by Adam Rex
“Maybe this is a stupid idea,” Scott said to Mick. He had half expected everyone to talk him out of it, and now he felt like he was sitting on the edge of a cliff while all his friends said, Go on, then, jump the motorcycle.
“Prob’ly. But it speaks well of yeh that you’re the first to think of tryin’ it.”
Harvey made a beeline for Scott and unfolded his map to show a scribble of handwritten notes. “I’ve made a litht of thingth you do that offend me.”
“Oh good.”
“One: you turn your clotheth inthide out.”
“What?” said Scott. “When have I done that?”
“When you took off your thocks that one time.”
“Yeh should listen to this,” said Mick. “Harv an’ I have been in your world awhile, so these kinds of things don’t bother us so much anymore. But the fairies o’ Pretannica will have certain hang-ups. The same fairies you’re meant to impress.”
“Fine,” said Scott. “What else?”
“Two,” said Harvey. “No ringing bellth.”
“Bells? Why would I ring a bell?”
“Tho don’t, then.”
“Three,” interrupted Mick. “Try not to give or receive any gifts. Or food or drink.”
“Got it. If they try to give me anything, I won’t take it.”
“Oh, you’ll have to take it,” said Mick. “Only thing worse than gettin’ a gift from the Good Folk is not acceptin’ one when it’s offered. Yeh want to end up belching flowers the rest o’ your life? Just try not to get offered anything.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Scott squeaked. This list was making him nervous.
“If it seems like any fairy’s abou’ to give yeh somethin’, change the subject. Create a diversion.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t ring any bellth!”
“Try singin’ somethin’,” Mick suggested. “They’ll like that. Just don’t be surprised if yeh start up a whole big musical number, like in a Disney movie. That can happen.”
“It’s contagiouth.”
“Like a yawn.”
“Remember …,” said Harvey. “Remember when Jack Muthtard thtarted up with that thong and danthe about thinging and danthing?”
“Do I.” Mick groaned. “Hard to know how to end something like that. Eventually everyone’s singin’ abou’ how we can’t stop singin’, an’ we’d be doin’ it still if the Milesians hadn’t invaded.”
“I’m going to lie down,” said Scott.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
CHAPTER 21
Then the big day came. Everyone was in a tizzy. Polly sat in the kitchen and tried to breathe calmly as the ship tipped around her. A cartoon was playing quietly on the tablet computer, a cartoon in which ordinary kids defeated the forces of darkness in extraordinary ways. Fi sat cross-legged on the table.
“So that’s the plan,” Polly whispered.
“An ignoble plan,” said Fi. “Surely we can do better. We’ve made promises—”
Just then the cartoon broke for a commercial. Three blue-skinned cartoon pixies were relaxing on a beach.
Polly and Fi watched in silence. Fi’s tiny eyes reflected the flickering screen dimly, like distant stars.
John appeared in the doorway. “Did that just say there’s Intellijuice in the Puftees now? That’s bad news.”
Neither Polly nor Fi answered.
“There are already reports of smarter kids, better test scores,” John added. “Have you heard? The news is reporting it like it’s all a joke, but a mob bought every last Goodco box from a grocer’s in Chelsea.”
The cartoon children crunched spoonfuls of cereal while the pixies tiptoed away.
John clucked his tongue. “Does anyone really want a grape-flavored cereal? You know what kind of fruit people never put on their corn flakes? Grapes.”
The commercial ended with a final image of the pixie brothers under glass. “Only YOU can help the pixie brothers escape from the jars of giants,” it said.
“Oh,” John added then, and cleared his throat. “Um. I’ll bet that makes you think about your … I’m sorry, Fi, I forgot.”
Fi stood and turned to Polly. “All right,” he said quietly. Then he slid down a chair leg and went off toward the basement.
Polly clicked off the cartoon. John looked adrift until Scott squeezed past him through the door.
“Hey! Did anyone tell you the latest?” John asked Scott as they both tried to move and eat their way through the kitchen. “The Goblin Queen got some questions about the British Museum event this morning and got so flustered she hissed at the minister of health!”
Scott smiled. “Nice to think about them being on the defensive for a change,” he said. “Maybe if they think their plan is falling apart, the Fay will be willing to talk to me.”
“Yes. Yes, break a leg with that. Really.”
“Yeah, you … you too,” Scott answered. Then they stared at each other a moment, having lost all momentum. Finally Scott turned and retreated down the basement steps. Polly followed him.
Mick and Finchbriton were already in Pretannica. So now they had a Pretannican mouse, who was burrowing in the wood chips of a little plastic hutch inside the wardrobe. And another fox (or maybe the same fox) was crouching in the corner of one of their wire cages, with Biggs unsuccessfully trying to feed it. Polly made kissy noises at it. Merle was down here too, apparently in conversation with Prince Fi. Emily was in radio contact with the leprechaun.
“I bought some sheep from a certain Robert Shepherd nearby,” said Mick through the radio. “Over.”
“With what money? Over.”
“Found some more fairy gold. Over.”
“That’s unethical,” Emily groused. “Fairy money is an illusion. Over.”
“Isn’t all money technic’ly an illusion? Over.”
“Oh, whatever. Just get them back here. Emily out. Biggs? We’re going to have sheep.”
“Yuh,” said Biggs, and he commenced to pounding metal stakes into the mortar of the walls and floor. The adder swayed along with the hammer blows.
Polly lost interest in the fox and crossed to the stairs.
“Don’t go far,” said Emily. “You leave soon.”
“I know.” She climbed and met Erno in the kitchen. “Where are you headed?” she asked him. He shrugged.
“Emily wants my help with animal wrangling or something. I dunno.”
“Do you wish you were going to Pretannica?”
“Does it matter?” asked Erno, looking out the kitchen window, which only faced an alley. “John and Merle and Fi don’t want kids along on their mission, you can tell. And I don’t have any fairy blood, so I’m not allowed in Queen Titania’s clubhouse.”
“Emily’s got Biggs for the animals, though,” Polly said. “Why aren’t you working on that clue? That’s important.”
Erno scoffed. “You’re the only one who thinks so.”
“Yeah, but it has to be, right? That Mr. Wilson left so little in this house. Just a couple chairs and a wardrobe and a jar of Nutella and that piece of paper.”
“I know!” said Erno. “Thank you! Finally!”
They stared at each other a moment.
“You know what? I am going to work on the clue,” said Erno. “Tell Emily I’m in the back bedroom if she really needs me.”
“Okay.” Polly followed him out into the stairwell, watched him shut himself up inside the back bedroom, then arched her neck to look up at the gap in the ceiling. A little aspect of the second floor could be seen at the top of the ruinous stairs. It wasn’t going to be the easiest throw, but she was the athletic one in the family. She took Harvey’s cell phone from her pocket, squared her shot, and threw—a perfect sky hook, something the WNBA was going to be interested in if she ever got her growth spurt. Then she sauntered back to the basement.
Everyone was accounted for except Erno—and Harvey, who wasn’t really expected to show anyway.
“So how are we d
oing this?” said John as he got into place near the octagon. “Everyone at once?”
“Should work,” said Emily. “The rift’s wide enough. It’s held at the same diameter for three days now. I calculate you have as much as two months in Pretannica before it gets too small for the tallest of you to return, but let’s not test that unless we have to, okay? Get home quickly.”
“Guys?” said Merle. “Fi has something to say.” He held up the little prince on his palm. Fi cleared his throat.
“I am sorry, my compatriots,” he said, “but I have decided not to go to Pretannica. I believe I am honor bound instead to make inquiries into the fortunes of my brothers.”
The basement was silent.
“Oh,” said Scott. “Right. Sorry, Fi, we’ve been so wrapped up in saving the queen—”
“There shall be no need for apologies among brothers-in-arms,” said Fi. “Truly the welfare of your English queen is paramount. She can knight a thousand soldiers to slay the Great Dragon. But I think I can no longer serve you well when my heart is cut in twain. Merlin, please set me down.”
Merle put Fi on the floor, and the pixie strode proudly, if slowly, across the basement floor.
“Good speech, right?” Polly whispered to Emily, next to her. Fi got to the stairs and paused.
“Merlin, please help me up the stairs.”
Merle helped him up the stairs.
“Can’t beat a prince for a good speech,” Polly agreed with herself.
With Fi gone, Scott, Polly, John, and Merle arranged themselves in the rift and waited. Merle handed Archimedes off to Emily.
“Take care of him,” he said.
They were dressed warmly, with backpacks, radios, Swiss Army knives, canteens, water purification tablets, and plastic flare guns. John had his sword. Emily got back on the radio.
“Mick, how far out are you? Over.”
“’Bout ten minutes. Over.”
“This is it,” said John. After a moment no one had confirmed or denied this, so he said it again.
“You mentioned something on the cruise ship,” Scott murmured to John. “About how actors want to be loved and are afraid of rejection. That’s why you never visited, all those years. Isn’t it. You were afraid we’d reject you.”
John pulled his lips back into a thin smile, a sad smile, and he raised his head as if to nod. But then his head just sagged.
“No.”
Scott frowned. “No?”
“Not at first, no. That wasn’t it.” John stared at his shoes. “I want to be honest with you kids, and … honesty isn’t always easy.”
Scott and Polly watched him as he gathered his thoughts.
“Your mom and I weren’t really happy anymore, but I wanted to stay together for your sakes. Then I went off on a film shoot and came home to find your mom had left, and had taken you with her.
“I called your grandparents. I called all our friends. And no one could tell me where you’d gone. But then I had to leave on a press junket, and on another trip after that, and … I stopped looking. I figured your mom would get in touch eventually, when she was ready, and so I went off and played movie star for a while. It was kind of a relief, really: knowing I could have fun, be famous, and that it wasn’t my fault. She was the one who’d left.”
“Didn’t you ever think of us?” asked Polly, in a voice that made you want to lift her up, carry her around in your pocket.
“All the time. But maybe I’d be leaving on a world tour so I’d think, Well, obviously I shouldn’t call just now. Then there’d be another film shoot looming, and I’d say, ‘Well, of course now isn’t the right time for a visit.’ And somehow seven years slipped away.”
Scott discovered he was making fists. It was startling. He abruptly unclenched and shook out his fingers, no less alarmed than if his hands had changed to werewolves.
“And now by this time,” said John, “by this time I really was afraid. Afraid I couldn’t blame everything on anyone but myself anymore, afraid you wouldn’t want to see me. I’m trying to be better, I want to be better. I want to be here. Not … not necessarily in this basement especially, but … you know. Here. With you. But even if it’s harder, even if it doesn’t make you feel any friendlier toward me, I still think you both deserve honesty.”
“Honesty,” Polly repeated flatly. Scott thought maybe she felt the way he did, like this honesty was something they hadn’t asked for, like it was an unwanted gift they had to pretend to appreciate while the Christmas music was still playing.
“Anyway,” said John. “So. Pretannica. This is it.”
“This is it,” said Merle. “Good luck, everybody.”
“Saying good luck is unlucky,” said John.
Meanwhile, Polly fiddled with something in her pocket.
She knew she could count on Biggs to hear it first. After Harvey, he had the best ears.
“Phone,” said Biggs.
“Phone?” said Emily. “I don’t hear it.” They were all silent and still, and then they could all hear it, a phone ringing faintly, somewhere in the house. “That’s one of our special rings. But everyone’s here, except for Harvey.”
“And except for Erno,” said Scott.
“Erno,” said Emily. “Where’s Erno? Oh, geez, Biggs, could you get that phone?”
Biggs left the basement, followed the noise out into the stairwell, and determined without question that the ringing was coming from the second floor. To say that he grimaced at the ramshackle staircase would be an overappraisal of his talents for expression, but he frowned on the inside. Then he took his first, hesitant step.
“I should tell Mick to wait,” said Emily. “I don’t want to try to corral four sheep by myself.”
Then the pounding started. Someone was knocking, knocking hard, on the front door of the house. Emily flinched, looked forward and back. She spoke into the radio. “Mick? Don’t get the sheep in position till I give the word. Copy.”
“Ten-four.”
“Hold on,” said Emily, and she ran up the stairs as the pounding came harder and faster.
Polly turned to her father. “I don’t want to go to Pretannica anymore,” she said.
“You don’t? Why not?”
“I’m … I’m scared. I didn’t want to admit it, but—”
“No, no, that’s okay, Polly,” said John, smiling. “Really, I’m relieved. I mean, I know you’re a very capable seven-year-old, but—”
“I’ll go help Biggs and Emily,” Polly said, and she rushed up the stairs, spooked the unicat, and took out her walkie-talkie, the one she would have taken with her to Pretannica. She switched it to Mick’s channel.
“Mick, we’re back on,” she said in her best Emily voice. “Sheep in place. Over.”
“Copy that.”
Then Polly climbed up onto the kitchen counter, opened the window, dropped down into the alley, and shut the window behind her.
Inside the house, Emily was at her wits’ end. The moment she’d get to the door, the knocking would stop. She’d peer out through the narrow windows beside it and see nothing, no one. Then she’d turn, and the knocking would start again. Meanwhile, Biggs had managed to answer the upstairs phone (hang-up, blocked) and was trying to get down again without collapsing the staircase. Erno stormed out from the back bedroom.
“Do you all mind? Some of us are trying to decipher a clue!”
Sometime later the three of them descended back into the basement to find the black adder being menaced by three of the thickest sheep in two worlds.
“Woah,” said Emily. “Mick must have gotten the sheep too close. And there’s only three? Mick?” she said into the radio.
“I’m here. Over.”
“Did everyone make it? Over.”
“Everyone made it. Your knocking stop? Over.”
Emily listened. It had stopped. “Yeah.”
“Maybe that little lass was right an’ the house is haunted. Over.”
Emily went to press the radio
button, then stopped. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”
Outside, Polly met up with Prince Fi and Harvey.
“You were right,” Polly said to Harvey. “That was easy.”
“People like uth can alwayth manipulate otherth,” said Harvey. “We can get them to do what we want.”
“So is that what you’re doing?” said Polly. “To all of us?”
“Naw, not me.”
Polly studied him. “Why not?”
“Haven’t figured out what I want, yet.”
Fi was watching the both of them and signaled to be lifted into Polly’s pocket. “There is nothing about this I like,” he said. “The deceit. The danger for Polly. I am without honor.”
“I’ll be a big help to you. I’m even a bit stronger than you.”
“It’s not strength of body that’s required. It’s strength of mind, and of character. Which, I must admit,” Fi conceded, “you have showed in great measure if I ignore today’s escapades.”
They walked off toward the tube station.
“What I did today,” said Polly. “Was it bad?”
“It was not good,” said Fi.
“It wath fine,” said Harvey. “Ath long ath you had good reathonth. And didn’t enjoy it. You have to try not to enjoy it.”
After another block he added, “Not that I didn’t enjoy knocking on Emily’s cage a bit. Little prith.”
CHAPTER 22
Pretannica.
“What … what color is everything?” Scott asked Mick.
“’S green.”
“Are you sure?” This was the green of camera ads and television commercials for other televisions.
Pretannica.
The trees were brawny, titanic hosts for ivy and velvety moss, shade for fern and flower and fungus. Oh, man, the fungus, thought Scott. All prehistoric shapes and back-of-the-refrigerator colors. He thought maybe one mushroom in particular had called him a name when he passed.
But more than any particular sight was the smell, the air, the everything of the place. The otherworldliness of it. The magic, the glamour. Pretannica! He could see his father was caught up in it too, so could it be the fairyness of them both that was tuned to this trill, this connection?