“Yes?”
“And — well, she visited the girl.”
“What? She was given strict orders to —”
“I know, I know, but listen. Let’s not punish her just yet. The friendship may turn out to be even more useful to us than we’d thought. I’ve been scrolling through the MagiCell images, and there was something odd on the radar log. I didn’t think it was all that important when I first looked. I thought it was just residue because of the room. But I checked again just before coming to you, and now I’m not so sure. The colors have grown and sharpened. I think there’s something more to it.”
“Show me.”
“See that flashing color in the top corner? It’s displaying a recognition code for this mission.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know exactly, but there’s something in the girl’s room that could be important to us.”
“Program her MagiCell. Find out more. Whatever is in the room, I want it — tonight!”
Robyn and I didn’t get another chance to talk. Her dad was waiting outside the shop when we got back. I thought he was going to have another outburst — but he didn’t. He just looked relieved.
“Hello, darling,” he said gruffly, gathering Robyn into his arms and kissing her head. “Did you have a good time?”
“Yeah, Dad,” she said, wriggling out of his arms. “How’s the shop?”
“Oh, fine, fine, you know.” He nodded to Mom and Dad. “Thank you,” he said. Then he turned away.
“The girls had a lovely time together,” Mom said to his retreating back. “They didn’t stop talking for five minutes.”
He half turned back and gave us all a quick smile. “Thanks again,” he said.
“Maybe see you again before we go?” I said to Robyn.
“Definitely!” she replied with a grin. It felt like a deal. There was more to be said. More to find out and share. I was desperate to know what she’d meant earlier, what she knew about fairies — and just as desperate to tell her all about my own experiences!
I wondered for a second if it really would be disloyal of me. Was it giving away fairy secrets if I told her about Daisy, ATC, and 3WD?
Surely it couldn’t be disloyal as long as I didn’t tell her Daisy had been to see me here. Daisy was under orders from her superiors, but I wasn’t! I had no idea if she would be able to visit me again, and not being able to talk about her with anyone was driving me crazy. But finding someone else my age who knew fairies existed — well, that was the next best thing to actually being with Daisy!
“Can Philippa come over tomorrow?” Robyn asked her dad as he opened the shop door.
He paused for a moment in the doorway. Turning back to us, he said, “Well, I don’t know. I mean, she’s on vacation with her parents. She might not want to spend all —”
“I’d love to!” I said. I turned to Mom and Dad. “Can I? Please?”
“Oh, I’m sure we can manage without you for a few hours, sausage,” Dad said with a smile. I tried to pretend he hadn’t just called me “sausage” in front of a brand-new friend. Dad, I’m not six anymore, I wanted to say. I didn’t, though. I never would. I just wished that he would one day figure out for himself the correct way to refer to his nearly twelve-year-old daughter in public. I could feel my cheeks burning. I studied the ground so I could hide them.
“Right. OK, then,” Mr. Fairweather said. “We’ll see you tomorrow.” And with that, he took Robyn’s hand and went inside.
We stood in the street for a moment.
“Not the most sociable fellow on the planet,” Dad said.
Mom nodded seriously. It didn’t bother me, though. I didn’t care what Mr. Fairweather was like as long as he’d let me and Robyn be friends.
I spent all evening thinking about what Robyn might have meant earlier. What did she know about fairies? Had she had an experience with a fairy godmother like I’d had? I wondered which department her fairy could have been from. She might even have had someone from the Three Wishes Department, too. Daisy told me people had to be really unhappy to get a fairy from 3WD, and surely Robyn would have qualified for that. She’d had so much sadness in the last year. Maybe that was it. Maybe she’d even met Daisy! How amazing would that be!
My mind was still spinning with thoughts and questions when I went to my bedroom. As I got ready for bed, I thought about Robyn living in this very house.
Had this been her bedroom? I glanced around, looking for a clue or sign of any sort. There was nothing. The rental agents would no doubt have changed it completely since she’d lived here. But the fact that we were connected by the house as well as everything else made me feel even more excited about our new friendship.
I wished I could tell Daisy about Robyn, tell her there were other girls like me who believed in fairies. I wanted to tell her about the day I’d had and the conversations I’d had. I wanted to tell her about everything, because that’s what you do with your best friend.
I opened the window before I got into bed.
Please come in again, Daisy.
I lay in bed, glancing at the window every five seconds. Nothing. Maybe she wasn’t coming. She said it was hard to get away.
I tried to stay awake, tried to keep watching, but the fresh air and the walking and all the thinking must have worn me out, and I couldn’t stop my eyes from closing.
There was a noise in my room. A creaking sound — it was coming from the window. Someone was there. Someone — or something. Cold air rushed into the room, brushing over my face, and the curtains whooshed softly.
Then there were sparkles, lights, crackling around me, filling the room with color.
Daisy!
I was wide awake in a flash. There she was! In my bedroom. She was bending over, kneeling on the floor beside my bed; something on her wrist was flashing.
“Daisy?” I whispered, sitting up in bed. She jumped up instantly.
“Philippa!” she said quickly. She ran a hand through her disheveled hair and smiled at me.
“You came back!” I said, grinning widely.
“Of course I did,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know. I guess I —”
“What? Thought I’d forgotten about you?”
I laughed, but then I noticed the way she was smiling. It looked — I don’t know. Different. Kind of forced. As though she were hiding something.
“What were you doing just now?” I asked.
“When? Oh, that — I just dropped something,” she said. “So, what have you been up to today?” she added, glancing around the room as she spoke. She was different from the last time she’d been here. I couldn’t put my finger on what had changed — she just seemed nervous and edgy.
“We’ve been in the woods,” I said.
“We?” She stopped glancing around.
“Me, Mom, Dad, and Robyn.”
“Robyn?” she said. “Who’s Robyn?”
“She’s my new friend. She’s great. She lives here, and she came out with us today, and we talked and talked all day. She’s the first person I’ve been able to talk to for ages.”
“I see,” said Daisy, trying to sound casual and unconcerned.
I laughed. “Daisy, she’s not a replacement for you. Surely you know that! You’re the best friend anyone could want.”
She smiled.
“You’re a fairy godsister!” I added.
Daisy’s smile fell. “Oh, right. Is that the only reason I’m such a good friend?” she asked.
“No, it’s not! It’s because you’re loyal and brave and strong and daring, and you’re fun to be with!”
Daisy’s face relaxed into a smile. “OK,” she said. “I was just checking.”
“It’s just nice to have someone I can talk to,” I said. I wondered whether to mention what had happened at the end of the day. Should I tell Daisy that Robyn believed in fairies? That she knew something? That I’d told her I knew something, too?
Before
I had time to decide, Daisy went all serious again. “Listen, I can’t stay long,” she said.
“I understand,” I said. “You’re afraid of getting caught.”
Daisy shook her head. “No, it’s not that. They know I’m here this time.”
“What? How come? I thought you said you’d be in terrible trouble if you got caught.”
“I know. But things have changed.”
“What do you mean? What things? How have they changed?”
“I can’t tell you,” Daisy said.
“You can’t tell me? More secrets,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. I wished Daisy didn’t have to keep so many things secret from me. I wished we could share everything, like real best friends.
Daisy’s cheeks puffed out in that way that they sometimes did when she was embarrassed about something. “OK, to tell you the truth, I don’t really know,” she said.
“You don’t know why you’re here?”
She nodded. “I have to get something. It’s in here, but I don’t know what it is.”
“Oh.” This time I didn’t even try to hide my disappointment. She hadn’t come back to see me at all! “I understand, I’m just a job — again,” I said.
Daisy perched on the edge of the bed. “Philippa, listen. You’re not just a job, and you never will be. I just have to do this,” she said. “They’ve hinted that if I do it well, they’ll give me some time off when we can actually hang out together before you go home again.”
“What is it you have to do?” I asked.
“I’ve got to find something.” She was holding her wrist out. “And I have to get on with it. They told me to be quick.” She pressed something on her wrist, and the flashing was there again — the same flashing I’d seen when she first came into my room.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“My MMC,” she answered, walking around the room and watching the flashing.
“MMC?”
“Micro MagiCell. They have to be tiny in this department,” she explained.
Daisy had used her MagiCell — the most important part of a fairy godmother’s equipment — to help me make my three wishes earlier this year. It did amazing things, like tell you when the next shooting star was due. That’s when all the wishes in the world are gathered up and taken back to ATC. And it could tell you if there was danger approaching and if someone had had a fairy godmother’s help before, and all sorts of things.
“What’s it telling you?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. Hang on.” She held her wrist out, staring at it as she maneuvered around the room, finally stopping at the bedside table. “Got it!” she said. She looked across at me. “What’s in here?”
“Nothing,” I replied.
Daisy opened the drawer. She pulled out the feathered charm I’d found outside. I’d forgotten about that. “What’s this?” she asked.
“Oh, that. It’s just a kind of lucky-charm thing,” I said, not very helpfully. “I had it hanging on the ceiling, but it fell off, and —”
“Where did you get it?” Daisy interrupted, pressing buttons on her MagiCell while she spoke.
“I — I found it,” I said. “It was hanging outside.”
Daisy continued tapping buttons. “Yes, this is it,” she said, more to herself than me.
“I thought it might help me sleep,” I added.
Daisy looked up from her MagiCell. “Why did you need help sleeping?”
I shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep very well on the first night. Not that it’s done much good. I’ve had awful dreams pretty much every time I’ve closed my eyes.”
“Since you’ve had this thing?” Daisy asked.
I thought about it. Now that she mentioned it, the dreams had been since I’d had the charm. “Yeah, I suppose so,” I said. “Except I was all right last night,” I added. After I’d put it in the drawer!
Daisy leaned in farther. “It’s torn,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s my fault.”
“Your fault?”
“I chipped some of the glass trying to get the window open — it got lodged in the middle.”
Daisy tapped some more buttons. “Listen, I need to take this away.”
“Why? What is it?”
“I don’t exactly know. I just know it’s what they want.”
“What who want?” I said impatiently. I didn’t mean to get angry, but I was beginning to feel that all I was doing was asking questions that Daisy couldn’t answer. Or wouldn’t answer.
“Philippa, I’m really sorry,” she said, turning to me. “Look, do you trust me?”
“Of course I trust you,” I said, reaching out for her hand. “Always. No one comes close to you.”
“Really?” Daisy smiled. “What about Charlotte?”
I shook my head.
“Or your new friend?”
“Robyn?” I said, laughing. “I’ve only just met her. No, you’re my best friend, and if you say you need to do something, then I know you have a good reason for it.”
“I have,” she said seriously. “I really have. I’m sorry; I just can’t tell you more. But I’ll tell you everything I can, as soon as I can, OK?”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Like I said, I trust you.”
“Good. I just have to do this, and then I promise I’ll come back and we’ll do something nice together — whether they say I can or not! OK?”
“OK,” I said with a smile.
She started to leave.
“Will you come back at night, or can we actually spend a day together?” I asked.
“It depends on whether they let me see you or if I have to sneak out again, like last night. It’s really hard to get away during the day,” she said. “It’s different from my last assignment. We have to stay in our form that we take from nature during the day.”
“Daisy, at least tell me that. Tell me what you are, what you transform from.”
Daisy looked around one last time. She even checked outside the window and behind the curtains before replying. Then she leaned close and indicated to me to do the same.
“OK, I’ll tell you,” she said. “I’m a butterfly.”
“A butterfly!” Daisy was a butterfly! That was so cool! “Wow! Do you get to fly around all over the place?”
Daisy stared at me. “Philippa, I do that anyway. I’m a fairy!” Then she burst out laughing. After a moment of wondering how I could have been so stupid, I started laughing, too. At first, just a giggle slithered out, but the more I thought about it, the funnier it seemed. I kept seeing her face creased up with laughter, and it made me laugh even more. Soon we were both rolling on the floor laughing like lunatics, hands clapped over our mouths so we wouldn’t make too much noise and wake my parents, tears rolling down our cheeks.
“You’re a butterfly,” I kept saying. “You can fly!” And we’d both burst out laughing again.
Then I had a thought. I stopped laughing. “You’re a butterfly,” I said slowly, thinking about her as a butterfly, picturing her — I could see her now.
Daisy was looking at me, tears of laughter in her eyes as she waited for the punch line. When it didn’t come, she said, “I can fly!”
But I didn’t laugh this time. I sat up. “What color are your wings?” I asked.
“What do you mean? You’ve seen them. They’re —”
“No, I mean as a butterfly.” I shut my eyes and tried to remember. It had been so distinctive, I’d never seen one like it before or since. “Have they got dark purple edges? And — what was it? Pink circles, I think?”
Daisy stared at me, her mouth open. Then she nodded silently.
“I knew it!” I said, jumping up. “You made us come here! You came to my house and landed on the map. You did, didn’t you?”
Daisy stared at me in silence a bit longer. When she spoke, her voice was a hoarse whisper. “Philippa,” she said. “It was a top-level mission. I’ll get in such trouble if anyone finds out that you know.”
&nb
sp; “What would they do?”
“I don’t know — but I’ve heard some horror stories lately.”
“Like what?”
“Like about butterflies having their wings cut off!”
“Really? That’s awful! Why would anyone do that?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s probably just rumors. But a fairy can’t live without its wings.”
“What happens?”
Daisy shrugged. “I don’t know. Some say you’re left to wither and die. Others say you get turned into a human, but at the same age that you are as a fairy — which is pretty scary if you think that a lot of fairies have been around for over a hundred years. Not easy suddenly having to learn to live as an old woman of a hundred and seventy-five with no money, no home, and no way of getting by.”
I shuddered.
“Exactly. Not something you want to get first-hand knowledge of.” Daisy got up and lifted the window. “Listen, I really need to go,” she said. Then she stopped. “Hold on,” she said, crossing the room to my bed. She reached into her pocket, then lifted the pillow. It looked like she was putting something under it.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Daisy put the pillow back in place. “Sorry. I thought I’d dropped something.” She went back to the window. “I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?”
“OK,” I said. “Be careful.”
She picked up the feathered charm and, holding it carefully, bent down and crawled out through the window. Stepping out onto the window ledge, she turned back to smile. “Watch this!” she said, holding on to the drainpipe.
I sat on the floor and waited to see what was going to happen. A moment later, Daisy let go of the drainpipe and held her arms straight out. Within seconds, an explosion of color snaked around the edge of her body, making a shimmering star shape with Daisy in the middle. The colors sizzled and spat and sparkled into a haze of blue and pink and purple — changing constantly, flashing and bursting all around her.
Then, as suddenly as it had started — it was over. The lights stopped. Daisy had vanished. In her place, fluttering for a moment outside the window, stopping just long enough to dip a wing as though waving good-bye, was a butterfly. The very same one that had come to our house. It really had been Daisy. She’d flown all the way to my house and managed to trick us into coming here on our vacation. I didn’t even mind that she’d done it because of an assignment. I knew she’d done it because she wanted to as well. Because she wanted to see me as much as I wanted to see her.