“Don’t rightly know,” Gramps told her. “Don’t guess it would hurt to find out. Got to watch that she doesn’t get loose, is all. No telling what would happen to her in town like this. Likely a cat would get her.”
I closed the door to my room and made sure the windows were closed. Then Gramps moved to the cage. He hesitated. “Why don’t you take the lid off, Jessie? You’re the one gave her baby back. She’ll most likely trust you.”
So it was Jessie who opened the cage. I figured the fairy would come out buzzing, the way a bee will when you open the jar you’ve caught him in, but she didn’t. She sat there a minute, looking up. Then she picked up the baby-thing and stood up.
Her wings blurred as she moved them, fast enough to flutter the petals on the flowers in the cage. Then she stopped, and set the baby-thing back on the bed.
“She’s not going to try it,” I said, disappointed.
“Yes she is,” Gramps said. “She just ain’t sure she can do it with that wing, and she’s making sure the little one won’t get hurt if she falls.”
He was right. She set her wings in motion again and lifted off the bed like a helicopter. She flew to one side, though, and bumped into the glass.
“She can’t fly,” I said, ready to cry that we hadn’t been able to help her after all.
“Sure she can,” Gramps said. “She just has to get used to that wing. It must feel pure strange.”
The fairy stood up, inspected her wings, and then fluttered the mended one. Then the opposite one. She did that three or four times.
“Trying to get the balance right, I expect,” Gramps said.
When she finally flew, I almost didn’t notice. One minute she was standing in the middle of the cage. The next minute she was still there. Only her wings were moving, and her tiny feet were an inch or two above the floor.
“She did it!” Jessie cried. “She’s flying.”
“Why doesn’t she fly out of the cage?” I wondered aloud.
Gramps chuckled. “She won’t take a chance of being separated from that young ‘un of hers. You watch.”
Now that she was more certain her wing would hold her, the fairy picked up the little bundle and took to the air. We watched her buzz around the room, checking the ceiling, the windows, the door to my closet. She moved fast, but she was thorough. If there had been a way out, she would have found it.
Finally she gave up and settled back on the top edge of the cage, resting with her wings out straight. Anyone who’d caught a glimpse of her then would have been sure they’d seen a dragonfly.
“What do you suppose her name is?” Jessie asked after a minute.
“Ain’t too likely she’s got one, Jess. Leastwise, not one we’d recognize. I don’t know as she can even talk the way we do.”
“Gramps is right, Jessie. She hums and chirps, but she hasn’t said any words. Even if she has a name, we probably couldn’t say it.”
“We can’t keep calling her ‘the fairy,’” Jessie insisted. “Let’s call her Ariel.”
I made a face. “That was the name of the mermaid in that movie you made us watch twenty times. Anyway, it sounds dumb. It reminds me of a TV antenna.”
Gramps chuckled. “That’s what I always thought. Never told anybody, though.”
Jessie frowned at me. “What do you think we should do, smarty pants, name her after Aunt Louise?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I don’t think anybody should be named after Aunt Louise.”
“Well?” Jessie demanded.
“I’m thinking. Don’t rush me.” I thought of all the girl’s names I had ever heard, but they all seemed too ordinary. Fancy names like Guinevere or Lilith didn’t seem to fit, either.
“How ‘bout Willow?” Gramps suggested. “There were a lot of willows down around the spring.”
“Willow,” Jessie repeated, trying the word out. “Willow is a perfect name, isn’t it, Nathan?”
“Sure,” I agreed. It didn’t matter to me, and anyway it did kind of fit the fairy, who looked like a piece of rain-wet spiderweb caught on a small brown twig. “Willow it is.”
Jessie stood up. “Willow,” she said softly, taking a slow step toward the cage.
The fairy turned her head to watch, and clutched the little thing closer to her, but she didn’t move.
“Willow,” Jessie said again.
The fairy gave a little chirp and moved her wings nervously. Jessie stretched out her arm, fingers spread like the twigs on a branch. “Willow.”
For a long moment the fairy didn’t move at all. Then she darted away like the dragonfly at the spring. Her wings hummed as she buzzed around Jessie’s head. After a couple of circles she landed hesitantly on the open hand, at the very tip of one finger, so that if Jessie closed her hand the fairy wouldn’t be caught.
“Willow,” whispered Jessie.
The fairy fluttered her wings and then folded them across her back.
Gramps sighed, and I realized I had been holding my breath, too. I let it out slowly. Until now the strange creature had seemed like a thing to me. A live thing, but not a person. More like an odd-shaped bug that we were playing some sort of game with, pretending it was half-human and magical.
I don’t know if it was the naming, or the way the fairy decided to accept Jessie, but suddenly she wasn’t a thing anymore. She was a real person, even if we couldn’t speak her language.
The wonderful moment was shattered by the sound of a car driving up. “Miss Ryderson,” I said. “We’ve got to put Willow back in the cage so Miss Ryderson doesn’t see her.”
“I hate to lock her up,” Jessie said sadly. “She ought to be able to come and go as she pleases.”
“I hate it, too,” I said. “But it’s for her own good.” As soon as I said it I thought how much I sounded like Aunt Louise. I looked over at Gramps.
He grunted and stood up. “Guess I better go talk to the lady. Wouldn’t want her to get to thinking that way about me.”
Chapter Eight
“Louise! What in botheration are you and Allison doing here? Kate’s at work.”
Gramps’s voice was plenty loud enough to carry to my bedroom. I froze, looking at Jessie with the fairy still balanced on her finger. Miss Ryderson was bad enough. We would have to keep Willow in the lizard cage while she was in the house. Allison and Aunt Louise were another matter. Nowhere was safe.
“Quick!” I whispered. “Get her in the cage and I’ll put it in the closet.”
Jessie turned on me. “In the dark?” she protested in a furious whisper. “Willow will be scared!”
“No, she won’t. She’s a wild thing, Jessie. She won’t be afraid of the dark. Besides, would you rather have her scared for a little while or have Allison grab her and start playing dolls with her?”
Jessie looked unhappy, but she slowly lowered her hand into the cage. She wasn’t fast enough. Allison pushed open the bedroom door and came in without knocking.
“My mother says you have to play with me. What are you doing?”
I stepped between Allison and the cage, but like Jessie, I wasn’t fast enough.
“Why are you playing dolls in that box? Why are there flowers in there? I want to see, too.”
I couldn’t tell Allison the truth, but we had a rule that we never lied. I told her the first thing that popped into my head. “It’s like a little stage. We’re going to make up a story. The doll furniture and flowers will be the setting, you know, the place where the story happens.”
“Why don’t you go outside instead?”
I thought fast. “Making up a story may take a few days. We don’t want to leave the doll furniture outside.”
“What’s the story about?” she wanted to know. Allison could drive you crazy with questions. No wonder Gramps pretended to be deaf when she was around.
I couldn’t think of anything right off. Jessie came to my rescue. “It’s about a fairy who loves flowers.” She pulled her hand out of the cage and put the cover on. “Let’s go to my room.
We can get some paper and write the story down so we can read it to Mother tonight.”
“Good idea,” I agreed, putting one hand on Allison’s shoulder and steering her toward the door.
She twisted back under my arm. “I want to see. You have to show me.”
I grabbed for her and missed. She had her face pressed up against the glass of the cage. I looked, too, and held my breath, hoping she wouldn’t pay much attention to what she was seeing. Willow was nowhere in sight. And then I saw her, or at least the tips of her wings sticking up behind the flowers.
“I want a rose,” Allison announced.
“Fine,” I agreed. “But we don’t want to mess up the scenery for our story. We’ll get you a fresh one from outside.”
“A red one.”
“All right. A red one. Come on.”
We went down the hall-and through the living room like a parade: Jessie, then Allison, and me bringing up the rear. Aunt Louise had parked herself in the middle of the sofa. Gramps was perched on the edge of his chair, leaning forward and looking uncomfortable.
“Nathan has a fairy’s house in his room,” Allison proclaimed as we went through. “He’s going to pick me a red rose.”
Aunt Louise opened her mouth as if she had taken a bite of dry cracker and got it caught in her throat. Gramps clamped his teeth tight on his pipe.
“We’re going to make up a story about a fairy,” I explained. “The doll furniture and flowers are for scenery.” I pushed Allison toward the front door.
“Don’t get dirty, Allison,” Aunt Louise called after us, probably not wanting to waste opening her mouth without saying something.
I heaved a sigh of relief as the door clicked shut behind us. That had been close. I followed Allison to the rosebushes and waited while she picked out the biggest, reddest rose she could find. When I broke it off for her, I stabbed my finger with one of the thorns. It hurt a lot.
“Darn,” I said, sticking my finger in my mouth.
“My mother says you and Jessica probably learned a lot of swear words because he lives here.” She said “promaly” instead of probably, but we knew what she meant, and who she meant, too.
“Everybody says something when they hurt themselves,” Jessie argued. “Darn isn’t any worse than ouch.”
I think Allison was going to disagree, but I took my finger out of my mouth and glared at her. “Maybe we should poke you with a rose thorn and see what you say.”
She backed off, pouting. “You’re mean, just like him. I don’t like you, either.”
I almost told her that she wasn’t very likable herself, when I saw Miss Ryderson pulling up in front of the house. We were supposed to act like perfect angels until she finished her report on Gramps, so I smiled instead.
“I’m sorry, Allison,” I said, and then louder so that I hoped Miss Ryderson could hear me, “Would you like another rose? Maybe a white one?”
Allison considered. By the time Miss Ryderson had gone in the house I’d had to pick a whole bouquet of roses: two red, two white, and one yellow. There was only the one yellow one within reach or Allison would have wanted two of those, too.
“I want to play dolls,” Allison declared.
We paraded back through the living room. “So nice to see the children playing together,” Aunt Louise purred as we passed. “Most of the time there’s no one here with them except my father.”
Miss Ryderson nodded at Aunt Louise and winked at me. I wondered what it meant.
In Jessie’s room we got out all the dolls. I always hated to play with them because it was so boring. Today I needed to keep an eye on Allison, so I stayed. I could hear the murmur of voices from the living room, but it was hard to tell what they were saying.
It seemed as if the afternoon lasted forever. We made up a story about a fairy who loved flowers. Then Allison insisted that we make up another one, about a talking cat who wanted to be on television. It was a pretty stupid story, but she liked it.
Finally, Aunt Louise called Allison into the front room. “We have to go now, dear.”
“I have to get my flowers,” Allison told her. “I left them in Jessie’s room.”
I stood in the living room until I decided she had been gone too long. I didn’t want her snooping in my room before she left. I started toward the hall to check on her and saw her coming back with the roses.
Miss Ryderson stood up. “I guess I’ll be going, too. There isn’t much time left today. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
They all drove off, and I helped Jessie put away the doll things. Naturally, Allison hadn’t offered to help clean up the mess. Then we went into my room to check on Willow.
Gramps stood with his back to the doorway, watching Willow climb out of the cage onto one of Jessie’s fingers. “I ain’t as young as I used to be,” he complained. “I can’t take all this rigmarole. I ought to let them lock me up and be done with it.”
“Aw, Gramps, you wouldn’t like that. Besides, what would Jessie and I do without you?”
Gramps growled under his breath, but I could tell my answer had pleased him. I meant it, too. What would we do without Gramps? It was hard to imagine how our lives would change.
I thought I heard a car drive up, but it was too early for Mother to be home. I decided it must be one of the neighbors, back from shopping or something. I faced Gramps. “Gramps, I didn’t tell Allison about Willow. I didn’t lie to her, though. I said we were going to make up a story, and we did. I know you don’t hold with lying, but I couldn’t very well tell her the truth.”
He laughed. “I don’t recollect either of you two being so nosy at her age. That ‘un’s as big a busybody as her mother.” He leaned against the doorpost, taking his time and lighting his pipe. After a minute he let out a puff of white smoke and looked over at the lizard cage.
“That Miss Ryderson seems a nice enough sort, ‘cept for what she does for a living. ‘Tweren’t for that, I’d be inclined to tell her what’s really happening here.”
“I like her, too,” said Jessie.
“So do I,” I admitted. “I don’t think we ought to pretend we’re different than we really are. She’ll make a fair report. Only one thing. Don’t say you saw a fairy.”
Gramps puffed on his pipe, his eyes still on the lizard cage. “I hate to think what Louise would have said if you hadn’t made up that story. She wouldn’t believe in a real fairy, but she’d be sure Miss Ryderson knew I did.”
“My mother says you’re crazy,” Allison said from the doorway.
Gramps turned so fast I thought he might fall down. “What in thunder are you doing here?”
“I had to go to the bathroom, so my mother brought me back,” she said primly. “And I’m going to tell her what you said.”
Chapter Nine
I think Gramps would have gladly strangled Allison right then. I know I would have. But by the time we got over the surprise of her being there at all she was gone.
“Will she really tell?” Jessie asked.
I nodded. “Allison is the biggest tattletale in the state. She’ll tell. What are we going to do, Gramps?”
He shrugged. “Not much to do, is there? Like we did with the little critter, just wait and see what happens.” His words were reassuring, but his face was grim.
That night, none of us talked much at supper. Mother looked across the table at Gramps and asked, “How did the interview with Miss Ryderson go today?”
He grunted.
“She brought him a test,” I offered. “But she didn’t have time for him to take it.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause your sister Louise and her kid dropped by for a chat right about the time she got here,” Gramps said sourly.
He stuffed a piece of roll in his mouth and started chewing vigorously, as if to say he wasn’t going to discuss it any further.
Mother paused with her fork in the air, halfway to her mouth with a bite of salad. She looked bewildered. “Why would Louise come by? She neve
r visits. And she knew Miss Ryderson was planning to . . . Oh, I see.” Her mouth shut with a snap and the fork dropped to the plate with a clink. She stood up and stalked into the front room, where the phone was located.
“Uh-oh,” said Jessie.
“Uh-oh is right,” I echoed.
“Hush!” ordered Gramps. “I want to hear this.”
We strained our ears, but Mother kept her voice low. It was easy to tell that she was angry, though. Then she paused for a minute, and when she spoke again her voice was louder.
“Louise, that’s pure baloney. He was probably reading a story to the kids. And even if it were true, you had no business telling Miss Ryderson. Dad could be seeing flying saucers and still be competent to handle his own affairs. You promised to abide by her decision, so keep out of it and let her do her job.” The phone slammed down with a plastic thwack.
Mother came back to the table and sat down without a word. She picked up her fork and jabbed the bite of salad into her mouth. We all looked at our food instead of each other and ate as if it might be our last meal ever.
After a minute Mother sighed and set down her fork. “Louise says Allison heard you say you believe in fairies, Dad. Want to tell me about it?”
He chewed a minute, thoughtfully, then swallowed. “Nope.” He speared another bite of meat loaf and stuffed it in his mouth.
“Honestly!” Mother stared at him. “Louise hired someone to find out whether you’re too senile to handle your own affairs, and told that person that you believe in fairies, and you don’t want to talk about it?”
Gramps shook his head. “Why? Damage is done. No sense gettin’ you involved.”
“But I am involved, Dad. What am I supposed to tell Miss Ryderson?”
Gramps fixed his stare on Mother. “Why should she ask you? Ain’t Allison’s word good enough to get me shipped off?”
“Dad, you know that’s foolishness. But if you start acting this way around Miss Ryderson, no telling what she’ll think. I’ll just tell her Allison lied.”
Gramps shook his head. “No. It ain’t right to get someone in trouble by saying what ain’t so, even someone as pure disagreeable as Allison.”
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