In Shimmer #17, we are treated to “The Fairy Godmother,” by Kim Neville. As a lovely online bonus for you, and you, and you, we are delighted to present the author reading her work.

When the Fairy Godmother is small, she can only grant small wishes. She turns buttons into pennies and makes gummy bears appear in coat pockets. She recovers socks lost in dryers. She vanishes bunions and mild rashes and embarrassing body hair. As she grows so does her power. The pennies become pearls. The socks become kittens.

No matter how many times she tries, she can’t make her father well.

The other children at school love the Fairy Godmother, mostly because of the gummy bears but also because she can make their paper airplanes fly in formation. She has a purple wand with a star on the end of it and her classmates are always stealing it at the playground. They swirl it around, trying to conjure up chocolate rivers or giant robot dogs. The wand emits puffs of gold glitter but their wishes
never come true.

The Fairy Godmother’s wings tend to get in the way on the monkey bars. She prefers the teeter-totter.