There was a strong wind that early August evening, and the Blossom sisters asked for a song to calm the spirits of the Sheepskerry fairies.
“The fairies will rest better if you sing them to sleep,” said Apple Blossom.
So, without any more prompting, the Fairy Bell sisters sang an old song:
Oh I know a place where the sun is like gold,
And the cherry blooms burst with snow . . .
“Sheepskerry Island!” cried Julia Jellicoe.
And there on the isle is the loveliest nook,
Where fairies and friendship do grow.
When the Fairy Bell sisters had finished all four verses, the fairies fluttered their wings, which is how fairies clap. Clara gave a small nod, Golden made a deep curtsy, Sylva grinned, and Rosy fluttered her wings toward the other fairies as Squeak (who was already asleep) gave a little baby-fairy snore. “You’re very kind,” Rosy said.
“Now quick to bed,” said Clara. “And let’s hope the wind, when it comes, does not do too much harm to these old trees.”
“Or to our fairy houses, either,” said Rosy.
seven
The wind died down, and the fairies slept well that night and the next. A few days later the sun shone as hot and bright as ever on a summer morning. It was a perfect day for a cool swim, and the fairies were certain the Summer Children would head down to the dock and allow them the privacy of a dip in Lupine Pond.
The Summer Children obliged.
Have you ever jumped off a pier into a cold, cold salt bay? It’s nothing like jumping into a swimming pool, even a cold one. It’s not like a lake or a pond, either, where the sun warms the water.
“I have to admire the Summer People,” said Sylva that morning. “The children are fearless when it comes to jumping off the dock. And it’s such a long drop when the tide is low!” The sisters were in their fairy house, waiting for the children to do what they always did on days like this and head to the dock.
“Once they’re all down on the dock, we can have the freedom of the island,” said Goldie.
“A cool dip in Lupine Pond will be just the thing,” said Rosy. “Have we all got our bathers?”
“I’d like to go see the Summer Children splash into that water, just once,” Sylva said. “I think if I—”
“Sylva, honestly,” said Clara.
“All right, then, I’ll just listen to them having fun and imagine what it looks like. I bet I can jump higher than they can anyway.”
“Good girl,” said Rosy.
The boardwalk path down to the dock passed very near the Fairy Bell sisters’ house. Suddenly there was a stampede of footsteps.
“They sound like a pack of trolls,” said Goldie, with a sniff.
“Are you sure the trolls are all gone?” asked Sylva. Sylva was not very fond of the trolls, as she had once had to do battle with them.
“The trolls piled into their war ship and paddled over to Ram Island, as they do every August,” said Clara.
“To fight the seagulls!” cried Goldie, with a merry voice.
“Do they win?” asked Sylva.
“Look up in the sky,” said Clara. Looking out the window, she pointed to the seagulls wheeling overhead. “Do the trolls ever win their fights, gulls?” she asked.
The seagulls laughed.
“The trolls shake their fists and toss their pebbles, but the seagulls pay them no heed,” said Clara.
“Then the trolls come back with ‘battle stories,’” Rosy told Sylva, “when all they’ve done is ruffle a few feathers.”
All at once, a blur of children passed by the Bell sisters’ house.
“Look! There go the boys from Newcastle House—haven’t they grown!”
Three more children came pounding down the path. “Those are the Arrowhead children—”
Then came a flurry of arms and legs and wheelbarrows and life jackets. And two panting brown dogs.
“That’s all seven cousins from Windy Corner,” said Sylva. “They might need me to—”
“And those are the kids from Sea Glass Cottage,” said Goldie. “I bet they’re the ones who stole my blues.”
“Where are the Clearwater kids?” asked Sylva.
“Lay-lay-lay,” said Squeak.
“They’re coming, you’re right!” said Clara. “Good girl, Squeakie.”
And finally the Clearwater Cottage twins trundled down the path, with their big sister in tow.
“That’s all of them, isn’t it?” asked Clara.
Rosy said nothing.
“Yes, that’s it!” said Goldie. “We have our dear island to ourselves!”
“I’m going to find Poppy!” said Sylva. “I haven’t seen her in ages.”
“If by ‘ages’ you mean one day,” said Goldie. But Sylva didn’t hear her. She was already out the door to visit her best friend.
“I’ll take Squeak out for an airing,” said Clara. And she strapped Squeakie into her fairy stroller.
“Hmm!” said Squeak.
“The beach?” said Clara. “All right, Squeakie. That’s where we’ll go. Then we can meet up with everyone at the pond later. You coming, Goldie?”
“I suppose so,” said Goldie with a sigh. “I’ll have to start up my collection again sometime.”
“Coming, Rosy?” asked Clara.
“I think I’ll stay here and read for a while,” said Rosy, a little quieter than usual, though no one much noticed. “It will be nice to have the place all to myself.”
“Don’t spend the whole day indoors,” said Clara. “Stop squirming, Squeak!”
“Let’s go,” said Goldie. And off they went.
I have no doubt that you’ve guessed the reason Rosy stayed at home that hot August morning. You’ve counted the children and you’ve counted the cottages and you’ve realized they do not add up to every island cottage and every island child. Let’s do it together, just to make sure:
COTTAGES
CHILDREN
Newcastle House
2 boys (much bigger than last year)
Arrowhead Cottage
1 boy, 2 girls
Windy Corner Cottage
7 cousins (no one is sure who’s a boy and who’s a girl, as they all blend together)
Sea Glass Cottage
1 boy, 1 girl
Clearwater Cottage
2 girls (twins)
1 girl (their older sister)
Rosy did her sums, too. She added up the cottages. “Five. That’s one cottage missing,” said Rosy to herself. “White Rose Cottage.”
Then she added up the children, and her tally told her what she already knew. “That’s seventeen children.” She heard the squeals of triumphant laughter from the dock. “And there are eighteen children on the island this year. So one child is missing. Louisa.”
Rosy went over to the hat rack and tied a fairy sun hat firmly on her head. She left her book unread, pulled open the door to the fairy house, and flew away.
eight
You’d think that White Rose Cottage would be covered with white roses (at least that’s what I thought when I first heard about it), but in fact the cottage itself is white, and the roses are every color.
The yellow roses are the first you see, climbing up a trellis on the clapboards in the front of the house. On the shutters, deep orange roses bloom against the dark-green slats. Coral blossoms run along the path to the front door, and bouquets of creamy tea roses line every window box. And the hedge around the cottage is pure pink primrose, fragrant and lovely.
It took Rosy quite a while to fly to White Rose Cottage, as the wind was against her the whole way. When at last she arrived, she flew up the flagstone path. She knew she should not be so close to a cottage, especially as she was fairly certain that there were Summer People inside—or at least one Summer Person.
Rosy kept near the rosebushes as she approached the beveled windows. I could be mistaken for a bee, she thought, though she did not really believe it. She flew quietly t
o the second floor to peek in the windows. No one in the polka-dot room. No one under the eaves . . .
Suddenly she heard voices along the path.
“I mustn’t be spotted!” she cried.
A mother blue jay heard her panicked voice and, seeing that it was Rosy, swooped her up and placed her gently in her own fledglings’ nest. Rosy remembered the jay and recalled the time the bright blue bird’s clawed foot had caught on a wire. It had taken Rosy a full quarter of an hour to free her that rainy March day.
The jay motioned for Rosy to crouch down. She covered Rosy with a wide-spread wing just as the twins from Clearwater Cottage bounded up the porch to Louisa’s house. “Louisa!” they cried. “Lulu! It’s us!” Their big sister wasn’t far behind.
“Pipe down, Isadora,” she said. “You too, Jamie. Louisa might be asleep. We should be quiet.”
Rosy watched from the safety of the jay’s nest. The screen door to White Rose Cottage swung out slightly. Rosy could just see Louisa’s crutch propping it open.
“Lulu! We’re going to have a race!” said Isadora. She was hopping up and down on the porch, swamped by her enormous life jacket. “It was Katie’s idea.” She gave her big sister’s legs a hug.
Louisa opened the door a little more. It took quite an effort. “I broke my foot, or didn’t you know?” she said. If the twins heard the sorrowful note in her voice, they did not show it.
“We know! We know!” said Jamie. “That’s why it’s such a great idea.”
“We’ll run as fast as we can—”
“—and Katie will push you in a wheelbarrow!”
The twins could not stay still.
“We’ll race you down to the dock!”
“It will be funner than anything!”
Katie spoke gently. “We thought you’d want to be down with the other kids, Louisa,” she said. “We miss you.”
“Go on, Louisa,” said Rosy to Louisa in a whisper. “You can do it.”
Louisa hesitated a moment. Then she let the screen door slam shut.
“I can’t come with you,” she said.
The mother jay squawked.
“Please come,” said Katie.
“Why won’t she go?” whispered Rosy.
“Can’t you see I’m no good for anything?” asked Louisa. “I’ll just mess it up for everyone else.” And she clomped back inside on her crutches, catching herself on the rug in the hall.
The twins stopped their bouncing. Their teeth started to chatter.
“Come on, girlicues,” said their sister quietly. “It’s getting cold. Let’s go home and get some lunch. Race you to the cottage!”
And with that they ran up the boardwalk, though Rosy noticed they were a little slower than before.
Rosy could scarcely believe what she had just witnessed. “If Louisa had looked at the faces on those little girls, she would have had to change her mind,” she said to the mother jay.
The jay cocked her head.
“You believe Louisa is only thinking of herself,” said Rosy. “I suppose that’s true. But I believe she’s thinking the wrong things.” Rosy thanked the mother jay; then slowly, carefully, she flew down to the cottage. She was fairly certain now which window would be Louisa’s: the downstairs bedroom, where a little girl on crutches would not have to climb any stairs.
Rosy peered in through the window.
And she was shocked at what she saw.
Instead of the cheery guest room she remembered from wintertime visits, there was a dreadful mess of a place. Clothing was strewn all over the floor. The bed was unmade, and the sheets were in a tangle. A jigsaw puzzle was half-abandoned, with most of the pieces facedown. A rather nice painting had been left unfinished. Knitting needles were poking out of a handbag, a cross-stitch sampler was squashed under a stuffed unicorn, playing cards were scattered all over the rag rug, potholder loops were knotted on top of a pile of pick-up sticks, and the big, clear French doors that opened out to a view of Sheepskerry Bay were shuttered tight.
“What a squirrel’s nest!” said Rosy. The bees, busy in the window box next to her, hummed agreement. “Who would want to spend a summer in a room like this?”
And then she heard someone crying, crying very hard.
nine
In a corner of the darkened room she saw Louisa. “Why am I so mean?” she sobbed. “It’s just a broken foot!”
“A broken foot!” said Rosy to the bees. “That’s as bad as a broken wing!”
“Ummm-hmmm,” droned the bees.
Louisa tossed her crutches on the floor and balanced precariously on one leg.
“Other kids wouldn’t mind a bit,” she said between gulps. “Why do I have to be so horrible?” Her shoulders heaved with sobs.
Rosy’s kind heart went out to poor Louisa. “I’m sure she’s just sad,” she said, “not horrible at all. I wish there were someone who could help—”
“Louisa!” called a woman’s voice. “Are you okay, honey? I can give you a hand once I’m done with the—”
“No, Mom!” Louisa said. “I don’t need any help!”
And with that she threw herself down on the bed and buried her face in the pillow.
“I hate this stupid foot! I hate this stupid island!” And she cried even harder.
The bees hummed for a while, as Rosy watched Louisa and wished she could do her some small kindness. After a while, Louisa’s shoulders stilled, and the sobbing stopped.
“I really do wish she’d let someone help her,” said Rosy.
“Umm-mmmmmm.”
“No one would have to know if I were the one,” said Rosy. “She’s fast asleep. She won’t see me.”
“Unh-unhhhh,” the bees hummed, a little more loudly.
Just then, Louisa turned over in bed. Her cast knocked a glass of water onto her sketch pad, and her pretty painting turned into a runny mess of colors.
“That’s it,” said Rosy. “I’ll just pop in quickly and make her room feel a bit nicer. Then maybe she’ll feel nicer, too.”
“Nnnnnnnn-nnnnnnnn,” the bees chorused.
“Her mother did say that the island needed to work its magic.”
When she thought the bees weren’t watching—though they were—Rosy scooted under the window sash, picked her way carefully through a hole in the screen, and flew right into the middle of White Rose Cottage.
ten
Rosy didn’t know where to start, Louisa’s room was such a shambles. But she remembered what Clara always told the sisters when they had a hard task ahead: Don’t take it on all at once. Do one small job at a time, and soon your work will be done.
So Rosy began. She untangled the yarn and cast on twenty stitches. She tidied up the pick-up sticks and counted all the playing cards (two decks, forty-nine cards each). She threaded needles, wound up bobbins, and organized all the snippets of fabric into piles by color. She set the painting out to dry, then she sorted the potholder loops (and started a very pretty potholder). Finally, she made a quick trip out to the garden to pick some wildflowers, which she placed in a jam jar. Then she hovered over the dresser and allowed a small slice of sunlight to warm her wings. She felt very pleased indeed.
“Now when Louisa wakes up, she won’t feel so dismal,” she said in a whisper. “And no one will ever know it was a fairy’s handiwork.”
But something wasn’t quite right. Rosy squinted at the room to see what was out of place. Nothing was, though it was hard to be sure in the dim light. That’s when Rosy realized what was wrong.
“I’ll just open the shutters a tiny bit so Louisa can get some light. And air.” She flew over to the shutters on the French doors and tried to heave them open. It wasn’t easy. They were heavy. And stiff with disuse.
She tugged.
And pulled.
And with a loud SQUWARRK . . .
. . . the shutters flew open and light flooded the room.
Louisa jumped up in bed, her eyes open wide. Rosy kept perfectly still. She didn’t dare m
ove a wingtip. Louisa lay back down and closed her eyes. Rosy quickly flew toward the window. Don’t see me, don’t see me, she willed.
Just as she lit on the windowsill, a voice broke the silence. Rosy froze.
“You’re too big for a bee and too still for a hummingbird. . . .”
Louisa’s voice was full of wonder. Rosy was barely breathing now.
“Could you be . . . a fairy?”
eleven
If I said you could imagine how Rosy felt, I’d be fibbing. I don’t believe any of us can imagine how Rosy felt, as none of us has been a fairy, much less a fairy caught by a Summer Child. When she remembered to breathe again, Rosy silently inched toward the hole in the screen and hoped Louisa would think it was all a dream.
But she was to have no such luck. Louisa got up from her bed much faster than Rosy thought she’d be able to. She caught Rosy in her hands and cupped them around her. Rosy’s heart raced. Would she be crushed by this Summer Person? Would the big telescope things come and chase all the fairies from their homes? And if they did—would Rosy be to blame? She was trembling like an autumn leaf.
But Louisa’s hands were gentle, and her voice soft.
“You are a fairy!” whispered Louisa. “You are real!”
She can see me, thought Rosy.
“I can see bits of you,” said Louisa, as if she were reading Rosy’s thoughts. “Oh, you’re so lovely! You have red hair! You’re wearing a . . . pink skirt, maybe? And your wings! They’re amazing! I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my whole life. Are you for real?”
Rosy and the Secret Friend Page 2