Fern was the most despicable child you could know-a snobby child, lazy and selfish, with a most repulsive way of speaking:
Fern's teacher suggested she should become better at her homework; her reply?
"Why don't you do it if you're so concerned?"
Fern's friend asked her if she could get one of them a present she requested; her reply?
"Why don't you get it if you really want it?"
But she wasn’t really such a terrible child as it might seem at first glance. Her past experiences made her feel terribly dejected and lonely as could be.
Fern's parents always expected her to be fully independent - they handed her money for the week, and she went and did everything herself-bought her food, her clothes, caught the bus herself, went to the library-she thought if she wasn't at peace in the home, she could let everyone else do something for her, since she had to do everything herself.
After all, her motto was, from an Aesop's fable, "If you want something done, do it yourself!!"
***
Fern lived in a simple grey town where a few shops, a library, and no candy stores were. Her house sat on the very edge of the town, and her parents would fly to another country, travelling, while she struggled to keep the lawn straight. She hardly had any friends-only one, and they secretly hated each other. Fern spent her days at an 8-hour-day school and the occasional skiving. On these days, she sat thinking about the life she could've had.
***
One day, Fern trotted outside into the backyard gaily. She’d found some poison ivy, and thought it was a perfect replacement for the pink tulips lined in a neat row against a brick wall.
And then she suddenly fell to the ground, rivulets of pain running through her ankle.
***
The trapdoor in the overgrown backyard Fern struggled to keep was a simple thing, just a few random planks with a rusty handle sticking up.
Fern had happened to trip over the handle, and it flew off, stuck to her shoe. She pried it off and threw it into the neighbour's yard. A sharp "Ouch!" came from that direction.
Injuries aside, she found the culprit of her pain.
The wooden planks sitting, quite obviously, in the centre of the yard, glared at her quite seriously-if doors could glare.
Fern's thoughts about planting more poison ivy were extinguished and replaced immediately with the thought of opening a door-or vandalising it!
She rushed inside and grabbed a black pen, then went outside and drew a few lazy doodles on it.
Suddenly the door grunted.
Maybe it was alive-it had glared at her.
It opened, and an awful noise, a raspy voice, rang out:
"Whaddaya think you're doing, drawing old robots and squiggles on meh, eh?"
Yep. The door had spoken.
She peered inside. A row of teeth lined it.
It snapped shut.
Well, she wasn't going to let any old living door stop her! She tore it open and ripped out a tooth!
"Gah!" screamed the door.
Aha! Now the tooth fairy would pay her millions!
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