Moonlight Wood

The Product Placement Edition

"I love mine. All those bubbles tickle my nose." The sprite fluttered her iridescent wings as she continued, "And it matches my eyes." She kicked her tiny feet, clad in purple tennis shoes with sparkly laces as she swung from a loop of honeysuckle vine draped over the branch of the oak tree.

"Yep. Sure does," the grizzled old brownie, clad in remnants and rags of tattered clothing, popped up from a pile of leaves and sticks wedged into the crook of the tree.

"Wait a minute," he interrupted himself, peering over the tops of his smudged glasses. He stared intently at her face while she batted her eyelashes at him.

See," she said. "Just like the pop bottle." She waved her hand theatrically and a bottle of her namesake soda magically appeared in her hand. She held it up to her face and fluttered her long eyelashes.

"By golly, they are green," he agreed. "Didn't they used to be ... um... Uh. Brown?" he guessed. "When did all this happen?" He waved a hand in the general direction of her face.

"About the time Sprite came out," the gremlin muttered dryly. The sprite frowned and shook the branch. Hundreds of blossoms rained down on the gremlin's head. He sneezed ferociously a couple of time and shook a couple of petals from inside his shirt. "Damned flowers."

"Anyway," the sprite continued, "you've got a good one, too. Brownies. Chocolate. Yum." She launched herself into the air from her makeshift swing and then landed softly beside a particularly fragrant bunch of blossoms. She inhaled deeply, then sighed, "There's nothing better than the smell of chocolate."

"Yeah," grumbled the brownie, "I had a great job. All those cooks and milkmaids left goodies for me. Bowls of milk and fresh hot bread. It was great until the Girl Scouts." He said the phrase with a scowl on his already wizened face. "Now everyone thinks brownies were named for those giggly little girls with those silly merit badges. Now, I ask you. Do I remind you at all of a "brownie"?" His face gave no doubt as to the answer he required and they all answered correctly. A chorus of "Nope." "Of course not." "Never." "Well, maybe..." echoed through the trees.

At this last remark he turned and glared at the gremlin who was busily painting the patch of poison ivy he'd planted in the path with extra itching powder.

"What?" he asked. "Well, somebody might."

"Only an ignoramus like you," the brownie groused under his breath. He tilted his hat over his eyes to block out the moonlight and soon faint snores could be heard coming from the squirrel's nest.

"Mine's Pixie Sticks," the young pixie said quietly from her perch in a robin's nest. She'd been busy feeding the young fledglings. "They're really good, but grown-ups never remember how much fun they are," she said wistfully. She returned to her task, dropping bits of food into the open mouths of the perpetually hungry baby birds.

"Yes," agreed the gremlin, "the package is hard to open. The stuff inside goes everywhere. You get all sticky and your mouth turns green. The perfect candy."

"Hey, you got a whole car," the sprite pointed out. "The Gremlin."

"Yeah. A really ugly one, too." He grinned widely, showing his pointed white teeth glowing faintly in the moonlight. "I tried taking over the computers, too, but they insist on blaming all those problems on bugs. Bugs! Ha!"

At least you've got something. All people remember about us is 'knock wood' and they can't even do that right anymore. They knock. We answer and then nothing. No one ever finishes anymore," a nymph, dressed in the browns and greens of the trees, pouted from her place inside a vacant owl's nest.

"And if one more person knocks on plastic or their heads, I'm gonna scream!" her twin sister replied as she threw her hands into the air, tiny downy owl feathers scattering everywhere. "Have some respect for the old ways, people."

"Yes," her sister added. "It was a lot more fun when the pagans were in charge. We had magic, not just cookies and candy."

"What about 'nymphomania'?" the gremlin asked mischievously. "That's certainly something, especially nowadays."

"Nymphomania?!?" the nymphs protested in unison. "It was one little kiss."

There was a brief moment of silence. The breeze stirred through the trees and the moon floated overhead. The sprite and the pixie settled down to sleep in the tangle of honeysuckle vines. The gremlin dropped his brush, although not before tickling the nose of his sleeping companion, the brownie, with it and closed his eyes. The nymphs, too, prepared for slumber. "One little kiss."

They sighed. "But it was a really good kiss."