If you ask me, Earth children are brats. They don’t appreciate what they’ve got, but spend their days hoping against hope to open a magic door and wind up in a fantasy land full of rainbows and fairies and unicorns. Well, I’m from a so-called fantasy land, and it ain’t like that. It’s called Curnst, and it’s cold and dark and the air is thin. There are no beautiful creatures there, only giant bugs.

Riding the bugs to school is uncomfortable and itchy and at least once a month, some poor kid gets gobbled up on the way. Every day, we spend eight hours in school and eight hours in the mines. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to frolic in the heather (–not that we have heather). And there’s no deposed fairy queen who will restore Curnst to glory as soon as she defeats the evil wizard. There’s no evil wizard. There’s no hope at all.

An Earth boy, Lucas Hummings, opened a door despite its Dangerous Magic Door, Do Not Open sign, or maybe because of it. He stepped into Curnst and was stuck there for seventy years. He was an old man by the time he made it back to Earth, with cataracts, and skin blackened from coal dust. Lucky for me, I popped through the portal with him.

Earth, to me, is what a fantasy land should be. I mean, you’ve got flowers, for God’s sake. The closest we have to flowers on Curnst are pungent rocks, and, believe me, they don’t smell like roses or jasmine or honeysuckle. In fact, the most feared Curnstish form of torture is the Pungent Rock Room. People have been known to feed themselves to alligator rodents to avoid being thrown in there.

So stop tempting your children with stories of wonderful lands. For every one true fantasy land that exists, there must be hundreds of horrible ones. Dogs may not speak here, but they are soft and friendly. No one on Curnst would ever dream of wanting a pet giant bug. Think of that the next time you find a magic lamp or stumble upon a mysterious hole. And think of Lucas Hummings, in his nursing home, still trying to get used to the feeling of being warm.