EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY! *Gasp, wheeze, puff* I have… 1,002 FOLLOWERSSSSS!!!!! OH MY GOODNESS! HOW IS THIS HAPPENING? THANK YOU GUYS SO VERY, EXTREMELY, TERRIFICALLY, ETC. MUCH! *Takes a deep breath*
Phew. Guys. This is sooo amazing! I don’t know what else to say. Wheeeee!
Of course I’ll have to do something exciting for this, right?! Let me think… Ooh, maybe a giveaway! I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do yet, but trust me, I’ll do a celebratory post soon and tell you what I’ve decided then. Do you guys have any suggestions? It’s really hard to talk normally and not shout…
*Faints from excitement*
Maybe we’d better move on to the already planned part of the post or I’m going to explode.
Ahem. I’m participating in Grace’s lovely Think to Ink Writing Challenge! This is my first entry. Grace, I used all three prompts and included “pencil” in my story. 🙂 I bolded (is that even a word) the spots where I used the prompts.
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“Mae, get up! It’s round-up day!” My little sister stage-whispered into my ear. I groaned and buried further under my covers.
“Go away, Fiona,” I muttered. Why couldn’t she just leave me in peace… *snore*
“AHHHH! FIONAAAAA!” I leaped out of bed and frantically shook off the freezing cold water. Now I was wide awake and not in a good mood.
Fiona giggled and gave me a wicked grin. “Shhh! Don’t wake up Petre,” she whispered loudly.
“Fiona!” I whirled around to give her a good tongue lashing, but stopped when I noticed the calendar hanging on the wall. Today was marked with a big red circle and a conglomeration of smiley faces. “WHAT?! It’s round-up day? Why didn’t you just tell me?”
Fiona sighed and rolled her eyes.
I’d looked forward to round-up day all year. Petre had cried for days when he learned that at 4 years old he was still too young to come along, and Fiona was overjoyed to go on her first round-up trip as an early 10th birthday present.
While I’m introducing my siblings, I’d better introduce myself too. I’m Mae Lyra, and I’m 13 years old. Oh, and one other little thing you should know about me:
I’m a dust pixie.
Dozens of us, sometimes hundreds, live in every house. We live mainly under beds, sofas, and in the jillions of unnoticed crevices around your home. Dust pixies are good at many things, but my family carries on the tradition of one of the dust pixies’ most time-honored occupations: raising dust bunnies.
At the beginning of every spring we release our herds out into the wide world (a.k.a. our humans’ house) to feed upon dirt and grime and to grow bigger and fluffier each month. By wintertime the herds are majorly fluffy and ready to be sheared. There are always a few casualties (and once I saw the mother human wipe out my friend’s whole herd of dust bunnies in one fell swoop when she vacuumed under a bed), but for the most part it’s a profitable business. Dust bunny wool is highly valued in the dust pixie world. It can be spun into thread or yarn, woven to make traditional wool bed covers, and sewn to make the warmest, fluffiest coats and garments available.
Everything in our house is dusty – and that’s just the way we like it. It’s considered unhealthy to wash our natural dust off (that’s why I was so mad at Fiona for dumping water on me). Since we’re pixies, we obviously have wings, but in most other ways we’re like tiny versions of the humans we live with. We build homes and furniture (from the humans’ trash) and eat three meals a day (from the humans’ dropped crumbs). We have jobs, families, and friends. But even though we’re so similar, even though our very lives depend on them, dust pixies are mortally afraid of humans. Who wouldn’t be afraid of huge, lumbering giants that can crush your whole world beneath one foot?
Humans were our main concern as Fiona, my father, and I flew off through the dim light, leaving Mother to fix breakfast for Petre when he awoke. It wasn’t even 5:00 a.m. We still had plenty of time before the humans usually got up, but with humans you could never be sure of anything.
Our first stop was the sofa. Goodness, those dust bunnies had multiplied fast! We herded about 100 bunnies of all sizes into a makeshift corral made from broken popsicle sticks, pencil stubs, and Superglue. One little bunny escaped the herd and hopped off to explore.
“I’ll get it!” I yelled. The baby bunny twitched its dusty nose ferociously as if daring me to catch it, and so the chase began.
“Come back here you little fluffball!” I panted as I flew this way and that. The little rascal had scampered all the way into one of the humans’ bedrooms. Should I go in? The bunny was so close I could practically touch it. Surely I would get it this time! I flew softly over to the bunny, who padded over to the window sill and sat on its haunches, nose quivering, whiskers twitching.
Slowly, gently, I held out my hand for the bunny to sniff, then grabbed it. It was so soft, like a stuffed animal! Petre would have loved it – but he would have had a coughing fit for sure. My brother was one of the very few dust pixies who were actually allergic to dust. Yeah, kind of unfortunate when dust is your life.
I cuddled the ball of fuzz close and prepared to fly back to the corral when I heard a rustling noise coming from the bed.
Oh no. Not now. Please don’t wake up now!
But she did. This human was a quiet, dark haired young woman of about twenty, but that was all I knew about her. We dust pixies didn’t stick around for such juicy facts – it was too dangerous.
The girl sighed and sat up in bed.
No! No, don’t get up!
She got up. And what’s more she came over to the windowsill. The bunny and I dropped low, using our dustiness as a natural camouflage. Unfortunately, the girl was a good housekeeper – the windowsill was spotless. She propped her elbows on the windowsill and stared out at the fading night sky. Perhaps I could have escaped had not the bunny chosen that moment to scramble out of my grasp. She looked down with a dreamy expression on her face when she heard the scuffle. The girl saw the “clump of dust,” and bent down, frowning, to flick it off. Her eyes widened when she saw that we were no mere clump of dust.
We both sat there, staring at each other in fear and surprise. She didn’t speak, she didn’t make a sound, but the wild look in her eyes told me exactly what she was thinking. Am I still dreaming? She bent down even closer and stared at me with huge blue-gray eyes. When she blinked, her eyelashes brushed my face.
“Please,” I whispered, “please don’t hurt me.”
When she heard my voice, the girl jumped back and clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Nope, she wasn’t dreaming. She stood there, breathing hard, then answered in a slow whisper.
“I would never hurt you… whatever you are. I’ll just close my eyes and you can go back to wherever you live – I won’t peek, I promise.” The girl squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
I was amazed. This human was actually kind! I whispered a heartfelt “Thank you,” caught up the baby dust bunny, and flew out of the room as fast as I could.
Boy, would I have a story to tell my father.
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This was so much fun to write! I love creating alternate worlds like this. 🙂 I’m probably going to continue this story as TIWC progresses.
Oh, and I combined and edited this picture and this picture to make the photo of Mae and the dust bunny. I love how it turned out! The bunny in the actual photo looked like an real life dust bunny – kind of like Willow! XD
Did you like the “dust pixies”?
***Allison***
P. S. I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVE 1,000 FOLLOWERS! AAHHHHHHH!
Allison Marie 