Miss Whistleblossom and the Harvest Award
Inktober Day 31: "Award" A tiny pixie enters the grand Harvest Contest, facing giants, squirrels, and far too much pie. No one expects her to last a round—but awards aren’t always won the usual way…
The Festival Begins
Every fall, the village of Maplebrook exploded with color—and cheerful mayhem. Hayrides creaked down leaf-strewn lanes, cider flowed like rivers, and apple bobbing turned unexpectedly fierce. But the true spectacle was the Great Fall Feast Contest.
Three impossible challenges.
One victor.
One Golden Gourd Trophy.
And a sack of golden coins—one-tenth the worth of the entire harvest.
Contestants arrived by cart and carriage.
They were as burly as ever.
Broad-shouldered bakers. Beefy blacksmiths.
One woman who swore she could lift a cow.
(She wasn’t carrying one, but no one doubted her.)
Then came a flicker of wings. A blur of green and gold.
A pixie.
She fluttered down and landed—light as a petal—on the edge of the sign-up table.
The villagers stared.
The pixie wore a dandelion cap and a belt made of peppercorns. Her boots looked stitched from dried mushroom leather, and her wings shimmered like morning frost.
She smiled sweetly and took the quill, its feather longer than her arm.
With a swirl of curling script, she signed:
Mimsella Whistleblossom.
Occupation: Forager. Animal caretaker. Sharer of good things.
A pause.
A beat.
Then came the laughter.
“Aw, look! Someone’s entered their emotional support sparkle.”
“She’s not even tall enough to reach the pie table!”
“I’ve seen dandelions with more muscle!”
But Mimsella only curtsied—neatly, politely—as if the laughter were applause.
And the games began.
Challenge One: Squirrel Chase
“First challenge!” bellowed the mayor, whose voice could mash potatoes. “Squirrel Chasin’! One hour. Catch as many as you can—without hurting them. Or yourself, for that matter.”
The heavyweights dove into the woods, armed with snares, ropes, peanut butter traps, boisterous confidence, and wildly untested optimism.
Mimsella?
She zipped the other way.
She wandered the forest collecting gooseberries, hazelnuts, apples, and even a smidge of honeycomb.
Arranged them in a neat, fragrant circle in a sun-dappled clearing.
Then she sat. And waited.
Meanwhile, the others sweated. Wrestled. Swore.
“I nearly got that one’s tail!” someone shouted.
One man fell out of a tree and landed squarely in a thornbush.
When the bell rang an hour later, they returned scratched, sweaty, and squirrel-less.
Mimsella floated in last, humming.
Behind her, twenty-seven squirrels marched in a proud, nut-craving parade.
“Meet my little friends,” she said. “They came for the party—so I gave them snacks.”
First point: the pixie.
Challenge Two: Pumpkin Push
A steep hill.
A field of pumpkins.
One hour to get as many to the top as possible.
The strongfolk rolled, dragged, hoisted.
Faces red. Backs breaking. Arms trembling.
Some pushed. Some carried.
One woman simply launched hers like a cannonball and roared.
Mimsella?
She picked the tiniest pumpkin she could find.
Carried it up.
Placed it gently at the top.
And vanished, muttering something about “fetching friends with an appetite.”
“Where’s she off to now?”
“Maybe she gave up and went home to feed her pet ladybug!”
But fifteen minutes later, the forest rumbled.
Deer ambled in.
Rabbits bounded past.
Groundhogs, raccoons, and a suspiciously confident badger scurried through the patch.
And behind them, lumbering slow and hungry…
Two enormous bears.
Panic.
Contestants shrieked and scattered.
Pumpkins rolled downhill as the animals feasted on the remaining ones with a symphony of crunching, chomping, and the occasional satisfied grunt.
When the chaos cleared, the hill was bare.
Except for one small pumpkin—
sitting in Mimsella’s lap,
perched on a tree branch at the top of the hill,
swinging her legs and waving at the animals… and at the crowd below.
Second point: the pixie.
Challenge Three: Pie-Eating Contest
A long field.
A dozen tables.
Each contestant stood behind their own wooden table, stacked edge to edge with steaming, golden pies.
One rule:
First to empty their table—wins.
The mayor raised his hand. “On your mark… get set…”
“EAT!”
The strongfolk dove in.
There was chewing. Gulping. Groaning.
One man face-planted into a blackberry pie with such force the table shook.
Mimsella?
She took one delicate bite of apple pie.
Another.
Then set her fork down and sighed.
“Oh dear,” she said. “I’m full.”
Laughter erupted.
“She made it two bites!”
“Quick! Someone knit her a bib!”
But then Mimsella looked out at the crowd of children watching from behind the rope, eyes wide, noses twitching.
She fluttered over to them, lifted a warm pie from her table, and held it out.
“Would anyone like a taste?”
In moments, her table turned into a feast for the spectators.
Children gathered. Parents followed. Even a few judges wandered over.
Mimsella wiped the crumbs on the floor for a few scurrying mice who’d come for the scent, and stayed for the kindness.
While the other contestants groaned and clutched their stomachs,
Mimsella’s table was bare.
The judges stared. The crowd went quiet. And then, applause erupted.
Third point: the pixie.
The Award Ceremony
The mayor climbed the stage and cleared his throat.
“Miss Whistleblossom, your quick thinking and generous heart have not only impressed our judges…” He glanced nervously toward the woods. “…but may also have saved us from becoming bear snacks.”
Laughter rolled through the crowd.
He handed her the Golden Gourd Trophy—taller than her wingspan—and gestured toward the burlap sack beside it, bulging with a tenth of the harvest’s worth in gold coins.
Mimsella gave a polite bow.
Then turned to the sack.
She couldn’t lift it—not even with both arms and some creative flapping.
So she opened it, pulled out a handful of coins, and walked—not flew—across the stage.
“To the baker with the bruised knee,” she said, pressing a few coins into a flour-dusted hand. “This should help with the doctor.”
“To the blacksmith’s apprentice,” she said to a stunned young man, “whose gran’s roof leaks. No more.”
She reached up to the tall woman in the front row—the one who claimed she could lift a cow.
“For your triplets. Let them start school proud.”
One by one, she gave away her prize until only a single coin remained.
She pressed it to her chest, smiled, and vanished into the woods, light as a dandelion seed on the wind.
Nowadays, no one knows exactly where the village of Maplebrook can be found.
Some say it vanished with the last autumn fog. Others believe it’s still out there—hidden between the crunch of fallen leaves and the glimmer of dew on a spider’s web.
And as for pixies… well, few people ever spot them.
But have you ever found a coin lying where no coin should be?
At the edge of a forest path?
Beneath a bench in the park?
Tucked in the roots of an old tree you could’ve sworn you’d passed before?
It might have been hers.
But chances are—she wanted you to have it.
The End.
I can’t believe this is the last Inktober story! Great job on all of them and keeping up with the drawings too. What an accomplishment!