Golden Box Book Publishing One Picture: Thousands of Words | Page 80

were quite private and needed looking after.
William Blake claimed to have seen a fairy funeral. That was
another one of Mummy’s books. With pictures of God. And men
looking cross.
“'Did you ever see a fairy's funeral, madam?' said Blake to a lady
who happened to sit next to him.
'Never, sir!' said the lady.
'I have,' said Blake, 'but not before last night.' And he went on to
tell how, whether she liked it or not, that-in his garden, he had seen a
procession of creatures of the size and colour of green grasshoppers
helping to carry a body laid out on a rose-leaf, which they buried with
songs, and then disappeared.
Burial mounds for fairies were just little lumps you see. Not like
in the churchyard at Daddy’s church. No. You had to look very
closely at the grass to see them. Some people never knew they were
there at all. But she did. And so did William. Who was very dead by
now.
She always checked there were none in the park, because the dead
and the fairies both lived under these green mounds, and you couldn’t
eat food in both Fairyland or Hades. She wasn’t quite sure why. But
she was certain none of them would like her mummy’s porridge.
***
After breakfast she decided she had better go to check on the red
ribbon. Mummy and daddy were arguing about something. Probably
money, because they didn’t have any.
“Poor as church mice we are.” Mummy would say, and then
launch into how she had had money in her family and had once been
pretty and look at her now. Saddled with debt, and all this.