Fairies and Felicitations (Scholars and Sorcery) Read Online Free PDF Page A

common room.
    I tap my friend from the morning on the shoulder, and she jumps like the devil has hold of her.
    “Don’t die of fright!” I say, laughing. “I don’t bite. I just wanted to ask you a favour.”
    “Of course,” she says, earnestly. Nice little thing.
    “Cecily—you know my friend Cecily Kettler, don’t you?” Her big eyes are even wider as she nods. She might have no real idea who I am, in fact I’m counting on her not knowing my name, but the Games Captain is a person of some importance. “Right. Well, she gave me a message for Esther Carmody, but I have a music lesson and I’m running late, so I don’t dare try to find her. Would you be an angel and run and knock on the Fifth form common room for me?”
    The child nods, even though she looks like I’ve asked her to beard the lion’s den.
    “Do you know who Esther is?”
    She nods again, less surely this time. I pat her shoulder.
    “Never mind if you don’t. Just knock on the door and ask for Esther, there’s a lamb, and tell her that Cecily left something important for her in the chapel. Now, I’m late, I must go. Thanks, kid!”
    I turn and race toward the chapel, hoping that my little messenger isn’t too terrified of knocking on the Fifth’s door to deliver the message at all. It will be a terrible let down if she is. An escape, but also a let down.

    The fairies aren’t rattling around in the paper heart any more. I hope that means they are enjoying the cologne, and not that Esther will be tipping out little fairy corpses when she opens it. Hardly a romantic touch, that. I almost unfold the top to check, but fairies are untrustworthy little creatures and they are just as likely to try to escape, possibly biting me en route. Fairy bites are no joke, let me tell you.
    The chapel is not very impressive, just a few benches set up in rows and a platform at the front where Miss Carroll delivers prayers and, if she is in the mood, sermons, to make sure we start our day on the right note. It’s not part of the original Manor, just a square box built on to the newer West wing as part of its conversion to a school, and has a kind of depressingly institutional feel even when it’s not inhabited by crowds of bored or pious schoolgirls, according to character. I wonder what made Kitty choose such a dull, unromantic place for her trick. At least it’s reliably likely to be empty in the afternoon.
    I consider leaving the paper heart on the Fifth form bench. The trouble is, if Cecily had left something there, one of the other girls would have picked it up for her. Under the bench, as if it had been kicked there? That seems too casual and careless, really. Especially as the fairies might have been trodden underfoot in the general exodus. Cecily is kind hearted to a fault.
    In the end, I stop trying to think of ways to make it look like the heart has been left accidentally. When I think about it, if Cecily had misplaced a token to another girl, she would hardly ask the girl in question to go looking for it.
    I put it squarely in the middle of the table on Miss Carroll’s platform, front and centre. I’ve spent too much time messing around; Esther might be here any moment, if the babe did indeed give her message. I don’t want to run out of the room and straight into Esther’s arms.
    I turn to flee.  
    Then the demon curiosity seizes me. I may have been spiteful enough to ensure that Kitty misses the fireworks, but I do desperately want to see Esther’s reaction for myself. After all, it’s my work of genius.
    The broom cupboard. Obviously.
    I plunge into it. I make a bit of a racket tripping over a bucket wedging myself in, and cross my fingers that no one is close enough to see and investigate. I leave the door open only a crack, and trust to luck that Esther won’t notice. I can’t see much, but she’ll have her back to me when she goes up onto the platform and I can peek then. If she comes at all.
    It’s a completely cracked idea,