Village Shepherd

Praxis the colourful pixie was up to mischief. Praxis was a very rare pixie whose skin changed colour according to his mood, and just now he was bright purple with excitement. Mr Grump the goblin teacher had been called away by an urgent message, leaving the pixies to get on with learning their spellings.

Some pixies were working very hard and had already learned how to cast a simple spell, but Praxis was bored with spells. At key stage 2 they were only allowed to cast a spell which would turn red liquid into clear liquid, and since Praxis had learned how to do that in science lessons, he couldn't see the point of using a spell to achieve the same ends. Spells were so fiddly because for even the simplest spell you had to collect all sorts of things from the forest, like leaves and toadstools and for the more difficult spells, frogs legs and bats wings.

But Mr Grump had gone, and there was nobody to check what was going on. Praxis glanced around, then he started to make faces at some of his friends. They began to giggle. Then Praxis started to splash red liquid over a pixie in the front row who was quietly getting on with his work. The pixie jumped up, and looked with horror at the scarlet stain which was spreading all over his brand new pixie school uniform. The pixie began to cry. But this just made naughty Praxis and his friends laugh.

As the laughter grew louder and louder, the classroom door opened and an older pixie put his head round the door. "I've been sent to make sure you are all getting on with your work," he said pompously.

Praxis and his friends howled with laughter, and one of them threw a whole container of red liquid over the intruder. He turned and fled, slamming the door behind him. Then the whole classroom erupted. Except for a few timid souls who cringed by the wall shivering, all the pixies began to join in, flinging their vials of red liquid at each other, and whooping and yelling as each one gradually became covered from head to foot in scarlet stain.

The door opened again, and the head pixie from the top class appeared. "Be quiet this minute," he shouted. "Mr Grump will be back soon, and he'll want to see your work." But those naughty Pixies didn't listen to a word. They were so wound up with mischief that they dragged the head pixie into the classroom, forced him to sit in the middle of the floor, then poured all of the remaining liquid over his head. Poor head pixie! He was scarlet from top to toe. Then those wicked Pixies opened the door and threw him out.

But as they threw him out, who do you think was approaching? It was Mr Grump, and he looked very angry indeed. When he reached the classroom, he was appalled. Everywhere and everybody was covered in scarlet stains - except that one pixie still had bright purple skin!

"Come here, Praxis," said Mr Grump in an ominous voice. Praxis took one look at his teacher and began to shake. The whole room went very quiet, and every pixie was suddenly busy with his spellings.

Praxis very soon changed colour from his exciting purple to a very sad blue! And by the time Mr Grump had finished with him, his blue colour was blotchy with shame. After that, he had to spend a very long time with his spellings, because he had to take the colour out of every scarlet stain, starting with all the pixies themselves and going on to the whole of the room.

It took him months, gathering all the ingredients and casting the same spell over and over again until he was finished. How Praxis wished he'd listened in the first place!