NOTHING SO POWERFUL

A lone pear tree adorned Melissa's families backyard amongst the other usual suburban vegetation. Melissa had always loved this place. To most it was just a regular pear tree. To Melissa, it was where her adventures always began. With sly, exaggerated movement only an eight year old could muster, she looked side to side, ensuring daddy and mummy weren't watching before plonking down on the cold soil. Knocking twice on the base of the tree, the world exploded.

The suburban, run of the mill backyard shifted and turned into a world of outlandish colours. The thin, long, yellow-green grass became a crimson thick woolly carpet-like substance. Vegetation warped into colours of purples, blues and oranges. In all directions, bubbles as large as her dollhouses began to rise from the ground, each as colourful as the scenery they joined. Melissa laughed as the first of the bubbles reached eye height. With a quick chop of her hand, she popped them as they came.

Timeout-bubbles she called them and it was time to wake her friends up. As each bubble popped, out dropped tiny elephants, giraffes, and lions. Each reached no taller than Melissa's knee-height and were as saturated with colour as the bubble that preceded them. Soon there was a chorus of 'Melissa's here!' as the tiny animals ran to greet her. Her best tiny animal friend, a purple elephant named Bibbly, was among the first.

Melissa picked up Bibbly before throwing him in the air with glee. She caught him, rolling on the ground, hugging him tightly. “I missed you Bibbly!” Melissa gushed, breathless from the elephant chucking. Bibbly responded in kind. The other animals gathered to hear from princess Melissa. “Naps over, time to play!” Melissa shouted to the crowd.

“Will you play with us?” came an excited plea from Growly, a tiny sky blue lion. “Not today, I'm really really busy. Play with each other and remember to clean up after yourselves this time!”. Melissa was proud she remembered that last bit. Daddy was always telling her to clean up after herself and she never could remember to do it at the time. Neither did her friends when they jumped back into their timeout-bubbles.

A chorus of “Aww” arose from her assembled tiny animal friends. Bibbly, still in Melissa's arms said quietly, “I can come with you right?”. Melissa placed him gently on the crimson carpet and stepped away. “No Bibbly, today I get rid of the scary-things”. Melissa shuddered and chose not to think of those scary-things. Not yet anyway. She had a plan for them. Bibbly shuddered in unison with her at there mention.

She couldn't stay and play but knew they all must be hungry after sleeping for so long. Reaching into the pockets of her long, light yellow dress she pulled out a giant picnic table, followed by large bean-bag cushions. She giggled to herself, thinking about the first time she had set the table for her friends. That day she had used normal chairs. Silly girl. Lions, Elephants and Giraffes can't sit on normal chairs. After setting up the table, it was time to get their breakfast sorted. Surveying her surroundings, today would be speckle-tree day. Name fitting, the tree in question was bright ivory, dotted with speckles of all conceivable colours. Melissa reached back into her pockets and pulled out a large wheelbarrow. Placing the wheelbarrow under the speckle-tree's branches she ran and jumped, grabbing onto the lowest hanging thick branch. Hanging there she began to shake with all her strength. Speckled pasta, speckled sandwiches and speckled hot dogs all began to fall from the leaves of the now swaying branch, down into the wheelbarrow below.

Once enough had fallen into the wheelbarrow, Melissa let go and dropped back to the ground. She thanked the tree as she pushed the now full wheelbarrow over to the picnic table where her friends had taken their seats. She could tell they were all very hungry. Tummy's were rumbling like a marching band in unison. Melissa set the table and said goodbye to her friends.

Breakfast sorted, it was time to move on. Melissa made her way down a windy, unmarked path. Before too long she reached a familiar spot. Kneeling down, she tried to remember the code.

Knock once.

Pause.

Knock twice.

Pause.

Yell, “Open!”

Suddenly the ground beneath her disappeared, becoming a soft tar-like substance. She sank slowly through the tar floor, enjoying the cool, sticky feeling as she was enveloped. “This takes too long” she thought to herself just before she popped out the other side, her shoes landed softly with a quiet clank on the dark hardwood floor she knew well.

“Oooff” Melissa mumbled as she gathered herself and straightened her dress. Little volcanoes, magnets in all shapes & sizes and glass containers littered each corner of the room. This was Mr. Smarty's laboratory. The most important scientific discoveries took place here. Walking to one of the bench-tops, she fiddled with a handful of magnets that were suspended by wires. She pushed and pulled them in varying directions. She enjoyed watching how they interacted with each other as they swung back and fourth. A voice wizened with age echoed from the opposite corner of the lab, “Melissa, my girl, fiddling with my magnets again? No matter, you are just in time” Mr Smarty said with kind inflection.

Melissa left the mesmerising swinging magnets with a sigh and skipped over to greet her friend. Thick white beard, silly reading glasses and a long red lab coat. Mr. Smarty never changed. He turned as she made her way to him, welcoming her with a strong embrace. “Good to see you princess, hope you didn't disturb my magnets too much” he muttered warmly. Melissa laughed, disengaging from the hug and retorted. “I made them do there thing. Only better”.

Mr. Smarty smiled, reaching out his left hand to show off a vial of jet blue liquid. “Watch this!” he said excitedly, before upturning the beaker and pouring it all over his lab coat. Instantly, the lab coat turned from deep red to a beautiful pure lilac. Melissa giggled, jumping excitedly. Lilac was her favourite colour. “That's wonderful Mr. Smarty. One of your best inventions yet!”. She looked to him expectantly.

With a wry smile, he handed her a similar beaker of blue liquid. She wasted no time in pouring the liquid all over herself. Instead of beautiful lilac, her yellow dress turned the most abhorrent green. Melissa studied herself, nose crinkling, mouth turned to resemble a look as if she had eaten something particular awful. “This is much less wonderful!” Melissa exclaimed. Her gaze turned from her now green dress to examine him. He regarded her, maintaining a stoic expression for a few seconds before bursting into laughter. “Come now Melissa, my girl, you know better. Blue and red make lilac but what do blue and yellow make? Green, of course”.

He was right of course, she did know that. Should of known that. And still, this was not amusing. Crossing her arms, she fixed him with her most powerful of weapons. Her frown-stance. His laughter slowly faded though the mirth and sparkle in his eyes never left. “Okay, okay, my girl, I relent. Use this and this” Mr Smarty said, handing her a beaker of clear liquid and one of lilac itself, giving in before the uncompromising frown-stance Melissa delivered. With all haste she poured the liquids over her in the correct order. Green dress turned to white before changing to lilac to match that of Mr. Smarty's lab-coat. “Better!” she said, smiling and holstering her frown-stance.

Eye's still a-twinkling, Mr. Smarty dispensed of the used beakers and looked at Melissa with a more serious stare. “The big hat is ready. That is, I am assuming why you're here”. Melissa nodded while still marvelling at the lovely colour of her dress. Mr. Smarty turned and moved to another workstation, rumbling around the various objects before pulling out a large top hat. “There you go girl, this should do the trick”, he said as he handed it to her.

Melissa grabbed the top hat, giving it a once over before putting it on her head. “Thank you Mr. Smarty, this is perfect. Time for me to be off”. She needn't say more. He knew why she had to go. They shared another warm embrace. Melissa wandered to to an empty room adjacent to the main laboratory where a large lever was sticking out from the floor. Before continuing she called out. “Mr. Smarty, the ceiling entry is too slow. Can you speed it up?” She heard him respond halfheartedly, clearly already lost again within his important scientific work. “I'll make the tar more gooey and less solid so it's quicker next time”. Excellent she thought. More gooey would do the trick. Lilac dress looking wonderful, top hat firmly upon her head she set her hand on the lever and pulled it down hard. Taking a deep breathe, “Okay, time to get this done”, she said to herself.

Exiting was quicker than entering. Lever depressed, a giant claw descended from above, picking her up gently by the waist. Like a flash she accelerated upwards. The claw released and threw her at a certain portion of the ceiling. She passed through the not quite solid object at speed, the feeling of the tar-like substance passing much quicker this time. Popping out from the ground up she flew a few feet in the air before landing comfortably. She most certainly preferred the exit to the entry.

Gathering herself, she stood in a meadow filled with the same lavish colours as before. A few feet away she spied her most favourite place. Straight ahead, rising up into the clouds was a waterfall unlike any other and at its base, a small pond. The waterfall wasn't really a waterfall but something much better. Here was fairy-floss falls. She made her way over to the edge of the pond which collected what the falls delivered. The falls and pond, as the name suggested was pure fairy-floss. She loved watching the light, airy, pink-purple mixture roll slowly down the falls to settle in the pond. Kneeling down she scooped up a handful to taste. Perfect as always. Fairy floss was Melissa's favourite food ever since she had visited her first carnival with her parents. She loved it. There was a catch though. Where there was fairy floss, there were the scary-things. The clowns. They had frightened Melissa, and she hadn't slept well the night after her first carnival. Many unpleasant nightmares.

Here at the falls, it was always peaceful at first but she knew it wouldn't last. Soon the clowns would appear. Small at first, she would see them form deep in the fairy-floss of the pond. They would grow larger and more defined in shape within the floss before emerging and stalking the bank of the pond. Strange make-up, odd laughter and haunting expressions all. Still kneeling at the edge, Melissa steeled herself. She had a plan. After the nightmares of the night following her first carnival, her mummy had given her a giant stuffed bunny named Sir Guardian and explained to her that clowns were more afraid of bunnies than she was of them. That had helped and as long as Melissa had Sir Guardian she knew she could enjoy any fair or carnival, avoiding the clowns while there and still managing to sleep at night when she got home.

They were coming. She could see the faces beginning to form in the floss. Horrific misaligned smiles from horrific creatures. As the first few faces formed near her in the floss, she 'bopped' them with her hand to push them away temporarily. That wouldn't do, she knew. They would just reform, larger and come in endless number. She had her secret weapon.

Standing, Melissa removed her top hat and turned it upside down. She reached inside with her most serious of expressions. “Aha!” she said out loud before pulling out a large, live bunny. She placed the bunny down softly and repeated the process a number of times. It was working. The faces that were previously growing larger and more solid close-by were suddenly retreating around the pond's edge where the bunnies now hopped.

“This is not fast enough” Melissa thought to herself. She glanced around, spying a low lying branch of a aqua coloured tree she could climb easily. Doing so, she lay herself face down on the branch, hands hanging below her with the top hat now turned right side up. Holding the hat in one hand, she gave it an almighty 'thwack' on the top. She repeated the 'thwack' multiple times. Bunnies fell from the hat in the form of a furry rainbow and before long thousands of white, grey and brown fluffy hopper's milled around all edges of the pond. From her vantage point the clown faces were retreating. Those that had gotten large enough to begin emerging vanished back inside the pond with haste. The endless numbers of those still only partially formed within the floss disappeared even quicker. They had no answer for Melissa's bunny brigade.

Melissa launched herself from the branch with glee. Making her way back to the edge of the pond to reward herself with some well deserved fairy floss, she stopped to hug a few of the bunnies in her path. After enjoying a few too many handfuls of the floss, she addressed the bunnies. “I hope you like your new home my friends”. Even though bunnies came from there, this was much better than the inside of a hat she thought. “There's plenty of grass and fruits to eat. You can have some of the fairy floss, but don't eat too much otherwise your tummy will get angry at you”.

Picking herself up, she reluctantly forced herself to disengage from eating any more of the fairy floss. She didn't want her tummy angry at her. She had done that enough times at the carnivals to know how unpleasant it was.

It was time to move on. She had other matters to take care of now that the clowns were defeated. Melissa was lost in thought about what to do next when the voice of her mother cut through the air. “Melissa, sweetheart, come inside, it's time to get ready”.

Melissa's world vanished and she was back among the regular suburban garden under the unremarkable pear tree . She turned towards the voice of her mother, ready to argue. She stopped as she saw her mummy's expression. She was wearing her 'No, now!' face. Melissa thought better of arguing and picked herself up off the soil. Melissa headed inside, proud of what she had accomplished. With a final glance back towards the pear tree, she wondered if her friends had indeed remembered to clean up after themselves this time.