Fairy Rescue Read online

  The other two fairies, who were standing with their backs to Maddie, were both blonde. One wore a white dress made from long thin daisy petals, and the other wore a yellow dress made of primrose petals. Their wings were almost transparent, like insects’ wings, except that they were much bigger and they sparkled. Maddie wondered if the yellow fairy was the same one she had seen flying through the woods the previous day.

  The fairy called Poppy was the first one to notice her standing there. ‘Uh-oh!’ she sang out in a warning voice, pointing at Maddie.

  The other two fairies turned to face her, looking alarmed.

  ‘Please don’t be frightened,’ Maddie said quickly. ‘I won’t hurt you. I love fairies!’

  ‘Oh – have you met some before then?’ Poppy asked swiftly. She seemed the boldest of the three, Maddie thought.

  ‘Well . . . no . . . but I’ve always loved the idea of fairies.’

  Poppy nodded as if she understood. ‘I used to love the idea of children,’ she said. ‘Before I met any, that is.’

  ‘Oh . . . don’t you like children any more?’ Maddie asked her in dismay.

  Poppy looked very solemn now, lowering her voice slightly, as if she was about to tell Maddie a secret. ‘You’ve heard of bad children pulling the wings off flies, haven’t you?’

  Maddie nodded, frowning. She had never actually seen anyone do that, but once a boy in the year above her at school had chopped an earthworm in half in the playground. That had made her feel quite sick.

  And that’s when Poppy spun round and Maddie saw that she had only one wing.

  Maddie was horrified. ‘Did a child do that to you?’

  Before she could answer, the other two fairies broke in.

  ‘Stop teasing her, Poppy!’

  ‘No one pulled off her wing – she was born that way!’

  ‘Why do you always have to be so silly about it, Poppy?’

  The other two fairies were glaring at Poppy, who didn’t seem the least bit ashamed of lying. In fact, she looked highly amused by the expression on Maddie’s face.

  Maddie felt cross for a moment, but then, all of a sudden, she thought she understood Poppy. After all, she knew what it was like to have everyone feeling sorry for you and treating you like you were different the whole time. ‘I expect you joke about it so that people don’t feel sorry for you, don’t you?’ she said.

  Poppy stared at Maddie in surprise.

  ‘I’m Maddie, by the way.’

  ‘We’re Primrose, Daisy and Poppy,’ the yellow fairy said. ‘We’re meant to be inviting all the woodland animals to our party tonight, and a very kind thrush just offered to give Poppy a ride through the woods on her back. But Poppy’s not allowed to ride on birds’ backs in case she falls off. Poppy can’t fly, you see.’

  Maddie looked at Poppy’s single wing and noticed that it wasn’t sparkling like the other fairies’ wings. ‘Can’t you fly at all?’ she asked her.

  Poppy shook her head. ‘The others have to carry me everywhere. But I don’t see why I can’t go for a ride on a thrush if I want to.’

  ‘We’ve already told you why!’ Primrose said impatiently. ‘Imagine how we’d feel if anything happened to you. And imagine what Queen Flora would say!’

  ‘Who’s Queen Flora?’ Maddie asked.

  ‘She’s our fairy queen,’ Poppy explained. ‘She fusses over me something rotten on account of my wing. She’s put Daisy and Primrose in charge of looking after me and I’m not allowed to go anywhere without them.’

  ‘Your fairy queen sounds a bit like my mother,’ Maddie said sympathetically. ‘She fusses over me because of my asthma and because when I was born—’ She broke off abruptly as she heard Grandpa calling her name. ‘I’d better go now, but . . .’ She hesitated, feeling very shy all of a sudden. ‘... I was wondering ... You know how you said you were having a fairy party to celebrate when the fairies first came to live in these woods?’

  ‘How do you know that’s what we’re celebrating?’ Primrose sounded suspicious. ‘We never told you that!’

  Maddie flushed. ‘My mum told me about it. You see, she came to a fairy party in these woods when she was a little girl. Her big sister brought her.’

  Daisy’s face lit up suddenly. ‘I think I remember those two little girls. The older one came and danced with us while her little sister slept the whole night. The little one didn’t believe in fairies – that’s why she didn’t wake up in the fairy grove.’

  Maddie stared at Daisy. ‘You actually remember them?’

  ‘Of course. Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Because . . . well . . . Mum and Aunt Rachel are grown-up now and you’re . . . you’re . . .’

  Daisy laughed. ‘I’m ancient,’ she said. ‘I may not look it, but I’m over a hundred years old. Fairies can live for a very long time, you know.’

  ‘Wow!’ Maddie was about to ask Poppy and Primrose how old they were when they heard Grandpa’s voice again. This time he sounded much closer. ‘I’d better go,’ Maddie said. ‘But if I come back to the woods tonight, will I be allowed to come to your party like my auntie and my mum did?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Poppy. ‘Come to the woods at midnight and we’ll be having our party here in the fairy grove. We’ll leave you a trail of fairy dust to follow so you can find us.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Maddie said, beaming at them. She was about to go when she remembered her manners. ‘Would you like me to bring anything to the party?’ she asked politely.

  The three fairies looked at each other, clearly delighted that she had offered.

  ‘CHOCOLATE!’ they sang out in unison.

  ‘Do fairies like chocolate then?’ Maddie asked in surprise.

  ‘Of course!’ Primrose told her. ‘All fairies love chocolate.’

  ‘And we can’t get it in fairyland,’ Poppy added, ‘which is why children can come in quite useful sometimes.’

  ‘Not that we only like children because they bring us chocolate,’ Daisy put in quickly.

  Maddie laughed. ‘Is fairyland where you live then?’ she said. ‘I thought you lived in the woods.’

  ‘Fairyland is in the woods, silly! It’s—’ Poppy broke off as Grandpa appeared round the corner with Milo. ‘Oops! Come on you two, we’d better go!’

  Maddie watched as the three fairies flew off into the tree tops – Daisy and Primrose on either side of Poppy with their arms linked through hers.

  Grandpa wasn’t looking very pleased. ‘Maddie, didn’t you hear me calling you? We’ll be late for lunch if we don’t go home now.’

  Maddie half-expected Grandpa to notice the fairies flying away, but he didn’t seem to be able to see them. Milo, however, was looking up into the treetops, barking and wagging his tail excitedly. Maddie almost told Grandpa everything, but something made her decide to keep it to herself, at least for now.

  On their way home they met Horace Hatter walking towards them along the path. He was carrying a butterfly net today, as well as his canvas backpack.

  ‘I thought you said he didn’t collect butterflies any more,’ Maddie whispered to her grandfather.

  ‘Well, that’s what he told me last time I asked him about it – said it was more his father’s thing, in any case – the butterfly-collecting.’ Grandpa grinned at Horace as they drew level. ‘Morning, Horace! Or is it afternoon by now?’

  Horace grunted something back at him, not sounding particularly friendly.

  ‘I didn’t know you still collected butterflies,’ Grandpa said. ‘Isn’t it illegal now?’

  Horace scowled at him. ‘I’m not looking for butterflies,’ he said curtly. And he stepped around them and marched on along the path.

  That night Maddie went to bed early and silently willed her mother to do the same. Her grandparents weren’t a problem, because they were always in bed with the light off by half past ten, but Mum sometimes stayed up much later. And if she did that tonight, Maddie was going to have trouble sneaking out of the house.

/>   Before she got into bed Maddie got changed – but not into her pyjamas. Instead she put on her best dress, the one she had brought with her to wear on her birthday. It was pink with yellow flowers on it and she had pink sparkly shoes to wear too. She was planning on wearing her sandals to walk to the party and changing into her sparkly shoes when she got there, so she put the shoes into her favourite glittery bag. Inside the bag she also put the chocolate she had bought for the party, which consisted of several packets of chocolate buttons and some chocolate-coated nuts. She reckoned the fairies would like the chocolate buttons, and that the nuts would be perfect if any squirrels had been invited – which she hoped they had because she loved squirrels.

  She lay down fully dressed under the covers and somehow managed to keep herself awake long enough to hear her mum go into her bedroom at just after half past eleven. Normally Maddie would be fast asleep by that time and she reckoned it must be the excitement that was keeping her so alert. In fact she was so excited that she forgot to take her inhaler with her as she picked up her bag and left her room to creep downstairs.

  She remembered the inhaler just as she was about to close the back door behind her, but as she crept back into the house to fetch it she heard movement on the landing. She stopped where she was. It was now or never if she wanted to leave without being caught. Silently she slipped out through the back door and tiptoed across the garden, certain that she wouldn’t need her inhaler in any case. After all, she usually only got breathless if she was upset or if she’d been running about too much – and she didn’t see that she’d be doing either at a fairy party.

  The moon was out so it was easy to see her way. There was a gate at the bottom of the garden that led into the woods behind the house, which was the way she and Grandpa always went when they took Milo for a walk. She was glad Milo wasn’t with her tonight because, much as she loved him, she was sure he would make too much noise. (Luckily he always slept in her grandparents’ bedroom so he hadn’t been in the kitchen to bark at her when she’d left the house.)

  The fairies had told her she would find fairy dust – whatever that was – to guide her to the party, so she started to look for it as she entered the woods. She was beginning to worry that she wouldn’t be able to see anything soon because the trees were blocking out the moonlight, but then she saw something on the path just ahead of her. It was an arrow made of sparkly dust!

  She followed the direction of the arrow – which meant stepping off the path – and immediately ahead of her she saw another arrow. It was on a tree trunk this time and it was giving off such a powerful glow that the area around it was completely lit up.

  There turned out to be a sparkly arrow on every second or third tree she came to, so it was impossible to mistake the direction she was meant to take.

  She had been following the sparkly arrows for about five minutes when they suddenly stopped. She could still see because the moonlight seemed to be penetrating the trees here, and she could hear the sound of the stream nearby. She guessed that she was quite near the fairy grove, but she couldn’t hear any noise that sounded like a party.

  Suddenly the moon disappeared behind a cloud and she was in total darkness.

  That was when she began to feel scared. There was clearly no party anywhere nearby, and even as her eyes began to grow accustomed to the dark she couldn’t see anything except the trees looming up around her. Had the fairies been playing some sort of trick on her? She felt her chest getting tighter and her breath seemed to be coming less easily. Automatically she felt in her pocket for her inhaler, but of course she didn’t have it with her.

  Just then a light appeared in the trees above her and a fairy she had never seen before appeared. Maddie gasped. The fairy was surrounded by a rainbow-coloured glow, and as she came closer Maddie saw that she was dressed in a magnificent multicoloured petal dress. She had beautiful sparkling wings and violet-petal slippers, and on her head was a crown made from forest flowers. Her delicate shawl was woven from the finest spider’s-web thread, which had been coated in morning dew to make it glisten.

  ‘I am Queen Flora – queen of the flower fairies,’ she said in a sweet, clear voice. ‘Are you Maddie?’

  ‘Y-y-yes,’ Maddie stammered, still struggling to breathe properly.

  The fairy queen saw at once that Maddie was distressed. ‘Don’t worry, you’re quite safe now,’ she said. And to Maddie’s surprise the fairy queen began to sing. It was some sort of fairy lullaby and it was so gentle and soothing that Maddie soon found that her breathing was coming a little easier.

  ‘I forgot my . . . inhaler,’ she whispered. ‘It . . . helps me breathe.’

  Queen Flora looked worried. ‘Where is this object? I will fetch it for you.’

  ‘It’s on the table . . . beside my bed. It’s a sort of . . . plastic . . . puffer thing. But I don’t . . . want you . . . to go.’ Her chest immediately felt much tighter at the thought of being left alone in the darkness.

  Queen Flora began to sing again until Maddie had become calmer. ‘Now sit here against this tree and close your eyes,’ the fairy queen ordered, ‘and keep that tune inside your head until I return. Which house do you live in?’

  Maddie told her.

  ‘Do as I say and I shall be back before you know it.’

  So Maddie did as she was told. She kept her eyes closed and played the lullaby over and over inside her head. It was almost as if the fairy lullaby was able to speed up time because, much sooner than she had expected, the fairy queen returned and was dropping her inhaler into her lap.

  Gratefully Maddie picked it up and put it to her mouth and as Queen Flora looked on she took in the puffs of medicine.

  ‘You know, you’re a very silly girl to come into the woods in the middle of the night without this object,’ the fairy queen said, when she was sure that Maddie was feeling better.

  ‘I forgot it because I was so excited about the fairy party,’ Maddie explained. ‘Poppy, Primrose and Daisy invited me, but I couldn’t find the party and then it went dark and I got scared.’

  ‘I’m afraid we have had to cancel the fairy party,’ Queen Flora said.

  ‘Oh no! Why?’

  Queen Flora looked solemn. ‘Poppy, Primrose and Daisy have disappeared. They didn’t return from the woods this evening after they came here to set up those arrows for you. We have looked everywhere for them, and while we were looking we found something very frightening.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come. I will show you.’ She led Maddie towards the sound of the stream, then stopped suddenly at one particular tree. ‘Look,’ she said, flying up to hover in front of it.

  The moon was fully out from behind the clouds and the trees had thinned out a little now that they were almost at the fairy grove. In the moonlight Maddie saw that one of the tree’s lower branches had been snapped off.

  ‘Under this tree we found a poppy petal,’ Queen Flora said.

  ‘From Poppy’s dress?’

  ‘There are no other poppies in these woods. But look what we found on the part of the branch that is left.’

  The branch wasn’t very high up. Maddie couldn’t see anything at first. Then she reached up and touched the surface. To her surprise she found that what remained of the branch was incredibly sticky. She pulled her hand away quickly and rubbed it on some nearby leaves. She gasped. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Bird-lime,’ Queen Flora told her. ‘It’s a very old method used to trap wild birds. The trapper spreads the bird-lime – which is very sticky – on a bird’s favourite perch and when the bird next sits there it gets the bird-lime on its feet or on its wings and it can’t move until it’s released by the trapper, who cleans the bird and puts it in a cage.’

  ‘But why would anyone want to do that?’

  ‘A long time ago a lot of people kept songbirds in cages in their homes, so there was quite a market in them. Now that doesn’t happen so much. But this trapper must be targeting fairies instead. This branch was a favouri
te spot for those three.’

  ‘But who would want to catch a fairy?’ Maddie exclaimed.

  ‘I have no idea, but I have called a meeting of the Fairy High Council to plan what we should do.’

  ‘That sounds important,’ Maddie said in an awed voice.

  ‘The Fairy High Council is a special group made up of all the fairy queens from across the country,’ Queen Flora explained. ‘We only meet if there is a very serious fairy incident to discuss.’

  ‘Will the meeting happen here?’ Maddie asked, thinking it might be a very interesting sort of meeting to attend.

  ‘It will take place on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, where the oldest flower-fairy community lives. The fairy queen there is called Queen Mae and she is a very good friend of mine. I shall go there at sunrise tomorrow, and while I am away I shall seal off the entrance to fairyland in these woods, to protect the rest of my fairies.’

  ‘Where is the entrance to fairyland exactly?’ Maddie asked curiously.

  ‘I think I have told you enough, my dear. Now it is time for me to go, but first I will escort you home.’

  Together Maddie and Queen Flora retraced Maddie’s earlier journey – with the fairy queen leading the way since the arrows had all gone. When they reached the bottom of Maddie’s garden the fairy queen said goodbye. ‘Keep a lookout for my missing fairies, won’t you?’

  Maddie promised that she would and immediately made up her mind to enlist Milo’s help the following day. After all, the police used dogs to help find missing people, so why shouldn’t she use Milo to help find the missing fairies?

  As Maddie crossed the garden she noticed a chink of light in the kitchen window and when she got to the house she peered inside through the gap in the curtains. Her mother and grandmother were sitting at the kitchen table and Grandma had her arm around Mum.