“If I were as small as a spider, I could squeeze right past the door,” she thought to herself.

At that very moment, she felt something fluttering in her hair.  She opened her eyes with a start.  She was certain that it was a spider and she brushed her hand through her curls in the hope of getting rid of the creature.

“Ouch!  Ouch!  That hurts don’t you know?  What do you want to do?  Start a rowdy-row?”  There came a tiny, tinkling voice from the vicinity of Maizie’s head.  Maizie assumed that she had imagined the voice and she brushed her hand through her hair again to make sure the spider was gone.  When she did, she found the owner of the tinkling voice was perched on her index finger.  Clinging to her finger was what appeared to be a moth with two tiny sets of fluttering, gossamer wings.  Maizie gave her hand a sharp flick in an effort to shake the fluttering moth from her finger.

“Won’t you please knock it off!” squeaked the moth.  “That hurts, don’t you know, my pain tolerance is truly quite low.  After all, can’t you see my landing wouldn’t be so soft if you cast me to the floor of this damp, woodsy loft?”

Maizie drew in her breath.  She was stunned with amazement.  She couldn’t believe her ears.  It was a talking moth!  Drawing the moth closer, she squinted her eyes and strained in the dim light to see the creature more clearly.  Amazingly, it was not a moth at all.  It was a tiny, miniature person.  It was a truly minuscule being with itsy, bitsy, diaphanous wings attached to its back.

“Who . . . What are you?  Are you a sprite?”  Maizie gasped with her finger so near to her nose that she could feel the slight breeze stirred by the small, fluttering wings.

“That I am, I am! And my name is Puddles, you silly goose.  Do you think I’m merely a moth on the loose?  You wished to be as small as a spider, did you not?  Or is that something you’ve now conveniently forgot?”

Maizie again breathed deeply with astonishment.  This small, winged creature seemed to have read her very thoughts!