'Cream' sample page
The following is an extract from the book 'Cream':
This then is the story of baby Marie and the jar of Vaseline.
Well it wasn’t actually Vaseline to be truthful but in the experience of the 2 wood fairies, that is the closest comparison that they could make. The ‘Vaseline’ in question was in fact a jar of some special cream that baby Marie’s mother had bought her to help with a skin condition that she had suffered from almost from the day she was born. It was called Double Base but pronounced “Dubbabay” by Marie who was still struggling to come to terms with some of the longer and more complicated words.
Now, perhaps you have heard a parent say the following in relation to an incident that they were describing about his or her child; “I only took my eye off them for 2 seconds…” Well, that is what happened this very evening. You see baby Marie’s father had put the now toddler Marie into a nice warm bath. The little one had splashed and kicked about happily in the warm water. Once she was completely wet through, her father had taken her out of the bath, wrapped her in a big blue towel (the one with lots of bunnies on it) before depositing her in her room.
“Now you get yourself dry little one whilst I start warming up your dinner.” He had said and made his way downstairs and into the kitchen.
It’s at this point that things started to get interesting. If you know or have ever met a little girl of about Marie’s age you will know that they are full of curiosity. This is in itself a good thing. But sometimes a little too much curiosity can lead to unexpected results. It was this curiosity and a desire to be helpful that had led little Marie to try applying to herself some of the cream that mummy and daddy put on her every day for a thing they called “her precious little skin.” At first she had not liked having this cream put on her skin as it was rather sticky and yucky. After a while, though, she got used to it and even understood a little that this was somehow very important for her. In fact, her mum and dad would apply this cream to her no matter what and not even when they said that they were both so tired that they could ‘go to sleep standing up’. And though she never actually got to see this amazing thing happen she thought she understood the message they were trying to get across.
You see even as a baby Marie could tell that mummy and daddy often got very tired. They seemed to lead very busy lives and to her amazement managed even without the help of an afternoon nap! So recognizing that her Daddy looked particularly tired tonight (he was yawning an awful lot) she reasoned that if she put the cream on herself it meant that he would have one less job to do.
So slowly, on still quite unsteady feet, she made her way around the side of her tiny little bed (mum and dad her moved her out of her cot a little while ago) to the table that had all the interesting things on it that she was generally not allowed to play with. She had worked out that if she stood on teddy (not Care Bear Teddy or Nanny Christmas Teddy but the big one that she had got from the hospital when she was sick) she could just reach the top. A little more effort and quite a bit of grunting later and she was able to reach the tub of cream. Luckily mummy had forgotten to put the lid back on properly so Marie was able to get to its contents. With a little giggle of satisfaction Marie set about applying the cream to herself with a great deal of concentration. As usual it was slippery and slimy but she was determined not to let that stop her.
Not long after this the 2 fairies arrived at the house keen to see how their favourite (well okay, she was the only girl that they were looking after but that didn’t in any way lessen their love for her) girl was doing. The sight that greeted them, however, was not one that they had been expecting at all. Oh no. There, standing before them, was a very proud looking Marie covered from head to toe in a white, cream! The cream was in her hair, on her face, down her arms legs and even between her toes!
‘Oh dear!’ said Dixie summing up their reaction. She looked at Pixie, then the child and back to Pixie once more. Her big brown eyes had gone very wide.
Neither of them had ever seen anything like it. The child was as white as the snow in winter. Through this her bright blue eyes gleamed with happiness and she gave out a little squeal of delight as she noticed the fairies fluttering before her.
