Plaude couldn’t be bothered unfolding her gossamer fairy wings.

The heavy sky threatened rain.

Of course, it did.

“One shade darker today, as expected,” Plaude noted.

She walked in her satin slippers, sinking into mud. “Ugh. I just don’t have the energy.”

Perry and Cosmo, her best friends, joined her, walking to the ancient oak tree in the middle of the ancient forest of Ripplewood.

“We need to do something,” Plaude said, glancing with a frown at the assembled crowd of other downtrodden fairies.

An Elder fairy, barely hovering over the stage, fluttered a hand toward the basket at the base of the tree.

In a voice that sounded like someone had pulled the melody from it centuries ago, he said, “Take a job from the basket. Don’t fight. Don’t argue. See you tomorrow.”

The fairies separated, most dragging their feet and only a few able to fluffle their wings.

“Wait!” Plaude shouted, her outburst shooting her backwards.

Cosmo and Perry looked sharply at her.

The other fairies stopped, too.

Unused to being the center of attention, Plaude pulled herself up, cleared her throat and continued shakily. “Haven’t we all had enough?”

No one spoke, just stared at her with their mouths open in perfect “O”s.

“Look at us.” Plaude flapped her hands from shoulders to hips. “We used to be vibrant fairies, happy and energetic. We used to be FUN!”

Cosmo and Perry managed a decent shout. “Plaude is right! What’s happened to us?”

The fairies began to whisper.

Perhaps some agreed with her; others might think she was crazy.

Either way, she felt her confidence whizz throughout her four-inch body and tickle her wings.

She flew over the crowd while she had the strength.

“Well, I’ve had enough of this so-so, ho-hum dreariness! I want us all to be the fairies we used to be before—” Plaude stopped.

She hadn’t thought this through.

She had her theory about what the problem was but mentioning it would ruffle some wings.

Sure enough, the lackluster Color Guard fairy, with the unfortunate name of Gray, stomped onto the stage, glaring at Plaude.

Her energy leaked out and she tumbled back to the forest floor like a poked balloon.

“Before what, missy?” The Color Guard fairy oozed grayness like a bad odor.

Cosmo and Perry ran over to Plaude and lifted her by the arms.

“In for a peony, in for a posy, as the saying goes,” whispered Perry.

“Might as well say it, Plaudey,” agreed Cosmo. “You’ve been telling us for ages.”

“Put me on the stage, boys,” she said.

The fairy crowd parted to let them through.

Plaude cleared her throat again. “I want us all to be the fairies we were before Gray became our color guard!”

There, she’d said it!

“Gray, you’re giving us too many dreary days. The flowers won’t bloom, the trees are becoming moldy, and the fairies are withering. What’s to become of us? A world without fairies is doomed.”

“You think this job is easy?” Gray sputtered. “I’d like to see you do better, missy.”

“We need our colors back,” Plaude said. “For more than a hundred years, you’ve been slowly taking advantage of us all, taking all the perks of the job but giving us nothing in return. If you can’t do the job, someone else has to!”

She looked Gray in the eyes.

The Elder fairy shuffled between Plaude and Gray.

Gray bubbled and puffed. “Are you going to let her talk to me like that?”

The Elder fairy dithered, rolling his eyes and sinking his bald head into his shoulders.

Then, he popped his head up and announced, “I’ve got it! We’ll have a coloring contest!”

“A coloring contest?” Plaude had never heard of such a thing.

“Never heard of such a thing,” Gray said.

The Elder fairy tapped his cheek with a bony finger.

“Neither have I. But it’s brilliant!”

He glowed.

“But what are the rules?” Plaude and Gray said at exactly the same time.

“The rules? The rules! Why, yes, we need rules.”

The Elder fairy resumed tapping his cheek.

“The rules are that the two of you have one week to turn the colors of our forest from Gray’s gray, gray and grayer to something more colorful that we can all applaud, Plaude. I don’t just want a blue sky, I want a—oh, I don’t know, you’ll think of something. That’s the contest! Those are the rules. Go forth and name the colors that will bring us our colorful lives back.”

“But how will just naming the colors bring them back into our lives?” asked Plaude.

“Gray?” said the Elder. “Would you explain the process of making colors?”

“Nope. I don’t believe I will,” he said and marched off the stage.

“Now what?” said Plaude.

The Elder shrugged.

Cosmo and Perry fluttered around her.

“You’ll figure it out,” Perry said.

Cosmo grabbed Perry’s arm.

“We’re counting on you, Plaudey. But right now, the two of us have to get our assignments before there’s nothing good left.”

Plaude collapsed to the stage floor.

“I don’t know what to do! What was I thinking?”

She allowed a minute to feel sorry for herself then sat up with a grunt.

Crossing her legs and tucking her shoes under her, she closed her eyes and waited for inspiration.

The voices of the fairies grew fainter, and the sun gathered back its feeble rays.

Darkness fell on Ripplewood.

“It’s dark. Black,” she observed. “And yet, not completely black. There’s a little blue.”

What color would that be?

She imagined talking to Perry and Cosmo, asking them to help paint her dwelling that exact color.

“What would you call that color,” they would ask.

And she would answer…her answer would be…ummmm. “Midnight.”

No, that was boring.

There were probably a million colors of midnight.

“I know!” She clapped. “I’d say it’s Ripplewood nights!”

And they would know exactly what color that was.

Plaude fluttered her wings.

“But so what?” she muttered. “I still don’t know how to make the colors.”

Trudging home through the mist, she saw the dull eyes of forest creatures.

“Your eyes should be brighter,” she mused. “What color?”

Then, “Preying eyes yellow!” she shouted.

The creatures blinked at each other, and Plaude watched their eyes became a vivid yellow.

Or was that her imagination?

“And what could I call the colors of the nighttime forest?”

It certainly was dark and even a little spooky.

She focused on enchantment, charm and cheer.

“Midnight leaf green!”

No sooner had she uttered the name, she thought she noticed a subtle shift in hue that made her feel less

afraid.

“Let me try something,” she said.

The full moon hung placidly in the night sky, neither spooky nor charming.

“How about I call you Ghost Story gray?”

Sure enough, the moon seemed to wrap itself in a tinge of menace.

Plaude shouted, “Lemon Custard Ice Cream!” and the moon pulsated a glowing cheer.

“Well, how about that!”

She walked past the Color Guard fairy’s home, jumping to peek through the window.

As usual, it was full of woodland sweets in preserved tulip bowls, and comfy settees of rose petals, blankets of fine spider webs, just some of the perks of the honored Color Guard, who, at the moment, was fast asleep at his polished stone table.

At her own home, Plaude sat on her bed of baby’s tears, the tiny leaves a comforting mattress, and wrote down all the colors that flooded her brain.

Her hummingbird quill pen raced over the paper.

“Fairy’s Blush pink. Waving to Summer blue. Cinnamon Foam. Freckles. Cocoa Wisp. Celebration Champagne gold. Lemon Meringue pie. Milk and Honey.”

Plaude spent three days writing and thinking and naming colors until she had a list of more than two hundred.

Looking at her dull acorn teacup, she said, “Tawny fawn brown.”

Slowly, as with a mother’s gentle kiss, the teacup shimmered into the shiny new hue.

She glanced at her threadbare rug.

“Kitty whisker gray.”

The rug began to purr and became as soft as a newborn kitten’s whiskers with a hint of tender white.

“Could it be so simple?”

Plaude drifted to sleep with a smile.

On the fourth day, she awoke to a quiet knock on her door.

“Hello, boys!” she said, opening it to Perry and Cosmo.

“We’ve come to check on your progress,” said Perry.

She studied her friends.

“You’re the color of oatmeal.”

“It’s getting bad out there,” said Cosmo. “Everything is getting grayer and more miserable. Look.”

She peered outside.

“It’s just gray, and darker gray, and sadder gray! And no one is flying. The fairies are fading! I have to talk to the Elder!”

She zipped through the sky full of her own momentum and landed with a dainty hop to knock on the Elder’s door.

It took him an age to open.

When he did, he, too, was the unappealing color of porridge.

“This contest has to be over,” she said. “We can’t wait. Have you heard from Gray?”

The Elder shook his head.

“Well, best collect him and his list. I’ll get mine and be back in a blip.”

She had to save Ripplewood Forest.

But could it be so obvious?

The power of a name?

Plaude alighted in front of her dwelling.

The door was open.

The boys were gone.

She took a step inside and saw her pinecone lamp tossed on the floor and her slate sofa overturned.

But worse, from the door of her bedroom, she could see that her list of colors was gone.

“Frazzled anger red!” she said. “Darn you, Gray!”

She knew it had to be that rolled-oats fairy who had stolen her colors.

She flew as fast as a hummingbird back to the stage.

Gray hovered and danced in the air.

“Give me back my colors!” Plaude shouted.

“You mean this?” said Gray, fanning the air with her paper.

He flew to her and cupped his hand to speak in her ear.

“Eww!”

The feel of his breath on her ear was nasty.

If it were a color, it would be Nasty whisper gray.

“Just talk to me from over there.”

Gray narrowed his eyes.

“Come with me, missy. We need to talk privately.”

“Stop calling me missy.”

Plaude looked around for her friends.

If she was going anywhere with Gray, she wouldn’t do it alone.

She summoned the energy to fly high above the stage and spotted Cosmo and Perry slumped against the base of the ancient oak tree.

She tried to wake them.

“Wha’?” The boys couldn’t even muster the energy to say the whole word.

Plaude left them sleeping.

“Talk, Gray,” she said.

“I know how to make the colors,” Gray said. “But I admit, after a hundred years, I’ve become a trifle lazy, and I’ve forgotten how to make them colorful. Gray’s my limit. But with your list and my know-how, we can rule Ripplewood Forest. I’ll share all my Color Guard benefits with you.”

Plaude looked over at her friends, their eyes closed and their skin the color of a boring day.

The other fairies, too, were pale shadows, slogging across the forest floor.

“I don’t need you, Gray,” she said.

The Color Guard stammered.

“Oh, I think you do, missy. Without my help, you won’t be able to make the colors. The fairies of Ripplewood Forest will be a puddle of unappetizing mush. Extinct. And it will all be your fault.”

“Plaude, don’t be reckless,” implored the Elder who had joined them backstage. “If you don’t know how to make the colors, then we’re all condemned to death.”

“I won’t offer my help again, missy. Either we do this together now or….”

Perry and Cosmo had rallied and joined her, as well.

They whispered to her, a sound so quiet it was like leaves rubbing together.

But it was all the encouragement she needed.

“Not only do I not need you,” she said to Gray, “none of us do.”

Plaude flew to the center of the stage.

The fairies’ sad faces turned to her with a glimmer of hope, causing her a moment’s doubt.

Then, she raised her hand.

“My friends, I can give you back your oomph! In fact, all of you have that power. We don’t need Gray. I’ll show you.”

Gray gasped.

“I hope you like the color gray, missy, because that’s the last color you’ll see as you close your eyes on this life,” Gray said.

Plaude ignored him and waved as if painting the sky.

“Crystal Ball blue,” she said.

Nothing happened.

Plaude tried again with more of a flourish of her hand.

The leaden sky shimmied, then with a “pfft,” it became the bluest sky that Ripplewood had seen in ages.

The fairies oohed and ahhed.

“Clouds of Bunny Ears pink,” she called out.

The clouds obediently changed color and hopped into place.

“Lemon Meringue sun.”

This was fun.

“Now, fairies, it’s your turn,” said Plaude. “Think of something you love, some color that makes you smile.”

“Puppy paws!” They called out.

“Alpaca mittens!”

“Frosted apples!”

“Marmalade jam!”

“Wooly lambs!”

“Puppy love!”

“Winter snow!”

Bing, bing, bing!

As the fairies called out the names, Ripplewood Forest became awash in color.

Flowers took on the color of jam on toast, lightning bug yellow, fairy floss silver.

Trees donned brilliant jaded green and emerald cloaks.

The sky was a palette of ice cream shades and the forest a wonderland of hues, jewel tones, and happy colors.

But best of all, the fairies began to take wing like butterflies into Ripplewood Forest, their lively chatter filling the sky.

“Congratulations, Plaude. You are our new honored Color Guard!” announced the Elder.

“You did it,” cheered Cosmo and Perry, amid the applause of the fairies.

But she had one more thing to do.

Hoping magic was one of the perks as the newly minted Color Guard, she pointed at Gray who was sitting on the stage, babbling, and said, “Volcanic ash gray.”

In a poof, Gray was gone.

“What did you do to him?” asked the Elder.

“He’s in charge of grim things now.”

At the Elder’s puzzled look, Plaude held her arms like a scale. “We need balance.”

“Very reasonable. Thank you, Plaude,” said the Elder. “You saved us.”

The cheers of the fairies resounded through Ripplewood Forest like wind chimes.

Plaude smiled and felt her cheeks blush—Fairy’s Blush pink.

~The End

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