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ISBN 978-1-4231-5848-6
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Table of Contents
All About Fairies
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IF YOU HEAD toward the second star on your right and fly straight on till morning, you’ll come to Never Land, a magical island where mermaids play and children never grow up.
When you arrive, you might hear something like the tinkling of little bells. Follow that sound and you’ll find Pixie Hollow, the secret heart of Never Land.
A great old maple tree grows in Pixie Hollow, and in it live hundreds of fairies and sparrow men. Some of them can do water magic, others can fly like the wind, and still others can speak to animals. You see, Pixie Hollow is the Never fairies’ kingdom, and each fairy who lives there has a special, extraordinary talent.
Not far from the Home Tree, nestled in the branches of a hawthorn, is Mother Dove, the most magical creature of all. She sits on her egg, watching over the fairies, who in turn watch over her. For as long as Mother Dove’s egg stays well and whole, no one in Never Land will ever grow old.
Once, Mother Dove’s egg was broken. But we are not telling the story of the egg here. Now it is time for Iridessa’s tale….
IRIDESSA HUMMED TO herself as she fluttered beneath the leaves of a large chestnut tree. She snapped her fingers, and sparks flew from her fingertips. The sparks twinkled briefly before they were snuffed out.
Iridessa was a light-talent fairy, and she was practicing for the Full Moon Dance. Every time there was a full moon, the light-talent group performed an elaborate dance. All the other fairies and sparrow men came to watch the light talents swirl and spin, trailing streams of colorful sparks behind them.
The next full moon was still many nights away. Most light-talent fairies hadn’t even begun practicing for the dance. But Iridessa wanted to be absolutely perfect. That was why she was already hard at work, rehearsing her part of the dance.
Iridessa spun through the air, then stopped short. She turned to watch the trail of sparkles fade into the darkness behind her. It wasn’t exactly even—three sparkles had escaped from the line. Many fairies wouldn’t have noticed the wayward sparkles, but Iridessa did. She sighed. “Not quite perfect,” she muttered. “Yet.”
She was about to start again when she heard a flutter and a low hoot. Something with large wings flapped overhead.
Without thinking, Iridessa dove for shelter in a nearby bush. “Ow!” she whispered. Thorns scratched her arm and ripped her dress. She tried to ignore them and ducked farther into the bush.
A breeze blew across her face. Then an owl landed next to the bush. A round yellow eye peered in at her.
Iridessa didn’t breathe. She knew that some owls were friendly and wise. But some weren’t.
The owl hooted again, and pecked at the bush with its sharp, curved beak. Iridessa’s heart pounded in her ears. Now she was grateful for the thorns on the bush! The owl wouldn’t be able to get past them. It hooted again.
But as Iridessa watched, the owl hunkered down outside the bush. It kept its fierce yellow eyes trained on her. Suddenly, she understood. It was going to wait her out. She was trapped!
Just then, Iridessa had an idea. With a snap of her fingers, she sent out a streak of blinding light. The owl hopped backward, surprised. Iridessa snapped another shower of sparks. The owl blinked twice. Then it flew away.
Iridessa stayed in the bush for several long minutes. She listened for the sound of beating wings. Finally, she poked her head out of the bush. The owl seemed to be gone.
Not looking back, Iridessa flew as fast as she could. She didn’t stop—she didn’t even slow down—until she reached the warm, familiar lights of the Home Tree.
“All-fairy meeting!” Iridessa shouted as she flew down the hallway. “In the courtyard! Right away!”
Up and down the hall, sleepy fairies fluttered out of their rooms.
Iridessa flew through each branch of the Home Tree. She banged on doors and sounded the alarm. By the time she reached the courtyard, it was packed with fairies and sparrow men. They looked tired. Many were grumbling.
Iridessa landed in the middle of the courtyard.
“What’s going on?” someone called to her. “Why did you drag us out of bed?”
The fairies turned to face her, and a hush fell over the crowd.
Iridessa saw her good friend Tinker Bell off to the side. Tink’s arms were folded across her chest. She was tapping her foot impatiently.
“I was just attacked by an owl,” Iridessa announced.
The fairies gasped.
“Attacked?” Tink repeated. “Are you sure the owl wasn’t trying to be friendly?”
“We’re sure,” said a voice near the back. The animal-talent fairy Beck flew over and landed next to Iridessa. “Fawn and I tried to speak to the owl. We found its nest not ten frog-leaps from the Home Tree. But it wouldn’t talk to us. The owl was completely wild.”
The fairies buzzed with concern. A wild owl was a dangerous thing indeed. When wild owls saw fairies, they thought of them in the same way they thought of mice or moles—as a nice snack.
“Ten frog-leaps is too close,” said a sparrow man named Chirp.
“So what are we going to do?” Tink asked. She loved solving problems. “Can we wait until it leaves, then move its nest?”
“Owls choose their nesting places carefully,” Beck explained. “The owl would probably just build another nest in the same tree.”
Just then, Queen Clarion flew into the courtyard.
The queen looked around at the frightened fairies and sparrow men. “It seems we have a very serious problem,” she said.
“We do, Your Majesty,” Iridessa agreed. She blushed a little under the queen’s steady gaze.
“We must find a way to make the owl move. What we need in this situation,” the queen said, “is an organized fairy. Someone brave and clever to think of a way to get rid of the owl.”
“That’s exactly the kind of fairy we need,” Iridessa said. Beck nodded. The fairies in the courtyard called out their agreement.
Maybe someone like Fira, Iridessa thought. She’s brave and clever. Or Rani, although she isn’t very organized.
“It seems to me that you, Iridessa, are the perfect fairy for the job,” the queen finished.
“M-m-me?” Iridessa stammered.
“Good idea!” Beck said. She slapped Iridessa on the back. “Iridessa is the smartest, most organized fairy in Pixie Hollow!”
Iridessa was about to protest. But she looked out at the crowd of fairies and saw their eager, hopeful faces. Then she glanced at Queen Clarion. The queen was smiling at her. Iridessa swallowed hard. Even though she was afraid, she just couldn’t say no.
“All right,” Iridessa agreed. “I’ll think of something.”
IRIDESSA FROWNED AT the birch-bark paper in front of her. She was sitting at her desk with her chin on her hand. She had barely slept all night. Instead, she had been up trying to think of ways to get rid of the owl.
There was a knock at Iridessa’s door. Without waiting
for an invitation, Tinker Bell popped her head inside.
“Tink! What are you doing here?” Iridessa asked. Tink was her friend, of course, but Iridessa had important work to do. She didn’t have time for chitchat.
“Don’t mind me!” Tink said. She opened the door all the way, and the scent of freshly baked cinnamon rolls wafted into the room. “Since you didn’t come to breakfast, I brought you some of Dulcie’s cinnamon-pecan rolls.”
She placed a tray on Iridessa’s desk. The tray held a pot of tea and a plate of sticky rolls dripping with gooey icing.
Iridessa blinked in surprise. She had missed breakfast? Iridessa had never skipped a meal before. In fact, she usually got to the tearoom early so that she could sit at her favorite table, the one closest to the kitchen. Whoever sat there was always the first to be served.
Iridessa’s stomach gave a low rumble. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was.
“Thanks, Tink,” she said. It was nice of Tink to bring her breakfast. But Iridessa didn’t usually eat sweet things in the morning. She always ate pumpkin-bread toast and a robin’s egg omelet. Still, the cinnamon-pecan rolls smelled delicious!
“We have to keep your brain working!” Tink said.
“I could definitely use some help with that,” Iridessa said. She poured herself a cup of tea and settled back into her chair. She waited for Tink to leave, but Tink didn’t go anywhere. Instead, she perched at the foot of Iridessa’s bed.
“Don’t you have any ideas?” Tink asked.
Iridessa huffed in frustration and glanced at the list in front of her. “I have sixty-eight ideas,” she said. “But I don’t need sixty-eight ideas. I need one good idea.”
“Maybe some of the ideas are better than you think,” Tink said. “Read me your best one.”
Iridessa looked at her doubtfully.
“What?” Tink demanded.
“Well, it’s just that…” Iridessa tried to think of a nice way to say she didn’t want Tink’s help. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Tink’s ideas. It was just that Tink was a little too adventurous for Iridessa’s taste. What if Iridessa didn’t like her ideas?
“Well, you’re not exactly a planning talent,” Iridessa said finally.
“You aren’t a planning-talent fairy, either,” Tink pointed out.
Iridessa frowned. “All right,” she said at last. One thing was clear—Tink wasn’t going to leave until Iridessa shared an idea with her. “Here’s number thirty-five. ‘Surround the owl. Then make loud noises with leaf whistles and walnut drums to scare it away.’”
Tink pursed her lips. “That sounds dangerous.”
“I know,” Iridessa agreed. She crossed number thirty-five off her list. “All right, what about number sixteen? ‘Use smoke to drive the owl from the tree.’”
Tink shook her head. “Fire is hard to control.”
Iridessa crossed that idea off her list, too. She read Tink a few more. Each one was either too dangerous, too silly, or just plain impossible.
“This isn’t helping!” Iridessa crumpled the paper and tossed it into a corner of the room.
“Let me see that,” Tink said. She picked the paper up and smoothed it out on Iridessa’s neatly made bed.
Iridessa cleared her throat. Tink was mussing her blanket!
But Tink didn’t notice. She was too busy reading the paper. “What about this one?” she said. “Number twenty-one. ‘Put a light in the tree so that the owl thinks it’s always daytime.’ That’s a great idea! Owls only hunt when it’s dark. All we have to do is figure out how to make a light. That should be easy. You’re a light-talent fairy, after all.”
Iridessa thought for a moment. “We could ask the fireflies and glowworms to help.”
“They’ll probably be afraid of the owl, too,” Tink said. “Besides, even if we got every firefly in Pixie Hollow, their light wouldn’t make it seem like day.” Tink tugged on her bangs.
Iridessa took a bite of a cinnamon-pecan roll. “Maybe I could capture some sunbeams,” she said slowly, “and put them in a bottle.”
“Great idea!” Tink was so excited that her wings fluttered suddenly. She rose toward the ceiling.
Iridessa frowned. “But it would have to be a pretty big bottle.”
Tink smiled brightly at Iridessa. “So let’s go out and get one!” she said.
Iridessa and Tink flew to the workshop of the glass-blowing-talent fairies. Most of the fairies and sparrow men were hard at work, but Melina took the time to answer their questions.
“Sure,” said Melina. She led Tink and Iridessa through the glass-blowing workshop. “We have lots of bottles.”
“Really?” Iridessa watched a fairy pull a long, hollow glass rod from a white-hot oven. The glass at the end of the rod was a half-melted blob of orange. Puffing her cheeks, the fairy blew on the cool end of the rod. The orange blob began to grow into a small sphere.
Melina caught Iridessa’s glance. “Believe it or not, that’s going to be a beautiful vase. Ah! Here we are. Bottles.” Pulling off her work gloves, Melina pointed to a shelf. “This is a big one,” she said. She took down a red bottle the size of an acorn.
Tink and Iridessa exchanged a look. The bottle wouldn’t hold very much light.
“Um, do you have anything—bigger?” Tink asked.
“Bigger than this?” Melina was clearly surprised. “Well, as a matter of fact, we do. The biggest this talent has ever seen! To tell you the truth, we weren’t sure what we could use it for.”
She flitted over to a wooden crate and pulled off the top. Inside was a large, round pale blue jug. It was nestled in a soft cushion of clover flowers. “Isn’t it enormous?” Melina said, taking it out.
Iridessa sighed. The bottle was about the size of a lemon—absolutely huge by fairy standards. But it wasn’t nearly big enough for what she had in mind.
After thanking Melina, Tink and Iridessa flew outside.
“There’s another idea to scratch off the list,” Iridessa said miserably.
“There has to be a way to get a bigger bottle,” Tink insisted.
“They don’t exist,” Iridessa said.
“Sure they do!” Tink replied. “I’ve seen them.”
Iridessa frowned. “Where?” she demanded.
“In Captain Hook’s quarters aboard the Jolly Roger,” Tink said. “I noticed some when I was on an adventure with the Lost Boys.”
Iridessa threw up her hands. “Tink, we don’t need an adventure!” she exclaimed. “We need a plan.” That is so like Tinker Bell, she thought. To come up with the most impractical idea ever!
Tink crossed her arms. “I’m just saying that there are bigger bottles right here in Never Land!”
“How in Never Land could we get a bottle from Captain Hook?” Iridessa snapped. “Just think about it!”
“I am thinking,” Tink shot back. “Besides, it’s not as if you have any better ideas!”
“Any idea would be better than yours!” Iridessa cried. “We’ve already got one problem, Tink. We don’t need a hundred more!” Iridessa could feel her glow starting to turn red, the way it did when she was angry. “Are we supposed to ask Captain Hook for a bottle? Or swipe it out from under his nose?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
“Maybe I will,” Tink said. Her blue eyes glinted dangerously.
“You do that.” Angry tears sprang into Iridessa’s eyes. Now she was back at square one. I’ve wasted the whole morning with Tinker Bell, she thought. And I still don’t have a plan! “I’m going back to my room to work on some more ideas.”
“Fine,” Tink snapped.
“Fine,” Iridessa snapped back.
And the two fairies flew off in different directions.
IRIDESSA WENT BACK to her room and halfheartedly scribbled down some new ideas. But she felt so terrible about her argument with Tink that she had trouble concentrating. Finally, she decided she should make up with Tink. After all, Tink had only been trying to help. Even if her idea about
getting a bottle from Captain Hook was silly, it wasn’t much worse than some of Iridessa’s own ideas.
She ran into Beck outside the Home Tree. “Beck, have you seen Tink?” Iridessa asked. “I need to talk to her.”
“Isn’t she in her workshop?” Beck said. She looked at the teakettle where Tink fixed fairy pots and pans. It was unusually silent.
Iridessa shook her head. “I just checked. She wasn’t there.”
“That’s funny.” Beck perched on a toadstool. “I bumped into her a little while ago. She was in a hurry. She said she had to get something to help you with the owl problem. How’s that coming, by the way?”
“Oh…” Iridessa waved her hand vaguely. “It’s fine.” Her mind was racing. Tink said she had to get something to help me? she thought.
Part of their argument floated through Iridessa’s mind. “Are we supposed to ask Captain Hook for a bottle?” Iridessa had asked. “Or swipe it out from under his nose?”
“Maybe I will,” Tink had replied.
A chill ran through Iridessa. “Beck,” she said, “which way was Tink heading when you bumped into her?”
Beck thought it over. “Hmm,” she said slowly. “I was herding the baby chipmunks back toward their nest. So I guess it must have been that way.”
Iridessa gasped. Beck was pointing in the direction of Pirate Cove! “Oh, no!”
“What’s wrong?” Beck asked. But Iridessa was already flying away, quick as the wind.
She knew just where Tink was headed—to the Jolly Roger, to get a giant bottle from the pirates.
I have to stop her! Iridessa thought. Before it’s too late!
The Jolly Roger loomed like a mountain off the coast of Never Land. Iridessa was startled by its size.
How will I ever find Tink? she wondered. Anger squeezed her chest. That is just like Tink—to flutter off to a pirate ship without a plan! She probably thinks it’s another adventure!
The wind turned in Iridessa’s direction, and she was surprised to hear singing. She flew around the ship and peeked over the bow. A pirate with shaggy white hair was singing a cheery song as he mopped the deck. He wore a blue-and-white-striped shirt that strained over his belly. Another pirate with beady eyes sat nearby, coiling rope. His face was twisted in a sneer. With a shudder, Iridessa forced herself to scan the deck.