Written by Jacques Barchilon in 1974 and translated by Nicole Barchilon Frank in August 2018, originally published in Marvels & Tales, Journal of Fairy-Tales Volume 32, Issue 2 (2018)

Nicole, Paul, and Papa were in the forest above Boulder, very high in the mountains, above three thousand meters, next to the abandoned village of Cariboo. It was a very dense forest, with aspens, firs, cedars, and pines, and with some oak trees here and there. At this altitude the air is rather fresh and goes to one’s head and makes it spin a little when one is walking. Some of the undergrowth was quite wet; the black, soft earth like a sponge after the most recent rains. In these nooks pierced by hot sunbeams grew an abundance of mushrooms that we were looking for. Papa, in the middle, Paul fifteen meters to the left, Nicole fifteen meters to the right, we combed the woods. From time to time, we called out each other’s name so as not to get lost. The name of each mushroom we picked was sung out, and the forest resounded: “Boletus, Chanterelle, Agaric,” … and so on.

Each had their own back pack and their own basket with two compartments: one side for known mushrooms, and the other for those unknown that would be identified later. The afternoon was marvelously limpid, but more and more hot, and it made Nicole wanted to fall asleep. To walk in the forest when one feels like falling asleep is as dangerous as driving a car when we aren’t very awake. I ask you now to try and see Nicole. A little girl of nine years, a little long in the legs, skin very white, covered in freckles, everywhere, everywhere, red hair, and light brown eyes. She was pretty overall, except for two big buck teeth. You guessed it: she had sucked her thumb too much for years.

While walking, Nicole fell asleep. These things happen, one can even fall asleep standing, like Papa when he was a soldier during the war and he was bored during his guard watch. Papa was just screaming to warn the kids: “Careful! Look closely where you are walking! (The gold-miners had dug many holes, pretty much everywhere.) There are mine holes everywhere here!” So, Nicole, asleep, fell into a large black hole. And then, at the bottom of the hole, there was a great pool of cold water, and she suddenly woke up in the process of swimming in the black water. Looking ahead of her she saw a light at the end of a narrow passageway that seemed to lead to the surface. Nicole walks and walks, and it seems to her that the mine’s narrow passageway is five kilometers long. She is cold, and she is worrying about her brother and her father. Finally, she arrives at the surface in a dazzling sunlight and she yells very loudly: “Papa, Paul, I am here, I am not hurt! Where are you?”

But no one answered. Looking around her she sees that there are no longer any trees or any mountains. She is on a beach of fine sand and there is an ocean that pushes waves and foam in front of her feet. She starts to feel very scared. How could she find herself in a place like Casablanca, in Morocco, when she just fell into a hole or a mining tunnel near Cariboo, in Colorado in America? Was she really in Casablanca? A man sitting on his donkey passed in front of her. He resembled a Moroccan and he was wearing a lovely red jellaba. Nicole repeated the only Moroccan words that she knew: “Oujed, Jouj, Tlata…Zouina (One, two, three…pretty). The Moroccan smiled and responded: “H’lal…Derya zouina…Fin ouah Mamak? (May God be with you, beautiful child, where is your mother?)” Nicole smiles without understanding, she didn’t know enough Moroccan. But she thought of one thing, if this was really the beach in Casablanca, it was enough for her to climb up the hill of Anfa and she would find the house of her French grandmother. Walking, walking in the sun, she wondered what happened and if, once again, there wasn’t magic at work. The magic had just begun.

She arrived in front of a gas station exactly like those in America, with a big oval sign, PEPUCON (PETROPURACONCESSIONE/PURE PETROL TO BUY). The gas station attendant was dressed exactly like those in America and it seemed that he was really GEORGES, a friend, the one who sold gas to Papa, almost every day! But it was Georges! “Georges, Georges, I’ve gotten myself lost, I fell in a hole. How can I get back home? It’s so far away, I’ll have to take a plane.” Georges responded: “But, my little girl, you are two steps away from your home. Your father’s house is at the street corner, look: here is Marine street.” Nicole didn’t understand anything at all; but she kept walking anyway. She walked maybe ten meters when she again fell again into a hole. But this time, she didn’t fall into a cold sea, but into a soft meadow of flowering herbs, once again in the forest of Cariboo.

“How strange,” she thought, “I didn’t have shoes like these… what funny boots.” They weren’t boots, they were hoofs, and there were four of them. Nicole was no longer a little girl but a pretty doe. Of course, she was very surprised, but not too scared. Her Papa had already told her many stories about people who were transformed, and those stories all ended very well. “The first thing to do is to get home and reassure Papa and Paul. Paul, who is a bit magical will help me pull myself out of this transformation, and Papa also. He’ll look in his books and he’ll find a fairy or a magician.”

Nicole had trouble hopping around on four hooves. She had never done that in her entire life. But, she got used to it fairly quickly: it was about jumping while counting by fours. “One, two, three, four,” like when dancing. Pretty soon she no longer needed to count, and she found herself able to run ten times faster than she had with her two legs when she was a little girl. She really liked jumping five or ten meters without any trouble. She thought that it would be easy, with her new doe speed to run all the way there in one fell swoop. It was enough to cut through the forest and go down toward the East, leaving behind her the abandoned village of Cariboo, pass through the town of Nederland and then go down the canyon of the river that would lead her straight into Boulder and to the house of her father or her mother. She set out. All of a sudden, she heard gunshots. It was hunters. So, she had to hide herself until nightfall, so as not to get shot at. As the night fell she heard other noises, other voices, whistles, and then sirens from police cars. She suspected they were looking for her everywhere. A loudspeaker even called: “NICOLE! NICOLE!” But she could not reply. Even though she was human inside, she was a doe and didn’t have human speech. One of the police officers walked in front of her, stopped, and petted her. She didn’t know how to tell him that she was Nicole. Even if he could have understood, he wouldn’t have believed it, because policemen do not believe in magic.

She continued to run and while crossing the village of Nederland a van stopped and a man called “NICOLE, NICOLE jump in the back of the van, I’m going to take you to the home of your father.” It was GEORGES. Now Georges was a magician. He knew all about the transformation of Nicole. Upon arriving at the house of Papa, he opened the door of the van, honked the horn gently, and Paul opened the large gate to the garden, where Nicole came in quickly. Papa was waiting for her also. Everyone was very happy to be finally reunited. Georges, Paul, and Papa brought Nicole into the house and gave her a bowl of milk, some lettuce, and lots of tomatoes (Nicole has always loved tomatoes). Paul said: “Papa, it’s Nicole, I’m sure: look at her coloring, look at her eyes and then look on her neck, she has the same freckles in the form of a half-moon. It’s Nicole, she’s nodding her head “yes,” we must find a way to have her talk. And we have to figure out why she became a doe.”

Nicole put her head on the knees of her Papa who spoke to her gently: “My dear, don’t worry, we will find the counter magic so that you can become again Nicole, the little girl.” Georges said: “we will consult the oracle.” “What is an oracle,” said Paul. “An oracle is when we ask fairies or gods questions—I can only communicate with the L’ENVIROMAGNAT (Environmental Magic of Nature). I have my equipment.” Georges took out a small radio and connected it with a small plug behind the left ear of Nicole, then, he turned some buttons, three little lights of red, white and blue lit up, and he spoke into his microphone. “Hello, Hello, here is Magician 55742 of the ENVIROMAGNAT, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A. We speak English or French. Oracle, reply to me.” We heard a sweet voice: “ENVIROMAGNAT responds to M. 55742. I can only tell you this. All animal lives taken by men from nature must be returned. The little temporary doe must wait three months and then return another doe to the wild, then she will return to her human form at the age of 9 +3. This transformation is the consequence of the automobile accident that happened last summer in the Sangre De Cristo mountains. The small temporary doe will be able to communicate electronically with her family and with M.55742. Stop and Finish.”

Papa spoke immediately to Nicole: “You heard, you understand? —”Yes, Yes, Papa, you remember the doe that we killed last summer when we were coming back from California, how am I going to have her return to nature? And what are we going to say to mother? And then how am I going to become myself again?”

At this moment, they heard the phone ring, it was Mama: “So, I leave the children for the day with you and Nicole disappears! I should have trusted my intuition; your mountain expeditions have no value for the children.” Papa responds: “Nicole was found, here she is.” “Mama, Mama, I’m O.K., since it is summer vacation, I accepted a contract with the ENVIROMAGNAT to do a film. You know how I’ve always wanted to be a film actress. But, they want me to leave right away.” Mama answered: “give me your father.” There was a long telephone conversation with lots of big words that the children didn’t know. But they understood the end of their conversation: “Fine, fine, alright, but all the arrangements should be confirmed and agreed upon between our lawyers and all the legal charges on your account.”

Everyone was a little distressed by all the events. Georges and Papa spoke for a long time and then arrived at a decision. “Nicole, we are going to send you to Africa, without Paul, where the head of the ENVIROMAGNAT is a great friend of animals—” “Yes, yes” Paul and Nicole cried out at the same time, “Tarzan.”

Two hours later, Nicole, her father, her brother, and George arrived at the airport, where she took a Pan American flight, accompanied by an airline hostess. Over there, Tarzan awaited Nicole. So, during those three months, Nicole was very happy in Tarzan’s jungle. She learned to recognize all sorts of herbs and plants with which she nourished herself. She learned the language of the animals, none of whom did her any harm, even the lions. Tarzan explained to here that the wild animals could not attack her because she had the smell of a little girl, not the smell of a doe, and this protected her. Nicole lived in a beautiful house of branches that Tarzan constructed for her. There was even an elevator, that Tarzan would make work himself, with his superman-like muscles. Once a week, Nicole would call her family to tell them how very happy she was in the school of the ENVIROMAGNAT.

The three months passed too fast and Nicole still didn’t know how she was going to become human again. “Come with me,” said Tarzan, “I have what is needed for your return to human form.” He brought into the house of branches a small sleeping, pretty doe who had just been hurt by mean hunters. Tarzan explained to Nicole that the other small doe was supposed to die, but that Nicole would save her. “Lie down,” he said, “next to her, let yourself fall asleep and when you wake up you will have become once again a little girl.” During Nicole’s sleep, he placed electric wires between her body and the body of the small injured doe. As the electric current passed between Nicole and the doe, the transformation happened. Ten minutes later, she woke up like the sleeping beauty of the woods. She looked at herself with pleasure. She found herself bigger and rounder.

Tarzan explained to her that since animals age three times faster than humans, she was now three years older. The magic of the ENVIROMAGNAT could do many things, but it was powerless to change the laws of nature. Nicole was thrilled. Her teeth had become all strait, because animals don’t have deformed teeth. Tarzan told her that she was very beautiful now. On the other hand, she had become a little magical. She understood the language of the animals. “You understand,” said Tarzan, “now you are part of the world of the fairies and you will live in the imagination of others. The language of the animals is a special gift from the ENVIROMAGNAT. You must use it well during the rest of your life, you might even become, one day, a great scholar. But, you must be discreet with magic powers. Remember all the harm that can be done, even without magic. Now, I’m going to send you back to your home by airplane. I am sorry, but I don’t have a dress for you, but you can dress yourself in these leopard skins. They fit you very well, here is a non-magic credit card with which you can buy all that you want at the airport.”

Before the end of this very day, the new Nicole descended from her plane in Denver where her whole family was waiting for her. Since she appeared so different, the doctors examined her and declared, with great seriousness, that she had a case of “sudden adolescence, because of the climate change.” Doctors always give silly explanations every time that they don’t understand something.

All this story was told by Nicole, in her journal where she wrote all her memories. It’s the reason why her father could write the story of this adventure. If you don’t believe it, you should write to him. Goodbye, until the next time….