The Fairy Rebel (6 page)

“You do look nice,” said Jan, admiring her while Charlie made some coffee for them and some hot honey and water for Tiki.

“It was those pictures,” said Tiki. “The ones you left out in the garden. I came and had a look at them and put all the pictures into my mind. Since then I have lots of fun changing my clothes. I can even invent new ones now I’ve got the idea. It’s such a shame I’ve been shut in that awful nest and couldn’t show off to anyone.”

“But how did it happen that you were put in there? Was it because of me?” asked Jan.

“Yes, of course,” said Tiki, but without sounding at all cross about it. “It was because I decided to help you
grow a baby.” Charlie turned round and stared at her, listening very hard.

“Of course,” Tiki added, “I haven’t enough magic to do that sort of trick. That’s really very hard stuff, you need to save up for ages, not do any little bits of magic, just save and save. Some fairies can save for years to do something big, but somehow I never can.…

“So what I did, you see, was I borrowed. I went around to everyone I knew, fairies and elves, and gnomes even (though gnomes haven’t got much magic: They can’t even fly).

“The older fairies did warn me. They said I oughtn’t to mix in—that it was none of my business. They even told me the Queen wouldn’t like it. She doesn’t like us ordinary fairies getting big ideas.… So after that I pretended I wanted the magic to go south for a holiday.

“I collected all the magic I could. I could feel myself getting stronger and stronger—it was really exciting—and soon I knew I could do it. So I went to the library and found the right words in one of the books, and one night when you were asleep I slipped into your room and said them. I used up all my saved-up magic on you. And that was it. The only trouble was …”

“You’d made the hair the wrong color,” said Charlie.

“Yes. I’m sorry. I got in a muddle. I remembered about the rose petals—”

“What sort of rose?” asked Jan quickly.

“Oh, pink. I’m really a pink-rose fairy,” said Tiki proudly. “They are the nicest. Besides, I can see you’re both pink. I’m not stupid.”

“Hmm,” said Charlie, pouring the coffee. “So what about her hair?”

“Well,” said Tiki. “I remembered you’d said ‘like a bird’s feathers’ and I could think of so many really pretty-colored birds, like blue tits and chaffinches and canaries—not to mention parrots—”

“Parrots!”

“Now, don’t worry. I see that was silly. Only I’d used up every bit of magic I could lay my hands on, just to get your baby started. To change something after that would have been really tricky. And expensive! I was so worried about it, for fear you wouldn’t be pleased, that I—that I—well, there was only one thing I could do.”

“What?”

“I … I asked the Queen to fix it for me.”

Charlie and Jan stared at her. From what they’d heard of the Queen, they found this very surprising.

“You dared to go and see her?”

“Oh no! Not to
see
her. Mere fairies like me never see her. But I got a rather grand master-elf I once met at a party to take her a message.”

“Was that wise?” asked Charlie.

“No,” said Tiki sadly. “It wasn’t.”

She sipped her hot drink from the cap off a glue dispenser Jan had found for her to use as a cup.

“And the next thing you knew, you were in that awful nest,” said Jan.

Tiki nodded. Suddenly she put the cap down and
brought her hands up to her face. Her shoulders jerked up and down.

“Tiki, are you making tears?” asked Jan, bending toward her.

She shook her tiny pink head.

“Yes, you are,” said Jan.

Tiki lifted a wet face and sniffed.

“They’re not like yours,” she hiccupped. “They’re sweet ones. I never thought I could make any, though. Fairies aren’t supposed to. We never
used
to, before …”

“Before what?” asked Jan.

“Just … before,” said Tiki with a gulp. “You see, I really did love the Queen. I believed she was good. I trusted her.”

She wiped her eyes with the end of her colored scarf.

“It was horrible in there,” she said. “All dark and empty and—and—”

“Lonely?”

“Is that what it means? With no friends to talk to?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I’m glad I made your baby start growing!” she said suddenly. “No matter what.”

“But what about the hair?” asked Charlie, refilling Tiki’s cap-cup with one drop of honey water.

“Well, I’ll try to explain,” said Tiki. “The Queen took away all the magic I had when she
innesterated
me—”

“Innesterated? You mean, put you in prison?”

“In a nest, yes. I told you, I hardly had any magic left: I’d used it all up on you. But what she can’t do is stop me getting more.”

“Wait a bit,” said Charlie. “You mean, a fairy is always growing more magic?”

“Yes. It just keeps on coming. We can use it or save it up, but it never stops. Like hair. I mean, if
you
were innesterated—”

“Put in prison—”

“Someone might keep cutting your hair short but they couldn’t stop it growing.”

“And didn’t the Queen keep cutting your magic short as it grew?”

Tiki shook her head.

“No. She must have forgotten. She often forgets about fairies she’s innesterated. She forgets to let them out in the spring, and sometimes …” She dropped her voice.

“Yes, we know,” said Jan quickly. “Wijic told us.”

Tiki sat up. “You’ve seen Wijic?
Seen
him?”

“How do you think we found out where you were?”

Tiki sat very straight on Jan’s hand. Her eyes grew round and it seemed her glistening hair stood up on end.

“Wijic helped to save me?” she asked at last in an even more tiny voice than usual.

“Yes.”

Two more syrupy tears rolled down Tiki’s cheeks. Then suddenly she burst out into a tinkly laugh, jumped to her feet, changed like lightning into a pink ballet dress and did a mad little dance all over Jan’s hand.

“Tiki,” said Charlie. “Would you mind? We need to know about our baby’s
hair
.”

“Hair—hair—hair!” cried Tiki, vanishing and reappearing as she jumped about. “I fixed it, I fixed it! Anyway, I
think
I fixed it,” she said more seriously, and she changed into jeans and a pink poncho and sat down again.

“As soon as I had saved enough magic—and of course, I had to use a bit of it to magic myself things to eat; after all, you can’t live on air—I made a tiny hole in the wall of the nest and sent a spell through it to call the grand master-elf. I think he rather fancies me,” she said, patting her hair.

“Anyway, he came. I asked him first if he could let me out, and he said no, the Queen would have a fit if he did, and then I told him about you. At first he said he didn’t dare do anything and told me off about the baby. But then I said, well, it’s done now, and if the baby turns out to have blue hair, everyone will start talking. They’ll know it’s a fairy child. Think how much better if it looks quite ordinary; then no one need know I was mixed up in it all, and there’ll be no bother about it. And do you know what
he
said?”

“No, what?” asked Jan and Charlie together.

“He said,” said Tiki slowly, “that a fairy child is a fairy child, and that she could never be ordinary, whatever she looks like.”

She looked from Jan to Charlie.

“You never know with fairy children,” Tiki went on. “They might
grow magic
like a fairy does, or they might have other special things which only show up later. It was the first time I knew that other fairies have helped humans to have babies, but the master-elf told me it’s happened quite often. Have you ever
heard of someone called Mo—Mo-something? He could make music.”

Jan and Charlie looked at each other.

“Not Mozart?”

“That’s the name. Well,
he
was a fairy child. The master-elf knew about it because a foreign elf he’d heard of was the fairy-father of that child—the way I’m the fairy-mother of yours,” she said proudly. “I didn’t know about fathers and mothers—we don’t have them—but the master-elf told me.”

“Good grief,” murmured Charlie, and put his hand to his forehead. “That’s all I need—a genius for a daughter.”

“Oh, I don’t suppose she’ll be that special,” said Tiki. “I’m not very special myself. And you said you didn’t want her to be very clever.”

“I
said
I wanted her to be ordinary and normal!” said Jan.

“Well, you can’t have everything,” said Tiki in her tossy voice.

“Oh, Tiki—please don’t think I’m not grateful,” said Jan quickly.

“We both are,” said Charlie gruffly.

“Her hair will be brown, anyhow,” said Tiki. “I think. The master-elf fixed it. At least, he said he was going to.”

“Can we be sure?”

“Sure? What’s that?”

“It means
knowing
something is going to happen.”

“That’s impossible,” said Tiki, shaking her fluffy head. “Don’t you know the saying, ‘Don’t count your
flowers when they’re only buds’? You can never be
sure
of anything.”

She stood up and stretched. Her furry wings made a sound like
brrrrrr
. “I must go,” she said.

“Won’t the Queen be angry about you being freed?”

“She probably won’t bother. She’s so busy.”

“She bothered today,” said Charlie quietly. “Sending those wasps.”

There was an uneasy silence.

“We must hope for the best,” said Tiki in her smallest voice.

Then she looked at them both.

“I want to ask you a favor now,” she said. “When your egg arrives—I mean, your baby—will you give her a fairy name?”

“Like what?”

“Bindi. That means expensive, or a treasure. Will you? Because she did cost me a lot. I have to pay back all I borrowed, don’t forget! I won’t be able to make any fun magic for ages.”

Charlie and Jan looked at each other. They nodded.

“It’s a sweet name,” said Jan.

Tiki gave a little wave. Then she flew up from Jan’s hand and vanished.

First Charlie, then Jan, felt a brief flutter against their mouths—a fairy kiss. Fairies kiss by backing up to the person and quivering their wings. But Tiki must have given them a human kiss too, because afterward they both noticed a strange, sweet, scented taste on their lips—the taste of Tiki’s tears.

Part Two

1
The Blue Tuft

One warm evening the following June, Jan strolled all round the garden in her nightgown looking at the rosebushes. She had a feeling the baby might be born the next day, and she thought, “How lovely if only all the roses in the garden were in bloom to welcome her!” But they were all still tight little buds.

Early next morning, Bindi was born. And by eight o’clock, Jan was sitting up in bed with the baby in her arms. Looking out of the window, she saw that the whole garden looked like a sea of pink roses. Every single rose was in flower. The scent came floating up to her bedroom.

To make things even nicer, Charlie rushed down into the garden, chose the most perfect pink rose he could find and brought it up in a little vase and stood it by Jan’s bed.

They were so happy. They looked at every inch of the baby from her toes upward and decided she was exactly what they’d wanted. She had fat little feet, and rose-petal skin, and almond-shaped fingernails, and as for her hair—

“Isn’t Tiki clever?” Jan was saying. “She’s got everything just right!”

But Charlie, who was holding the baby and gently stroking her little brown-bird’s-feather hair, said nothing.

“Is anything the matter, Charlie?” asked Jan, suddenly worried.

“Have you noticed this?” Charlie said quietly.

Jan leaned forward and looked. Charlie had lifted some of the baby’s hair on the crown of her head. Underneath the brown was a tuft of hair of a different color.

Blue.

It was only a tiny tuft. Perhaps twenty fine hairs in all. Even with the baby’s very short hair, you wouldn’t have seen it if you hadn’t been looking carefully. But it was there all right. Jan and Charlie looked at each other.

“It’s her fairy part,” whispered Jan. “Should we do anything … dye it perhaps?”