The Fox’s Wish

Once upon a time, there was a fox. He lived in an enchanted forest, the sort of place that’s absolutely crawling with things like gingerbread houses and toads that claim, against all evidence to the contrary, to be princes. One can hardly live in such an environment for any period of time without picking up a few things: in the case of the fox, a decent vocabulary. However, he compensated for this by being a good deal more sensible than the average talking fox. In short, this was not the kind of talking fox to stand under a tree and decide arbitrarily that the grapes he couldn’t reach were sour. He was the kind of fox who would, somehow, climb the tree and see for himself.

One day, the fox was wandering about the enchanted forest, looking forward to a whole day with nothing pressing to do. He was amusing himself by snapping at butterflies when he saw a bird doing something odd, and, being an innately inquisitive sort of creature, he stopped to watch.

The bird - a robin, noted the fox (who was of a meticulous character) - was making repeated shallow dives over a large rock in the middle of a clearing. Periodically, the bird would land on the rock and hop up and down on it in a frustrated manner, then go back to dive-bombing it. This was decidedly suspicious behavior for a robin, but it was after all an enchanted forest and the fox was used to such things. Even so, he was a very inquisitive fox, and in a particularly playful mood. He began sneaking through the long grass toward the boulder.

The bird was too absorbed in its incomprehensible task to take notice of the fox until he had bounced up out of the grass and caught it neatly in mid-dive. The fox started to trot away, contemplating what to do with his prize, when he became aware of a buzzing in his mouth, as though he had snapped up a bee. Odd, thought the fox. He lowered his head to the ground, placed one foot on the bird’s wing, and spat out the bird. The buzzing became suddenly intelligible.

". . . pleasedon’teatmepleasedon’teatme. . ." the bird was saying.

"Why not?" asked the fox.

"Because," squeaked the bird, triumphantly, "I am a great and powerful wizard!"

"That's nice," the fox said, with interest. "I’ve never eaten a wizard before."

"No! No!" The bird hollered, but before it could begin to plead for its life, the fox interrupted.

"If you’re a great and powerful wizard, I must comment on the fact that you happen to look exactly like a robin."

"Well," said the bird, "I was swimming in the pond over there" - it gestured with its free wing - "and some of my wizard friends happened by and, ha ha, humorous fellows, got to love them really, set that big rock there on top of my robes. Of course, it’s completely improper for wizards to gallivant about in the altogether . . ."

"I can imagine why," the fox commented.

". . . so I thought I’d change into animal form while I tried to get them back." The fox watched with interest as the bird puffed its tiny chest out and haughtily declared, "We powerful wizards can do that, you know."

"One question comes to mind," said the fox.

"Ask," replied the bird, grandly.

"Why exactly a robin? Wouldn’t it be easier to get your clothes if you changed into something more like, I don’t know, an ox?"

The bird gave him a look of avian surprise. It closed its eyes, there was a sound exactly like someone saying "pop", and the fox leaped sideways as he discovered he was standing on an ox’s tail.

"I would have thought of that eventually," said the ox, and rolled the stone off some rather flattened wizardly robes. The fox politely turned his back while the wizard changed, in all possible senses of the word, and turned back to discover a short, bespectacled human with very dirty and crumpled robes and hardly any sort of beard at all. The fox curled his bushy tail around his feet and waited.

"In exchange for your help," said the wizard, "I’m required to give you a wish."

"A wish?" The fox thought it over. "What would a fox wish for?"

"No, no," said the wizard, quickly. "I’m not going to grant you a wish. I’m supposed to give you a wish."

The fox was unclear on the distinction and said as much.

"Instead of having your wish granted, you get a wish to grant to someone else," the wizard clarified.

The fox mulled this over, and quickly reached the heart of the issue. "WHY, FOR THE LOVE OF FAT RABBITS?!" he barked.

"I don’t make the rules, I just follow them," said the wizard, smugly. "That’s the way fairy-tales work."

"All right," said the fox, resignedly. "Fire away."

"I already gave it to you," said the wizard. "Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some beds to short-sheet" - and he vanished in a puff of colored smoke.

The fox was unimpressed. His good mood already dissolving, he went to look for someone who needed a wish granted.

The first person he encountered happened to be one of the legion of princesses and damsels-in-distress who tended to get stranded in enchanted forests on a regular basis. Probably because getting rescued by a worthy prince/knight/miller’s son and living happily ever after was less expensive than taking out a personal ad, thought the fox.

"Excuse me," said the fox, but that was as far as he got before the maiden had swept him up in her arms and covered him with kisses. She held him out at arm’s length and eyed him, but he stubbornly remained fox-shaped and she was forced to put him down.

"You’re not an enchanted prince?" she asked.

"No," said the fox, and was astonished to see the fair maiden burst suddenly and copiously into tears.

"O woe is me!" she cried. "Lost and alone in the woods, wandering with no food, no water! How I wish I was back in the arms of my loving family!"

The fox peeked out from behind the bush in which he had taken cover at the first wail. "Is that an official wish?" he inquired hopefully.

The damsel stared at him in consternation, tears vanishing. "Of course not, you stupid fox! I’m not leaving without a betrothal, and that’s that. What did you think I was doing here?"

The fox sighed. "Er, I’ll be leaving you to get on with it, then. Good day," and he ducked back out of sight.

The next person he encountered was a young shepherd. Which is to say, it was a young, scruffy, rather dull individual who was carrying a shepherd’s crook awkwardly. The fox decided he couldn’t be picky if he wanted to be rid of his wish before sunset.

"Excuse me?" he said. Thus followed a very exciting few minutes in which the shepherd, evidently the very highly-strung type, flailed desperately with his crook while trying to simultaneously make every demon-warding sign he could think of, as well as a few he made up on the spot, and the fox zigzagged around the shepherd’s legs. Eventually, they managed to sort it out, with the youth brandishing his crook and huffing and the fox glaring at him from halfway up a tree (as has been mentioned before, he was that kind of fox).

"I say," said the fox. "that was a bit much, don’t you think?"

The young man looked up at the fox - how else? - sheepishly. "Sorry ‘bout that. I thought you was an evil forest demon. Whattayou want?"

"I could grant you a wish," said the fox, warily.

"Wow!" exclaimed the shepherd. "This is my lucky day! Just one wish?" asked the shepherd.

"Only one," said the fox.

"I couldn’t, like, you know, wish for more wishes or anything?"

The fox considered this. "I don’t think so," he said.

"Okay," said the youth, and sat down on the path to mull. The fox climbed out of the tree and waited. Finally, the shepherd reached a conclusion. "You listening?" he asked. The fox nodded, which didn’t look as silly as one might expect. "All right, I wish for a chest full of emeralds and rubies and diamonds, and another chest full of gold and silver, and a big castle of my own, and a princess - no, better make that a whole troupe of princesses - who will love me unconditionally, and a big black horse to ride - actually, just give me a knighthood - or maybe an earldom. No, I think I’d like to be a prince. Not a king, just a prince. How’s that?"

The fox stared at the shepherd. "Bit much for just one little wish to handle, isn’t it?"

The shepherd pondered this. "Well," he said, "I suppose one princess would be enough."

"You’re an idiot," said the fox, matter-of-factly. He turned to leave when a thought struck him. "Here, you, go down this path the way I came."

"What’s going to happen?" asked the shepherd, excitedly. "Will I get my wish?"

But the fox had already gone, muttering "you deserve each other".

The fox had quite lost his good mood. He was getting sick of the whole business, but he could feel the wish in the back of his mind, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. The thing wouldn’t let him alone, so the fox amused himself by imagining what the robin/wizard would have tasted like, as he continued to hunt for a worthy wish-recipient.

The fox was still swearing to himself when he came across a plain peasant girl, right on the very edge of the forest. Contrary to all expectations, she wasn’t a vision of loveliness or any sort of peacock among chickens. She was more a chicken among chickens, but the chicken who’s always nowhere to be found when Grandma is walking toward the hen house with a hatchet and a meaningful look. . . .

She was sitting on a tree stump, chucking dirt clods in a not-at-all ladylike manner. the fox approached warily. "Excuse me," he said, from a safe distance.

The girl turned. "What?" she said, irritably.

The fox was suddenly flustered, for no reason he could understand. "Well, I, er, was wondering if perhaps, um, I could grant a wish for you?"

"Oh, you’re that kind of talking forest creature. I might have guessed," she said, and went back to staring angrily into space.

The fox gave a mental shrug and sidled up to the maiden, sitting on an adjacent log. "What's wrong?" he asked.

She glared at the fox. "‘Why, every decent girl of my age is living happily ever after by now!’", she simpered. "My younger sister has a whole pack of children, I forget how many, although I think her husband is a bit out of it, because after all what kind of ninny requires his wife-to-be to spin gold out of straw? Is that necessary for a happy marriage?" She shifted her glare to the middle distance and continued speaking. "I could probably hit three knight-errants and five valiant heroes with a dirt clod from where I’m standing, but they’re all more armor polish than brains as it is." She sighed. "I should probably consider myself lucky that I got the smarts of the family instead of the looks. Even if that means I wind up growing old with forty cats for company." The fox grinned to himself, beginning to like this maiden. "I just wish there was such a thing as an intelligent bachelor with a sense of humor and a nice smile, who’d think there was more to a relationship than hair the color of sun-ripened wheat and lips like cherries and all that other drivel."

"Wish granted," murmured the fox. There was a sound exactly like someone saying "pop".

The maiden looked around to see a rather short, pointy-faced man with alarming red hair and a hopeful look in his eyes, where the fox had been sitting a moment ago. He bowed to her, but forgot he no longer had a tail and pitched forward at her feet.

She smiled down at him.

He smiled back, revealing perfectly even white teeth.

They walked back toward the village, holding hands.

Overhead, completely unnoticed in the branches of a tree, a robin smiled. A difficult trick for a robin, but great and powerful wizards can do that.

THE END