T
he dirt was damp and covered in pixie dust. Penelope felt her pants dampen as she bent down awkwardly on the ground next to where Ferry landed. Her fairy friend dusted off the tiny green suit he had on, straightening his petal tie and turning to her nervously.
“Aren’t you going to go in? This rental inspection isn’t going to start itself,” she whispered, barely loud enough to hear. She knew that Ferry could hear her loud and clear though; fairies had incredibly powerful hearing – one of the reasons she figured he was looking for a new home deep in the forest.
“Can you knock?” He fluttered on the spot nervously. “I’m terrified.”
“This is why you needed to find a buyer’s agent near Kew before we started our hike here,” she muttered, eyeing the tiny home in front of her. It was the size of a shoebox, and her entire thumb would crush the door if she even attempted to knock. She was only there for support and to check if there would be any renovations she could help with on the house, given her green thumb and crafting talent.
“They don’t exactly have amazing buyer’s advocacy businesses in Melbourne for fairies,” he bit back. She knew it was just his nerves. He had explained how stressed he had been about buying a new property. She had even seen him bringing a notepad with different sections for writing down the possible resale value, bargaining potential and auction times of each house they would view.
Penelope shifted back, leaning on the balls of her feet. She motioned with her eyes for Ferry to knock. Given how cramped she felt with branches tickling the top of her head, she was too scared to move much. The potential for her to accidentally knock down the teacup-sized home before the property agent even came out to greet them was horrifying.
Ferry, taking a deep breath, finally knocked, and the door swung open.
Before I moved to Canberra, I hailed from the sunny beaches of the Sunshine Coast. I remember huddling in front of a slowly rotating, rusty old fan in the living room, battling with my two brothers to be right in front of it. The only good thing I remember about that fan was that it made your voice sound distorted and robotic when you spoke directly into it which to my 10-year-old self was only about twenty minutes worth of fun.