what exactly will come out of those woods at night. En fait, I would feel much better if you camped out in the basement again."

"Dad! You never let us do anything! We're eight now, not four! We'll be fine! It's not like a redcap is going to come and eat us in the middle of the night," Pierre had whined. Their father had frowned, but relented. Tamsin grinned at her brother in triumph.

"At least let me draw you a salt circle," their father had said after they had finished blowing up the air mattresses with their little bicycle pump. "I don't want to put Finn in any danger."

The Duchesne twins had exchanged a look then. Finn wasn't the most observant of boys their age, but there was no way that he wouldn't notice a giant white circle around their tent. "Finn will be fine, Dad, and so will we!" Tamsin said impatiently. He was going to be here soon. They couldn't let him hear them talking about this. He wouldn't understand.

Her father still looked worried, but he ruffled Tamsin's hair. "Okay, ça va. On verra. We'll see. But promise me that you'll come in if you see any faerie at all, alright?"

Pierre had scoffed, but Tamsin nodded. She just wanted this conversation to be over. Besides, they hadn't seen any faeries except their father all summer, and he wasn't even a real faerie anymore. What were the chances that they would see one tonight?

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" came Finn's voice from the street. "You set up the tent without me! No fair! You said we would do it together!" His face was red as he ran up to them from the street, sun-bleached brown hair turning auburn in the setting sun. Finn ran up to them, his hands on his hips. The strap of his backpack was falling off his shoulder, with a giant green sleeping bag poking out the top. Tamsin didn't even know how they were friends. They were nothing alike.

Tamsin's father tried to hide a smile behind his hand. "That's my fault, Finn," he said warmly. "Julie and I heard that it was going to rain tonight, so she asked me to make sure that the tent was set up properly. We didn't want to send you home with a cold."

This seemed to make sense to Finn, who nodded and dropped his bag on the ground, grinning from ear to ear. He had finally lost that wiggly tooth that he'd had all week. "Oh! Thank you, Mr. Alain! I don't want to get sick in the summer again. Brandon got the flu at camp and he gave it to all of us. He puked all over -"

"Why don't you pick up your bag and we can all go in and wash up for dinner?" Her father asked, already shepherding them all towards the house. The boys looked at each other and raced up the hill, yelling. Tamsin rolled her eyes, then picked up Finn's abandoned backpack.

* * *

The trouble started around midnight. Finn was lying on his back, head and shoulders stuck out of the door of the tent. He'd unzipped it so fast that Tamsin was afraid that he'd torn it off, claiming that Pierre's nuclear farts were going to kill him. His hand was still shoved down the bag of chips, but an open sleeve of Oreos lay on his chest.

"Do you think we should take those inside?" Tamsin whispered to her brother.

Pierre yawned widely, his eyes already drifting closed. "No, you worry too much. Go to sleep Tamsin," he said sleepily.

She lay down in her sleeping bag, trying to ignore the fact that her brother really did have nuclear farts and it still smelled really bad inside the tent. Tamsin was just about to close her eyes when she heard a bunch of tiny voices arguing and laughing. There was the sound of plastic rustling, and more giggling. Tamsin pushed herself up on one elbow.

Oh no.

"Pitou! Pitou! Wake up!" Tamsin whispered, shaking her brother's shoulder. "Look! We have to go and get dad!"

Pierre sat up, rubbing his eyes. Tamsin kept shaking him until he finally looked at what was happening at the mouth of the tent.

Finn was covered in a cloud of what looked like birds at first, but when Tamsin concentrated, she could see them for what they really were - pixies. They were all over Finn's head and chest, eating the Oreos and laughing at how smooth his baby cheeks were. Tamsin didn't know how he was still sleeping. Couldn't he feel them pulling his hair? Or hear them making fun of him?

"How are we going to get out of the tent to go and get Dad?" Pierre whispered, his eyes wide. Tamsin bit her lip.

"We should have let him draw the salt circle," Tamsin whispered back. She swatted Pierre's shoulder, just because.

Pierre shoved her back. "Mom said that you aren't supposed to hit me anymore," he said, forgetting to whisper and forgetting that pixies can be vicious when startled.

Tamsin watched him remember as the laughing stopped and Finn grunted in his sleep. "Maybe we should wake him up," Pierre said.

"But what if he scares them?" Tamsin asked, stricken. "He could lose an eye!"

"He's not going to lose an eye!" Pierre whispered back, keeping his eyes trained on the pixies tying knots in Finn's hair. "They're nowhere near his eyes. They're either eating cookies or they're tying pixie locks. If we wake him up, he'll move around enough to make them leave."

Tamsin chewed her lip in worry, but she couldn't think of anything better.

"Finn! Wake up! You're missing it!" Pierre said, shaking the other boy's foot. The force made the sleeve of Oreos fall slide off his chest, sending the tiny pixies inside it to the tent floor. They tittered in annoyance, and a few flew up into Pierre's face to blow a raspberry at him. Tamsin could hear her heart pounding.

Finn stirred, brushing a hand over his face. "What?" he whined. His eyes opened, focusing on the pixies that were hovering a few inches from his nose. "Wait, what is that? Is that a fairy?"

"Don't be stupid, Finn," Tamsin heard herself say. "Fairies don't exist. Don't be a baby."

The pixie above Finn's nose made a rude gesture at her and flew off with the rest of its pack. "Then what was it, Tammy?" he asked as he sat up.

"It was just a moth," Pierre said. Tamsin could hear the glamour in his voice, and felt a stab of jealousy. She couldn't even change her hair colour on her own yet. "You don't see anything that's not of the Mortal Realm. Fintan James Westwood, everything you see is only human."

Finn blinked twice, and Tamsin watched the confusion on his face give way to annoyance. "Are you telling me that you just woke me up to look at a moth? You are so dead!" He launched himself at Pierre, and they started wrestling. The forgotten sleeve of Oreos was completely crushed, and flung cookie crumbs into the air. Tamsin sat back, trying to keep out of their way. Someone's foot hit her in the face, and she shrieked. Tamsin picked up her pillow and joined the fray.

No one kicked her in the face and got away with it.

#YAFantasy #Fantasy #Faeries #Faerie #TheWinterCourt #shortstories #originalfiction