I would probably never have spotted him if the boys hadn’t turned the kitchen into such a disaster area during their bedtime snack. With all the cracker fragments strewn about, apparently not even a pixie ninja could avoid making a sound.
Everyone tucked in and snoring at last, I had already turned off all the other lights in the apartment, and was in the bathroom staring at my face when I heard something crunch in the kitchen. I reflexively stuck my head around the door frame and there he was, frozen in a tense crouch, staring right back at me. He was about a foot, maybe fifteen inches tall, but super thin, like he had started out around eight inches and then been heated and stretched. A wiry beard stuck out from his tiny chin. He looked almost exactly like I would expect a pixie to look, save that he was wearing a ninja costume: black cotton pants and tunic, a sword on his back and what appeared to be tiny nunchucks tucked into his black sash.
“What are you wearing that for?” I asked.
He continued to stare, motionless. After what seemed like forever — it must have been at least thirty seconds — I finally blinked, and he was gone.
Weird, I thought, as I turned back to the mirror and squeezed a few more blackheads.
