Rebecca Walters, aged 11, from Middlesborough

Dream Calling

It might have been the world’s most beautiful night. No moon. Stars like searchlights. A thin layer of ice covered every branch and leaf and blade of grass. It was perfectly, eerily still. Nothing rustled the hedges and I could imagine the rabbits and badgers, rolled up tight in their underground dens. It took the haunting scream of an owl to tear me out of my dream, remind me that I was not here to enjoy nature. There was work to be done.

I picked a small blue pipe, a bit like a flute from my pocket in my flowing indigo robes. It was a dream pipe said to be made of midnight sky from the beginning of time, inlaid with gold in a twisting golden pattern of leaves. The greatest honour a fairy could have was to be given permission to call the year’s dreams with it.

I snapped out of dreaming for a second time as my cat, Limerick, brushed my ankle. I put the pipe to my lips and began to play a sweet tune. I knew straight away something was wrong.

Only a few wisps of golden dreams in their half gas, half liquid state, floated into view. There was only one reason for that …

“A human”, I whispered in disbelief. What on earth was a human doing in the middle of a wood at midnight, on the longest night of the year?

I tucked the dream pipe back into my robes and was preparing to go when the human came into view.

She was young, about five, dressed in a dirty pink t-shirt and blue jeans.

I quickly folded my butterfly wings out of sight and reached for the last dream of the previous year. Picking out a small gold horn hung on silvery unicorn hairs from around her neck, I tucked the dream down it and blew it at the girl.

For a second nothing seemed to happen then the child yawned and went to sleep.

Once again I grabbed the dream pipe and began to play. The tune was sweeter this time like happiness, low and friendly, washing over you at once making you feel like you had just drunk a sweet hot cup of drinking chocolate or eating fresh honey.

Suddenly the clearing was full of sound like rushing water and millions of dreams came into sight floating just above the ground like a golden mist.

Now I had to call the collectors. I grabbed the golden horn and blew three times. In an instant five fairies dressed in scarlet and gold with nets that glowed red.

Each one started picking up dreams in their nets, which seemed to remain empty. My job was done.

Rebecca Walters

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