The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home Read Online Free PDF

on her head and how much she did, finally, miss home and her parents and that silly, daffy dog and the big rude roan at the Killory farm and her school with its nice, safe, quiet essays to be written and equations to be solved. The smell of flowers in her nose got so thick and heavy that September couldn’t breathe. She wanted to sit down. She wanted to sleep for a hundred and fifty years. She wanted her father. She wanted to have nothing to do today but fix an old fence. She wanted her mother to appear and fix everything for her, to just take it all over and make the decisions and sweep up all the nastiness into a bin. Her mother would make a good Queen, September thought. Her mother wouldn’t blink.
    But the Stoat of Arms would not let September rest. Her mother did not appear. The stoats nipped at her heels; the human girl pushed at her back; the unicorn whinnied softly; the chickens grumbled; and the Fairy on top kept tossing shimmers from her tiny wand to mark the path. September squeaked, trying to breathe in the perfume and the gloam, but the chickens squeaked louder.
    Finally, they came to a plain, round door in the lush wall. It didn’t have a knob in the shape of a magical flower. It didn’t have any copper or gold or little rubies in it. It was just a few birch-trunks slapped together, hardly even a door at all. It reminded September of the janitor’s closet in her old school, full of mops and bleach and napkins, never meant to be noticed among the classrooms.
    The Stoat of Arms bowed slightly. It couldn’t manage more than a slight bow, being made of two stoats, three roosters, three silver stars, a little girl, a unicorn, and a Fairy. More than a little bow was simply too much choreography. “If you please, madam. The Royal Closet will only open to the hand of the Queen.”
    September’s curiosity swept aside her worry. Her curiosity had always lorded it over most of the rest of her, and by now, it was mightily accustomed to getting its own way. September put her hand flat on the pale birches. She didn’t know whether to push or pull, and didn’t want to make a fool of herself by getting it wrong. But in the end, the door swung inward as soon as it felt her fingers land. Within, she saw only a wide, soft darkness.
    â€œWe shall wait here for you, Your Majesty,” said the Stoat of Arms, and all of the creatures that made up the Stoat of Arms bowed as one.
    September reached out one hand and scratched Rex behind one ear. Rex felt quite, quite humiliated, but he did not protest, for a Queen has the right to pet anyone she likes. “You don’t have to be so formal with me. We have met before, you know.” Which was how she knew he hated being scratched.
    â€œHave we?” The Stoat of Arms wrinkled its several noses doubtfully. “I’m sure we would remember.”
    â€œOh, I’m terribly easy to forget!” September said airily, and smiled a much older woman’s smile, the sort of smile a girl learns on the back of years of holding her tongue. “When Madame Tanaquill and Charlie Crunchcrab locked me away in the Redcaps’ cellar, you were having a cup of punch and chatting up an undine. Come now! You must remember! It was the night of the Summer Sabbat and I’d only just come back from the Moon. My friend, the Vicereine of Coffee, swiped an invitation for me. I do have so many friends in Fairyland these days, it’s quite extraordinary! Saturday and I drove across the Wishbone Wastes in my darling Model A Ford Aroostook while Ell flew gaily overhead. It was our favorite way to travel. We all arrived at the border of the Candelabra Desert just as the sun set. How the lanternweeds blew in the summer wind! How the absinthe cacti bubbled and overflowed! How beautiful all the Fairies shone and spun! They were everything I could have imagined. Their wings glittered like all my old dreams. And I saw you nibbling on a great huge