A Fairy's Gift

by Kiki Thorpe

Gabby remembered what Tink had told her about Clumsies hanging the bells up to welcome fairies. She put the bell back in her pocket, found her coat, and went outside.

  The wind was blowing hard as Gabby looked around for a place to hang the bell. At the edge of the yard, there was a small, bare tree. By standing on her tiptoes, she could just reach the lowest branch. There was a bit of thread tied at the top of the bell. Gabby looped it over the end of the branch, then stood back to admire it.

  The bell jingled in the wind. Gabby smiled. It was the sound of a fairy, the sound of Pixie Hollow. But there should be more of them, she thought.

  She went back inside. In the kitchen, she found her mother drinking tea with Aunt Lara. “Do we have any bells that I can use?” Gabby asked her.

  “What kind of bells?” her mother said.

  “Little ones that make a jingly sound,” said Gabby.

  “Check the craft bin. And there’s a box of Christmas decorations in the hallway. You could look there, too.”

  The craft bin offered nothing. But in the Christmas box, Gabby found a long garland hung with gumdrop-shaped bells. She grabbed a pair of scissors from the bin. Then she went to the phone and dialed Lainey’s number.

  “I was just about to call you guys,” Lainey said when she picked up. “Tell Mia to come over. Kate said she’d be here soon.”

  “Mia isn’t here,” Gabby said. “She went shopping with Angelica.”

  “Shopping?” Lainey sounded surprised. “I thought we were going to Pixie Hollow. Did she forget?”

  “I don’t know. Can you come get me?” Gabby asked. “I’m not allowed to walk by myself.”

  “All right,” Lainey said with a sigh. “I’ll be right over.”

  When Lainey arrived, Gabby was waiting for her on the top step. She had the bells, the scissors, and a roll of thin gift-wrap ribbon.

  “I can’t believe Mia left,” Lainey complained as she came up. “Did she forget that the fairies need our help?”

  “I don’t know.” Gabby snipped one of the bells off the garland. Then she cut a piece of string from the roll and carefully threaded it through the loop at the top of the bell. “Can you tie this to that tree?” she asked Lainey. “I’m not so good at bows yet.”

  Lainey took the bell and tied it to a branch. When she was done, Gabby handed her another bell to hang.

  “Why are we doing this?” Lainey asked as she tied a knot and looped it over a branch.

  Gabby explained what Tink had told her about the bells welcoming fairies.

  “But there aren’t any fairies here to hear them,” Lainey pointed out.

  “Maybe there are. You never know,” said Gabby. With sudden inspiration, she added, “But even if there aren’t, people will think there are fairies. They’ll hear the bells ringing and they’ll think it’s magic.”

  “No they won’t,” said Lainey. “They’ll think it’s bells.”

  Gabby considered this. “Then we’ll hide them,” she decided. “So it’ll be mysterious.”

  “I guess it’s worth a shot.” Lainey pointed up the street. “Let’s tie some on that tree over there.”

  They worked their way up the block, tying the bells on tree branches, bushes, and garden gates. Gabby lost count after twenty-three. When the wind blew, the bells jingled in a pleasing way.

  “It does sound like fairies,” Lainey admitted.

  They’d just finished tying a bell to a fence post when they saw Kate running up the street. She was waving a piece of paper.

  “I’ve been thinking up ways to stop the Disbelief,” Kate said as she joined them. “I’ve got some really good ideas. What are you doing with all those bells?”

  “It’s Gabby’s idea. Tell her, Gabby,” Lainey said.

  Gabby explained, feeling proud that she’d come up with it all by herself. But Kate just laughed. “That won’t work, Gabby. It’s not even real magic.”

  “Somebody might believe it is,” Gabby said. “And believing is how magic begins.”

  “We need to do something big to get people to notice,” Kate said. “First thing today, we’ll ask Queen Clarion for some fairy dust and—”

  Lainey cut her off. “We can’t go to Pixie Hollow until Mia gets back.”

  “Where is Mia?” Kate asked, looking around.

  “She went shopping with Angelica. Nobody else was invited,” Gabby informed her.

  “Shopping?” Kate wrinkled her nose. “How is that going to help the fairies?”

  Gabby shrugged. Somehow it made her feel better that Kate was annoyed at Mia, too.

  “What should we do?” Lainey asked.

  Kate chewed her lip, thinking. “I think we should go anyway…without Mia,” she said at last.

  “What about our rule to always go to Never Land together?” Lainey said.

  “We made the rule. We can break it,” Kate replied. “We can’t wait around all day for Mia. The fairies need our help now. Come on.” Without waiting for an answer, she stomped down the street to Lainey’s house.

  But when they got to the toolshed, Lainey hesitated. “What if Mia finds out we left her behind?”

  “Well, she left us behind, didn’t she?” Kate argued. “Besides, what’s more important—our rule, or helping the fairies?” She flipped the latch.

  As she opened the door, Kate flung up her hands. She fell backward in the snow as a dazzle of colored light poured from the shed. Two fairies raced out through the open door. It was the water fairy Silvermist and her friend Iridessa, a light talent.

  “Quick!” Iridessa shouted. “Shut the door! Hurry!”

  Before Kate could think what to do, Lainey lunged forward and slammed the toolshed door. At once, the light disappeared.

  “What happened? Are you all right?” she asked as Kate picked herself up from the snow.

  Kate nodded, though stars still danced before her eyes from the bright light. “What was that?” she asked the fairies.

  “Did something follow you from Never Land?” Gabby whispered.

  The fairies laughed. Now that the door was closed, they seemed to relax. “In a way,” Silvermist said. “Fawn told us about your snowballs. I think it might have helped. Yesterday, two fairies got their flight back.”

  “Really?” Kate was pleased. They hadn’t heard any news from Pixie Hollow since they’d sent Fawn through the portal the day before.

  Iridessa nodded. “But there’s so much more to do. We want to help, too. We brought some magic of our own.”

  Real fairy magic? That’s just what we need. Kate reached for the handle to the shed door again.

  “Don’t open it all the way,” Iridessa warned her. “And be careful. It’s very—”

  Kate shielded her eyes as she opened the door and blinding light spilled out.

  “Bright,” Iridessa finished.

  Bands of misty light filled the shed, coloring everything.

  “It’s a rainbow,” Gabby whispered.

  “Iridessa and I made it together,” Silvermist told them.

  Kate stuck her hand into the shed. Her fingers passed right through the light and lit up blue. The rainbow rippled like water where she touched it. “Wow,” she gasped.

  “What are we supposed to do with it?” Lainey asked.

  The fairies glanced at each other. “Er, we were hoping you’d figure that part out,” Iridessa said.

  Even though Kate was holding the door tight, the rainbow seemed to be pushing against it. She shoved the door closed and flipped the latch to lock it. “It’s perfect,” she declared, turning to her friends. “It’s exactly what we need.”

  “It is?” asked Lainey.

  “Yes,” Kate said. “Think about it. What would you do if you saw a rainbow on your street?”

  “I’d follow it to the end and find the pot of gold,” Gabby said.

  “Right,” said Kate. “Only with this rainbow, you’ll find fairies. See? That’s what we’ve been doing wrong. We’re going to one kid at a time to make them believe
. But every kid in the city will see this rainbow—they’ll come to us!”

  “Every kid in the city will come here?” Lainey glanced at the shed door. It was straining on its hinges. “I don’t think my parents will like that.”

  Suddenly, the latch on the toolshed gave way. The door burst open and colored light poured out. The rainbow shot across the yard, bounced off the side of Lainey’s house, and arced up toward the sky.

  “Quick, before it flies away!” Iridessa yelled.

  The girls and the fairies chased after the rainbow. Kate reached it first. But when she tried to grab the end, her hand passed right through it!

  The fairies zoomed past her. They caught up with the rainbow at the edge of Lainey’s yard. The fairies hands could grip it tightly.

  “How do you do that?” Kate asked. In the fairies’ hands, the rainbow seemed soft and supple, like silk.

  “We have the magic touch,” Iridessa said. She was fluttering her wings hard to keep the rainbow from flying away. “Though maybe we shouldn’t have made it quite so big,” she added. Stretched out to its full length, the rainbow reached higher than the tallest building in their neighborhood. It flapped in the wind like a giant scarf.

  “Have you got something we can put it in? Until we decide what to do?” Silvermist asked.

  “I don’t think it would even fit inside my whole house,” Lainey said.

  “They fold up nicely,” Silvermist assured her. “Just find something we can close tight.”

  Lainey ran into her house. She returned moments later with a large cardboard box. “It was the biggest thing I could find,” she said.

  The girls watched as the fairies yanked, pulled, and stuffed the rainbow into the box. Bit by bit, the rainbow grew shorter, until it was just a square of colored light, so bright it hurt Kate’s eyes to look at. When the rainbow was all inside, Lainey quickly closed the flaps and taped the box up tight. But light still streamed from the cracks.

  “My parents are going to notice that,” she said.

  “Why don’t you wrap it up like a present?” Gabby suggested.

  “Good idea, Gabby!” Kate said.

  Lainey went inside again, and returned with scissors, tape, and a roll of wrapping paper. Kate knelt on the floor of the shed and quickly wrapped the box. Since she wasn’t very good at wrapping, she had to use a lot of tape. But it worked. When she was done, not even a faint glow showed through.

  “It doesn’t look very nice,” said Gabby, eyeing the rumpled package.

  “It doesn’t have to look nice,” Kate huffed. “It just has to hold for a little bit.” She lifted the box and was surprised at how light it was. The box felt empty!

  “We could take it back to the park,” Lainey suggested. “There will be lots of people there.”

  “I was thinking we should go downtown,” Kate said. “There will be even more people there.” And won’t Mia feel sorry when she sees what she’s missed, she thought.

  The back door to Lainey’s house opened. Her dad stuck his head out. “Time to eat! Gabby, Kate, can you stay for lunch?” he asked, looking right past the fairies.

  “Dad,” Lainey said. “We’re kind of busy.”

  “Not too busy to eat,” her dad said. “And you need to come warm up. I can see Gabby shivering.”

  Gabby wasn’t the only one. All the girls were shivering. And though the fairies had dressed in caterpillar-wool sweaters and pussy-willow earmuffs, they looked cold, too.

  “I’m hungry,” Gabby whispered.

  “Me too,” Kate admitted.

  “Good. Sandwiches and hot chocolate coming up,” said Lainey’s dad, heading back inside.

  “Come on,” Lainey whispered to the fairies. “My dad makes great hot chocolate. You can have some, too.”

  Kate was still holding the boxed-up rainbow as they trooped inside. She set the box down in the hallway, then followed her friends into the kitchen. At the table, Lainey’s father handed around steaming mugs of hot chocolate and plates of sandwiches. Kate wrapped her cold fingers around the warm mug gratefully.

  The doorbell rang. When her dad left to answer it, Lainey poured a bit of hot chocolate into the cap from a tube of lip balm. She passed it to the fairies.

  Silvermist took a tiny sip. “Mmm,” she said.

  Iridessa pointed at the melting white blob inside Kate’s cup. “What’s that?”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a marshmallow?” Kate said.

  Lainey took two big marshmallows from the bag on the counter. She placed one in front of each fairy. “That’s a marshmallow.”

  Silvermist carefully sat down on hers. “Very comfortable,” she declared.

  The girls giggled. “You’re supposed to eat it!” Gabby told her.

  Iridessa picked up her marshmallow and nibbled it. “It’s like eating a pillow,” she said, making a face. “A sticky pillow.”

  “Exactly! That’s what makes them so good.” Kate took another marshmallow from the bag and popped it in her mouth.

  “Lainey!” her dad called from the other room. “There’s someone here from the community center. Do you know anything about a toy donation?”

  “Oh!” Kate slapped her forehead. “My mom said someone was coming today to pick up your family’s donation. I was supposed to tell you yesterday, but I forgot.”

  “Did you check by the door?” Lainey called to her dad. “Mom might have left it there.”

  They heard him shuffling around. “Here it is,” he said to the person at the door. A moment later, they heard the door close.

  Mr. Winters returned to the kitchen. “You all look much better,” he said. “You see what a little hot chocolate can do?”

  Kate drained the rest of her mug and stood up. “Thanks, Mr. Winters.”

  The other girls got up, too, and put on their coats. In the hallway, though, Kate stopped. “Where’s the box?” she said.

  “What do you mean?” Lainey asked.

  “The box with the rainbow,” Kate whispered. “I left it right here.” She pointed to the empty spot.

  “Dad,” Lainey called, her voice quavering a little. “What did you give the person at the door?”

  “That big box in the hallway,” he called back. “Why?”

  “Oh no!” Kate whispered. “He gave away the rainbow!”

  Downtown, Mia and Angelica wove through crowded sidewalks on their way to the bead store. People hurried past, their arms loaded with shopping bags. Everyone seemed happy and excited.

  “Look!” Angelica stopped in front of a department store window. Mannequins in fancy dresses stood among golden reindeer. Their hands rested lightly on the deers’ heads. Mia thought of Lainey and the deer she liked to ride in Pixie Hollow.

  “Which one would you choose?” Angelica asked.

  “That one,” Mia said. She pointed to a reindeer that seemed to be nuzzling the mannequin’s hand. “He looks friendly.”

  Angelica giggled. “I meant, which dress would you choose, silly.”

  “Oh!” Mia laughed at herself and studied the gowns. They looked expensive, in rich, dark-colored fabrics—burgundy, gold, and black. They seemed meant to be worn at midnight balls. “I like the gold one,” she said.

  “Nice! I pick that one.” Angelica pointed to a dress made of burgundy lace. Mia imagined the two of them heading off to a grand event together in their elegant new dresses.

  The bead store was just around the corner. “Wow!” Mia said as they walked inside. The tiny shop was crammed with trays full of beads, stones, polished rocks, and metal charms. “It’s like walking into a treasure chest!”

  “Can I help you?” asked a woman behind the counter.

  When Angelica explained that they were looking for thread for friendship bracelets, the woman led them over to a corner of the store. Packets of thread in every color hung on the wall.

  “You’ll want at least three colors for one bracelet,” Angelica told Mia. “But I’d get more if I were you. Then you can mi
x them up and do different kinds of patterns.”

  Mia spent a long time looking at the colors. There were so many to choose from! At last she chose a blue that was the exact shade of the sky over Pixie Hollow. She also picked a deep green that reminded her of the moss on the shores of Havendish Stream. She picked soft pink and bright yellow and lavender, the colors of the flowers that grew in the meadow. Finally, she chose a pretty teal, like the waves that broke on Never Land’s shore. She carried the packets of thread up to the counter.

  “I like your earrings,” Angelica said to the young woman who rang them up. The earrings were made from little clusters of purple beads.

  “They were easy to make. I can show you where to find the beads, if you want,” the saleswoman said.

  “They would look good on you, Mia,” Angelica said.

  Mia shrugged. “They’re pretty. But I don’t have pierced ears.”

  “You don’t?” Angelica checked Mia’s ears, as if she couldn’t believe it. “Why not? Won’t your parents let you?”

  “Mami always said I could get them pierced whenever I want. I just never did. I’m afraid it will hurt,” Mia admitted.

  “Only for a second,” Angelica told her. “We should do it today!”

  “Today?” Mia gulped.

  “Why not? All the girls in middle school have their ears pierced,” Angelica said.

  “There’s a jewelry store down the street,” the woman told them. “I think they pierce ears there.”

  As they walked to the jewelry store, Mia’s stomach felt fluttery. She’d always planned to get her ears pierced—she just hadn’t planned to do it today. But somehow, having Angelica there made it more special.

  Inside the jewelry store, a salesgirl helped her pick out a pair of tiny stud earrings. “You’ll need to wear these for six weeks. Then you can wear anything you want,” she explained as she led Mia to a chair in the corner.

  She almost changed her mind when the woman took out something that looked like a staple gun. But just as Angelica promised, it didn’t hurt much. Mia heard a pop and felt a hard pinch. A moment later, she was looking in the mirror at her new gold earrings.