Fairy Rescue

by Gwyneth Rees

  That evening Maddie and Poppy were both feeling very disappointed and helpless. There seemed no way of rescuing Poppy’s friends since they didn’t know where they were.

  ‘We’ll just have to wait for Queen Flora,’ Poppy said tiredly.

  ‘Didn’t Opal say she might bring Queen Flora and the others back from Scotland through the entry-book?’ Maddie asked in a worried voice. ‘And if Horace has got the entry-book, doesn’t that mean he’ll be able to capture them too?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Poppy replied. ‘Entry-books don’t work unless they’re in a library. Queen Flora will have to travel back to the fairy grove at sunset like she normally does – and sunset won’t be long now.’

  Meanwhile Grandpa had dug out some old family photographs. In one of them his mother and father were standing in front of the fireplace, and just behind them on the mantelpiece was the shepherdess ornament.

  ‘Are you sure Horace’s family didn’t just buy that same ornament themselves?’ Grandma said.

  ‘I know this is my mother’s,’ Grandpa replied. ‘Look . . . see that missing ear just there?’ He pointed to the lamb that was sitting on the shepherdess’s lap, and sure enough one of its ears had been chipped off. ‘When I was a boy I was playing with my bat and ball inside the house and I accidently knocked it over. My mother didn’t half hit the roof, I can tell you. Oh, no, you don’t forget a thing like that!’

  ‘Oh well . . .’ Grandma sighed. ‘But still, it was such a long time ago. If Horace goes to the police . . .’

  ‘Oh, he won’t go to the police,’ Grandpa said confidently. ‘He knows it’s mine. He won’t dare try to take it back now.’ And Grandpa stayed in an exceptionally good mood for the rest of the evening.

  But something was bothering Maddie. She couldn’t think what it was but it was something. On the face of it, the fact that Horace was a known thief just made it all the more obvious that he was the one who had stolen the fairies. But there was something about the whole thing that didn’t fit together.

  Upstairs in Maddie’s bedroom Poppy was sitting on the window ledge looking out at the sky. ‘I always forget that sunset takes forever to come in the summer time,’ she complained. ‘But it’s nearly here now – and it’s time we set off for the fairy grove. You’ll have to take me there, Maddie.’

  ‘But I can’t go into the woods on my own,’ Maddie protested. ‘Mum won’t let me.’

  ‘Can’t you sneak out without her seeing?’

  Maddie shook her head. ‘She’ll be too worried.’ She couldn’t bear to upset her mother again.

  ‘I’ll just have to get another bird to give me a ride, I suppose,’ Poppy said. She went to the window and started to make a noise that was just like a bird chirping.

  Maddie watched as a blackbird paused in mid-air and flew across to settle on the window ledge. Poppy cheeped at the bird who chirped something back a bit crossly. Poppy sighed loudly.

  ‘What did she say?’ Maddie asked.

  ‘That it’s dinner time and she’s in the middle of feeding her babies. They’re in a nest nearby and she has to go straight back to them.’

  They watched the blackbird fly away. Poppy was about to start chirping again when she spotted something moving down in the garden. ‘Quick!’ she said. ‘I think it’s a squirrel. It might give me a ride if I ask it nicely.’

  So Maddie carried Poppy downstairs, through the kitchen, where her mother and grandmother were chatting as they did the dishes together, and out into the back garden. The squirrel had scurried to the far end of the garden when it heard the back door open, but it stopped when Poppy called out to it.

  Maddie lifted Poppy down off her shoulder and placed her carefully on the grass. Poppy walked across to get closer to the squirrel, and when she spoke to it, the squirrel started to make urgent squeaking noises back.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Poppy burst out. ‘She says she’s in the middle of feeding her babies too! She’s about to go looking for nuts for them. And she says she can’t leave them on their own for long.’

  Suddenly Maddie remembered the chocolate nuts she had bought to take to the fairy party. They were still in a paper bag in her bedroom. ‘I’ve got lots of nuts I can give them,’ she said. ‘Why don’t I feed her babies while she takes you to the fairy grove? Tell her I’ll look after them really well until she gets back.’

  Poppy relayed all this to the mother squirrel, who cocked her head to one side and inspected Maddie closely. She chattered to Poppy again and this time Poppy smiled. ‘She says you can look after them as long as you stay with them the whole time and don’t let anyone else touch them. She’s going to fetch them for you.’

  ‘I’ll go and fetch the nuts,’ Maddie said, racing back into the house.

  When she got outside again the mother squirrel had reappeared with four babies, each of which was scurrying around on the lawn excitedly.

  ‘The mother says they’re very silly so you’ll have to keep a firm eye on them,’ Poppy said. ‘It won’t take her long to get to the fairy grove and back again. Squirrels can run a lot faster than a fairy can walk and she says she’ll take some short cuts through the treetops.’

  ‘Well, be careful you don’t fall off,’ Maddie said.

  ‘You sound just like Queen Flora!’

  ‘Well, I’m worried about you,’ Maddie protested. ‘Promise me you’ll hold on really tight.’

  Poppy promised, but Maddie still felt a bit worried as she watched Poppy and the squirrel disappear into the woods together.

  Maddie had been sitting with the baby squirrels in her lap for several minutes when her mother came outside to join her. She was feeding them the chocolate nuts, which they seemed to find delicious, apart from the chocolate coating which they scraped off as if it was the husk.

  Mum couldn’t believe it when she saw the squirrels. She immediately lowered her voice to a gentle whisper so as not to scare them as she asked, ‘Where did you find them?’

  ‘At the bottom of the garden.’

  ‘I’ve never seen baby squirrels as tame as this. Is their mother about?’

  ‘Oh yes. She’ll be back soon.’

  Mum said she was going to get the camera, and when she got back the babies were climbing all over Maddie, swinging from her hair and tickling her nose with their little bushy tails.

  Mum took some photographs and called Grandma and Grandpa outside to see the squirrels too. The sun was going down and Maddie hoped Poppy had reached the fairy grove safely.

  Eventually the mother squirrel returned. Maddie saw her at the edge of the garden, and so did her young, who immediately left Maddie and scurried over to join her. Maddie’s mum, who had stayed in the garden with her, sat very still watching them too. When the squirrels had gone Mum put her arm round Maddie and gave her a hug. ‘What a lovely thing to happen,’ she said, almost in a whisper.

  Maddie nodded, scouring the edge of the woods for any sign of Poppy or the fairy queen. But they clearly hadn’t returned with the squirrel.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve been a bit uptight lately, Maddie,’ Mum said suddenly. ‘It’s just that after you were so ill . . .’

  ‘I understand, Mum,’ Maddie replied. ‘But I’m not ill now.’

  Mum sighed. ‘I know, Maddie. I do try not to be overprotective, but sometimes it’s difficult.’

  ‘Mum, if I was tiny like a fairy and I wanted to ride through the trees on the back of a squirrel . . . would you be worried about that?’ Maddie asked suddenly, thinking about how protective of Poppy she had felt just a short while earlier.

  Mum smiled. ‘Ah – we’re back to fairies again, are we?’ She paused. ‘Well, I suppose if you were a fairy you’d have wings so I wouldn’t need to worry about you falling off, would I?’

  ‘But what if I didn’t have wings – what if I only had one wing and I couldn’t fly like the other fairies?’

  ‘Well, then I’d be worried, I suppose. What a funny question!’

  ‘It’s fai
ry stuff, Mum. Fairies are real, you know. You just have to believe in them to get to see one.’

  ‘I see.’ Mum stood up, looking amused. ‘Come on. I think it’s time for bed.’

  They went upstairs and as Maddie changed into her pyjamas Mum said, ‘It’s Friday tomorrow. One more day and then it’s your birthday. Are you excited?’

  Maddie nodded, though in fact she had almost forgotten about her birthday what with everything else that had been happening. That night as she lay in bed she thought about how the best birthday present of all would be if the missing fairies were found again.

  Then, just as she was falling off to sleep, she realized what it was that had been niggling her about Horace Hatter. If he demanded perfection in all the things he collected – which he must do if he had rejected Poppy for only having one wing – then why had he kept that chipped shepherdess ornament all these years?

  Maddie woke up just after midnight to find something multicoloured and sparkly flitting about her room. It was Queen Flora. ‘Hello, Maddie. I wanted to come and thank you for rescuing Poppy.’

  Maddie sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. ‘Is she with you? Did she get back to the fairy grove safely?’

  ‘Yes, she did, thanks to you.’

  ‘Have you found Daisy and Primrose yet?’

  ‘Come out into the garden with me, Maddie, and I will explain everything. There are a few other fairies who want to meet you.’

  Maddie slipped a cardigan on over her pyjamas and followed Queen Flora down the stairs. ‘Did Poppy tell you about Mr Hatter?’

  ‘Yes. We have already been to visit him.’

  ‘Really? It’s just that I’ve been thinking . . .’

  They had reached the garden now and the moon was out. As Maddie stepped outside she saw several fairies waiting for her. She saw Poppy straight away, sitting beside her friend Opal on the grass. Opal’s dress was shimmering in the moonlight and Poppy had clearly had a wash and repaired her own dress back in Fairyland because her petal skirt was as good as new and her dark hair was sleek and shiny again.

  ‘You’ll never guess what!’ Poppy said excitedly.

  ‘It wasn’t Mr Hatter who kidnapped you, was it?’ Maddie said softly.

  Poppy looked surprised. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it. He didn’t throw away Grandpa’s shepherdess just because that wasn’t perfect, so I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t throw away a fairy with only one wing.’

  ‘Well, you’re right,’ Poppy said. ‘It wasn’t Mr Hatter. I knew as soon as I saw his face. He does believe in fairies though, and he’s almost as interested in us as he is in butterflies. Queen Flora spoke to him and he told us everything.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Yes – he admitted that he was thinking about trying to catch a fairy in his net that day when you met him. But then he saw some fairies playing in the woods and he decided it was more interesting to watch us in our natural habitat instead.’

  ‘But why does he have all those cages?’ Maddie asked.

  ‘They used to contain his mother’s birds,’ Poppy replied. ‘She collected those as well as china, apparently. When she died, Horace let them all go.’

  ‘But if Horace didn’t kidnap you, then who did?’ Maddie asked.

  ‘We still don’t know that, which is why we need your help,’ said Queen Flora. ‘Maddie, I would like to introduce you to the other fairy queens.’

  Maddie gave the other fairies in the garden her full attention now. They were all very beautiful and each one had very large glittering wings.

  ‘This is Queen Mae, queen of the oldest flower-fairy community – the one on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.’

  Queen Mae was sitting on a little rug of yellow rose petals to protect her dress from grass stains. She wore a cream silk petticoat with an outer skirt of deep-pink petals and her bodice was made of woven lavender. On top of her golden hair she wore a purple floral crown. ‘Hello, Maddie,’ she said, in the softest of Scottish voices.

  ‘Hello,’ Maddie said shyly.

  ‘And this is Queen Amethyst . . .’ Queen Flora continued, pointing to a very grand-looking fairy who was standing on the kitchen window sill looking down at everybody. She had long snow-white hair and she wore a long purple dress made out of crepe and tissue paper, which rustled when she moved. Her waistband was made from a purple velvet bookmark. She had gold spots on her dress and she wore a gold crown made out of all the different letters of the alphabet. Her shoes were purple too and they seemed to have little gold exclamation marks on them. She had sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin and her eyes were a very vivid violet colour. ‘I am the queen of the book fairies,’ she said.

  ‘Did you find your entry-book at Mr Hatter’s?’ Maddie asked, remembering now that Mr Hatter had definitely taken that.

  ‘Yes,’ Queen Amethyst replied. ‘He gave it back to us when we explained what it was.’

  ‘He said that he only took it out of the library because the cover looked so interesting,’ Poppy chipped in.

  ‘It seemed a rather old, dull-looking cover to me,’ declared another fairy who was sitting on the grass, basking in the moonlight. She had silky dark hair that fell to her waist, and cornflower-blue eyes. She was wearing a crown of real stars and her long floaty dress seemed to change colour from pale blue to dark blue to black as she sat there. As the dress became black it began to sparkle with tiny shooting stars and Maddie couldn’t help staring at it.

  ‘This is Queen Celeste . . .’ Queen Flora said.

  Queen Celeste smiled the sweetest of smiles. ‘I am queen of the dream fairies,’ she said. ‘I am very pleased to meet you, Maddie. Dream fairies don’t get to meet human children very often, so this is a great honour.’

  ‘It’s an honour to meet you too,’ Maddie said warmly.

  ‘And last but not least, this is Queen Eldora, queen of the tooth fairies,’ Queen Flora announced, introducing the last fairy queen who had long golden hair coiled up neatly on top of her head and a crown made from little tooth-shaped gold droplets. She wore a white trouser suit that was exactly the same colour as the whitest, glossiest tooth enamel, and poking out of one of the pockets of her jacket was a gold toothbrush with bristles that sparkled.

  ‘Normally different types of fairies don’t mix with each other very much,’ Queen Flora went on, ‘but two tooth fairies and one dream fairy have also gone missing, as well as a book fairy and my flower fairies, so we have decided to join together in order to find them.’

  ‘All of them disappeared while they were in this village,’ Poppy put in.

  ‘My missing book fairy, Emerald, is rather a nervous fairy and she has already had a number of unfortunate encounters with humans,’ Queen Amethyst told Maddie. ‘I fear this will make her even more nervy than she is already. We must find her quickly.’

  ‘There is no time to waste,’ agreed Queen Eldora, taking out her toothbrush and flourishing it in the air as she spoke. ‘My tooth fairies will be very frightened too. They were kidnapped while they were collecting teeth here two nights ago.’

  ‘One of my dream fairies found a magic bed in this village last night and she hasn’t been seen since,’ Queen Celeste said.

  Queen Flora turned to look at Maddie. ‘Are you willing to help us?’

  ‘Of course,’ Maddie replied. ‘But how?’ If Mr Hatter hadn’t got the missing fairies, Maddie couldn’t think where to start looking for them.

  ‘We need to find out if anyone in the village knows how to make bird-lime,’ Queen Flora said. ‘The person who does may well be the person we are looking for.’

  ‘There can’t be many humans who have even heard of it,’ Queen Mae added.

  ‘We need you to set a trap for this person, Maddie,’ Queen Flora said, ‘and we want you to use one of us as bait.’

  ‘Bait ? ’

  ‘That’s right. You must go into the village first thing tomorrow and start telling everyone that you have a fairy queen in your p
ossession. Hopefully the kidnapper will approach you if he thinks he’s going to have the chance to add a fairy queen to his collection.’

  ‘Yes, but then what?’ Maddie asked anxiously. ‘Do you want me to follow him and see where he’s hiding the fairies?’

  ‘No,’ said Queen Flora firmly. ‘This man might be dangerous for children as well as for fairies. You must certainly not go with him or try to follow him. Opal will be with you, and after he has revealed who he is, she will come and tell us.’

  ‘Opal?’ Maddie was surprised. ‘What about Poppy?’

  ‘Poppy won’t be able to let us know as easily as Opal,’ Queen Flora said. ‘Besides, she is more delicate than the other fairies. I don’t want to put her in a situation that she can’t escape from easily if something goes wrong.’

  Maddie glanced across at Poppy, who was looking very sulky. The word ‘delicate’ had reminded Maddie of how, when she was younger, her mother had been forever telling everyone that she was ‘a delicate child’. It was true that she had been a very sickly baby, and had been much smaller than other children her age for several years until she had caught up, but she had never felt delicate and she had hated being called that.

  ‘Yes, but Poppy’s seen this man before,’ Maddie pointed out. ‘She’s the only one who can identify him for us. And we need to know for sure that the person who approaches me is the one who’s stolen the fairies.’

  The fairy queens looked at each other. ‘She has a point,’ Queen Mae said.

  ‘Anyway, she’ll be quite safe,’ Maddie added quickly. ‘She can sit in my pocket the whole time.’

  ‘I have another idea,’ Queen Eldora said suddenly. ‘In Tooth-fairy Land we have a Wing Room where we grow false wings. Would Poppy like to come there and be fitted for one?’

  Queen Flora looked at her in surprise. ‘You never mentioned this before.’

  ‘Well, we have never spent much time together before, have we?’ Queen Eldora replied crisply.