We leave the acorns cups on the porch before I go to bed. Oma says that the fairies will find them there and use them for little caps when they go sliding on the dewy grass. They’ll like that. We leave gifts on the porch for the fairies every night, and every morning they leave us a gift. Mostly just milk. Mother says the milkman leaves the milk, and that there is no such thing as fairies. She says Oma is a crazy old woman.
Oma says Mother works too hard, and she’s sad on the inside. Even when she smiles. But I already knew that. She cries at night.
She and Oma don’t get along very well. They like to fight. But Oma has to stay here with us, so that I have someone to watch me after school. Mother used to do it before Dad went away, but she doesn’t now. She has to work, and she doesn’t have time for acorn caps for fairies or swinging in the park, or making picnics for squirrels. Oma and I have to do those things all by ourselves. Oma likes it, but I wish Mother would come with us. I think she would like it.
Oma tucks me into bed at night too. We sit together on the bed, all curled up together, and wait until we hear Mother’s car pull into the driveway. Oma tells me stories about goblins and fairies, wood elves and nistlebricks. I like her stories.
She says Mother liked them too, when she was my age. But grownups don’t like to believe in fairies when they get older.
Ramblings of an Obsessive Bookworm 