A fairy story

Hello there children.
Are you sitting comfortably?
Then I'll begin.

Once upon a time, there lived a fairy who made his home in an old tree stump in the middle of a park. This happy little fellow wore a name tag he had found on the pavement, pinned to the front of the grimy dish towel which served as his kilt (another great find!). He didn't have a name as such, so he simply wrote 'fairy' on it.

As he wandered the park one day, a thought struck him:
Why not do some good deeds in the run-up to christmas?
He was sure he'd been a good little fairy, but you can't afford to leave these things to chance.

Venturing forth towards the town, he came across a rather large, beetroot-faced man jogging along, looking very tired. The man wore a bright blue tracksuit and wobbled excessively. As he bounced along he resembled nothing more than one of those little rubber balls that businessmen squeeze between board meetings and spousal neglect. He really was becoming quite sweaty.

"Do you think you should take a rest?" the fairy asked.

"Oh, no, lad." the Large Man replied. "Got to keep up one's fitness, eh?"

"Are you sure? There's a bench right over there." offered the fairy, motioning to a rusty, yet undeniably inviting-looking bench on the side of the path.

The Large Man 'ummed' and 'erred', but he was terribly tired. And fat. "But mostly tired." he thought. Cantering over to the bench, he sat down heavily.

The bench was frankly not going to stand for any of this 'being sat on' nonsense, and promptly collapsed. The man was sent careening backwards into patch of unfortunately placed bramble bushes. The fairy may have been a kind little soul, but he was smart enough not to want to be around for the aftermath of this, and made himself scarce.

He was disheartened, but not defeated. He was sure there were plenty of people in his situation who had suffered such a setback.

Continuing on his merry way, he met, outside a bakery of all places, a baker. She was only a waif of a girl, dwarfed by her which apron seemed to have been tailored for the ill-fated jogger. She grimaced and scribbled on a notepad, pausing ocasionally to chew on a pencil.

"Are you alright?" asked our hero, hopefully.

"Not really." said the girl. "I've got to design a cake for my bosses' party, but I can't come up with anything."

"What sort of party is it?" the fairy replied.

"A bowling themed party." said the girl, frowning at her notes.

The fairy's eyes lit up! "Oh, I KNOW!" he said, grabbing the notepad. "You could have a bowling pin here, and on either side, a bowling ball!"

He sketched out a little diagram, and gave the notepad back to the girl. He blinked at it for a moment, as though recognising something, but shrugged it off.

"This is actually quite good," said the girl "I'll show my boss right now!"

She hurried inside, and the fairy cocked an ear at the doorway, listening for a reaction. There was a shout, and a crash. A very tall, very pointy man appeared in the doorway, and pointed at the fairy with his pointiest pointer finger.

"IS THIS A JOKE?!?" he yelled, brandishing the notepad.

As i said, our little friend is many things, but foolish is not one of them. He was off again, as fast as his little legs could carry him. He sped towards a shopping centre, hoping to lose any pursuers he may have gained, and eventually came to rest in the underground car park of a shopping complex.

He slumped against an expensive-looking red car that obviously spent it's weekdays compensating for something, and tried to catch his breath. He felt that maybe he should cut his losses with today, go home to the tree stump and spend a theraputic evening bearing his soul to some of the more sympathetic lichens.

Suddenly, he noticed a tall, heavy-set man crouching behind a car, rubbing something with a rag. He watched for a moment, before approaching, and hazarding his luck.

"Can I...er...can I help you with anything?" he asked point-blank.

The man looked up. He had the kind of face that was usually stood outside Eastern European nightclubs, regretfully informing you that it was now obliged to 'break you'. He smiled in the same sort of way a series of fence posts do. Gappily.

"No, little man," the gap-toothed man graveled. "I am having work to do...as soon as I fix this."

He showed the fairy what he was polishing. It was a grubby revolver.

"It won't fire." he explained.

Our hero knew nothing about guns, but this was his last chance, and he was going to help!

"Have you...checked to see if the barrel is blocked?" ventured the fairy.

The man blinked stupidly, theN raised the gun so that he stared down the barrel.

"Little man," he smirked, "there is SOMETHING in there."

The fairy was overjoyed he'd gotten something right, and suprised the man with a tight hug as he glared down the gun's muzzle.

...

The fairy, this happy little chap, didn't seem to shoppers to be quite so jolly as he stumbled around town later, a dark red stain on his tea towel.