A Charm String

I had two favourite books as a child, The Secret Garden and The Charm String. The charm string was published by a library in Indiana so perhaps you may not have read it. I had a mad idea to write my own amateur version of a special little girl and to build a real silver charm bracelet with a charm from each story. With the first story I sent a silver bracelet and a star charm. The response has been a little luke warm - but then as I am going out onto a limb so I may be a little sensitive.

I have a draft for an Easter story - is it worth pursuing or is it just personal naval gazing? I would really appreciate any gentle feed back!

Do you want to hear about Lula's star? Well snuggle up close and let' s head to Fairyland where Jennilee is waiting. Wave your wand...what you don't have a wand? I forgot, we need to cast the spell, so repeat after me:

 'Kisses and cuddles, flowers and trees,
Fly me to fairyland on a glittery breeze'

Here we are. Look over there, on that toadstool, there is Jennilee - but she is looking sad. Her human friend Lula has a special star and she wants to make it twinkle just for her. Queen Titania had given her some fairy dust to sprinkle on the star, but how can she reach it?

She is only a young Fairling and her wings were very weak until she grews up to be a fairy, so the only thing she can do is to run and jump up to the star. How hard can that be? What do you think?

She runs, faster, faster, faster and jumps....flop, ow! She lands with a bump. No, she has to try harder....she runs faster, faster, faster, jumps an even bigger jump and...FLOP! OW! She lands on her bottom once more. And again, she runs up as fast as possible, faster, faster, faster,  jumps a huge jump and....flop OUCH!

'Ribb-hee-hee-t! Ribb-heee-ha-ha-t!'

What is that noise?

'Ribb-he-he-t!'

There is goes again. Listen closely, it is a laughing frog and he looks as if he has something to tell Jennilee. 'No..ho..ho' he laughs, 'no, no, ho, ho, he, he, hee. You will never get up to the stars like that. But, I can help you, as everybody knows that frogs can jump higher than anyone or anything.'

After a little thought Jennilee hands over the fairy dust and watchs the frog go. Boing, boing, BOING! Up and down, higher and higher he bounded.

'It is no...puff..good...pant! No...wheeze....I can't reach that star.' The exhausted frog admits between huge gasps for breath.

'But where is the fairy dust?' asks Jennilee.

'Let...huff...me get...puff...my breath back.' he gasps. 'While I was up near the clouds I saw a beautiful dove, and told her about the problem of Lula's star and she promised to help so I gave her the fairy dust. If we sit here we should see the star twinkle in no time.'

As they sit down to watch the star, down swoops the dove - but the star is STILL not twinkling. The dove smiles and tells her story of flying up, up, past the clouds and into the sky.

Just as her wings were aching, and she thought that she could not go on, a spaceman passed her on his way into space. Being a kind spaceman he stopped for a chat. The dove told the spaceman about meeting the frog, who was helping a fairy, who was helping to make Lula's star twinkle and immediately the spaceman offered to help.

Jennilee is very quiet as she hears the story so the frog and the dove wait for her to say something. Suddenly she lets out a squeal of delight. 'Look, look, it is Lula's star. It is twinking and it is beautiful. But...' she says looking sadly at her toes 'did I cheat? Queen Titania gave me the fairy dust and as hard as I tried I could not reach Lula's star.'

Queen Titania who had been quietly listening steps forward  'Of course you did not cheat! We can all reach the stars, just sometimes we need our friends to help us. Just like the links of a chain, if we work together we can make our own magic.'

With that she gives Jennilee a big hug, a bit like this. HUG!


So.... Shall I do the next instalment ( remember this is personal dialogue with a special little lady not a high faulting publishing aspiration) or should I just step back onto planet earth?

If I continue any ideas for how to bind then stories as I write them?