The Fairy Rebel (12 page)

Bindi sat looking thoughtful.

“Today,” said Tiki solemnly, “you have had a very nasty taste of what can happen if you use magic to get
more
. You see, fairy magic is meant to be good magic, not bad, but when it goes bad, it goes very bad, much worse than the ordinary black magic of bad fairies.”

“Are there bad fairies?” asked Charlie.

“Well, the Queen was one, wasn’t she?” said Wijic.

“But I mean, lots of them, living together somewhere.”

Tiki and Wijic looked at each other across a plate of chips. “I think we’d rather not talk about that,” said Tiki. She picked up a small chip and dipped it in some jam.

The fairies stayed for a long time. They seemed quite happy and relaxed. One interesting thing was that they stayed visible even when they weren’t earthed.

“It must be because Bindi’s one of us,” said Wijic. Bindi felt thrilled.

After a while, Charlie said, “I think I’d better go up and look at Bindi’s room.” They all looked at each other anxiously, and Bindi began to shiver, but when Charlie came back he was smiling.

“Everything’s back to normal,” he reported. “Except the door, of course—I’ll have to fix that. And the window.”

Then Jan felt brave enough to go up to look. When she came down again, she wasn’t smiling at all.

“How can you say it’s normal?” she asked Charlie. “The whole room is filthy! There are horrible black greasy marks all over everything, like soot.”

Tiki and Wijic looked at each other, and then jumped up. They were both looking much more like their old selves. It seemed their magic must be growing back fast, because they both said, “We’ll clean it up; don’t you worry.” And they flew out through the kitchen door, hand in hand.

“Those two seem to be very fond of each other,” said Charlie.

“Maybe now the Queen’s lost her power, fairies will be able to fall in love,” said Jan.

“And have babies?” asked Bindi.

“Perhaps. It was only the Queen who used to send them in eggs.”

Almost at once, Tiki and Wijic flew back.

“It’s all nice and clean,” said Tiki smugly.

“Already?” said Jan. “You were quick!”

“
And
the door’s fixed,” added Wijic. “Hadn’t enough magic left for the window. Sorry.”

“Leave me something to do,” said Charlie jokingly.

Jan took the last charm off her bracelet—the little silver basket. In it she put bits of nuts for Wijic. And chips. He liked cheese and pickle flavor best. For Tiki there were crumbs of cake and cookies.

“I wish I had some real candies,” said Jan. “A Snickers, for instance. You’d love Snickers, Tiki.”

“Don’t tempt her,” said Wijic. “She’ll get fat again easily enough without Snickers.” But he was grinning at Tiki.

Tiki was looking rather ashamed.

“There was a Snickers up on Bindi’s bed,” she said. “I’m afraid I had a bit. Only a nibble! It was
delicious
.”

Charlie looked at Bindi questioningly. He didn’t like her eating sweets. To everyone’s great surprise, Bindi burst into tears.

“Darling! What on earth’s the matter?” asked Jan.

So then of course Bindi told them all about the awful day she’d had at school, and about the necklace and how it had made her change. When she came to the part about stealing the sweets in the shop, Jan turned pale and Charlie’s jaw dropped. Bindi expected them to be very angry. If there was one thing they couldn’t stand, it was stealing. But instead, Jan took Bindi in her arms and hugged her.

“Poor darling! It wasn’t your fault. But we must take the things back and pay for the ones you ate.”

Bindi felt as if a great weight had been lifted off her. For the first time that day, she felt really, truly happy.

She was nervous about going up to her room. After what had happened to her there that afternoon, she couldn’t believe she could ever feel comfortable in it again.

But Jan and Charlie came with her, and as soon as she stepped inside the room she just
felt
it was all right. Better than that. It felt lovely. Safe. Friendly. Comforting. As if the room had been through a bad time with her and was now more her special place than ever.

She went round it, just touching things. She kept glancing at the toy box sitting in the corner, looking so
ordinary. At last she worked up courage and went over and touched it.

“Open it,” said Charlie. “You must make sure that everything is the way it always was before.”

Slowly and timidly, Bindi lifted the lid. Nothing happened. She opened it all the way. And then she gave a little gasp.

There was the usual untidy heap of toys, looking just as they had last time she’d put them away. But there was something new. A tiny pink box, the shape of a rose, lying on the furry tummy of her old teddy bear.

Carefully she picked it up. It was the size of her little fingernail. It had a minute fastening, which she could barely open. The lid flew up. Inside, just fitting the rose shape of the box, was yet another rose, made of gold, hanging on a gold chain so fine she almost couldn’t see it. She lifted it out.

It was a necklace.

“Your rose-present!” breathed Jan. “Isn’t it perfectly beautiful?”

The chain had no clasp. It slipped over Bindi’s head. At once the last traces of the awfulness of that other necklace dropped out of Bindi’s mind. The little gold rose, warmed by her skin, winked in the sun from the broken window.

“You really are a very lucky girl,” said Charlie. “It’s a wonder Tiki had enough magic left to fly, after making that for you.”

“Maybe the grand master-elf—I mean the King—lent her some,” said Bindi.

“No,” said Jan. “I think that was all her own.”

“Hers and Wijic’s,” said Bindi. “I bet they’re going to share their magic from now on.”

That’s almost the end of the story—
that
part of it, anyway.

But I expect you want to know whether the gold rose-necklace could make magic. Well, it could, though none of them realized it for quite a long time. The magic it could do started that very night. I wonder if you can guess what it was. I’ll give you a hint.

Bindi was lying in bed, her rose-necklace around her neck, thinking about all her adventures and wriggling excitedly when she thought of others that she might have. After all, she had about fifteen more magic blue hairs! And just as she was planning some wonderful things to do with them, she suddenly sat straight up in bed. She sat there, as still as a rock, for about three minutes. Then, slowly, she lay down again, her heart pounding. She had had a fantastic idea.

She was tired, but she kept herself awake for hours. At last she heard Jan and Charlie going to bed. Still she didn’t let herself fall asleep. She lay there, waiting, trembling with excitement.

About an hour passed—a long, long hour for Bindi.

Then she quietly got out of bed and put the lights on. She unplaited her hair, and pulled it over one shoulder, and sorted through the brown hairs till she found the blue ones. She took one blue hair between finger and thumb, and tweaked it out.

Then, holding it very carefully, she tiptoed out into the passage and into her parents’ room.

Her mother was lying, as always, close to the open window. It was a warm night, and she had kicked the comforter aside. One leg—the bad one—was sticking out.

Bindi crept up beside her, bent over and gently twisted the blue hair round Jan’s ankle. She kissed her lame foot. She had always loved it, poor foot.… Now it wouldn’t be a poor foot anymore.

She looked at it for a moment in the summer moonlight, and then tucked it under the comforter and went back to bed.

The gold rose round her neck seemed to be dancing.