The mimes took Hansel to the hall of the Grand Palace and left one to guard him.  Then the rest hurried off.  There was a disturbance in one of the Carnival tents.

The hall was an opulent room with marble floors and columns.  It was decorated all in blue.  Blue rugs were on the floor, blue curtains were on the windows, and blue pictures were on the walls. A close inspection of the pictures revealed that they were all noses, of various shapes and sizes, painted on blue backgrounds.  Candles on crystal chandeliers that hung from the ceiling gave light to the room, but large windows overlooking the Piazza also allowed reflections from the fireworks and oils to paint the walls in ever changing hues.

Hansel could see someone dressed in blue seated at a desk at the far end of the hall just in front of a blue curtain.  A blonde head was bent over some papers, and a dainty hand was writing with a quill.

The mime motioned for Hansel to follow and they walked the length of the hall until they were in front of the desk.  The mime raised his hand in the air and made a rapping motion.  There was the sound like a door knocking.  The mime tried to keep a straight face, but Hansel could tell he was clicking his tongue.

“Yes?  What is it?” responded a female voice, without looking up.  Hansel’s heart leaped.  Amazed he found he could understand her even though it was in Italian.

The mime gestured that Hansel was accused of being a thief and a bottom pincher.

“This man’s not a thief,” was the reply.  “But I’ll have to investigate the pinching.”

The Blue Fairy set down her quill and raised her head.  “Can I see you nose again?” she asked.

Hansel took of his mask.  “I’m sorry if it’s not long enough,” he said.

“I like it.  It shows character.  And it will have even more after it’s broken…I’ve given names to our three children.  Would you like to see what they are?”

Hansel cautiously felt his nose as he nodded.

The Blue Fairy held out a parchment to him.  He took it and read, “Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod.”

“Nod was my mother’s name,” explained the fairy.

“I like it,” answered Hansel, as he handed back the parchment.

Bewildered the mime looked back and forth between them.  He was dumbstruck, but of course no one could tell.

There was a sudden commotion at the entrance to the hall and rest of the mimes returned with the others on tow.  Chris and Randolph were being cooperative, but Gretel was miming rude gestures and they all had to wait while Rosa cast up her accounts into a blue vase just inside the hall.

When she recognized her brother, Gretel hid her hands behind her back and blushed.  As they got closer to the fairy, Rosa tried to straighten her skirt and fluff out her blouse, Chris turned his face to show his un-swollen side, and Randolph held the nose on his mask pretending it was not broken.

A mime put two fingers to his lips and gave a silent whistle.  The troop came to an abrupt halt and stood at parade rest.

The Blue Fairy winced, as if the sound had been shrill.  But she nodded to the mimes and came out from behind her desk.  She took an invisible sheet of paper from the leader and read it.

She walked over to the miscreants.  First she touched the nose on Randolph’s mask and it was fixed.  She touched Chris’s eye and it was better.  But she skipped past Rosa to touch the hem of Gretel’s apron and her clothing was again laundered and her hair was combed.  Several mimes broke ranks to get a closer look at her, while Rosa looked in dismay at her still wrinkled and disheveled state.

The Blue Fairy held up the paper and said, “You are accused here of being drunk and disorderly in public, inciting a riot, and singing off key.”  She looked at Rosa when repeating this last charge.

Only the mimes and Hansel understood her.  Still they all started protesting their innocence.  It grew into quite a commotion.  The Blue Fairy was speaking Italian, Randolph and Christopher were arguing in English, Rosa in Spanish, and Gretel German; while the mimes were demonstrating their grasp of Gretel’s hand gestures.

WHOOSH!

There was a flash of lightning, a cloud of smoke, and the roar of thunder…  And Llywarch returned.

“I have a lovely singing voice,” Rosa was arguing.

“Ouch!  Someone pinched my bottom!” exclaimed Gretel.

The Blue Fairy looked at Hansel.

“It wasn’t me,” he insisted.  “Gretel’s my sister.”

A mime tried to move away unnoticed, but he was caught when he slipped on a banana.

“Where were you this time?” Chris asked his uncle.

Everyone listened, the mimes leaning forward with their hands behind their ears.

“I was with Zelda,” answered Llywarch with a smile.  “She wanted her feet rubbed.”

They all looked blank.  “Who’s Zelda?” asked Rosa.

“She’s the old woman who works for the giants.  She earned a wish when she brought us here and her corns were hurting her, so I rubbed her feet.  I also gave her a pedicure.”  Llywarch held up his hands to show them stained from berries.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Rosa.

“Don’t be.  I liked it!” Llywarch huffed.  “I should go out more often.”

“Hello,” the Blue Fairy said to Gretel and she shook her hand.  “I am going to be your sister-in-law.”

 “Do you mean it?” Gretel asked the fairy, “When did Hansel ask you?  Was it romantic?”

The Blue Fairy replied, “That’s a good question.”  She turned to Hansel and said, “When are you going to ask me to marry you?”

“What do you mean my nose is going to be broken?” said Hansel.

The Blue Fairy turned back to Gretel, “I’m not sure when he’s going to ask me; I didn’t see that in my window, but how could it not be romantic.  The women all sighed.  “Would you like to see portraits of your future nephews and niece?”

The Blue Fairy pulled three miniatures from a pocket in her dress and showed her a little boy, age six, who looked just like Hansel.  “This is ‘Winkin’,” she said.  “And this is ‘Blinkin’.”  The boy was age four and looked like Gretel.  “And this is ‘Nod’.”  The two-year-old girl looked just like the Blue Fairy.

“I don’t know what your name is,” said Hansel.

“It’s Mimi,” answered the fairy shyly.

“That’s a nice name.”  Hansel continued, “Now about this broken nose!”

“It’s actually two names,” interrupted Mimi.  “You see I have two maiden aunts…and both of them are named ‘Mi’.”

Rosa rolled her eyes in understanding.

Suddenly a trap door popped open in the center of the hall and out climbed Chevy and Hombre.  They were dirty, breathless…and wet.  As they stepped into the hall, they left muddy prints on the floor.

Immediately two mimes sprang forward with imaginary mops and buckets.

The Blue fairy walked over and touched a sleeve of Hombre’s leather jacket and - not only was his clothing dried and pressed – but it turned to denim.

“Thanks…er…Blue!” Hombre said, not knowing how to address a fairy.

“Please, call me Mimi,” she replied.

She turned to Chevy and said, “I know you don’t want a wish, but you already have it.”  At his startled look, she added, “Be patient.  Soon you’ll understand.”

“What about me,” asked Rosa, “Don’t I get a wish?”  She looked at her soiled and crumpled clothing.

“Of course,” smiled the fairy.  “But since I’m only able to grant one wish per person per day, I thought you might want to see something before you made yours.”

“Egad!” interjected Llywarch.  “One wish per person per day!  You must get tired.”

“I used to, but then my people took pity on me.  Now they all wish for the same thing.”

“That’d make it easier,” admitted Llywarch.

“Today they wanted a Carnival.  Tomorrow I’m to defeat the pirates. Yesterday they asked for Chinese food.”

“Blue…er…Mimi!” Hombre interrupted, pointing back towards the trap door.  “There’s a pirate ship hiding in the city’s water supply

Rosa’s wish was forgotten, as everyone followed the fairy to the misty window on the table.  She picked up a cloth and wiped it clear.  Everyone could see the ship rocking back and forth on the water in the basin beneath the palace.

“Blimey,” said Randolph and Chris together.  “Where are its masts?”

“They’re bent backward on hinges,” said Chevy.  “When the ship gets into the Piazza, the sailors will hoist them with ropes and sail down the canal.”

“That I can understand,” replied Randolph, relieved.  “For a moment I thought they had come up with some way of propelling boats without using wind or oars.”

“That’ll never happen,” Llywarch informed them.

“Look!” said the Blue Fairy.  She pointed to the bow of the boat.  “That looks like a chicken sitting on its bow.”

“Los Pollos del Diablo,” said Chevy.

 “The Devil Chickens,” repeated the fairy.  “What are Devil Chickens?”

The mimes all shrugged their shoulders and spread their hands.

 “This means Don Swan is involved,” said Rosa.  “But how?  I thought we left him in the Atlantic.”

“Swan is in league with forces of evil everywhere,” answered Hansel.  “He and those pirates have even plundered my country.”

“That won’t happen much longer,” the Blue Fairy told him, “for I saw in my window that you are about to become great warrior.”

Hansel looked unconvinced.

“Rosa,” said the fairy.  “Before you make your wish, I want you to see this.”  She picked up the rag and wiped the window once more.  The cave and the Turkish ship disappeared and the Atlantic Ocean came into view.  A sleek, powerful ship cutting through the waves filled the window.

Everyone gasped.

“It’s the Swan,” said Chris.

Next the captain’s porthole filled the window.  Then the view was inside the cabin.  A slovenly man with a gold tooth and a scar, with a dirty goatee and mustache was pacing the cabin floor.

“It’s Don Swan,” gasped Rosa.

Everyone leaned closer to get a better look.  Several of the mimes pretended to climb ladders and peer over the shoulders in front of them.

Chris said, “He seems to be interrogating someone.”

Don Swan had a whip known as a “cat-of-nine-tails” in his hand.  He waved it menacingly at someone seated in a spindly wooden chair.  The man’s arms were tied behind him.  A ring gleamed on one of his fingers.  He looked exhausted.  His gray head kept slumping forward.

Chevy recognized the ring.  It was a tax collector’s signet.  He warned, “Rosa, don’t look!”

But it was too late.  Rosa’s face took on an ashen appearance.  “Papa!” She whispered

The prisoner in the chair was Rosa’s father, Huberto Alonzo Miguel Rojo.

“What’s going on?” asked Chris.  “Can we hear sound through this window?”

“No, I’m sorry,” said the Blue Fairy.  “But perhaps one of the mimes can interpret.”

A mime step forward and watched the window intently.  Then he started to pantomime.

The Blue Fairy turned the gestures into words.  “Don Swan had the Devil Chickens capture Rosa’s father and fly him to the ship.  He’s angry that Rosa got away.  Some Devil Chickens followed her to the Pyrenees, but the hen left to watch her vanished without a trace.”

The travelers licked their lips, remembering the taste of roast chicken.

“Swan thinks Rosa’s father knows where she is.  He has stolen the tax money that Huberto was collecting and he will not return it unless Huberto betrays Rosa’s whereabouts.”

“But he can’t do that!  He doesn’t know!” exclaimed Rosa.

“Then he will suffer,” the Blue Fairy replied.

“I have a wish for today that I haven’t taken.  Can I wish him out of there?”

“Certainly,” said Mimi.  “That’s why I waited.  I felt certain that was what you’d want to do.”

“Oh I do,” replied Rosa, her clothing forgotten.  “I wish my father free from the clutches of the evil Don Swan.”

Immediately Huberto vanished from the chair in the cabin of the Swan.  The empty ropes fell limply to the floor.  Don Swan looked astonished and then flung the whip in anger.  A hen perched on the stolen bag of coins sitting on the captain’s table cackled in frustration.

Everyone in the hall cheered.  The mime who was pantomiming bowed and started to pass around his hat.

 “Can…can I see where he is now?” asked Rosa.

The Blue Fairy wiped the window again and a Spanish castle came into view.  They looked in through a tower window.  Then they followed a flight of stairs that spiraled down to a damp dungeon.  They peered through bars of a cell into a chamber of torture.  And there was Rosa’s father, stretched on a rack.  He was free from Don Swan, but now he was imprisoned for tax theft.

“Someone really needs to teach her how to make wishes,” said Llywarch.

Chris tried to comfort her, but she pushed him away.  Turned to the Blue Fairy, Rosa begged, “Can I have another wish.  I promise I’ll get it right this time.”

“Yes, you may” said the Blue Fairy.  “You may all have another wish, but you have to wait until tomorrow.  Remember I can only grant one wish per person per day.”

Just then the clock in the hall struck eleven forty-five.

“Fifteen minutes until tomorrow.  Papa, be strong,” she whispered.

“While we wait,” said the Blue Fairy, “who hasn’t had a wish, yet.  I’d be happy to grant them.”  She looked at Hansel and Llywarch.

“How wonderful,” said Llywarch.  “I rarely get a wish myself.  What should I wish for?  Maybe I should ask for that fourth hula girl.  No.  I have it!”  He took off his hat revealing his bald plate and said, “I wish I had long dark hair up here.”

Instantly the bald portion of Llywarch’s head was full of cornrows of black hair.  Unfortunately the rest of his hair was still gray, including that in his ears and eyebrows.

“It looks like I’m not the only one who doesn’t know how to make a proper wish,” suggested Rosa.

“Did I do that?” asked Mimi.  “I’m usually pretty good with hair transplants.”

But Llywarch was pleased.  As he preened at his reflection in the window, he said, “In the future people will pay good money for hair that looks like this.”

“What about you?” asked Mimi of Hansel.  “What do you wish for?”

“I don’t need a wish,” said Hansel.  “If I have you every day for the rest of my life, what more could I want?”

Rosa and Gretel sighed, while the men rolled their eyes and kept silent.

But the Blue Fairy hemmed and hawed.

“You’d better tell him,” said Llywarch.

“Tell me what?” asked Hansel.

Mimi took him by the arm and looked into his eyes.  She said, “One of the…peculiar…things about fairies is that they are – completely - human once each year – on a full moon.  That’s when we can…er…be man and wife.”  She blushed.

Hansel looked stricken, “One…once a year,” he croaked.

“But we have so many years ahead of us,” Mimi insisted.

The women were okay with this.  But the men all looked stricken.

Mimi grabbed both of Hansel’s arms and shook him.  “If you love me, it’ll be okay.”

Hansel just stared.  Rosa and Gretel were tapping their feet in disgust.  The men were all looking elsewhere

“I wish it could be opposite,” said Mimi.

Llywarch heard the distinct tinkling of a bluebell.  “Oh oh,” he thought.

The magic window fogged over just as the hall clock struck twelve.

“There’s a pirate ship in the canal,” came a cry from down in the Piazza.

“I wish my father to be safe and sound in his own home,” said Rosa at once.

The Blue Fairy waved her hand, but she kept looking at Hansel.

Rosa picked up the cloth and tried to wipe the window clean, but it stayed foggy.

“The pirate ship is still in the canal,” came the voice from outside

The mimes rushed over to the windows.

“I can’t see my father,” complained Rosa.

The Blue Fairy tore her gaze from Hansel and went over to her.  She grabbed the rag and rubbed the window herself, but it still stayed foggy.

Outside there was a cannon shot.  Its flash showed on the walls just as the fireworks and oils had done before.

Mimi rushed over to the window where the mimes parted to let her see.

In the Piazza, the pirate ship was blazing cannon fire.  The top of the Great Fountain was missing.  The citizens were crouching below flying balls.  The crew was raising the ship’s masts and unfurling its sails.  A squadron of Devil Chickens was winging its way to the striped tent.  Soon there was singing from there that sounded pretty much like it had all evening.

Mimi waved her hand again, but the ship remained.  “What’s happened?” she asked.  “Why can’t I wish them away?”

“I suppose this is my fault, “said Llywarch.  “You see, you gave me a wish.”  He pointed to his head with its black cornrows.  “And that’s considered a kindness.”

“Oh no!’ groaned Chris, “Uncle Larry, don’t tell us that you granted her wish.”

Sheepishly Llywarch admitted that he had.

“What wish was that?” asked Mimi.

“Fairies are fairies most of the time and human only one day a year.  You wished that it could be the other way round.  And to be a fairy again…well…you have to wait until the next full moon,” Llywarch answered.

“I’m human?” Mimi asked, looking at her hands.

“Where’s the Blue Fairy?” came a voice from outside.  The crowd below was growing angry.

The mimes looked horrified.

Mimi turned to Hansel for help.  She put her hands on his chest and looked into his eyes.  “What are you going to do,” she asked.  “I became human for you.  Now I can’t fight the pirates.  You’ll have to protect the city.  Can you do it for me?”

“But I’m not a soldier,” Hansel replied.

Randolph and Chris slipped past Llywarch’s range where they could talk without being understood.

“I’d give anything if Gretel looked at me like that,” said Randolph.

“I’d be happy if Rosa would just stop looking at me like I was an insect.  What would it be like to have someone treat you like that?” Chris wondered.

“This is your fault!” the Blue Fairy was telling Hansel, as she slugged him in the arm.  “So you have to do this!  Wait!  I know.  I’ll make you a soldier.”  She took an imaginary sword from one of the mimes and tapped him on each shoulder.  “I dubbed thee General of the City.  Now you must gather an army.”

“It looks like she’s giving him a commission,” Randolph said to Chris.  “Why doesn’t she ask one of us to lead the fight?  We have the experience.”

Rosa and Gretel started to give them angry looks.

“They think we are trying to sneak away,” said Chris.  He sighed.  “I just can’t win.”

“We better go back,” Randolph agreed.

General Hansel called everyone, including the mimes, into another huddle.  Again there was a lot of finger wagging, foot tapping, and fist pounding.  But Hansel could be heard plainly speaking, with Randolph and Chris adding their opinions.

Finally they had a plan and the mimes scattered throughout the Palace collecting antique weapons from walls and elsewhere in building.

They returned with battle axes and swords, bows and arrows, and a few guns.  They also gathered what they could out of the kitchen.  Several were carrying butcher knifes and meat cleavers.  One mime gestured apologetically that all he could find was a fondue fork.  While another kept his hand behind his back to hide the fact he had his finger caught in a cheese grater.

Llywarch was examining the wrong end of a musket.  Hansel took it away and handed him a bowl of fruit.  “See if you can see the future in any of these,” he suggested.

They had their assignments.  Chevy and Hombre went back down the trap door.   Randolph and Chris were off to protect the gates of the city.  The mimes headed to the striped tent filled with chickens.  Gretel and Mimi started ripping curtains off walls to make bandages.  The hall was to become a triage hospital.  Rosa had no interest in nursing, so she grabbed a frying pan the mimes had brought from the kitchen and followed them.

 Mimi turned to Hansel and kissed him, causing him to blush.  “Be careful,” she said and rubbed his nose for luck.

Hansel pushed the fairy’s desk over to the window, then sent it crashing through the glass and down to the canal below.  It landed with an enormous splash.

“No!” he challenged the pirates through the broken pane.  “You will not conquer this city,” he shouted in his native German.  “NEIN!”

“What did he say?” came a voice from below.

“I am not sure,” replied Long Louie, who was a schoolteacher, “but I think he’s counting in English.”