One night, you decide to put your phone under your pillow. When you wake up in the morning, your phone is replaced by cash totaling what you paid for your phone. Turns out the tooth fairy takes more than just teeth.
You regret the loss of your phone, of course, but the tooth fairy gave you brand new market price and so you bought a new one with the cash and pocketed the rest.
You experiment. Sticking items under your pillow is better than the hassle of Facebook marketplace.
She doesn’t take the plastic plate set you’ve tried to sell for weeks, but she takes a gold rimmed china saucer from your Grandma’s old set. You get brand new market value for it - from 1946 when it had been bought.
She ignores jeans and books, but trades for spoons and costume jewelry. The tooth fairy, you realize, is a bit of a magpie. If it’s a little bit shiny, she’ll give you cash.
You clear out the jewelry table at a garage sale, place them one by one under your pillow. The amount you get varies, but still is brand new market value of when the item was originally bought. Nothing more than $50, but that’s better than the $8 you bought it for.
After a few weeks, something changes. Your bank account isn’t as empty, your pillow is thicker. You take a nap, because sleeping on items isn’t the most comfortable. You wake up to a crinkle, a note next to your nose.
The writing is tiny, you need your phone’s magnifier to read it, but it turns out just as you’ve been using the tooth fairy, she wants to use you. She’s dropped off a list of wants; hints at a finder fee in cash or precious metals.
It’s specific, odd stuff. A clean dollar coin. A chandelier crystal. A reversible sequin pillow. Antique holiday ornaments. Photo hooks. All, you think, easy to get.
You sign her contract with a purple sparkly gel pen and offer it as a freebie.
EDIT: This story and some of my other fae-inspired fantasy ones now have their own anthology! Check out Fae Deals.
My brother is a librarian, and his library is one of the ones that hosts Drag Queen Story Time.
He is also 6'3", 300 lbs of Heavy Weapons Librarian.
This week, some karen showed up to take video of said storytime. She was unmoved by the director of the library telling her their policy against taking video in the children’s room.
My brother was also unmoved. Specifically, he was unmoved from his position directly in the line of karen’s cellphone. She got video of an acre of blue broadcloth shirt, and that’s it.
Other people who showed up to scowl at the drag queen decided they had other things to do that day when my brother scowled at them. He inherited our Mama’s scowl, and it’s a good one.
Sometimes, an ally looks like a big fat bald white guy. Sometimes, an ally looks like a wall.
