Adeline’s Freezing Fit

Adeline had faced fighting a corrupt group of fae, starting a magical Academy and losing her freedom. 

It all paled when compared to the task that stood before her. For all of those other accomplishments, she knew that she could rely on her skills. Facing life-threatening decisions was something she had agreed to when signing up to be a recruit of the fae order; protecting herself and her sister in the process. 

That morning, she faced something entirely new. It had been early when she finished training outside. Her skin had been bright red, bitten by the early morning frost. It wasn’t until she stepped into her room that she noticed the problem. It was freezing. 

It felt even colder than outside. She quickly moved over to turn on the gas heating. Canberra was notably colder than where she used to live, and the act of turning the heating on when she got inside had become almost instinctual during winter. 

The A/C unit seemed to whir to life, pause, and… silence. She couldn’t hear any airflow coming out of the air conditioner. Its fans sat still, ignoring her request. Annoyed, Adeline turned the switch on and off, praying for the air conditioning to suddenly stir to life. Its red light stubbornly blinked back at her, unresponsive. 

Adeline wanted to punch the thing but decided against it. This was a task for a professional. She should have listened to her sister, Valerie, when she had told her in autumn to book air conditioning services (Canberra had a number of fae-friendly experts who could assist and wouldn’t blink an eye appearing at a magical academy). The problem was, this was not an issue that could be solved immediately. As the unit, maybe angry at Adeline’s constant use since the day of the installation, refused to budge, she knew she was in for a long day.

Party Cooling

I used to love going to my friends birthday parties when they were at the local kids restaurant. The ice cream cakes were the best and the party host was always dressed up in some great costume. I thought they were the best birthday parties ever. Unfortunately, Mum could never afford to let me have a birthday party at that restaurant, but I got over that a long time ago. It was one of my son’s school friends birthday party today and he was having it in the Party Room. I walked my son in, just to reminisce and things had really changed. I couldn’t work out if it was because I was a child and thought everything was amazing, but the Party Room sure had changed since my day. There wasn’t even any air conditioning and the place was a mess.

The party host entered, wearing a normal clown uniform, and asked all the mothers to take the children to the playground as some people from the air conditioning repair company in Melbourne were coming through to do some maintenance. We took the kids outside and two men put a ladder up in the middle of the Party Room, opened a manhole in the ceiling and climbed in.

When the kids came back inside the ladder was still in the middle of the room, meaning the guys were still taking care of the air conditioning service. Melbourne was rather sunny that day so the kids spent a decent amount of time outside running around to work up an appetite. We moved the food so the kids didn’t have to navigate around a ladder constantly, but the big surprise came when the host brought the ice cream cake out.

The cake was placed in front of the birthday boy, candles burning bright. We moved the ladder so we could take some photos of the kids and just as the birthday boy went to blow out his candles.  Unfortunately the man taking care of the air conditioning service was still on the ladder and fell on the table. He had misplaced his footing, thinking the ladder was still there and fallen from the ceiling landing directly on the birthday cake. The boy started crying and the host rushed in. This was one of the most eventful parties I’d been to in a while.