And that’s when it hit me.
“Daisy,” I said, finally filled with real hope. “I’ve got it. The one thing that will ensure that Robyn will listen to you!”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“You need to go now,” I said, practically dragging her out of her chair. “Use the portal and go back down to Earth. Then find my mom! If you can’t find her, find Robyn! Get to the dangerous place, before my mom does. Hurry!”
“But how will I get your mom to listen to me?” she asked. “She’ll think I’m as crazy as you did. We’ve already established that she won’t —”
“Daisy,” I said firmly. “You’ll have to go as me!”
I emerged from the portal and looked around. It was six o’clock and already so dark it felt like night. I clicked a couple of buttons on my MagiCell to increase my vision capability and looked around. Nothing. No one was here.
Looking down at myself, I had a really weird feeling. It didn’t normally bother me — transporting as other people or as animals or whatever. But to be here as Philippa! It felt so strange. Almost as if it wasn’t just a disguise, but that I had her with me, almost as if I was her, seeing the world through her eyes. Experiencing her feelings.
I walked away from the stones, toward the path. If I followed this, at some point I should meet Philippa’s mom, or at least Robyn, coming up the path. What if I’d made a mistake and Philippa’s mom wasn’t going to veer off the path at all? Maybe the SRB was something else. Or perhaps I’d gotten the whole thing wrong and nothing bad was going to happen to her at all!
Except I knew better than that. I’d seen it. SRB doesn’t make mistakes. Something bad was going to happen soon — unless I stopped it.
Just then, I heard a noise in the distance. A rustling of footsteps on the path — twigs breaking, mud squelching. Someone was coming toward me!
I sped up again, hurrying toward the footsteps. Rounding a corner, I saw her.
“Robyn!” I yelled in utter relief. She was here! I’d found her!
She peered in my direction through the darkness. Another few steps toward me and she saw me too. “Philippa!” Her face was one enormous beaming smile of relief. She threw her arms around me. “Oh, Philippa, I’ve been so worried. What happened to you? For a moment I thought you’d — well, I’ve been thinking all sorts of ridiculous thoughts! Come on, let’s get back to your parents.”
“Yes, we have to find Philippa’s mom — and I think she’s on her way here,” I said.
Robyn laughed. “Philippa’s mom?” she said. “Your mom, you mean.”
I paused. How was I going to explain this? “Look,” I said. “I know this is going to be hard to believe, but I’m not Philippa.”
Robyn laughed again. “OK, whatever you say. I’m not Robyn either, then. Who should we be? Catwoman and Wonder Woman? Hey, yeah, that’d be fun. But can I be —”
“I’m not joking!” I said seriously.
Robyn looked at me but didn’t say anything.
“It’s not a game,” I said. “I promise. Philippa did disappear. She went to ATC with me. The poem you read on the stone, about following a fairy around the stones — she followed me!”
“But — but there was just that funny woman up here with us,” Robyn said. “Wasn’t there?”
“Yes, it was a woman,” I said. “But that was just a disguise, like this. It’s so that ATC doesn’t catch me and stop me from doing what I’ve come here to do.”
“So it’s, it really was — you’re —” Robyn stared at me, but didn’t go on.
“Robyn, it’s me, Daisy,” I said softly. “Philippa’s still at ATC.”
Robyn nodded silently.
“She’ll come back soon, I promise, once we’ve figured out how. But I’m here because something really bad is due to happen to her mom any minute now, and we have to stop it.”
Robyn’s face paled. “What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know. But it’s going to happen very, very soon. Philippa says you might be able to lead me to the place we think she might fall. Something to do with flooding and a landslide.”
In an instant, Robyn’s attitude completely changed. She was in charge now. “Come on,” she said. “I know where you mean. Tell me the rest on the way.”
And with that, she turned and led the way, and as I followed her, I told her everything — and silently prayed we wouldn’t be too late.
“Here,” Robyn said after we’d walked for several minutes. We left the path, inching carefully over to the place where the hill fell sharply away to a chasm below.
“How did that happen?” I asked.
“There used to be mining caves near here, so the land was already quite unstable, and then whole chunks of it were ripped off in storms last year. That’s why there are signs telling you to stay on the path.”
“Signs that you can’t see in the dark,” I said.
“Exactly. If anything’s going to happen to your mom — I mean to Philippa’s mom — this is where it’s likely to happen.”
I looked down and peered into the darkness below us. What if she was already down there? Perhaps we were too late. We yelled down to see if anyone was there but got no response. So, I checked my MagiCell, hacking in once again to SRB’s mission. I knew I was really pushing things now. Every time I did that, I was increasing the risk of being found out. But I couldn’t come this far and fail now. We had to stop the accident. Nothing else mattered.
My screen bleeped. There was an SRB squad fifteen minutes away! Whatever the event was, SRB had been alerted and it was going to happen very soon! At least that meant we weren’t too late. Philippa’s mom wasn’t lying injured — or worse — at the bottom of the chasm. We still had time!
“Robyn, you are sure this is the right place, aren’t you?” I asked urgently.
“Positive,” Robyn said. “There aren’t any other dangers around here at all. If she’s on her way up here, this is where it’ll be.” Then she shook her head. “I’m such an idiot,” she said.
“Why?”
“Why didn’t I think to say I’d go with her? I could have made sure she stuck to the path.”
I touched Robyn’s arm. “Hey, don’t blame yourself,” I said. “She was due for the SRB way before you spoke to her. There was nothing you could have done.”
Robyn looked down at her feet. “OK,” she said flatly. “I just feel so useless standing here. Maybe we should go looking for her?”
“You’re right. Maybe we can meet her before she even gets here.”
We picked our way carefully along the unstable ground, halfway between the dangerous precipice and the path. And then I saw a shape in the distance. It was her!
“Robyn,” I said. “There she is!”
“Mrs. Fisher!” I called before I could stop myself. She stopped and looked around. And in that moment, searching into the darkness to see who had called to her, she stepped off the path and began to come toward us — and the precipice.
“What are we going to do?” I asked, cold panic seeping through me.
Robyn looked at me openmouthed. “Well, for one thing, you can’t go around shouting ‘Mrs. Fisher’ when you look like Philippa!” she said.
“I know, I know. I don’t know what I was thinking.” I glanced up to see Philippa’s mom coming closer, straight toward the edge of the precipice.
“Robyn, do something!” I screeched, pushing her forward. “I can’t go. I’ll never get away with pretending to be Philippa to her. She’ll see through me!”
Robyn ran toward Philippa’s mom. “Mrs. Fisher!” she called.
Philippa’s mom spotted Robyn. “Oh, it’s only you, Robyn,” she said, her face full of disappointment. She kept picking her way toward the chasm at the edge of the hill.
“Don’t go down there!” Robyn said. “You’ve gone off the path.” She tried to steer Mrs. Fisher back onto the path. “Look, we need to head back this way,” she said gently.
“But ma
ybe she’s down here! Maybe this is where she went!”
“It’s too dangerous this way,” Robyn said. “We need to get back on the path.”
“But that’s the whole point!” Mrs. Fisher said, pressing on determinedly. “If it’s dangerous, it’s even more likely that Philippa’s stuck down there and that’s why she hasn’t come home. I have to get to her!”
“She’s not down there!” Robyn shouted to Mrs. Fisher’s retreating back.
“Who says she isn’t? How can you be sure?” she replied without even slowing her stride. She was heading right for the edge!
And then she lost her footing and slipped on the loose ground.
No! Please, no!
Without stopping to think, I ran toward her. She was slipping and sliding down the bank toward the drop-off. I got to her seconds before she reached the edge and grabbed her coat before she fell any farther.
She turned toward me and looked directly into my eyes, her expression frozen. She knows it’s not Philippa, I thought.
And then her face broke into the biggest smile I’d ever seen.
“Philippa!” she cried. “My darling girl. Oh, my baby. Oh, Philippa!” Scrabbling to get back up onto the path, she reached out for me. A moment later, her arms were around me, squeezing me so hard that for a few seconds I couldn’t breathe. “Philippa, oh, I’ve been so worried; I was terrified something awful . . .” She held me away from her, looking at me, stroking my hair, smiling into my eyes, then pulling me close for another enormous hug. She was half laughing and half crying. “What happened to you?” she asked, looking into my eyes so intensely that I was convinced she must know it wasn’t really Philippa. Surely she could see me in there.
But she didn’t. She just kept on smiling at me — at Philippa — and laughing with pleasure.
“I — I’m sorry,” I said, steering her back onto the path with me. “I — we were playing a game, weren’t we, Robyn?”
I looked at Robyn. She glanced nervously at Philippa’s mom, then back at me. “Yes!” she said. “We were. That’s right, we were playing a game, and you got lost, didn’t you, Dais — Philippa?”
“I was hiding,” I said. “We were playing hide-and-seek, and it was my turn to hide — but I got lost and Robyn couldn’t find me, and then I couldn’t find her, and I didn’t know where I was. And — oh, Mom.” I cleared my throat. I’d never called anyone “Mom” before. It felt weird. But it also felt — what was it? I decided to try saying it again to see if I could figure it out. “Mom, I’m really sorry,” I said.
Mrs. Fisher wrapped me closer in her arms. “Oh, darling, it doesn’t matter,” she said, kissing my head. “All that matters is that you’re safe.”
That was when I realized what it felt like to say “Mom.” It felt really, really, really nice.
She took my hand as we walked back along the path in the darkness. “Robyn, are you coming back with us?” I asked.
“I’ll come over in a bit,” she said. “You’ll want to do a bit of catching up with — your parents.”
I nodded, then smiled as Philippa’s mom squeezed my hand. “OK,” I said, hoping I’d be able to keep my act going without Robyn to back me up. “See you later.”
The second Philippa’s mom and I walked through the door, her dad came running toward us and gathered me up in an enormous bear hug.
“I’ll make some hot drinks,” Philippa’s mom said. As she poured three hot chocolates and I helped Philippa’s dad build a fire in the family room, I felt overwhelmed by a warmth I’d never, ever experienced before.
I knew it was only temporary. I even knew it wasn’t real. But I knew something else, too: I liked it. I liked it a lot.
As soon as I got the chance, I checked my MagiCell. I put in the numbers for Mrs. Fisher’s SRB.
Nothing. The numbers weren’t recognized. The SRB had been erased!
“Yes!” I punched the air. We’d done it! We’d completely stopped it!
I wished so much that I could contact Philippa, but I didn’t dare risk it. ATC would know that someone had stopped the SRB, and it wouldn’t take them long to figure out that I’d disappeared again, either. I was going to be in so much trouble. The last thing I wanted was for ATC to link me to Philippa and get her into trouble too.
“Philippa, the hot chocolate’s ready!” Mrs. Fisher called.
I’d figure out how to get us out of this soon, but I wanted to enjoy pretending to be Philippa for a bit longer first.
I flew down the corridor and back to my desk.
Listen to me! I flew down the corridor!
I really did! Daisy had been right. All I had to do was act as if it was the most normal thing in the world and believe that I could do it without thinking about it — and I could do it!
Not very far, and not very high off the ground or anything. But I actually, really did fly.
I was still buzzing and excited about it when I got back to my desk, and I was desperate to tell Daisy what I’d done, but, more importantly, to hear if my mom was OK. I looked around to check that no one was watching, and then I took my new MagiCell out of my pocket. Daisy’s boss had given it to me earlier. Apparently you get a new one each time you start in a new department — another thing I had to act normal about.
“Great, thanks,” I said, trying to sound casual when she handed it to me.
“Well?” she said, frowning at me with tight lips.
“Um. Thank you very much?” I faltered. Was that what she wanted?
She just tsskked sharply and walked off.
The fairy at the next desk had popped her head over. She was a girl about my same age — or at least that was how she appeared to me. “I think she was expecting you to program it,” she said with a smile.
“Oh, yeah, of course she was!” I said as though this was the most obvious thing in the world and it had only slipped my mind for a moment. “I’ll do it now.”
The girl had laughed. “Here, I’ll do it for you,” she said. “You probably don’t know the codes.”
“Codes? Why wouldn’t I know them?” I’d replied quickly. Had she guessed that I was an imposter? Was it that obvious?
“Because you’re new!” she said simply. Then she hopped over to my side of the divide. “I’m Tabitha,” she said. “Or Tabby to my friends.”
I smiled at her. “I’m . . . Tulip. I’m a new fairy godsister here.”
Tabitha burst out laughing. “Fairy godsister!” she said. “I like it! I’m going to use that all the time from now on!”
I felt my face heat up with embarrassment. I was getting everything wrong!
She didn’t seem too bothered. She punched a few buttons on my MagiCell and handed it back to me. “There you go,” she said with another smile. “Ready for action!”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“No problem,” she said, slipping back around to her desk. “See you in a bit. Give me a shout if you need anything.”
I was conscious of her now, on the other side of the thin divide. Even if I managed to figure out how to contact Daisy on my MagiCell, what if Tabitha heard me? Would she tell on me?
But I needed to know what had happened with my mom. Had Daisy stopped the SRB? I had to find out. I had to know what had happened to Mom.
I looked at the MagiCell in my hand and decided to try the most obvious solution. That seemed to be the way things worked best around here.
I touched the screen and it immediately lit up, as did a picture of a keyboard. I punched in a few letters and hoped it would work: C-A-L-L-D-A-I-S-Y.
The MagiCell responded by making a soft whirring sound and scrolling through what looked like a million pages of names. Then the scrolling stopped. FG NUMBER? appeared on the screen.
FG number? Fairy Godmother number? How was I supposed to find out Daisy’s Fairy Godmother number?
Her desk was next to mine. Maybe there’d be something there.
Putting on the most casual manner I could, I flew — yes, flew again! — o
ver to Daisy’s desk and casually rummaged through some files and folders that were lying around.
“Need any help?” Tabitha’s face popped up over the divide again.
My face instantly reddened. She knew I was meddling! Act normal. Act normal.
“Oh, just looking for Daisy’s FG number,” I said, wishing my ears would stop feeling quite so hot.
Tabitha nodded in an understanding kind of way. “We keep them stuck inside the bottom drawer,” she said, pointing to a line of light flowing underneath the desk.
I nodded back in what I hoped was an equally knowing manner. “Ah. Of course!” I said, wondering how in the world I was meant to open a line of light!
Two seconds later, Tabitha came around and did it for me. She just touched the line with her finger, and the light bounced open into ten different colors. Tabitha flicked through them till she reached the bottom one. A moment later, a line of numbers danced out of the light and into my hand. I closed my hand around them, hoping I’d be able to keep hold of them long enough to put them into my MagiCell.
“Thanks again,” I said.
“No problem. I know how hard it is when you start in a new department.”
“Yes, it is,” I said awkwardly.
“I start in a new one myself soon,” she said. Then she lowered her voice. “I’m not really meant to talk about it yet. You know, FGC Section 37421 and all that.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “That old thing!”
Tabitha laughed again. “You’re funny!” she said. “You’re not like other fairy godmothers — or should I say fairy godsisters!”
Oh, no! She knew I wasn’t one of them! “No, I am, really,” I said enthusiastically. “I’m just the same. I’m exactly like all the other fairy godsisters. Look, see. I do this, like all the others.” I flew back to my desk. “And this.” I opened up my hand and let the numbers float into the air. I quickly punched them into my MagiCell before they flew off and I had no way of getting them back. “See!” I said with the brightest smile I could force onto my face. “Totally normal!”
Tabitha laughed and shook her head. “OK, if you say so.”