A Guarded Fairytale

            She jumps down the overly large step that drops from her front door, stray hair sticking to her forehead as she does so. Her eyes roll as she sighs heavily. Her knees give way slightly as she lifts down the two scooters propped in the hall as her children kick their legs with giddy shrieks. The bag hanging from her shoulder swings wildly.

Pulling the door shut the vintage tiles of her house, littered with plush toys and Sippy cups, are hidden from view with cobalt panels.

Hastily checking over her pockets she calls out, “Kids, come on, calm for Mummy remember?”

The little girl squeezes her eyes shut. Her puffy cheeks pull in as she lets loose a squeal while her brother’s fists redden around clumps of her hair that he’s tugging.

“Oh, Hayden, for god’s sake, pack it in! What did I just tell you?”

Hayden stumbles over his feet as she pulls him to her side, sitting him on the front step as she crouches to coo at her daughter, smoothing her curls. His eyebrows knot together as he scrunches shut his mouth and crosses his arms.

Seeing a smile on her daughters face, she turns to Hayden, stifling a chuckle at his stop.

“Now, if you don’t want me to put your scooter away, what do you say to Harriet?” She copies his crossed arms.

“Sorry Harrie”

All tears forgotten, Harriet points her finger towards her twin, teasing, “Nah, nuh, nah, nuh, nuuuuh” she grabs her ‘Ben 10’ scooter, the heels of her trainers flashing as she kicks herself away.

‘Hey Harrie, wait! Wait for me, wait!” Hayden yells boisterously as he charges after her, almost tripping on the cracks in the pavement.

His mother, flustered, scrapes her stray hair from her sodden forehead and fumbles with the keys. Three wrong attempts and some unheard curses later she locks the door, and begins her chase.

“Kids, wait! I said stop, now” She loses sight of them round the corner as she shoves the keys in her jeans pocket, struggling with how tight they are. She sighs heavily, cursing the five year struggle of losing her baby weight.

As she rounds the corner, she spots them waiting at the crossing, relief loosening her limbs.

“Hayden, I want to push the button, let me, it’s my turn, no fair” Harriet squabbles with her brother, as both begin to try and shove the other off of their scooter.

For arguments sake, their mother, Lauren, pushes it instead. She grimaces at the chewing gum stuck to the illuminated, ‘WAIT’.

“It was Mummy’s turn to press it. Now wait for the green man like I said and walk across, no scooters” She smooth’s down her red shirt and pulls at the arms which are a bit too tight, revealing slight patches of sweat.

She looks across the road, past the relentless stream of cars all bustling round the city’s ring road, all probably going to places she’d long since forgotten about. Her eyes land on the once blue, now rusted, sign of the Nelson Mandela Park, wondering how it’d ever gotten such a name. Once again she laughs at the notion of freedom when she takes in the prison sat next to the park.

The man turns green and her children whizz off on their scooters, racing each other to the park. A taxi driver waiting at the lights shakes his fists and scrunches his face as he yells into a phone. Lauren wonders if his life is more hectic than hers.

Harriet succeeds in beating her brother past the green iron fence, cheering at herself, waving her arms wildly.

“Look mummy, I won, I won Hayden” she smiles widely like the Cheshire Cat, grabbing hold of her mother’s hand to drag her along to the play sets.

As she smugly gloats, Hayden manages to claim the ‘big kid swing’.

“So, I get the best swing and you can’t have it” his tongue pokes from his mouth with a wiggle as he tries to pump himself backwards and forwards.

Harriet chooses the slide instead, carefully climbing each step while refusing to look down. Rusted pain flakes off under her sweaty palms, sticking to her podgy fingers. Most things on the park demonstrated their age. The swings screeched gratingly with each movement, the wood of the see-saw had begun to rot and the climbing frame was as flaky as the slide. Even the grass of the field surrounding it was in need of a trim.

Sitting herself down on one of the park’s benches, Lauren watched a dog nearby bound back and forth from its owner, a soggy ball in its mouth and its ears flopping wildly in the wind. All too soon her peace was broken as Hayden gave up on his futile attempts to work the big kid swing.

“Mum! Mummy, come push me, please?”

Again, a sigh passes her chapped lips as she walks past the parks overflowing bin and turns her nose up at the rotten smell. She suddenly wasn’t too fond of the dog anymore.

Hayden howls in excitement, “Higher mummy!” making her chuckle.

“Ok, but hold on tight, you don’t want to go flying over that great, huge wall”

Harriet bounds over, already bored of the slide. “Don’t be silly Mummy, Hayden can’t fly”

“I can too” He cries out indignantly.

Lauren’s eyes lose focus as she stares at the prison’s dominating walls and castle like turrets.  She begins thinking of her partner, the father of her children, inside them and the last thing he said to her.

The plastic, wooden looking table scrapes against the floor as he sits in his chair across from her, sporting an orange bib. His eyes looked sunken and clouded. Each scrape from the room’s furniture makes her fiddle with her fingers nervously as she jumps in her own seat.

“I was thinking about bringing the kids next time, what do you think Tony?” She begins to twitch her leg, bouncing her foot up and down against the tiled floor as she pulls her jacket tighter around herself.

“Lauren, I told you. No telling them I’m in here. No bringing them. No mentioning it” his teeth grind together as his eyes close and he hides his face away by looking down at the desk.

Harriet pulling at her shirt pulls her away from her thoughts.

“Mummy, what’s over the wall? I wanna fly with Hayden and see” she wines, earning another chuckle from her mother.

Hayden sits himself down on the floor in front of her, eager to know the answer too. Harriet quickly copies him and sits with crossed legs, her fingers fiddling with the loose pieces of gravel. Both stare unblinking up at their mum until she too sits on the floor.

Unsure of what to say, she takes another look at the castle, pondering it’s large

“Ah well, you don’t want to go flying in there” She says, her rosy lips pulling into a cheeky grin.

Hayden pipes up instantly, “What, why not?”

“Well, I’m not sure if I can tell you two cheeky monkeys, it’s a secret” her smile grows wider.

Harriet pulls her eyebrows together, sticks out her bottom lip and squeezes her hands together. “Oh, please mummy, we can keep a secret, we cat, can’t we Hayden?” She elbows him, making him wince.

“Yeah mum, Harrie’s right, we can. Honest.”

Looking around the park again, Lauren ponders the Nelson Mandela sign, taking in the words ‘There’s no easy walk to freedom’. She then looks at the castle like prison with its stone walls, huge iron doors and turrets; an idea springs to her mind.

Lauren shuffles on the floor, sending grave flying. “Well then guys, if you promise, get comfortable.”

As soon as the words leave Lauren’s mouth, Harriet jumps from the floor and grabs her mother’s bag. She returns to her position, this time, snuggling up to her teddy, Leo the Lion.

“Well you two, it all started a long, long time ago, way before you were even in mummy’s tummy. You’ve heard of centaurs right?”

Hayden’s mouth dropped open, his eyebrows scrunched, “No, what’s cen, cena, cenamores?”

Lauren chuckled, “Well, centaurs are magical, they’re half horse, half human”

This time, both the twins mouth’s drop open and they both pipe up, “What?”

“Well, they have a horse’s body and legs, and then where a horse’s head is, there’s a person’s body, arms and head. The centaurs lived with the dragons. The dragons had beautiful shiny scales, great big huge wings,” Lauren pauses in her story to flap her arms like a flying dragon, making the children giggle, “and big long tails.”

In the field around the park a dog starts to yap loudly, and the wind ripples the flags surrounding the prison. Neither child is distracted, too focused on their mother’s tale, with their heads propped on their hands.

“The centaurs and the dragons got along happily together, like a big happy family. They played tag in the endless green fields, just like you two do. They shared everything they had with each other, just like you two don’t. They did all sorts of magical things, like flying and making gold.”

Harriet turns her head and stares at the ‘castle’, “But mummy, what’s in there? Why’s daddy there?”

“Will you listen? I’m telling you. One day, one of the centaurs, called Nate decided he didn’t want to share with the dragons anymore. He was jealous of the dragon’s shiny scales and thought they shouldn’t have other pretty things, like the gold they made. He started keeping the gold to himself, lying to the other centaurs, telling them the dragons were keeping it.”

Hayden’s little face scrunched up, “but, you said telling lies is bad mummy?”

“Oh, it was bad Hayden. Little by little, Nate ended up with all the gold. All the other centaurs and the dragons were very sad. The gold was what they were most proud of because it was so beautiful, just looking at it made them smile. So now, without anything to smile about, the centaurs and the dragons stopped being friends.”

Harriet pulled her teddy closer to her and starts nibbling on its ear, “that wasn’t very nice. I don’t like Nate.”

“Well, the centaurs did, because they didn’t know he’d told them lies; Nate hid the gold from everyone. He secretly used his magic to build a castle in a place where no one ever went. It had huge round pillars and big strong walls. The tops of the walls went up and down, up and down and he put his own flag right outside the big wood and metal door. That’s where he kept all the gold”

Hayden starts to bounce on the spot, his cheeks going red, “Mum! Like this castle, was it this one? Is the gold still there? Can we have some?”

Lauren strokes his hair flat and carries on with her fairy tale. “Let me tell you the whole story kids. Now, Nate was very clever. He snuck off to the castle and brought some gold back to the centaurs. He told them he’d had to fight really bravely for it to steal it from the dragons. Well, thinking he was so brave and being so happy with him for bringing back some of the gold, they made Nate their king.”

Reaching into her bag, Lauren takes out two apples and hands one to each child, who begin chewing hungrily but never take their eyes off of her, eager for her to tell the rest.

“Well, Nate was still very jealous of the dragons and the gold made him greedy. So he decided, as well as all the gold, he wanted all of the land too. Like I said, Nate was very sneaky and knew how to get his own way. He told even more lies to the other centaurs. He told them that the dragons were planning on stealing all the land, leaving only a tiny bit for the centaurs. Well, this made the centaurs even sadder. They thought they would have barely any gold and barely any land.  So, while the dragons were all sleeping in one big group, all wrapped up together in one corner of the land, the centaurs built a huge wall around them. When the dragons woke up they were very angry, they didn’t want to live in such a small space, but they didn’t want to fight the centaurs either, so they stayed in their small home with no gold.”

Hayden face drops into a frown, his eyes filling with tears, “It doesn’t sound very nice being a dragon. I wouldn’t ever want to be one.”

“Oh, Hayden baby, don’t cry. Listen, many years later, one of the dragons, named Nelson, well, he was very brave and he didn’t like being trapped. He flew up high while the centaurs weren’t looking. Higher even than the clouds so they couldn’t see him. With his dragon eyes he spotted the castle and he saw all the gold shining in the sunlight. Now, all the other dragons, they weren’t as brave as Nelson, they were too sad without their gold and too scared of the centaurs, they wouldn’t fight back. So, being a clever dragon, he waited for Nate to come to the castle. When he did, Nelson used his magic to make Nate forget where he’d hidden the gold.

Hayden’s face still holds a scowl, “But then no one gets the gold?”

“And isn’t that better than them fighting over it? After he made Nate forget where it was. Nate got very upset because he didn’t have the gold to make him smile anymore. He became so sad he decided the only thing he could do was tell everyone the truth so they could find it. The centaurs were very upset they had lost their friends, the dragons, because of Nate’s lies. They all said sorry to the dragons for what they had done. Together, they all knocked down the wall separating the two groups. The centaurs using their strong legs and the dragons using their huge tails.

 “Mummy, but, what happened to the gold?” Harriet shouts loudly, throwing her arms into the air, making Lauren chuckle.

“Well, all of the centaurs and all of the dragons left this land to go and search for it. You see, they couldn’t spot the castle like Nelson did because of the magic spell he put on it. To this day the centaurs and the dragons roam the lands far away, too far for us to see them, but they search as one big family again, happy to all have each other.

Hayden lifts his head from his hands, ‘So it is still in the castle? Why don’t we take it?”

“I was just getting to that bit, cheeky. Nelson didn’t want us humans getting greedy and falling out over it like the centaurs and the dragons all those years ago. So, he stayed behind in the castle and to this day he protects it. Now, he’s a very old dragon these days, much too old to protect it all by himself, so he asks one special person to help him every year.”

Hayden and Harriet both begin to jump up and down wildly, their mouths stretched into huge grins, their apples forgotten about on the floor. A bird flies down from a nearby tree and takes on back to its nest. 

Mid jumps, the twins both shout, “He picked daddy, didn’t he! Daddy’s with Nelson?”

Lauren nods half-heartedly, “he sure did. That’s why you two can’t go past those walls. Because daddy and Nelson guard them. You don’t want to go in and make Nelson use his magic on you, do you?” 

Harriet and Hayden both shake their heads from side to side as fast as they can. Harriet pulls her teddy close to her once more, her mouth opening and closing silently as she thinks.

“So, daddy’s coming home in a year and he can tell us all about Nelson?” finally leaves her lips.

“He sure is. Now come on, enjoy the park before we go home again.”