Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Fairy Debt: A Middle Grade Fantasy Comedy Short Story
    Fairy Debt: A Middle Grade Fantasy Comedy Short Story
    Fairy Debt: A Middle Grade Fantasy Comedy Short Story
    Ebook40 pages30 minutes

    Fairy Debt: A Middle Grade Fantasy Comedy Short Story

    By Gail Carriger

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    "I knew it would all end in tears the moment I saw the hat."

    In this short comedic fairytale, New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger doles out tea-saturated prose and food-driven biting wit suitable for a younger audience.

    Cups is a fairy with a problem. She can't grow wings because she is under a death promise to a local king. So she takes service at the castle as the Least Jester hoping to earn her adult wings, learning a great deal about cupcakes, tea daemons, and Earth dragons along the way.

    Written for middle grade readers, this story is actually for anyone who wants a slice of sweet whimsey wrapped up in values of friendship and acceptance.

    "A character-driven romp with great world-building and delicious rapier wit..." ~ io9.com (Soulless)

    This charming short story is full of fantasy and magic for children, and ideal for fans of Stephanie Burgis, Diana Wynne Jones, or The Ordinary Princess by M. M. Kaye. If you like this, please try Gail's young adult Finishing School series or her full cast YA sci-fi audiobook, Crudrat.

    This is a quick read at 5000 words (about 10 printed pages) available in print in Sword & Sorceress 22 (2007) and Funny Fantasy (2016).

    Also by Gail Carriger

    The Finishing School series (start with Etiquette & Espionage)

    The Delightfully Deadly novellas

    The Parasol Protectorate series (start with Soulless)

    The Supernatural Society novellas

    The Custard Protocol series (start with Prudence)

    The Claw & Courtship novellas

    Crudrat

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGAIL CARRIGER LLC
    Release dateAug 26, 2013
    ISBN9781944751005
    Fairy Debt: A Middle Grade Fantasy Comedy Short Story

    Read more from Gail Carriger

    Related to Fairy Debt

    Related ebooks

    Short Stories For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Yara And The Witch Queen

      Oct 1, 2019

      I knew the dangers of witchcraft. My parents had told me about the time before I was born, when magic plagued our desert kingdom of Bahati. Untrained witch doctors trying to cure warts ended up paralyzing their patients or turning them into crocodile

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Witch Finders

      Jul 16, 2020

      Beth pulled her cloak tightly around her. It was the very last day of October and the air was damp and chill. Dead autumn leaves lay in deep piles in the woods and smoke curled into the night air from her cottage. Not far to go now. She bent her head

      4 min read

    • Article

      Watching The Detectives

      Dec 30, 2020

      Watching The Detectives
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Short Slice Of Fantasy

      Apr 7, 2022

      A Short Slice Of Fantasy
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Good Little Mouse

      Oct 6, 2021

      The Good Little Mouse
      5 min read

    • Article

      Camilla The Down To Earth Duchess

      Jul 13, 2022

      Camilla The Down To Earth Duchess
      14 min read

    • Article

      Camilla The Down To Earth Duchess

      Jul 13, 2022

      Camilla The Down To Earth Duchess
      14 min read

    • Article

      TOWN & COUNTRY

      May 5, 2022

      TOWN & COUNTRY
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Postmenopausal Fairy Tale

      Feb 4, 2019

      The Postmenopausal Fairy Tale
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Crystal Ball

      Nov 1, 2023

      The Crystal Ball
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Silence of Witches

      Dec 10, 2019

      The Silence of Witches
      6 min read

    • Article

      Standing On Ceremony

      Dec 4, 2022

      Standing On Ceremony
      2 min read

    • Article

      10 Literary Witches To Hex Trump

      Mar 24, 2017

      In case you hadn’t heard, witches across America—including Lana Del Rey—are uniting to take down Trump via a binding spell, which calls on the spirits to keep the President from doing harm (it already seems to be working). Covens, communities, and so

      5 min read

    • Article

      Alice And The Jabberwocky

      Apr 10, 2022

      ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe:All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe. Once again, Alice found herself in her bedroom, feeling rather mimsy indeed. Every day now, at two o’clock, she would sit at

      18 min read

    • Article

      Pond Water

      Feb 1, 2019

      Pond Water
      5 min read

    • Article

      Save a Kingdom

      Nov 1, 2023

      Save a Kingdom
      7 min read

    • Article

      Winning Letter

      Sep 30, 2022

      I’m a single mother who struggles financially to get through each month. When my washing machine broke I had no funds to repair it, so I asked my neighbours if I could do my washing at their place. On a Wednesday afternoon my bell rang. At the door w

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Wisdom of Women Shines in Najla Jraissaty Khoury’s ‘Pearls on a Branch: Oral Tales’

      Oct 22, 2018

      Long, long ago These things happened or maybe no. Let’s start with the image on the cover. Three women sit in a courtyard. One holds a long-handled pan over a coal brazier; the other two, one of whom has her back to us, hold small cups. They wear ide

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Thin Place

      Nov 16, 2020

      We looked out of the window at the torrential rain. We’d booked tickets for the Castle’s Halloween event. The Castle was famous for being haunted by the ghost of its last court jester and made the most of this reputation every October, hosting a fair

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Elfin Knight

      Nov 2, 2022

      The Elfin Knight
      5 min read

    • Article

      NED the KNOCK-KNEED KNIGHT

      May 1, 2023

      NED the KNOCK-KNEED KNIGHT
      5 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2024

      I was trying to look a little less like myselfand more like other humans, humans who belonged, so I put on a skort.Purchased in another life, when I had a husband and wrote thank-you notes and held dinner parties,the skort even had its own little poc

      6 min read

    • Article

      Murder Most Fowl

      Mar 12, 2023

      Murder Most Fowl
      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Fairy Debt

    3.5/5

    38 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      Short little story about a fairy named Cups who is trying to earn her wings. Very short. Sweet idea.
    • 3/5
      Synopsis: Cups can’t grow wings because she under a debt promise to a local king. Her mother was supposed to be the fairy godmother to the king's daughter, but died, passing the debt along to her too young daughter, Cups takes service at the castle as the Least Jester, becoming great friends with the Princess and saving her from an Earth Dragon. Review: A cute little story about using your strengths to help others,

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This short story (~5000 words) by Gail Carriger is a fun, quick read. For those who are a fan of the Parasol Protectorate universe, this is a stand alone story and in a completely different universe. This book feels similar to something that you would find in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles universe (author: Patricia C Wrede). In other words, clever and sometimes snarky characters who live in a magical world.I was quite impressed with how well Carriger used her 5000 words. Carriger was able to balance plot movement with character and world development fairly well. The writing felt quite natural and flowed for the most part. As a reader, I was happy to take the ride. I didn't find myself looking to see how many pages I had left. I was content to let the book guide me down the path. Typically, with novelettes and novellas, I am constantly checking to see how much I have left, because I have found that this type of story wraps up in two sentences or the story ends on a cliffhanger (usually for an introduction to the next book in a series). With that said, even though I wasn't check how far into the story I was, Fairy Debt does wrap up a little faster than I would have liked. I wish that the story was just a smidgen longer to wrap up things a little bit cleaner.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    Fairy Debt - Gail Carriger

    Fairy Debt

    FAIRY DEBT

    GAIL CARRIGER

    GAIL CARRIGER LLC

    CONTENTS

    Fairy Debt

    Sample Crudrat

    Author’s Note

    More Gail Carriger

    About the Writerbeast

    FAIRY DEBT

    Gail Carriger

    Wait, what am I reading?

    A short comedic fairy tale in which Miss Carriger gets up to her usual tea-saturated prose and food-driven biting wit for younger readers.

    Gail has a fun, silly newsletter full of gossip, sneak peeks, and giveaways. Join the Chirrup

    FAIRY DEBT

    I won’t do it, I tell you! I was mad, and I had a right to be.

    Aunt Twill sighed dramatically and swished about where she sat in the lake shallows. Aunt Twill did most things dramatically. She was the naiad of the Woodle River, and it was a bit of a dramatic river, full of small but excitable waterfalls.

    Unfortunately, it’s your debt to pay.

    I crossed my arms and glared at her.

    She explained as though to a child, "Your mother was rescued from certain death by a human king. That’s a great debt of honor for a fairy to endure."

    Yes, but these things are easily taken care of, I insisted. All Mamma had to do was show up at the christening of the King’s firstborn and grant it something humans care about. I tried to come up with examples. You know – beauty, boxing, bee-keeping. That sort of thing.

    My aunt fluttered her webbed fingers about her face in exasperation. Yes, but your mother missed the christening and, most inconveniently, died.

    I sighed. I was only a nestling when she died, so I didn’t remember. They say it had to do with a golden barbell and a frog with a steroid addiction, but it was all kept very hush-hush.

    Aunt Twill reached down and gathered a few water lilies about her. So the princess has no fairy godmother and you can’t grow wings. She began braiding the lilies into a chain with her magic. An honor debt warps wings. Especially in the young.

    I fluttered my two stubby wings angrily in reply. They weren’t any use to me, but I liked to flap them for effect.

    Debts carry forward to the next generation. My aunt draped the water lilies about her neck. You owe the princess.

    But I’ve no working magic without working wings. Nothing to pay her with.

    You have your Child Wishes.

    I snorted. A fairy’s Child Wishes had power over only one thing, usually to do with human domestic life. Evolutionarily speaking, this ensured that mankind

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1