The Fairy Rebel (2 page)

It took a long time for Jan to get over her first shock of surprise and to notice that the fairy was looking very surprised too. She even looked frightened. Jan saw that she was moving her wings as if she wanted to fly away, but she couldn’t. So Jan’s first words to her were, “Don’t be scared—I won’t hurt you!”

And the fairy stopped frantically beating her furry little wings and said in a shrill, tiny voice:

“Don’t hurt me! And don’t catch me! It’s not fair while I’m earthed.” And then she clapped both hands over her mouth. Until she heard those words come out, she hadn’t known that she could speak human language. That’s another thing about fairies. They have many languages of their own (Fairian, Elfic, Gnomic), but as soon as they land on a human and are real, in the human sense, they can talk to that person.

“What do you mean,” asked Jan, “ ‘earthed’? What’s ‘earthed’?”

“I—I—” began the fairy. She looked all around, peering into the pear tree’s leaves. “It was all that Wijic’s fault! We were playing follow-my-zoomer, and he zoomed between your toes, and I had to follow. But I’m too
fat
, and he knew I was. He knew I’d touch! He just knew it! Wait till I catch him—ooooh!” And once again she tried to fly, and couldn’t. So she sat down on Jan’s big toe and hid her face.

Because the fairy’s voice was so tiny, Jan had trouble hearing it, so she bent down and took the tiny little figure in her hand. She did it so gently that the fairy hardly noticed she was being carried up close to Jan’s face. She just huddled there with her stumpy wings limp against her back.

“Don’t be sad,” said Jan softly.

“I can’t help it,” gulped the fairy. “I’ve never been earthed before.”

“Is being earthed touching the ground?” asked Jan.

“No! We can touch anything but a person,” said the
fairy. “Oh, why didn’t I
listen
when they told me not to go near people? And you’re a grown-up, too!” Suddenly she looked at Jan with startled eyes. “Ah, that’s it! That’s why I can’t just fly away. You don’t believe in fairies because you’re a grown-up! That means I could be earthed forever!”

“Well, I believe what my eyes tell me,” said Jan. “And I see you, so of course I believe. There! Can’t you fly away now?”

The fairy stood up in Jan’s hand and spread her wings and began to fan the air with them. She rose straight up from Jan’s hand and at once disappeared.

Jan felt a sting of disappointment.

“Oh, come back for a minute!” she cried. “Don’t go yet.”

The fairy reappeared on her hand, as if she’d merely jumped into the air and come down again.

“Yes?” she said in her little tinkly voice.

“Can’t we talk for a bit? I was feeling so sad and lonely.”

“Lonely?” said the fairy. “What’s that?”

“Well … not really lonely, of course not,” said Jan hastily. “I mean, I’ve got Charlie, but when he’s out—and he has to be out such a lot, looking after people—I’ve no one to talk to.”

The fairy was looking at her curiously.

“What’s that wet stuff on your face?” she asked. “It’s not raining.”

“Tears,” said Jan.

“Tears! Oh, do let me taste one,” said the fairy eagerly. “Wijic says they’ve got such a funny taste, not sweet at all!” And she flew up from Jan’s hand
(vanishing at once, of course). Jan felt a soft little flutter close to her cheek. Then the fairy settled herself again in the cupped palm of Jan’s hand. She had that look you probably had the first time you tasted vinegar, and if you can imagine a fairy spitting, that’s what she was doing.

“Ugh! Yuck!”

Jan felt a bit insulted.

“Nobody asked you to taste my tears,” she said.

“You could have told me how horrid they are! Please pass me a nasturtium.”

Jan picked a big orange nasturtium from the flower bed at the foot of the tree and held it in front of the fairy, who rolled up her tiny sleeve and stretched her hand deep into the flower. Then she brought it out again and began licking her fingers one by one. Jan realized that she was eating the sweet nectar from the bottom of the flower to take away the taste of tears.

The fairy gave a last big lick to the palm of her hand and said, “That’s better,” and wiped it dry on her jeans.

“I never imagined a fairy wearing jeans,” said Jan.

“We’re not supposed to,” said the fairy. “
She
hates them.”

“Who does?”

“
Her
. Her Majesty,” said the fairy in a whisper.

“The Fairy Queen?” asked Jan in awe. “So there really is a—”

“Of course there is! And we do whatever she says. We
love
her,” she said rather loudly, adding in a whisper, “but just sometimes a fairy has to do what a fairy wants to do.”

“And wear what a fairy wants to wear.”

“Mmm.” She wriggled in her jeans. “They’re so comfortable. And smart. Even if Wijic says I am too fat for them.” The fairy stood up. “I must go now.”

And without another word, she made a little buzzing sound with her wings, fanning them so hard they became a blur, took off from the tips of Jan’s fingers and vanished.

2
Petals and Feathers

That evening at supper, after a long silence, Jan said to Charlie, “I saw a fairy today.”

Charlie stopped eating and gave her a startled look.

“No you didn’t,” he said very firmly.

“Yes,” she said, just as firmly, “I did.”

“Where?” asked Charlie.

“In the garden, under the pear tree.”

“And what did it look like?”

Jan described the fairy in great detail. The glistening pink hair and the moth’s wings and the blouse made of petals didn’t seem to bother Charlie much, but the jeans bothered him. He got up, came round the table and took Jan in his arms.

“Darling,” he said, “I think you need a change. I’m due for a holiday at Christmas, but let’s not wait. Let’s have it now. I’ll take you to Scotland.”

“I don’t want to go to Scotland,” said Jan, “thank you.”

“Devon, then.”

“No, not Devon either. I really don’t want to go
away just now. The garden’s at its best. It would be a pity to miss it.”

Charlie looked at her. He was frowning, but he sat down again and ate his supper.

The next day, as soon as Charlie had left for work, Jan ran into the garden and stood under the pear tree.

“Fairy!” she called.

Nothing happened, but she wasn’t altogether surprised. The fairy might be anywhere. Perhaps Wijic or one of the others would go and fetch her. She called softly once or twice more, and then sat down to wait. While she was waiting, she fell asleep.

She woke up because something was tickling her nose. It was a tiny feather, wiggling about in the air all by itself. Jan opened her hand and lifted it to the level of her nose. She felt the fairy’s tiny, bare feet a split second before she could see her.

“Good morning,” Jan said.

“You’re not supposed to call me,” said the fairy rather crossly.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not supposed to know about me. If the Queen knew I’d let myself get earthed, she’d be very angry.”

“I didn’t realize.”

“What do you want, anyway?”

“Just to talk.”

“Haven’t you any human friends?”

“Yes, but—”

“But what?”

Jan didn’t say anything for a bit, and then said, “My friends are mostly very busy.”

“So they should be. Everyone should be busy.
We always are
.“

“I’m not.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“I—I haven’t anything to do.”

The fairy looked shocked. “We’re not allowed to say that,” she said primly. “You have to clean your house, don’t you? Humans are always fiddling about with their houses.”

“I will do it—later, before Charlie comes home. But it’s such a bore.”

“What’s ‘a bore’?”

Jan stared at her. It seemed that fairies just didn’t know about boredom and loneliness. They didn’t have words for them. She realized she knew absolutely nothing about fairies, how they lived or what went on in their heads. She suddenly asked, “Do fairies have houses?”

“Of course. A different one every day.”

“You mean, you sleep in flowers and—and—spiders’ webs and things.”

The fairy gave a shriek of laughter.

“A spider’s web! Nobody would try to sleep in a spider’s web. You’d stick to it! But flowers … yes, if they’re big enough. Hollow trees. I like birds’ nests best, so lovely and warm.”

“And … and do you have families?”

“Families?”

“Yes. Mothers and … husbands, and brothers and sisters. And … and babies.”

“Of course we have babies,” said the fairy carelessly.
“I don’t think I know about the other things you said.”

“How can there be babies without mothers?”

The fairy shrugged her little fat shoulders. She was lying against Jan’s bent fingers with her hands behind her pink, fluffy head.

“Well, how do you get the babies?” asked Jan.

The fairy giggled. “From eggs,” she said.

“Like a bird?”

“No.” The fairy opened her eyes, sat up and looked round. Then she crawled to the other end of Jan’s hand and beckoned her closer. “It’s supposed to be a secret,” she said, “but I found out.
She
makes them. The Queen. And when she thinks you’re ready, she sends you one. You wake up one day and find it there. Then you have to pretend to think it’s just an ordinary egg, and you put it in an acorn cup and take the top off it as if you were going to eat it. Only you take the top off very carefully, of course. And there’s the baby, curled up inside! And you have to say, ‘Good gracious me, if it isn’t a baby!’—as if you hadn’t even suspected. That’s what
she
likes, so everyone does it to please her. We
love
her,” she added, in that strangely loud voice as if she wanted someone to hear.

“Have you got one?”

“Me? No. I’m not ready yet. Please pass me a nasturtium; I’m thirsty.”

Jan picked a nasturtium for her. This time the fairy lay on her back and tipped the nectar down her throat.

“Do you know, I still haven’t got rid of that awful
taste,” she said as she licked the last drop off her lips. “Why do humans make those nasty tears?”

“You nearly made some yourself yesterday,” Jan reminded her, “when you thought you were earthed for good.”

The fairy looked up at her—a very odd look.

“That—that awful feeling I had—that was what makes tears?”

“Yes.”

There was a long silence while the fairy thought. Then she said, “But what made you make them? What made you have that feeling?”

“I told you. I’m lonely.”

The fairy frowned and shook her head. “Tell me in another way.”

Jan said quietly, “I want a baby.”

“Then your Queen will send you one.”

Jan smiled sadly.

“I’m afraid it’s not like that with us humans,” she said. “Our babies grow inside us. And there seems to be something wrong with me.”

“Wrong?”

“I don’t seem able to have a baby.”

“Oh well, never mind,” said the fairy comfortably, and closed her eyes again. But after a while, she opened them. “But you do mind,” she said in a different sort of voice, “or you wouldn’t have made tears.”

“That’s right,” said Jan.

“Oh,” said the fairy.

Jan’s hand was getting tired, so she laid it on her knee. The fairy sat for a while, thinking. Then she
whirred upward suddenly, vanished and reappeared sitting on Jan’s left shoulder.

“Have you a picture in your head of the kind of baby you’d like, if you could grow one?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“What’s the use?”

“You wanted to talk. Talk,” said the fairy.

So Jan sighed very deeply and said:

“I want a girl baby. She doesn’t have to be very beautiful or very clever. Just a nice, normal, ordinary baby. I want her to have soft, brown hair like a bird’s feathers and skin like rose petals. And eyes like Charlie’s, browny-green. And beautiful hands with nails shaped like almonds. And little fat feet.”

There was a pause when she’d finished. “How funny,” the fairy said. “I want a thin, thin elf-baby with green hair.” And then she flew away.

3
The Funny Feeling