Fairy Godmothers, Inc. Flash Fiction: Icebreaker

Icebreaker

By Jenniffer Wardell

The dance hadn’t worked.

Kate and the client, a shy but perfectly nice young lady named Bonnie, were currently hiding out in the castle corridor trying to figure out what had gone wrong. At the moment, the “figuring” mostly consisted of Bonnie crying and Kate thinking evil thoughts about the young Count Duboir.

“He hates me,” Bonnie whimpered, trying to keep her sobs quiet. “When we started dancing I thought he liked me for a minute, but then he couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”

“That’s because he’s an idiot,” Kate soothed, rubbing a hand along the girl’s back. She’d actually been dumb enough to like the painfully young count for about five minutes. He’d looked incredibly uncomfortable at the party, but when he’d seen Bonnie step out onto the dance floor his whole face had lit up. She didn’t understand why he’d bolted the minute the song ended, which made the whole thing that much more infuriating. “I’ll figure out something.”

“It won’t work.” Bonnie shook her head, her voice wet. “You did everything just right.” She sniffed, sounding absolutely miserable. “It’s all my fault. I should have giggled more or something. But all I could do was stare at him.” That started the tears up again. “He was just so wonderful….”

Oh, the poor girl. “Listen, you’re the wonderful—“ Kate stopped, practically able to feel the pieces clicking into place. “You didn’t talk to him very much, did you? When you were dancing, you didn’t have to, but afterward you’re expected to stare at each other and say all kinds of romantic nonsense.”

“I was hoping he wouldn’t notice when I didn’t say much.” Wiping at her wet cheeks, Bonnie watched Kate stand up with a confused look. “Is that what I did wrong?”

“You did nothing wrong,” Kate said firmly, helping Bonnie to her feet. “The count is just as shy as you are, and after the dance was over he panicked.”

Bonnie just stared at her. “How do you know?”

“I don’t, but any other explanation means I have to kill him.” Kate dragged Bonnie back toward the ballroom, stopping just outside the doors. “Is there any chance at all you might be willing to start a conversation with the man?”

Bonnie looked panicked. “What would I say? I don’t know enough to sound interesting!”

Kate sighed. “Okay, option two.” She watched the pages run back and forth between the kitchen and ballroom, then snagged a dish of custard off of one of the trays. Watching the crowd until the count came into view again, she dumped the custard over Bonnie’s head.

The girl looked like she was about to cry again. “I really liked this dress.”

“Yes, but now the count has a reason to talk to you,” Kate said, pushing Bonnie through the door. The girl just stood there a moment, looking miserable, but when the count saw her a look of instant dismay crossed his face.

Immediately, he pushed his way to her side. “Are you all right?” he asked Bonnie, taking her hands in his. When the girl just shook her head, still sniffling, the count led her out the door. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.” 

Hiding safely around a different corner, Kate grinned

Flash Fiction: A Gift for Management

Every tyrannical boss has to start somewhere. Meet Bubbles, years before she becomes the terror extraordinaire of Fairy Godmothers, Inc.

A Gift for Management

By Jenniffer Wardell

When your parents are cruel enough to name you Bubbles, certain professions seem inevitable.

Most of those professions also required the ability to at least pretend to like other people, a talent that Bubbles Applegate neither had nor wanted. What she did have was an obsessive need for order and a glare that could make more fragile souls burst into tears, which eventually led to a job managing the kitchen staff at one of the smaller castles. After a week, she had everything running like clockwork.

During one of the Baroness’s monthly fancy dress balls, however, the clock started breaking down. Her wait staff started disappearing one by one, and when she went to track them down she found them huddled around the coatroom.

A glare from her sent them all scurrying away again, but she caught one young man before he could flee completely. “What was important enough to make you idiots willing to risk my wrath?” she snapped, glaring at her employee.

He swallowed audibly. “There’s someone crying in there,” he stammered. “Big, loud sobs. We wondered if it was the Baroness.”

“If any of you had been listening, she went upstairs an hour ago with a headache. Now go do your job before I fire you.”

Letting the young man run off, she turned her glare to the closed closet door. Pressing an ear against it, she realized that the idiot had been correct about someone crying. Not that she cared, one way or the other, but if that person was still there when people came to get their coats it would make a mess.

Yanking open the door, she was annoyed to find two women crammed into the small space. The crying one was wearing fairy wings and the most ridiculous-looking pink dress Bubbles had ever seen, while the other wore a nightgown and a helpless expression.

Bubbles turned to the more rational of the two. “Is this your Fairy Godmother? Why on earth is she in here instead of presenting you at the party?”

The girl shrugged. “Something went wrong with the dress spell and hour ago, and she can’t seem to fix it. I’ve tried to calm her down, but….”

“Oh, for pity’s sake.” Deciding that the Fairy Godmother was going to be useless for the immediate future, she ushered the girl outside and got one of the pages to fit her into one of the queen’s less fashionable gowns. The witch in charge of the butterfly illusions the queen liked agreed to arrange a little something for the girl’s entrance, and the baron’s son seemed appropriately impressed.

The next morning, she sent a stern letter and a bill for her services to Fairy Godmothers, Inc. They sent her back a job offer.

Supervillain Don’ts #2: Complicated Death Gadgets

It’s time to get back to that complicated wheel of death, or any of the other ludicrously complicated mechanisms that supervillains repeatedly use in their attempts to slaughter heroes. Though their popularity has been on decline since the 70s and 80s, there are still plenty of our villainous brothers and sisters who still have visions of enormous swinging blades and times flamethrowers dancing through their heads.

I understand the appeal. Rube Goldberg machines that kill are both hilarious and are a great way to display how fiendishly clever you are. They’re a perfect place to use your ominous music soundtrack, and it gives a death scene a bit more flare than the traditional stabbing or shooting. If you’ve chosen to be a themed villain – The Evil Cheeseman, for example (though please, don’t take that as a suggestion) – you can construct a device that matches your theme.

There is, however, a fatal flaw in such devices – the more moving parts something has, the more ways it can disastrously break down.  It’s the same fatal flaw that comes with most of the basic technology in our lives, though there isn’t usually someone whose life depends on making sure your television doesn’t work (unless your family really hates your taste in TV shows).

The more complicated a method you use to kill the hero, the more opportunities they have to throw one last gasp of their powers (or, for that matter, a rock) in just the right place to bring the whole thing to a screeching halt. Or worse, send it crumbling into a big heap that will injure five or six minions in the process.

The hero will sadly, always know where these spots are – either they will be hiding an engineering degree/basic scientific genius you know nothing about, or they will be blessed with an incredibly annoying level of luck that will guide the rock right where it needs to go. Even if you shield the spot – hiding it behind thick metal shielding, for example – the hero will be able to reflect the rock in such a manner that feels as though the universe is conspiring against you.

Another advantage that complicated death devices give the hero is time. Spinning blades and flamethrowers are designed to strike fear into the hero’s heart long before something actually comes along to chop that heart in half – what’s the point of all the show, otherwise? But shows take time, which gives the hero a few precious seconds, minutes, or (in the most complicated devices) hours to come up with a plan to escape and stop your current wicked plot.

The simplest solution to all this is to simply shoot the hero in the head once you have him imprisoned (chest shots are also acceptable, though it will increase the chance of the hero miraculously surviving). If you need to show off your device of death, send the hero’s corpse through, then gather your minions together so you have an appreciative audience.

Spammily Ever After

A Handbook for Supervillains: The Joy of Minions

Note: Minions should rarely be this
colorful.

The Joy of Minions, or Why You Need Employees

As I discussed in chapter one, ruling the world is simply too large a job for just one supervillain (yes, even one as impressive as you - have you been paying any attention?) Most other worthy supervillain ambitions also fall into this category, the only possible exception being if you plan to do something with computers. (And if that's the case, then I feel it's my duty to tell you that computer-based plans for world domination don't get much further these days than scaring traditional news media. Besides, anonymity is the name of the game with hacking-based evil - the only thing you could really do under your own name is the takeover of a company, and with the economy the way it is that can be accomplished by a reasonably clever and well-funded 12 year-old).

If it helps, don’t think of them as personnel. Goons is quite a popular term, but can seem out of place if the employees aren’t suitably hulking. Minions, however, can be applied to a far wider range of staff. Minions can be made to do all sorts of dirty work, from helping to build your fortress of terror to arguing with the phone company that no, no one from this number ever made a 20 minute long distance phone call to San Quentin, and you have no idea why they would even think such a thing.

Also, they tend to be very convenient for standing in the way of bullets that would have otherwise ended up in your very attractive person (bodyguards, one of the greatest uses for minions that I have personally ever heard of) or throwing themselves on the hero in a fight. Of course, unless they are particularly impressive minions, they will be immediately defeated by the hero by something as incredibly ludicrous as a single punch to the jaw.

Yes, I know this is unfair. I completely agree with you, and would urge you to write your congressman (or have them assassinated, depending on your opinions of civic involvement) if I thought it would do any good. But it won't - it's written into the heroes contract, and there's nothing we can do about it. So I would advise you to, instead of worrying about it, allocate more minions for just that purpose, and consider every time they fall as one less bruise for you.

Also, minions endowed with a certain degree of intelligence (not as common as you might think, sadly) are great at information gathering. The obnoxiously snobby fellows with headsets and mouthpieces stationed in front of computers that always seem to be surrounding international supervillains in the movies are great examples of this. They always seem to be shouting something to whoever has been declared in charge for that particular scene, and it must be important enough that they haven't all been shot before this (though I suspect one of them is there strictly for ordering take-out). The great failsafe is for one of them to be "watching the perimeter," but any other information they should get for you is, of course, completely up to you. You can't expect me to handle everything.

As an added bonus, minions simply make you look more cool. Don't ask me why this happens, but the general thought process of anyone watching seems to be "Well, I thought he was the scum of the Earth (don't kill them at this point - it gets better) but he does seem to be able to control all these people. Oooooooh, he must be much more scary and impressive than we thought!" The fact that most of these people are here simply because you have promised to pay them a healthy sum of money (whether you'll actually deliver is entirely up to you) and they are less scrupulous then some of their fellow humans is for some reason never mentioned. For the sake of your image, I suggest you keep it that way.

Next: The Hiring Process, or Torture Is Optional

Keeping it all in the air

Early Egyptian depiction of juggling - Wikipedia

I’m in awe of those people who can do 20 different things at once, whether through meticulous organization or some secret superpower somehow manage to juggle complex work responsibilities with keeping a car and home together. And if they have children … whew. Each kid is a complex juggling act on its own, with new surprises constantly being thrown at your head every five minutes.

For me, I can barely manage just myself. I’m pretty good at getting my stories in on time and making sure the newspaper gets together – as far as I can tell, layout is kind of my version of knitting – and there’s always time to go back and edit unruly novel characters back into some semblance of order. But everything else – keeping my car functioning, making sure I have food in the fridge so I don’t constantly give in to takeout, keep an eye on my seriously depressed and potentially suicidal bank account, making sure I look like a functional member of society – is exhausting. And I know I’ve got maybe four, five balls in the air, tops.

So for those of you doing complex routines with responsibilities that would be twenty balls, four chainsaws, and a matching sofa and loveseat, my hats off to you. If the world was at all fair, you would be hearing constant riotous applause from those of us in awe of your dexterity and determination.

Success, failure and bronze medals

stock photo

Sitting at home, it seems obvious which are the best medals to get – gold is better than silver, and silver is better than bronze. But when you watch the faces of the athletes, both as their waiting for their scores and just after they find them out, it doesn’t seem that simple anymore.

Sure, everyone wants to win gold, even if they’ve never been to the Olympics before and it’s a huge accomplishment to simply be in the running. The gold medal is the dream that got them here in the first place, standing on top of the podium with tears streaming down their faces as their national anthem gets pumped in over the loudspeakers (hopefully accurately). And I don’t think there can be anything more agonizing than fourth place, knowing you came so close to recognition but going home empty handed.

With second and third place, however, things become more complicated. Half the time, the person who ends up with the silver medal always seems crushed, either trying hard to look blank for the cameras or openly weeping in what is definitely not joy. Third place, on the other hand, usually seems pretty thrilled, grinning for the cameras with equal measures of relief and delight. Sometimes it’s reversed – bronze medal winners are never happy when they fall from a higher spot, and some silver medal winners have been thrilled – but in general third place seems like a happier spot than second.

I think the difference is where the line was in the athlete’s head. For the bronze medalists, it’s behind them – they did just good enough to make it inside medal territory, and so they feel relieved and proud of themselves. For silver medalists, however, it’s in front of them – they didn’t quite do good enough to win the gold. Their success is technically bigger than that of the bronze medalists, but all they can see is the failure.