The Fairy Rebel Read Online Free PDF

disappeared.

6
The Wasps’ Nest
    Neither Charlie nor Jan slept much that night. Charlie walked up and down the room while Jan lay in bed, worrying aloud:
    “Poor Tiki! Poor, poor little thing! Shut up alone in the dark waiting for the wasps …”
    “We don’t
know
that. Maybe she’s gone abroad for the winter. She could be lying in the sun on some lovely beach for all we know.”
    “She’d never have gone off and not told me if she’d fixed it about the baby.”
    “We can’t count on a fairy to behave like a responsible grown-up human being. Maybe she just forgot about it. In which case, it’s not
poor Tiki
, it’s
poor us
.” He stamped up and down the room a few times more and then burst out: “A fairy child with funny-colored hair! It would be better not to have a baby at all.”
    “Oh, Charlie! But I never asked for one. It was her idea. I’m much more worried about her than about us just now. After all…,” she said thoughtfully, “we could always dye the baby’s hair some ordinary color, even if it was blue or green.”
    “You did say you wanted her to have pink skin?”
    “Yes, oh yes. Like rose petals, I said.”
    Charlie turned round and stared at her. “Like rose petals!” he said. “What if she thinks you meant an orange rose? Or a dark red one? Or a red and yellow striped one?”
    Jan let out a wail and turned her face into the pillow.
        Jan’s bed was still pushed up against the window. When she woke the next morning, Wijic was astride her arm, kicking her as if her arm were a fat horse.
    “Wake up! Wake up!” he was squeaking. “I’ve found her!”
    Jan shook Charlie awake and they both jumped out of bed. “Where?” they cried. “Show us! Quickly!” And they started rushing about, trying to get dressed in a hurry; but Wijic was too impatient for that.
    He pointed his two forefingers at them and shouted, “Dijiwig!” and they found themselves fully dressed and with their coats on. It was the first bit of actual magic they’d seen and they both felt rather stunned, but Wijic was appearing and disappearing as he danced up and down on Jan’s shoulder, crying, “Come on, come on!” So they hurried out of the house.
    It was still very early, and it was a freezing cold, misty morning. No one was about. Wijic grabbed Jan’s scarf and flew ahead, pulling at her to follow.
    “Where are we going?” Charlie asked, panting after them.
    “Not far! Up on the common!”
    “Jan can’t walk that far. Let’s go by car,” said Charlie.
    Wijic stopped so suddenly that Jan bumped into him.
    “Oh yes! Much more fun than flying,” he said.
    So they got the car out of the garage. Wijic insisted on sitting on Charlie’s hand as he steered, and kept shouting, “Wheee! This is great!” every time they turned a corner.
    “
Is
she in a wasps’ nest?” asked Jan anxiously.
    “Yes.”
    “How brave of you to find her!”
    “Oh,” said Wijic, “I didn’t find her. I asked a pal of mine, a gnome. Their skins are so thick they don’t care about wasps. They don’t care about anything much. I had to promise to do something for him.… Well, never mind that. He got the other gnomes on to it, and at midnight they sent a runner to tell me they’d found her.”
    They had reached the common by now. It all looked pale, frozen and mysterious. The air was very cold, and the ground was icy. Charlie held Jan’s arm carefully as Wijic, holding Jan’s scarf so as to stay visible, led them, with wings whirring, to a stunted oak tree in a snowy hollow.
    If the Fairy Queen had wanted to make sure Tiki would never be rescued, at least by a human being, she had chosen the right place. The oak tree stood in the middle of masses of blackberry bushes. Their trailing briars, bristling with sharp thorns, spread in all directions. When Charlie and Jan came up to them, the highest briars reached their shoulders.
    “How are we going to get through this lot?” muttered Charlie.
    “We should have