Sitting in her favorite tree Suzi leans against the bark, overlooking Heidi’s house. “No bodies home” she’s thinking. “Perfect time for setting up her epic Xmas/ New Year’s surprise!!” Sitting forward she runs her chin as she contemplates what to do… all the sudden Suzi jumps to her feet. “Got it!!” she yells, startling the bird on the next branch over. “Oops, sorry.”

Rubbing her hands gleefully she begins her plans.

Looking over the newly manicured lawn, she sees there is not enough space for what she has planned, so grabbing her wand she takes to the sky and circling the yard she systematically removes all the trees and bushes, leaving the entire property bare. “YES!!” She thought… now the fun begins!

Barely being able to hide her excitement Suzi begins to “redecorate” Heidi’s lane for the epic surprise. Wanting to do something completely different, Suzi waves her wand and BAM a volcano appears in the upper left-hand corner of the yard. Next to the volcano 2 big palm trees. Looking at the trees she decided to add coconuts, bananas and 12 monkeys. Then around the volcano and the trees she added pink sand and a large body of water. The moneys were having a wonderful time and Suzi stopped a moment to laugh at their antics.

Looking at the water she Suzi decided a water fountain in the middle would be quite nice, so with I flick of her wrist. Voilà! A big water fountain. Hmmm… that’s a big fountain. Ok… now some lighting. Oh! Tiki torches! Perfect! Again with a flick, 6 torches appear on the edge of the sand.

Looking around, Suzi was almost satisfied with her gift… but something was missing… hmmm… music!!! Thinking for a moment she added a gazebo on the lower right-hand corner of the yard and put in a oom-pa-pa band. Cool! And for an added touch Suzi added a handful of tropical birds, 3 more trees, a lion and his lioness, two adorable, rambunctious cubs, and last but not least three Yorkies.

Waiting until after the sun set, the full moon rose, the stars lit up the sky…the stage was set, almost. With a flick of her wand Suzi lit up the torches and signaled for the band to start. The trombonist hit the first note… ooooh no…

Just then Heidi drove up. Getting out of her car she stops dead in her tracks with her mouth hanging wide open. What the…!!!!

Just as Suzi was fluttering over to greet Heidi, a large shriek rent the night air, following by several more, increasing in volume. Oh lord, the birds were screeching in agitation. Rushing to see what was happening all Suzi could do was stare in silence at the utter chaos around her.

Apparently, the music startled the birds, causing the monkeys to get agitated and in their pancaked state started throwing the coconuts and bananas. One of the coconuts hit the lion and he roared angrily, causing his mate to roar in kind. The cubs thought it was great fun and started chasing the monkeys around. Not wanting to be left out, the Yorkies started yapping at full volume, and in their excitement started to pee all over the side of the house.

Dropped her wand in dismay, one of the monkeys grabbed it and imitating what he saw Suzi do, flicked the wand and caused the volcano to erupt! Just as Heidi was starting to back away, a coconut whizzed by her head, barely missing her, and went through her picture window. Another one flew by and lodged itself in the trombone, causing the band members head to almost explode.

The volcano was now shooting mile high flames and the lava was beginning to run red rivers… right… toward… the … house! Ooooh crap. Calling back her wand, the monkey who stole it looked down in his hands with dismay, let out a loud shriek of disapproval and started throwing bananas. One flew by Suzi, but unfortunately hit Heidi Square in the head.

Suzi had to laugh… the look said it all. So now the animals were running wild all over the neighborhood, the volcano was spewing fire and lava all over the place, and OMG!! The fireworks!! BOOM, Whiz! Shoom!! “Take cover!!” Suzi shouted over the loud din as she flew behind the tree.

The only thing left was the water fountain in the middle of the body of water. Taking out her wand, Suzi got ready to direct the water from the fountain towards the volcano, but a frightened bird hit Suzi’s arm as it flew bye, throwing her flick off course and causing the water to hit the broken window and filling the house with water. Well at least it won’t burn down… Suzi though… “um… I stand corrected.”

Blinking, Heidi tried to figure out why her vision was blurry and what the cacophony around her was. The last thing she remembered was pulling up to her house and feeling as if something was…out of sorts. It was a feeling she had had before, and it sent a sense of dread throughout her body. “Oh, please the power that be, no,” she muttered. Then….

As a what looked eerily like a flaming ball of fire soared over her head it all came back to her. The birds, the band, the VOLCANO! Sitting up, her head spun almost sending her back into the darkness. When the world righted, and she saw what her beautiful backyard had been turned into, she wished she had.

Monkeys were jumping from tree to tree, screaming as below lion cubs tried to catch them when they came to close to the ground. The trees that were not in were on fire. Stampeding past her was a group of four men, two of who were dragging another half-conscious man in between them, eyes wide, skin white, screaming, “Run! Get out of the way!” When she saw what was following them she understood the hurry. A massive male lion was chasing them, and behind him….

“SUZI!!!”

Sudden yapping from her left turned her attention to three Yorkies harassing a monkey. Or was the monkey harassing them? Frowning, she shook her head in confusion. What the hell was going on? Suddenly everything went still. As if someone pushed a pause button on a remote. Afraid to look, but unable to help herself, she looked towards the volcano that had suddenly become quiet. Lava still flowed down its sides, catching everything it touched on fire, but the flying boulders of fire had stopped.

“That can’t be good,” she muttered.

Scrambling to her feet, Heidi saw she wasn’t the only one staring at the deadly monstrosity in her backyard. Every animal stood stone still staring at it with wide eyes. No, not good at all. Thank the gods that the nearest neighbor was miles away. As the pressure in the air built, pressing in on her eardrums, even her skin, she frantically scanned the area for the culprit of this newest disaster

“Suzi! I know you are here,” she growled. “You need to come out here and help me clean up this mess before….” That was when she noticed her house, or what was left of it. “SUZI! Get out here NOW!!!”

Fluttering from around the only standing tree, Suzi sheepishly smiled and in the bravest voice she could muster replied. Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

“I’ll just … um… start cleaning up this mess.”

“Yes, that would be nice, but it will take the two of us,” Heidi said as calmly as she could, pulling out her wand. Looking wistfully back at the bonfire that used to be her house, she turned to the wildfire in front of her. “You remember how to make it rain, right?”

“Yes ma’am.” Taking her wand in hand, Suzi aimed toward the sky, but instead of a medium rain a deluge poured down from the sky, drenching everything and everyone in seconds

Standing in mud, completely drenched, her hair hanging heavy down her back, shoulders, and face, Heidi sighed. Reaching up, she pulled her hair back from her face so she could see. “Well, at least the fire is out.” She looked up at the volcano that was reading itself to implode. “For now. We need to stop that volcano before it blows us back to the dark ages. Any ideas?”

Creating a tornado, Suzi directed it over the water that now covered the entire yard, hoping it would collect all the water and she would then aim it into the volcano.

Well…that was the plan, but ya know what they say about the best laid plans….

The ground began to shake. The pressure grew. The animals suddenly came alive and scattered in all directions. Heidi dove out of the way of the lioness and her cubs, landing hard on the now dry dirt.

Now was her chance. Digging into her pocket, Suzi grabbed her magic dust pouch and headed for the volcano. Taking a hand full of dust, she dropped it over the volcano and poof it disappeared from sight. Not really knowing where she sent the volcano, she could only hope it was someplace uninhabited.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Heidi sits up and surveys the damage. Here and there wisps of smoke rose up into the night air. Everything as far as the eye could see in the dark was charred black. Pushing a stray strand of hair from her face the breeze blew, she realized that the sudden absence of moisture left her hair a curly frizzy mess. If only that was the mess to clean up. Looking sideways up at Suzi, who hovered just out of reach, once again looking sheepish, Heidi asked, “Anything else I should know about? Piranha in the Koi pond? Venomous snakes in my….” Heidi glanced behind her at the rubble. “Never mind.” Pushing herself to her feet with a groan, she brushed off her wrinkled slightly tighter clothes, pushed her hair into something that resembled sanity and took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders.

“This is going to take a while to clean up and put right. We better get started.”

Each taking their individual wands, Heidi and Suzi worked their way around the yard and replaced all the grass, the trees and the shrubs. Meeting at the charred remains of what used to be the house, Suzi dropped her head and in a tear strained voice said “I’m so sorry Heidi. I just wanted to make up for the lost holidays.”

Taking a look at the tiny tear streaked, ash covered little fairy, Heidi felt the anger drain out of her.

Lifting up her wand, Suzi wound up what little power she had left and in a brilliant flash of light recreated the original house. Falling out of the sky, she landed on her butt with a tiny thud.

Sitting down heavily next to her in the dirt, Heidi sighed. “I know, and I’m not mad. Nobody was seriously hurt, I think. Hey,” she nudged the fairy. “How about a bath and some dinner. I’ll order from the Thai place in town. They deliver way out here.”

Looking up at Heidi in gratitude, Suzi picked herself up and crawled into Heidi’s outstretched hand. Curling up into a little ball, she sighed in relief and closed her eyes.

Smiling, Heidi carefully got to her feet and walked into the house. In one of the guestrooms she had a specially made fairy alcove for just such an occasion. Although Suzi didn’t know about it because it was a Christmas present. After tucking her in, Heidi took a shower and went to bed, too exhausted to eat, happy to have survived the night in one piece. Tomorrow….well she would see.

Copyright © 2018 Suzanne Carey & Heidi Barnes

I hoped you enjoyed one of many antics of Suzi and her surprises. This is a fun exercise in writing where Suzanne plays Suzi the Fairy and I play myself only as a witch of sorts. Suzanne lives on the east coast and I live on the west coast. We play on Facebook messenger, and usually it’s Suzi the Fairy that starts the well intended mischief. I have other little stories that I thought I posted on this site, but as I look I see I haven’t. I’ll have to find them and put them here and add a link to them as they are written on my page A Little Bit of Fiction. There is very little editing done to these stories. Some punctuation, formatting and spelling. Everything else is as it was written. Thank you for reading. 🙂