“We will, Miss,” said Lockner.
“We will, Miss,” echoed the crowd.
The bell hanging on the salon door jangled. “Emily! Are you all right?” Ali’s mother ran to the old woman kneeling in the middle of the salon floor.
“Mfff.” Mrs. Hopper sat up and gave Ali’s mother a wide smile. She clutched her throat and shook her head.
“Oh my,” said Ali’s mother. “If you’re sick, you should go home. I’ll call for my appointment later.”
Mrs. Hopper nodded and went on smiling.
“Here, let me help you up.” Ali’s mother lifted the old lady by one arm. “You’re light as a feather. Let me take you to a doctor.”
Mrs. Hopper shook her head. She pointed to a salon chair and smiled and smiled.
“I can’t today,” said Ali’s mother. “I just wanted to make an appointment. I’ll come back later. If you’re sure you don’t need any help?”
The old lady nodded and smiled, nodded and smiled.
Five
Ali looked at the clock. 11:30 P.M. She was cutting it close, but this way, everyone should be asleep. She already had the hair from the drains. It might be enough for all the fairies, but it might not. In case the fairies had already multiplied even more, she wasn’t going to be caught off guard. She rolled out of bed, picked up the plastic bag with the hair she’d already collected, grabbed the scissors off her dresser, and listened at her bedroom door. Everything was quiet.
She slipped out into the hallway and tiptoed past the bathroom to Hannah’s bedroom. She put her ear against the door, then pushed it open just a crack, so that she was looking at the middle of Hannah’s bed. There was Hannah, kissing Deacon. Ugh. She wanted to close the door again, but it was so gross she just couldn’t look away.
Hannah ran her hand through Deacon’s longish, blackish hair. How could she stand to touch that mop of grease? “I love your hair,” Hannah whispered.
“It was longer,” Deacon whispered, running his hand through Hannah’s hair, “but my brother thought it would be funny to chop it while I was sleeping.”
“I think it’s perfect,” Hannah cooed. They kissed again.
Ali carefully pulled the door shut. So Hannah was out of her mind and out of Ali’s grasp for tonight. She’d have to try her mom. Fortunately, her parents slept like a couple of dead logs. Her mother was lying on her stomach, her wavy shoulder-length hair ripe for the taking. Her dad’s snores covered Ali’s approach as she snuck forward, scissors first. She’d only take a little bit. Her mom would never even notice. Quickly, she snipped off a few locks and stuffed them into her bag.
Something moved on the nightstand next to her mother.
Ali turned her head just in time to see a fairy dodge behind the lamp. She reached out and caught it between two fingers, then ran for the door, shut it behind her, and raced downstairs, trying to be quiet.
“What were you doing up there?” she whispered. The fairy had been so close to her mother’s head! “Are there any more of you?”
“Wasn’t going to eat. Just going to look.” A set of fairy eyes peeked out between the tops of her fingers. Somehow she could tell it was not Pilose.
Ali hurried into the backyard. “You’re ungrateful,” she huffed. “Look what I’m doing for you. Cutting my own mother’s hair off.”
“Can’t eat off of heads,” the fairy whined. “Can only look.”
“You can’t eat off of heads?”
“Need children to grow us. Need children.” The fairy pushed its head farther up, bulging its eyes.
“Then what about Molly Parker?” Ali asked. “What happened to her? Fairies didn’t really crawl into her head, did they? But they did something to her.” She wasn’t going to beat around the bush. These little demons were getting serious. First Mrs. Hopper was a giant fairy, and now this one had been right next to her mom. “And why are the girls wearing these stupid buns and the boys shaving their heads?”
“Cruel, Molly,” said the fairy. “Let her hair down. Tortured. Cruelty is not good.” It wriggled inside Ali’s palm. “It is not good!”
Ali stopped a few feet from the mound. Several fairies stood on top of it in the moonlight, but Ali was too worked up to count them. She shook the fairy in her hand. “Are you saying you can’t eat me? If I let my hair down right now, it will just make you hungry?”
“Against the rules,” said the fairy. “You will be punished if you break the rules.” It slipped out of Ali’s grasp and dropped, unhurt, onto the mound.
“Rules,” Ali muttered to herself. “If they really can’t eat hair off people’s heads, I wonder what else they can’t do?” She peered down at the mound. One, two, three . . . six, seven, eight. Eight fairies. She lifted the hair out of the bag with a paper towel and dumped it on top of them. Then she crumpled up the bag and turned toward the house. She shivered. They are not on me. They are not on me.
“Hey!”
Ali looked back. There was Michael, climbing over the fence. As he dropped into the dirt a few feet away, there was a crash from the house. Deacon picked himself up off the ground outside Hannah’s window and lumbered toward them. Hannah didn’t have a tree, but an unstable pile of cinder blocks and firewood sat next to the wall. Deacon must have knocked it over.
“Well, well,” Deacon said, not very quietly.
“Shh!” Ali put her finger to her lips.
Deacon grinned and swatted his greasy locks out of his face. “Guess me and Hannah aren’t the only lovebirds.” He made kissy noises at Michael while leering sideways at Ali.
“Shut up!” said Michael.
“Gross!” said Ali at the same time.
“I’ll leave the back door open,” said Deacon. He gave another large lip smack right in Michael’s ear, winked at Ali, and jumped over the fence.
Michael looked down at his feet. “Um . . . sorry about my brother,” he whispered.
Ali rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I just want to get away from these monsters.”
“I wanted to tell you—make sure you read the directions.”
“I already read them.” Ali glanced down and quickly counted the fairies. If all eight of them were there, they couldn’t be crawling on her.
“Just—that’s all I can say.”
“You can’t be here!” Pilose jumped on top of the mound, rising above the others, and pointed a tiny finger at Michael.
“I’m just telling her—”
“Go home!” said Pilose.
“Fine. Good night, Ali.” Michael wrinkled his nose at the fairies, gave Ali a hard look, and started climbing the fence. He didn’t take his eyes off her until he’d dropped down on the other side.
Finally. Ali rushed back into the house and set her alarm for 4:30 A.M. Deacon couldn’t possibly be in Hannah’s room then.
“He wasn’t supposed to tell her,” said Pilose.
“‘Read the directions’ is on the approved list,” said the second flock starter, whose name was Ringlet. He was holding a scroll, and he peered at it in the moonlight.
“He was trying to tell her more.” Pilose sat on the mound. Her belly was already beginning to rumble. Why did she still have to be on flock duty? The others would all be in the Kingdome, feasting to their hearts’ content.
“But the rules say—”
“Rules. We follow them, and so must they!” Pilose jumped to her feet and pointed her long finger at Ringlet’s nose. “If he tries anything else, he won’t get his wish. The Grand Miss will take him the way she took the other two!”
“Should we report this to her?” Ringlet asked, gingerly pushing Pilose’s finger out of his face.
“No, no. Let’s leave her out of this. We can’t have her knowing we let a baby escape into the human house. He let slip even more information than that giant human dunderhead. Thank goodness he didn’t say anything about the plan.”
“He is only a baby,” said Ringlet.
“I doubt Bunny—I mean ‘the Grand Miss’—would care.�
��
The scroll disappeared into thin air, and the two fairies disappeared into their mound.
Six
Ali shut her bedroom door behind her and shook her shoulders, even though she knew in her mind that no fairies had gotten on her. The clock said 6:30 A.M. Hannah had slept right through Ali’s little snip, and the fairies hadn’t given any trouble while she’d fed them. But now there were ten. She’d already had to build another mound. How was she going to manage when they multiplied again? If she took any more hair from Hannah or her mom, they’d start to notice.
Read the directions. She’d been so distracted last night that she’d forgotten what Michael had said. Well, she wasn’t going to get any more sleep this morning. She might as well read them again. She sat down at her desk and unfolded the piece of paper. She blinked. This couldn’t be right. The paper was completely blank. She turned it over, but there was nothing on the back either. It had to be the right paper. There was the black grease stain in the upper-left-hand corner. Did Michael know this was going to happen? Why hadn’t he just told her?
“Come on, show me the stupid directions,” she said out loud.
The paper crinkled all by itself. Suddenly the page was filled with writing. It was in the same childish handwriting as before, but these directions were definitely different.
RULES
You must not let the fairies eat your own hair.
You must not quit growing your flock before you have 100 fairies.
You must not help any other child gather hair.
You must not flaunt your delicious hair in front of fairies. You must shave your head or wear your hair this way:
All hair must be human.
Hmm. She’d been doing these things already, though she didn’t understand why she couldn’t use her own hair if she wanted to. After all, the fairies thought it was so delicious that it would be cruel for her to wear it down. She flipped the paper over.
CONSEQUENCES
Drastic reduction in body mass.
Slavery.
Increased proportional size of eyes.
What? Was that what had happened to Tyler and Molly? Had they been shrunk and turned into fairy slaves? What if Michael hadn’t told her to read the directions again? These evil fairies weren’t playing fair. Just as she was about to crumple up the paper in a huff, the drawing of the “child” disappeared, and in its place, a picture of Jennifer Jackson materialized. This was no crude drawing, but a photograph, and it showed Jennifer as she was now—more gorgeous than a movie star. Then the picture suddenly changed, showing Jennifer as she had been. She wasn’t exactly ugly, but Ali couldn’t deny that the first picture was a whole lot better.
So they really could deliver on their promised wishes. Was that what they were trying to say? For some reason, Ali had never doubted that. The fairies existed, so magic existed, too. Jennifer’s transformation and Natalie Buckmaster’s new diva singing voice were just icing on the proverbial cake. Natalie Buckmaster . . . there was someone who wasn’t full of shallow nonsense. She was no prettier than Jennifer had been, but she’d chosen an actual talent. Maybe Ali should ask Natalie how she’d made it to one hundred fairies without losing her mind.
Ali crumpled up the directions and tossed the paper at the wall. Slavery. So the fairies had gotten Molly, Tyler, and now Mrs. Hopper. Natalie Buckmaster and Jennifer had gotten their wishes, and so had Jonathan Yeager, who was the biggest bully in school, and Beth Pickler, the girl who was allergic to everything, plus whoever gave them their fairies. Ali didn’t know what wishes those kids had picked, but they hadn’t disappeared. It was possible to make it through this and get your wish and be done with it, and that was what Ali was going to do.
“What happened to my haaaaaaaair!” Hannah screeched.
Oops.
“Aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!”
Ali sighed. She’d taken less than an inch. Hannah’s hair was plenty thick enough to feed all ten fairies with that much.
Ali’s door burst open.
Hannah stormed in, holding a lock of hair between her fingers. “You did this, didn’t you!” She stomped over to Ali’s dresser and picked up the telltale scissors. “Your stupid boyfriend Michael gave you this idea, didn’t he?”
“I thought I repelled boys,” said Ali, trying not to look at the scissors.
“This is serious, Alison Elizabeth!” Hannah screamed. “It’s all uneven! I have to go to Mrs. Hopper’s, and you’re going to pay for it.” She slammed down the scissors and picked up Ali’s piggy bank. She jerked the stopper out and dumped a wad of bills and change onto the table.
Ali stood up. “Don’t go to Mrs. Hopper’s!”
“You think I’m going to walk around looking like this?” Hannah counted Ali’s bills. “Eight dollars? Agh!” Hannah picked up the scissors, waved them menacingly at Ali, and stormed out of the room again, slamming the door.
“What’s going on here?” Ali’s mom asked from the hallway.
“She cut my hair off while I was sleeping!” said Hannah.
“Calm down, Hannah,” said Ali’s mom. “There’s more shampoo in the hall closet.”
“What?” Hannah screamed. “Aaagh!” Her feet pounded on the staircase.
“A lot of yelling over a little shampoo,” said Ali’s dad. His footsteps followed Hannah’s down.
Shampoo?
Her mom knocked on the door. “Everything okay, honey?” she called.
“Everything’s fine,” said Ali. But it wasn’t true. She stared at the coins scattered across her dresser. Money wasn’t going to help Tyler and Molly. What if the fairies were doing something bad to them? They needed help now, not after Ali got her wish. There must be a way to help Tyler and Molly without breaking any rules, Ali thought.
Seven
Ali pushed Jennifer into the girls’ bathroom.
“Hey, the bell just rang.” Jennifer tried to slip past Ali, but Ali blocked her path.
“I know. We need to talk.”
Jennifer frowned. The crinkles at the edges of her mouth only made her look more beautiful. “If this is about your flock, I can’t help you.”
“I know. It’s not about that. Just come with me, okay?” She grabbed Jennifer’s hand and dragged her out of the bathroom and down the hall. At the first door leading outside, she pulled Jennifer onto the sidewalk behind the school building.
Michael and Natalie Buckmaster were waiting there. Natalie stood three feet away from Michael, her arms folded over her chest.
“Hey, ugly,” said Michael.
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Okay, what’s going on?”
“Has anyone seen Jonathan Yeager or Beth Pickler?” Ali asked.
“Jonathan?” Jennifer snorted. “Good luck getting him to help you.”
“I heard he used his wish for a hex,” said Natalie. “His own cousin. Made him so ugly you can’t look at him without screaming.” She snickered.
Yeah, that sounded like Jonathan. He was the only kid in school who was both older and meaner than Michael.
“Then it’ll have to be just us,” said Ali. “We’ve got four people.”
“Four people for what?” asked Natalie. “What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that Mrs. Hopper’s been replaced by a giant fairy—and Tyler and Molly must have been turned into fairy slaves!” She rushed through the whole story.
“Well, they didn’t follow the directions,” said Natalie. “They knew what they were getting into.”
“Maybe not,” Ali said. “I wouldn’t have read the part about consequences if Michael hadn’t told me to read the directions again. And I probably would have tried dog hair. Plus, who deserves to be made into slaves?” She turned to Natalie. “You gave Molly her fairies! You have to help her.”
“When she didn’t finish, I had to find somebody else. Thanks to her, I almost lost my wish!” Natalie’s speaking voice sounded just like it always had—screechy. She stalked back into the building without waitin
g to hear Ali’s reply.
“She almost lost her wish? Is that all you guys can think about, too?” Ali demanded.
Jennifer hadn’t looked up during Ali’s entire story. Now she felt for loose strands around her top-of-the-head bun.
“Michael?”
He rubbed one giant shoe across the sidewalk. “Can’t it wait until you grow your flock?”
“Wait?” This was ridiculous. Two kids had been turned into fairy slaves. How could they not care? “You guys are the most selfish, chicken, worthless human beings in the United States! So there’s a chance you won’t get to be a football star? At least you get to be six feet tall!”
“You were going to wait to help Mrs. Hopper,” said Michael.
Ali didn’t have a good response to that, so she ignored it. “And you—” She poked a finger in Jennifer’s face. “You got your wish. What do you have to lose now?”
“I saw her,” Jennifer whispered.
“What?” said Michael.
Jennifer looked up. Tears were forming in her perfect, deep blue eyes. “I saw Molly. We were in the park next door to her house. It was getting late, and we were walking back. Her bun was falling out, so she started undoing it. I told her not to. I said, ‘Don’t let it hang there. Wait until we get inside.’ But she kept taking it out.” Tears dripped down Jennifer’s porcelain cheeks, sparkling like diamonds. “She let it fall down over her shoulders. Her hair was really long. They came out of the grass. They climbed up her legs.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “They climbed up her back, and then . . . It was so fast. She didn’t have time to scream. She was just suddenly gone. Her clothes and everything. She was just gone.” She rubbed her hand over the back of her head, checking for stray strands again.
Ali stared at her. “Is that why you’re still wearing the bun?”
“I can’t take it down,” Jennifer sobbed. “I’m scared.”
Evil Fairies Love Hair Page 3