The Clockwork Fairy Kingdom Read Online Free PDF

Dale’s favorite
class, shop. The familiar scents of grease, solder, and fresh-cut wood greeted him
as he walked in. Benches lined the room. Ms. Anderson, the shop teacher, had
already tied on her heavy-duty khaki apron. Her gray curls peeked out from
under the leather helmet-like hat she wore, and large safety goggles perched on
her forehead. She instructed two girls on the bandsaw ,
drilling them on its use, making sure they knew how to use it before she turned
it on.
    Rich and Tabri nodded at Dale, and
Rich indicated an open space on the bench to his left. Dale had helped both of
them on their projects—a music box and a plant holder with an electronic
moisture meter. They’d shared shop only that trimester, but they’d talked about
trying to take history together the next year. They weren’t friends, not yet;
Dale couldn’t call them and they didn’t eat lunch together. Maybe next year,
though.
    Dale retrieved his project from his locker. He told everyone
it was a pirate chest. It looked like one: leather straps decorated the sides
and top, held down with brass rivets, and iron reinforced the corners. With the
clever use of pegs, Dale hung the smaller boxes he’d made on the inside. He’d
even put in a false bottom—barely an inch above the real bottom, but good
for hiding treasure maps.
    In reality, it was a toolbox. Dale had made leather loops
along the back to hold screwdrivers of all sizes, as well as scissors and
wrenches.
    More than anything, Dale wanted to fill his toolbox with
tools. He imagined it in his room, and knew it would look pathetic with the one
set of tools in it. He missed his old workshop again, missed the orderly jars
holding everything he could ever need for a project, missed the directed
lights, missed the vises and tools.
    “Looking good,” Rich told Dale in his best sleazy pickup
voice.
    Dale grinned. “You too, man.” He looked over at Rich’s project.
Rich only needed to finish tacking the material to the inside of the cover. Tabri nodded at Dale, then turned back to smoothing out the
hole for the digital readout for his moisture meter. Dale only had a few
finishing touches as well, polishing the rivets and iron. Ms. Anderson had
already given him an A on it.
    The hour passed quickly. Dale kept thinking about tools, how
they’d look inside his box. Finally he gathered up a few from around the shop
class and tried them out, seeing how they’d fit. The box worked just as Dale
had imagined it would, and the tools filled the box perfectly.
    Dale glanced around. Ms. Anderson stood at the far side with
her back to him, working with two other students. Rich and Tabri argued over the stupid call the ref had made at the last baseball game, whether Barkman had been in or out.
    It was just wrong for a toolbox not to have any tools in it.
It was also wrong to steal.
    Dale tried to justify it to himself. No one would miss the
tools until fall—the school shop was closed for the summer. And maybe by
then he’d have his own set and could replace the ones he’d taken. No one needed
to know.
    As casually as he could, Dale took out most of the tools he’d
placed in the box. He left behind one package of tools in the bottom-most boxes—a
complete set of tiny screwdrivers and wrenches, the kind he needed to work on
the new machinery at home, the type that would be the most difficult buy at a
hardware store.
    Dale closed the top of his box and put away all the tools he’d
taken out. No one seemed to have noticed. The back of his neck prickled with
anticipation. Those tools would be so useful. Maybe he could sneak back in some
of the wire-working pliers. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Ms. Anderson
said, directly over his shoulder, “Fine-looking toolbox you have there.”
    Ms. Anderson wore her safety goggles, making her eyes look
huge and watery. She pushed them up to her forehead with one gloved hand. “Why
don’t you show me?”
    Reluctantly, Dale lifted the lid. The tools glared