Rosy and the Secret Friend

by Margaret McNamara

  Louisa put out her finger and stroked Rosy’s wings, very, very gingerly.

  “You are the prettiest thing ever!”

  Rosy couldn’t bear so much attention. “My sister Golden is the real beauty of the family,” she said.

  “You can talk!” cried Louisa. Rosy could not believe she had opened her mouth. “And you have a sister?”

  “I shouldn’t even be talking to you, much less telling you about my sisters,” said Rosy in a rush.

  “Sisters!”

  “Now you know there’s more than one!” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “You shouldn’t even know about me. If Queen Mab found out—”

  “Queen Mab?”

  “Oh, please let me fly away.”

  Louisa opened her hands. “I won’t keep you here if it’s not good for you. You can go, little fairy. I’m just glad I saw you. My grammie always said there were fairies on Sheepskerry Island.”

  Rosy beat her wings as fast as she could and zoomed over to the windowsill. As she clambered through the screen, she took one more look at Louisa. Louisa gave her a little smile and a wave.

  Rosy hesitated for just one moment. “My name is Rosy,” she said, before she flew away.

  twelve

  “Where were you?”

  Rosy got back to the Bell sisters’ fairy house much later than she’d wanted to.

  “We missed you down at Lupine Pond,” said Goldie. “I suppose you took off somewhere with your book.”

  Rosy didn’t say a word.

  “Are you all right?” asked Sylva. “You seem a bit peaky.”

  “I’m just tired,” said Rosy. For the first time in her life, she did not know what to say to her sisters. Could she mention Louisa? She so hated to keep secrets. “I met the most—”

  “You should have seen us down at Lupine Pond!” said Sylva as she threw herself at her big sister. “Poppy and I jumped in from the highest branch. Actually, I jumped from the highest branch and Poppy was going to, but then she hopped down a level and jumped from there. But we made the biggest splash!”

  “You almost drenched Iris Flower’s wings, which she was none too happy about,” said Clara.

  “We had to jump after Squeakie said, ‘Tsk-tsk!’ didn’t we, Squeakie? You wanted us to do it, so we did it!” And Sylva spun Squeakie around in a circle.

  “That’s enough of that, Sylva,” said Clara. She was fixing a salad to go with their dinner. “Goldie, could you fly out to the garden and see if any tomatoes are ripe?”

  “I’m in the middle of rinsing my hair,” said Goldie, who was nowhere near the outdoor fairy shower. “Rosy’s not busy, are you, Rosy?”

  “No, I’m not busy.” Rosy was relieved to get out of the house.

  As she flitted into the garden, she thought hard about what she had done that day. Something that had started as an act of kindness was now turning into a secret she was keeping from her sisters. She picked off a few cherry tomatoes from the vine. They were still green, and she didn’t even notice.

  “If I don’t tell the others,” she said to the blue heron in the pond at the end of their garden, “I’ll be keeping something from them. And I’ve never done that before.”

  The heron bent a knee, backward.

  “But if I do tell them,” she said, “they’ll have to tell Queen Mab. And she’ll—”

  “Rosy!”

  It couldn’t be.

  “Rosy!”

  Rosy froze. That wasn’t Clara’s voice or Goldie’s or Sylva’s. That was Louisa!

  “Quiet! Oh, please be quiet!” cried Rosy. She shot up above the hedge around their fairy house so she could see where Louisa was and stop her from calling out again. What if her sisters heard?

  “What are you doing up here in Cathedral Pines?” asked Rosy. “It’s such a long walk from your cottage. Especially on crutches!”

  “These crutches aren’t so bad. And I just had to see you again,” said Louisa, “to know it wasn’t a dream. Grammie told me the fairies lived up here. She said I would see a fairy one day.”

  “But now everyone will know about us, and they’ll run us out of our houses and—”

  “No, no! I won’t do that. I would never do that. I won’t tell a soul, I promise. I’ll only tell Grammie when I talk to her on the phone. She already knows you live here! She told me so many stories about the fairies, and I knew they were true. She said she once met Tinker Bell herself!”

  “Rosy!” A clear voice rang out. It was Clara.

  “Your grandmother met Tink?”

  “Tinker Bell. Yes, that’s what she said. Grammie gave her something precious, but I can’t remember what it was.”

  “A pink shell! She gave Tink a pink shell! I know all about it!”

  “Rosy!” Clara’s voice was louder.

  “You do?”

  “Yes! Yes. I’ll tell you more tomorrow.” Rosy had to find out more about Louisa’s grammie and Tinker Bell.

  “Come up to White Rose Cottage,” said Louisa. “I’ll wait for you there!”

  “I’ll see you there—at noon!” said Rosy. “Be careful on the boardwalk, Lulu—it’s slippery.”

  Rosy watched for a moment as Louisa turned back toward the cottage. Her pace was strong and even.

  “Coming, Clara!” And off she flew.

  “What took you so long?” asked Sylva when Rosy flew in the back door.

  “And where are the tomatoes?” Goldie asked.

  Rosy couldn’t trust herself to say a word.

  “I think I’d better go to bed. I don’t feel too well.”

  Rosy flitted toward the stairs. She had to bite her tongue to keep from talking.

  “Ro-Ro?” said Squeak.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Squeakie!” Rosy was shocked at herself. “I didn’t even say good night to you.” She gave Squeak a fierce hug, and flew upstairs.

  “Rosy? Are you quite all right?” asked Clara.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’ll be fine,” she called. “Don’t worry.”

  Clara hadn’t been worrying. Until then.

  An uneasy silence fell over the sisters.

  “Rosy didn’t seem herself at all,” said Clara at last. “And now she’s not even going to have supper.”

  “She probably had too much activity today,” said Goldie.

  “But she spent the whole day reading,” said Sylva.

  “I’m sure there’s nothing wrong,” said Clara. But she decided to keep an eye on Rosy, just in case.

  thirteen

  “Shall I show you the attic, Rosy?” asked Louisa the next day. “That’s where Grammie keeps all her treasures.”

  “How will you get to the attic with your leg the way it is?” asked Rosy.

  “I think I’m strong enough to climb the stairs,” said Louisa.

  Attic stairs are as quirky as attics themselves. Some are ordinary—a staircase from the top floor. Some are narrow and dark. Some twist. And some come down from a trapdoor like a ladder.

  The steps to the attic in White Rose Cottage were in a far back bedroom, but they were the ordinary sort, which was lucky for Louisa. She had to clomp up each one with her crutches, but she was soon at the top. Rosy rode up on her shoulder and relaxed just a little. She loved attics: their slanted light, their musty, long-ago smells.

  Getting away from her sisters that morning had been easier than Rosy thought it would be. Sylva had come running into her room to wake her up, and Rosy had told her she was sleeping in today.

  “You never sleep in!” Sylva had said.

  “Almost never,” Rosy had replied.

  “But we’re going fishing in Nettle Pond.”

  “You go ahead, and I’ll meet up with you later. Catch some minnows for me!”

  Rosy sighed, remembering what she’d said to Sylva. It wasn’t quite a lie. But it wasn’t quite true, either.

  “Look, Rosy!” called Louisa. She was in a small sunlit corner of the attic, sitting on an old step stool on the floor. “This is wha
t I was looking for!”

  Rosy flew over and found the perfect perch on a paraffin lantern on top of a dusty side table. Louisa had pulled out a book.

  “Here it is,” she said. “This is the book about Tinker Bell.”

  Rosy took in a quick breath. Right there before her eyes was a book—an old, crumbling book—about her very own big sister.

  You might be wondering why there was such an old book about Tink when she has such young sisters. Some of you already know that fairy years are very different from our years—sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. Tink had managed to stay the same age for a very long time.

  “I think that when my grammie was a little girl, Tink was little, too,” said Louisa. “That’s before she got to be so famous.”

  “Your grammie was famous?”

  “No, silly! Tinker Bell is famous. Listen to this!”

  Louisa flipped the pages of the book till she came to the place she was looking for. “It’s a story about Tink and Peter Pan,” she said.

  Rosy knew Tink lived on a faraway island called Neverland with Peter Pan, but she didn’t know much more than that. The Fairy Bell sisters, in truth, rarely heard from Tink these days. Except for the occasional postcard, written on birch bark and delivered by a team of swallows, they had no real idea what Tink was up to.

  “Let me read you this part,” said Louisa. “Peter is talking to Wendy about your sister Tinker Bell.”

  “Who’s Wendy?” asked Rosy. Tinker Bell had never mentioned anyone by that name.

  “Wendy’s a real girl like me!”

  Rosy fluttered her wings. Did Tink have a secret friend, too?

  “Listen,” Louisa said. Then she started to read:

  “Wendy,” Peter whispered gleefully, “I do believe I shut her up in the drawer!”

  “Peter Pan shut my big sister up in a drawer?” said Rosy. “Tink would not like that at all.”

  “It’s not for long,” said Louisa. “I’ll read you the next part.”

  He let poor Tink out of the drawer, and she flew about the nursery screaming with fury.

  “That sounds like Tink,” said Rosy.

  Louisa kept reading:

  “O Peter,” cried Wendy, “if she would only stand still and let me see her!”

  Louisa looked up at Rosy. “Do you suppose that’s how I came to see you in my room yesterday? Because you were so very still?”

  “I think it must have been,” said Rosy. “But never mind me. What happens next?”

  fourteen

  Every day after that, Rosy escaped from Cathedral Pines for a few minutes here and there to meet Louisa at White Rose Cottage to hear the story of Peter Pan and Wendy and Tink and the Lost Boys and Captain Hook.

  “Let’s meet every day—” said Louisa.

  “At noon—”

  “And if we can’t meet up one day, let’s leave each other a secret message,” said Louisa.

  “Oh yes! We’ll have a little post office of our own,” said Rosy.

  They found an old biscuit tin with a tight lid that became their secret post office.

  “I’ll put it on the corner of the sleeping porch on the second floor,” said Louisa.

  “Isn’t that too far for you?”

  “No! These crutches are great,” Louisa exclaimed. And indeed by now she was getting along very well with them. “No one will find it there.”

  Every day, as the long days of August stretched before them, they met in secret. Rosy told Louisa all about the Fairy Bell sisters—how Clara was so wise, and Golden so clever. She even told Louisa about the time Sylva came to the Fairy Ball.

  “You are so lucky,” Louisa told Rosy. “I wish I had sisters like you do.”

  One day, when it was rainy, they took shelter in the playhouse in the back of the cottage garden. “Grammie always called this a Wendy house,” said Louisa. “She named it after Wendy in the book.”

  Rosy looked around the comfy playhouse. “That must have made Tink pretty jealous!” she said.

  “Are any of your sisters like her? Not Goldie or Clara, and not you. Or Sylva, I guess. Maybe Baby Squirt?”

  Rosy laughed. “It’s Squeak!” she said. “And her real name is Euphemia.”

  “Euphemia!” said Louisa. “What a big name for a little fairy!”

  “I think she will grow into it,” said Rosy.

  Louisa asked all sorts of questions then. How many fairies lived on Sheepskerry (lots), and did fairies live anywhere else in the world (yes), and could Louisa meet them?

  “I’m not sure . . . ,” said Rosy.

  “But why not?” asked Louisa. “Why can’t Summer People and fairies be friends? We’re doing okay, aren’t we?”

  Rosy thought about the fairies of Coombe Meadow. She thought about what her sisters would say if they knew about Louisa.

  “It’s still too dangerous, Lulu,” said Rosy. “I don’t know if I can ever introduce you to the other fairies. Or my sisters.”

  Louisa did not say anything for a while. At last she turned to Rosy. “I guess you just want me to read some more,” she said. “And my name is actually Louisa.”

  The rest of that day did not go so well. Louisa read the story, but Rosy hardly heard a word. Rosy was keeping Lulu away from her sisters, and keeping her sisters away from Lulu. Her head was pounding by the end of the day, when she flew into the fairy house just before everyone else arrived.

  “Another headache?” asked Clara.

  “A doozy,” said Rosy. She kissed her big sister absently on the cheek and flitted upstairs to bed.

  fifteen

  Rosy wanted to say sorry to Louisa the next day, but she wasn’t sure that Louisa would want to see her. The air was still; the birds weren’t chirping and the brown squirrels were quiet. Rosy could sense in her wingtips that a storm was on the way—a powerful storm, out of the northeast. With the weather threatening, Rosy felt it was even more important to get a message to Lulu. She sat at the small writing desk in her room and wrote a note with blackberry ink:

  Dear Louisa,

  I cannot come to see you today.

  I will come tomorrow.

  She considered for a minute before she ended her letter. Then she added,

  I’d like you to meet my sisters, too.

  Love,

  Rosy

  Rosy took the note and tucked it under her arm. She started out to the secret post office box. “Are you putting it in the snail mailbox?” asked Clara. “I’m heading that way myself. I can take it for you so we aren’t both caught in the rain.”

  “Oh no,” Rosy replied. “I’ll be happy to take it on my own. I’m just going to do a quick lap around the Pines. I need to get some air before we’re cooped up in here by the storm.”

  Clara let Rosy leave first. Then she followed her.

  Rosy was almost out of sight in the moment it took Clara to follow her out the door, and she was definitely not going for a lap around the Pines. Rosy was heading down the path toward Sea Glass Beach.

  Clara was so relieved she caught an updraft and flew high into the air.

  “Oh, that’s what Rosy’s doing!” She fluttered her wings. “She’s collecting blue sea glass for Golden. Typical of her—even if it’s a bit chancy. Rosy!” called Clara. “I’ll help you!” And she darted down to Sea Glass Beach.

  She saw one of the Summer Children down on the beach—a bit too far out on the rocks, she thought. But Rosy was not there.

  Clara flew upward again. She steadied herself against the wind.

  No Rosy on Sea Glass Beach. No Rosy heading to Seal Rock. No Rosy on her way to Lady’s Slipper Field. And certainly no Rosy anywhere near White Rose—

  Clara’s wings skipped a beat. It couldn’t be! But it was. Rosy was winging her way up to the sleeping porch of a Summer Family’s cottage.

  “What is she doing?” cried Clara. Her head was ringing with alarm. “She’s getting way too close!”

  With a galloping heart, Clara followed her sister to the
sleeping porch. She saw Rosy open up a small tin box and take out a note. Clara’s eyes were sharp. The note was on yellow paper . . . with lines. And it was written in pencil, not in blackberry ink. That meant the note could not have been written by a fairy.

  It could only have been written by a Summer Child.

  Clara reeled back in amazement and fear. Had her own sister betrayed the fairy code?

  sixteen

  “Rosy! ROSY!” Clara shouted.

  Rosy looked around in alarm. “Clara! What are you doing here? Get away from the cottage.”

  Rosy was caught! And that wasn’t even the worst of it. She had read Louisa’s note. And this is what it said:

  Dear Rosy,

  In case you come today (which you probably won’t) you won’t find me here. I have gone down to Sea Glass Beach to find some blue sea glass for Goldie.

  Your friend even if you don’t think so,

  Lulu

  Rosy looked up at the sky. It had a dark, coppery cast to it. The air was chilly now, and raw. The wind was rustling the trees so much that all Rosy could see were the undersides of their leaves.

  “Rosy Harmonia Bell! Come with me at once!”

  “Clara! I can’t go home with you. If Louisa’s on Sea Glass Beach in this storm, she might never come back!”

  Rosy flew as fast as her wings could carry her down to Sea Glass Beach. Clara was right behind her, but Rosy couldn’t talk now. She just had to find Louisa.

  Hovering high in the air, Rosy could see the whole beach. There was Louisa, on the rocks. And one of her crutches had fallen onto the beach below.

  “Rosy—listen to me. Listen to me!” cried Clara. “We have to go, at once!”

  “But she’s lost a crutch,” said Rosy. “And if we don’t help her get it back, she’ll be stuck here. Terrible things could happen.”

  “Rosy, it’s too bad! Someone else will come get her. She’s not your concern. The welfare of the fairies is what comes first, not this Summer Child.”

  “She’s not just a Summer Child. She’s my friend,” cried Rosy. She swooped down to be next to Louisa, leaving Clara hovering in the air.