The Pixie Party

Posted on by Louise Bunting

toadstool house

The Pixie Party

Sephie and Merelda are sisters who love to dance.

More than anything else in the whole wide world they want to go to the pixie party. There the pixies dance among the toadstools, strings of multi-coloured firefly lanterns lighting their dancefloor.

There’s only one problem – Sephie and Merelda are far too big to dance with the pixies.

But they have a plan.

They put on their best party dresses and skip down the road to town. There they see a familiar wizard selling magic potions in the marketplace.

“Old Wizard Woo,” Sephie asks, “can we buy a potion to make us really small?”

“As small as pixies,” Merelda adds.

“Hmm.” The old wizard strokes his beard. Sidney Spider peaks over the brim of his hat. “I think I might have something…” He rummages through his basket and pulls out a bottle. The words ‘Shrinking Potion’ curl across the label.

The sisters pay him a small golden coin.

“But what do you want a shrinking potion for?” the wizard wonders, blinking owlishly.

“To dance at the pixie party, of course!”

Old Wizard Woo scratches his head as the girls begin to skip away. “I’m sure that’s not a good idea,” he murmurs. “If only I can remember why…”

Sidney Spider spins a web down to the wizard’s ear and whispers “They musn’t touch the toadstools!”

“That’s it! Of course! Don’t touch the toadstools!” Old Wizard Woo shouts after them. The sisters wave back. He just hopes they were listening.

Sephie and Merelda walk through the Enchanted Forest, following the faint sound of music drifting through the trees. The pixies live deep in the forest, where the toadstools grow big enough for them to live inside. The sisters creep close until they see the pixies dancing.

“We’re here. I can’t believe we’re here,” Sephie whispers excitedly.

Merelda grins. “Let’s drink the potion.”

They each drink a mouthful, pulling faces at the taste. A golden glow surrounds them and they begin to shrink. Soon the girls are no taller than pixies. Blades of grass tower around them like the trunks of trees.

“It worked! We’re small!” Grinning and laughing, they join the party.

Sephie and Merelda dance for hours, jumping and skipping, swirling and twirling. They make lots of friends. Their feet fly as they laugh and spin.

They’re having fun until suddenly Sephie stumbles dizzily and falls against a toadstool house.

Merelda gasps, remembering the wizard’s warning. “Don’t touch the toadstools!” he’d told them. She runs to her sister’s side but she’s too late. Sephie has already fallen into a deep sleep.

The pixies stop dancing. The musicians stop playing their instruments. All of their new friends gather around.

“We’re not pixies,” Merelda admits sadly. “We drank a shrinking potion. The wizard warned us not to touch the toadstools.”

“You’re human?”… “Oh dear!”… “That’s not good,” the pixies say. “Humans don’t wake up after touching the toadstools.”

Merelda starts to cry. She doesn’t want her sister to sleep forever. “Is there nothing you can do to help?”

“You could always ask the pixie witch for help.”

“Ssh, Tixel,” the others say, shaking their heads.

Merelda looks at the gathered pixies. “Who’s the pixie witch?”

“We don’t talk about her!”… “She’s scary!”… “She plays nasty tricks,” the pixies say.

Tixel shakes his head. “She’s not that bad,” he tells Merelda. “Though she can be a bit grumpy. I’m sure she’ll know a spell to wake your sister up.”

“Please take me to her?” Merelda begs and Tixel agrees.

The pixie witch lives in a hole in a tree not far from the toadstool village. Merelda and Tixel are soon clambering up the roots, knocking against the wood as they shout “Hello!” into the witch’s home.

“Who’s there?” a croaky voice calls out. “Go away. I don’t want visitors.”

“I need your help,” Merelda told her.

“Well, I don’t want to give it.”

“Please! My sister’s in trouble. We drank a shrinking potion to dance at the pixie party but Sephie touched a toadstool and fell asleep.”

The pixie witch pokes her head out of the hole. “What silly person gave you a shrinking potion?”

“Old Wizard Woo.”

“Bah! I should have guessed. I’ll help your sister,” she says. She wiggles her fingers, muttering strange words, and a bulging bag follows her out of the hole. “And then I’m going to go and give that wizard a good telling off!”

Merelda and Tixel follow the little witch back to the village where Sephie lies in the middle of the dancefloor, away from the toadstools.

The pixie witch wiggles her fingers, sprinkling sparkling dust over Sephie’s face as she speaks strange magic words. A moment later Merelda sees her sister’s eyes flutter open.

“You’re awake!” Merelda throws her arms around her.

Sephie rubs at her eyes and yawns. “Have I been asleep?” Before Merelda can explain the pixie witch growls another question that causes the sisters to look worriedly at each other.

“Did that daft wizard give you a potion to put you back to proper size?”

The sisters shake their heads.

The pixie witch grumbles. With another wiggle of her fingers and sprinkling of dust she casts a spell on the sisters. Shouting their farewells to all of their new pixie friends, they begin to grow.

As Sephie and Merelda walk home through the forest they talk excitedly about their night at the pixie party.

It was great fun, they agree, but next time they’ll make sure their plans are better made. And they’ll stay away from all the toadstools.

26 thoughts on “The Pixie Party”

  1. Its a lovely tale Louise, it has a moral, humour, the pixie witch is a great character, I’d love to hear her giving the wizard what for. It’s going to interesting for you to maybe ask when you complete reading it to an audience as to whom they felt drawn, the girls or the pixie witch. She becomes a very compelling character…..a future story in that character.
    I’m not sure if you are interested or not but on April 30th we hope to post a Tale Weaver prompt, Bed time Stories for Grown up Children. Drop by and have a look at what comes from that idea.

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    1. Thank you, Michael. I have lot’s of story ideas for a great many characters – the pixie witch especially. She’s one of my favourites. 🙂 I always like to get a bit of discussion going after I tell a story so that’s a good idea for a question. I’ll keep my eyes out for that prompt – it sounds right up my street! Thank you for a wonderfully thorough comment. 🙂

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      1. She happily listened to the story, and said she said ‘good story’ when I asked her what she thought. Then she asked me for the picture because she wanted to colour it in. And now she’s asking me a ton of questions about toadstools (the answers to which I have to Google, mostly…). So, sort of success, I’d say.

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      2. Thank you for the feddback! I’m really glad she enjoyed it. I hope she had fun with her colouring in, as well. That picture is the first of a whole series of colouring pictures I’m planning to draw – when I have some free time!

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      3. She loved colouring in (even though I’d call it colour all over the place, really…), so I hope you’ll get some time to draw more soon 🙂

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  5. Its a lovely story Louise, the kids will love having it read to them. The only suggestion I have is maybe adding something in the section where they arrive at the witch’s house – either after Tixel agreeing to take them, or between them seeing the house and climbing up the roots of the tree etc – maybe a few more lines to flesh out the transition there, but otherwise its a great story! 🙂

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    1. Thanks for the feedback. I’ll have a look at that section. I’ll admit I didn’t work on that bit as much as the rest – I really wanted to get it finished yesterday and it was getting rather late!

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  6. I thought it was a great story. I’m sure most little girls would love it. I quite liked Wizard Woo and Sidney the Spider too. I agree with the others. I’d love to know why Wizard Woo and Tixel aren’t good friends 😀 Leenna

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    1. Thanks. I’m glad you like it. I have lots of stories about all of these characters and many others as well. 🙂 I just need to find the time to write them!

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  7. I think that’s a lovely story for little kiddies 🙂

    The only sentence which struck me as slightly “adulty” was “The words ‘Shrinking Potion’ curl across the label”, specifically “curl across”. (Note there is an errant apostrophe in the word “play’s” further down.)
    I love the character names, I think the children will enjoy them. There’s just the right amount of “danger” with a happy ending. The witch is just scary enough to excite children without frightening them.

    I hope if you illustrate it you will share the pictures with us – I want to know if Old Wizard Woo is the same as I picture him 🙂

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    1. Thank you very much for the feedback. I’ll have a think about how else to phrase that line. After several months of writing all adult stories it took me a while to get back into the swing of kiddy language! There is a picture of Old Wizard Woo already on my blog – though it was drawn before I’d really developed his character. The header image on my blog was the first picture I did when I started creating the Enchanted Forest and all the characters who live there. Old Wizard Woo is just above the blog name. I think I’d draw him looking a lot less composed now. 🙂

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      1. I see him! It’s so cool that you’ve created a whole magical world for kiddies 🙂
        My only post which might appeal to kids is “Spider Army” – I managed to write an entire post without any gruesome deaths!

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