The door opened and Juniper filled the doorway.
‘I heard you talking to someone, Edie.’ She looked about the room. ‘Or were you talking to yourself?’
Edie snapped the lid of the box shut, straining to hear the lock click into place. For once Impy didn’t complain. ‘I-I was practising lines for a play we’re doing in drama,’ she said. It was a feeble excuse and she knew that the beady-eyed Juniper had seen Edie close the box.
‘So what’s this?’ she asked, sitting down heavily on the edge of the mattress. She dragged the box towards her so that it rested on her knee and peered in at the tiny panes of glass.
‘Give it back, plea-zze,’ said Edie. The words buzzed out of her mouth like an angry wasp.
‘What’s so special about it?’ Juniper said.
They tussled with it, pulling it back and forth between them, until Juniper, who was a bit taller than Edie, stood up and lifted the box above Edie’s head. As she did she somehow managed to press the button and the lid sprang open.
Juniper gave a small gasp. ‘A box with a secret lock?’
Edie tried to snatch the box back, but Juniper held it up high above her head and ran out of the bedroom and down the corridor to the bathroom.
‘Give it back, Juniper!’ cried Edie, running after her, but Juniper was already inside the bathroom and locking the door.
Edie slumped against it. ‘I just want to see what’s inside,’ Juniper said through the bathroom door. ‘I’m your guest, remember?’
Edie pressed her eye against the keyhole and could see Juniper settling on the floor beside the bath and folding herself over the box.
‘It’s not yours,’ she shouted, pummelling at the door with her fists. ‘It belongs to the Lost Property Office.’
Juniper ignored her, so Edie knelt down and looked through the keyhole again. For a moment Juniper’s brow furrowed as she focused on the contents of the box and there was a silence before Juniper screamed with delight.
‘Fairies!’ she cried. ‘I knew you were hiding something, Edie Winter.’
She held the lid open and stared inside, her eyes widening. Edie felt sweat pricking at her forehead as she rested it against the bathroom door.
Impy flew up and stood on the edge of the bath directly in Juniper’s eyeline. She stared at Juniper with her fiercest look.
‘Hello, little fairy,’ Juniper whispered. ‘Are your clothes made of flower petals?’
‘I am not a fairy!’ Impy shouted back. ‘I do NOT wear petals or flower cups. Yuck!’
Juniper held out her finger as if it were a perch for a small bird. ‘I’m going to call you Blossom,’ she said. ‘Stand on my finger.’
Impy lifted off and whirred furiously round her head, her sweet-paper top glinting in the mirror.
‘Please, Juniper, you have to give the box back to me,’ Edie said through the door.
Juniper ignored this. Instead she watched Impy, laughing and snatching at her as she tried to catch her. ‘Bloss-som. Little Bloss-som.’
Impy quickly became tired of ducking and diving and, wary of Juniper’s hand, she landed back on the edge of the bath. Juniper’s finger moved towards Impy again and formed a ledge just in front of her feet.
‘Come on, Blossom,’ she said.
‘I’m not called Blossom!’ yelled Impy.
Then she bent down and bit Juniper on the tip of her finger. As Juniper felt the sharp pinprick she pulled her hand back sharply.
‘Ouch!’ She sucked her finger thoughtfully.
‘Juniper,’ Ada called up the stairs, ‘time to go-ho! Baby Sol has to go home.’
Edie could hear the baby starting to cry downstairs, but Juniper ignored Ada, and Edie could see her left hand quietly pulling her phone out of her pocket.
‘Fly, Impy!’ shouted Edie through the door. ‘Don’t keep still!’
Impy lifted off again, whirring up into the air, until she was nothing but a fuzzy line twisting and turning this way and that. Juniper pointed her phone, pressing the camera button as she snapped at the air.
‘JUNIPER!’ Ada called. ‘I have to get the baby home. Bilbo sat on him by accident.’
Edie could tell from the wheezing and gasping that Ada was starting to climb the stairs. The wails of the baby grew louder so Juniper put her phone in her pocket and unlocked the bathroom door. Edie slumped to one side, exhausted, as all the fight went out of her. Nothing mattered now – Juniper knew Edie’s secret.
Ada reached the top of the stairs. ‘Ah, here you are,’ she said, ‘playing a lovely game, I expect. Where’s that doll’s cradle, Edie? You never showed it to me?’
Edie slowly stood up and pulled the cradle out of her pocket.
‘Look at that,’ said Ada. ‘Such a pretty thing. Juniper, have you seen this?’
‘I’ve seen everything I need to, Gran,’ said Juniper, and she handed the box back to Edie. At the top of the stairs she gave Edie a fake hug. ‘And Edie and I have made friends!’
She tapped her nose as if she were in a spy film. ‘Our secret,’ she whispered as she set off after Ada.
‘I’ll have a look in the shop for some other miniature things,’ Ada called up to Edie, ‘when I get back from my child-minding trip.’
Trip? What trip? thought Edie.
The door banged shut below her and the baby’s wails slowly disappeared down the street.
‘I never want to see that awful girl again,’ Impy said. Then she flew into the box of her own accord and asked Edie to close the lid.
*
Later that evening, Edie switched on her phone and looked for Juniper’s Instagram account. She found it easily under @JunipBerry and quickly scrolled through the endless cross-country running photos, and ones of Juniper posing in her stupid fake-fur coat.
Juniper’s latest post pinged up. The caption read: I saw a fairy today!!!
Edie stared at the image, expecting to see Impy’s tiny face furiously looking back at her out of the screen. She could see the bathroom, the cabinet on the wall and the corner of the bath, but the image showed nothing else except the tiniest hazy blur in the top corner.
‘She missed you, Impy,’ breathed Edie, and she smiled as someone else had commented: Fairies don’t Xist, @JunipBerry – think u might be seeing things.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Alexandra Park Road
T
he next afternoon Edie arrived home late after trampolining at school to find the door open. Dad was drinking tea in the kitchen, and there was a scattering of cups and plates and a half-eaten packet of biscuits.
‘Ada and Juniper dropped by earlier. Juniper said she had forgotten something.’
At that moment Edie knew. ‘Juniper? Why did they come HERE? You didn’t let her go upstairs, did you?’
Before Dad could say anything, Edie had propelled herself up the stairs three steps at a time and stumbled through the doorway of her bedroom. She stared at the empty space under her bed. The flit box had gone. Frantically Edie scrabbled around her room, calling out for Impy, Nid and Speckle. She looked around her room and shook out the curtains. After ten minutes she realised that they really had gone. She thumped back down the stairs ashen-faced.
‘Where’s Juniper gone?’
‘Ada was taking Juniper back home to South London,’ Dad said. ‘Then she’s off on a week’s holiday somewhere to help Baby Sol’s family. That can’t be bad, can it? A spot of winter sun.’ So that was what Ada had meant by ‘her trip’.
‘Was Juniper carrying a box?’ Edie almost shouted.
‘I don’t know,’ said Dad, looking confused. ‘They had a couple of bags.’
‘Did she go upstairs?’ said Edie.
‘Er . . . yes, I think she did. Just before they left, but only to go to the bathroom.’
Edie began to sob. ‘She’s taken it.’
‘Taken what?’
Edie’s face was mottled and tear-stained. She beat her fist on the table with a loud thump. ‘My box.’
Dad became very still and Edie knew immediately that she had made a terrible mistake.
‘What do you mean, your box?’ he said quietly.
‘The box from the Storeroom at the End,’ Edie said in a small voice.
Dad’s anger blew up like a squally wind. ‘That should NOT have come home, Edie Winter.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice now so thin she could barely hear it. ‘Dad, I’m sorry.’
She ran back upstairs and searched her room again, longing to see Impy hovering above her or Nid’s head pop up like a meerkat. She pulled everything out of her wardrobe, but the box wasn’t there. Snatching up her phone, she checked and rechecked @JunipBerry’s Instagram account, but there was nothing apart from a couple of new selfies.
The empty spaces seemed to stare back at her, accusing her of being stupid. She was supposed to be protecting Impy’s family and helping them to find Jot and Flum. Vera Creech, the spy bird and the magpins were the threat, not Juniper, and yet it was Juniper who had spoilt everything.
*
Edie didn’t go down for supper and Dad left her alone. She lay face down on the bed so that she couldn’t see the empty space where the box had sat. She could hear the gush of the tap downstairs and the clink of plates as Dad tidied the kitchen. She wished that Mum was here; even if Mum hadn’t believed in the flits, she would have understood that the box was special. Magical. She rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
‘He-lpp! Eee-die?’ cried a muffled voice.
Edie sat up and looked around the room. It was coming from her chest of drawers.
‘He-lloo?’cried the voice again.
She jumped up and pulled open the drawers one by one. In the top-left drawer in among a tangle of school socks she found Nid.
‘Ni-id!’ she croaked. ‘You’re still here.’
She scooped him up in her hand and folded her thumb round him. He sat on it, blinking in the light, as Edie plied him with questions.
‘How come you weren’t taken? Did Juniper see you?’
‘I wasn’t in the box. I was looking at the fish,’ he said, pointing at the guppy fish who were swimming back and forth across the tank.
‘That girl . . . Joooniper . . . ran in and stole the box, snapping the lid shut. It was all so quick. I thought she would catch me too so I jumped into the sock drawer to hide and buried myself at the back. I was scared to come out and eventually I fell asleep. When I woke up the drawer was shut fast.’
So Nid had been there all along. Dad had been doing the laundry earlier and probably closed Edie’s drawers.
Nid slumped forward. ‘So she took the box? Impy would never have left Speckle. She must have got them both.’
‘I know,’ said Edie sadly.
Nid turned away from Edie and furiously wiped his eyes. ‘Never been alone before,’ he said, sniffing loudly.
‘You’re not alone,’ said Edie. ‘I’m going to help you find them. All of them.’
‘OK,’ he said in a small voice, then he stood up and did a small star jump. ‘Right, what’s the plan?’
‘We’ll go to Ada’s shop tomorrow after school and try to find out where Juniper lives.’ Edie’s feelings of despair began to evaporate. She still had Nid to reassure her that the flits were real and had become part of her life. Nid leapt off the chest of drawers and, using the string of lights hanging from Edie’s wardrobe, he abseiled to the floor. There was a light ping from the phone that was still lying on her bed. Edie grabbed it and swiped to @JunipBerry. Her heart skipped a beat. ‘Look at this!’ She crouched down beside Nid and showed him the Instagram post.
It was a picture of Speckle sitting on a plastic toadstool in a strange red outfit and pointed hat. He was eating an iced gem biscuit. Within seconds three of her followers had commented.
Weird!
Wow, he looks real. What’s he made of?
So sweee-et! Little pixie boy.
Edie’s fingers hovered over the keypad. She knew that it would be better to remain silent so that Juniper wouldn’t know she was watching her Instagram account. She wouldn’t actually post it, but she couldn’t stop herself from tapping out: U are a thief.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Alexandra Park Road to school
I
t was the second lesson of the school day. Maths. Edie’s class was studying geometry and Mr Binding had drawn a series of angles on the whiteboard. He pointed at each one, barking to the class, ‘Acute or obtuse?’
She’d hated leaving Nid at home, but he’d agreed to stay in her room with the guppy fish for company and the sock drawer for a quick getaway. He had strict instructions not to bother Bilbo, and it was only for the morning.
Edie’s attention strayed across to the window. A large rectangle of tarmac dotted with red bins stretched away from the classroom. In half an hour Year Seven would be ushered out there to stand around in the cold. At primary school they would have charged outside to the playground, arguing about which game they were going to play: Homey, Red Letter or It.
No one played those games here. Instead a few of the Year Sevens kicked a football about or lobbed basketballs through a broken net, but mostly they just huddled together in small knots, crowding round their phones and laughing. Edie couldn’t understand why they laughed so much.
‘Edie Winter, acute or obtuse?’
Mr Binding prodded at the whiteboard and Edie made a wild guess. ‘Obtuse, sir?’
‘Absolutely right. Well done.’
Linny, who was sitting a couple of rows in front of her, turned round and mouthed ‘know-it-all’ at her and nudged her friend.
‘Right, 7E. Settle down now. Books open. Please construct an obtuse angle of one hundred and twenty degrees and an acute angle of thirty degrees using your geometry sets.’
Raphael put his hand up.
‘I know what you’re going to say, Raphael,’ said Mr Binding. ‘Yet again you’ve left your geometry set at home. You’ll just have to improvise.’
‘What’s “improvise” mean, sir?’ Raphael asked.
‘It means “be creative with what you’ve got”,’ said Mr Binding.
Edie unzipped her bag and pulled out her geometry set. She lined up her protractor and then fished in her pencil case for her sharpest pencil. Something was catching at it, something jammed in the corner against her rubber. Peering in, she caught sight of two small feet and froze.
It was Nid, wedged behind her rubber and clutching a boiled sweet. Riding Bilbo was one thing, but finding his way into her school bag was much worse. There were thirty children in this class and they were all under thirteen.
She glared at Nid, unable to say anything. Then she scribbled Don’t Come Out on a piece of paper and pushed it towards him. He ignored it and popped his head up through the zip of the pencil case like a periscope.
‘So this is school!’ he whispered. To her horror he wriggled through the gap and jumped down onto the desk.
‘Edie Winter, get on with your work, please,’ said Mr Binding from the front as he settled down to some marking. Everyone else was bent over their desks, except Raphael who was signalling to Conor. He held up a broken pencil, looking as if he might cry.
‘Settle down, class!’ said Mr Binding. ‘Raphael! Do I have to say it again? Improvise!’
‘But Mr Binding . . . ?’
‘I don’t want to hear another word.’
‘He needs a sharpener,’ whispered Nid. ‘I’ll get one for him.’
‘No!’ Edie whispered.
Edie snatched at him but he slipped out of her grasp, hopped up onto the windowsill and hid behind a pile of maths books. Edie half stood up and reached her hand behind the books, trying to grab him.
‘Edie, sit down and GET ON!’ said Mr Binding.
Edie sank back into her seat, her heart racing. With shaky hands she lined up the protractor again and started to draw an angle, watching the windowsill out of the corner of her eye. For a few minutes all was quiet.
The sill doubled up as a storage area for stationery. Maths books, boxes of pens and pads of paper were lined up along it and at the far end Edie could see a whole jar of metal pencil sharpeners. Nid had spotted them too.
It all happened very fast.
He set off somersaulting and cartwheeling towards the jar with his legs in a blur. Edie gave a tiny strangled gasp. She looked around the classroom. Every head was bent over their work apart from Raphael, who was trying to make his broken pencil work. Could Nid get there and back without anyone noticing? He landed neatly beside the jar and clambered up onto a pile of exercise books. He leant over and reached inside, easing one of the sharpeners upwards, but it slipped out of his grasp. He leant further in and toppled forward slightly. The jar wobbled and then crashed to the floor, scattering pencil sharpeners.
Mr Binding’s head snapped up. ‘What was that?’ he said.
Edie looked helplessly at Nid. He had grabbed a sharpener and was running back along the windowsill like a dried pea that had been fired out of a catapult. Linny and another girl who were sitting in the desks a couple of rows in front of Edie looked over at the window too.
‘Aaaah!’ screamed Linny. ‘There’s a nasty insect.’ She flapped her arms wildly and ducked under her desk.
Nid reached the halfway point and paused for a moment behind a box of pens. The sharpener was heavy.
‘It’s a bee-eetle,’ shouted the other girl. ‘A big beetle with legs.’
Mr Binding stood up but he didn’t move.
The girl under the desk screamed louder and Conor threw his exercise book at the window. It crashed against the pane, just missing Nid and knocking over the box of pens.
‘Quiet, everyone!’ said Mr Binding. ‘We must remain CALM.’
The word ‘calm’ sounded like the screech of a cat that had shut its tail in the door.
‘Is . . . is there anyone who can catch the . . . beetle?’
Edie knew in that moment that Mr Binding was scared of insects and his fear of them might save Nid if she acted fast. She stood up. ‘It’s all right, sir,’ she said. ‘I’m good with insects. I don’t mind them. I’ll catch it.’
Edie and the Box of Flits Page 8