Edie and the Box of Flits

by Kate Wilkinson

  ‘Edie!’ Benedict was on his way up the narrow stairs. ‘What are you doing up here?’ She swung round as he appeared in the doorway, trying to think of a reason to be there, wanting so much to tell Benedict that Vera had magically vanished from the storerooms and to ask him if birds ever flew down drains.

  Before she could say anything, Benedict held up a green leather glove.

  ‘Is this what you were looking for? I found it behind the photocopier.’

  ‘Yes! Yes, it is.’ Edie took it from him and gently closed her hand over its leathery fingers. She turned away from Benedict so that he couldn’t see her peeping inside. Nid was deep in the pocket of the thumb hole. He gave a small wave.

  Benedict spoke again. ‘Edie, I don’t know why you’re up here poking around in Vera’s desk, but you should come downstairs. Your dad’s back and it’s not good news.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Baker Street

  ‘A

  s from tomorrow, Ursula’s suspended me,’ Dad said. ‘And the office is closed for the rest of the day.’

  ‘We’ll clear the mess up, Dad, I promise,’ Edie said.

  ‘Is she FURIOUS about all the valuables?’ asked Benedict.

  Edie decided that he was enjoying the drama a little too much.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dad.

  Edie felt a horrible chill. This was getting worse by the minute. She went over and covered Dad’s hand with her own. ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ she said. ‘This is all my fault. We’ll sort everything out and prove to Ursula that you can be manager again.’

  ‘Quick as a flash of lightning!’ Benedict added.

  Dad smiled weakly, but Edie could see that he didn’t believe her. He looked pale.

  Benedict patted him on the arm and pointed to the slogan on his T-shirt. Don’t Let the Muggles Get You Down.

  Edie stood up. ‘Dad, I think you should have a rest for the remainder of the afternoon. We’ll clear up.’

  ‘I do feel a little faint,’ said Dad, allowing himself to be helped through to a small staffroom at the back of the office. He lay down on the sofa and sipped a mug of sweet tea. Within minutes he had fallen asleep.

  *

  For the next few hours Edie and Benedict swept and mopped and cleaned and re-sorted every single item, putting them all back on the shelves. They made sure every shard of glass was picked up, they unjammed the photocopier and stuck the We Find What You’ve Lost poster back on the wall. Once Nid was reassured that the magpins had gone, he climbed out of the glove and collected all the spilled buttons and paper clips. He also found a single green feather by the rack of umbrellas that he gave to Edie. She could see straight away that it matched the one on Vera’s hat.

  It was late afternoon when they finished and almost dark. Edie carefully put Nid back inside her coat pocket where he promptly fell asleep. She was alone in the main office, wiping up the last of the spilt milk as Benedict had gone to put the brooms away and check up on Dad, when the bell rang on the front desk.

  A boy was standing there in a hoodie that was a bit small for him and trousers with a lot of pockets. His arms seemed too long and poked out of the sleeves and he had curly dark reddish-brown hair.

  ‘Have you come to report something missing?’ Edie said. She picked up a pencil and a new form to take down his details just as she had seen Benedict do.

  ‘Yes,’ said the boy. ‘I think it was left on the Underground.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘A box. A large wooden box with a lock.’

  Edie felt her heart bumping against her ribs. She looked up and stared at him. Could this boy be Charlie?

  ‘What was inside?’ she said slowly, pretending to scribble down some notes on the report form.

  ‘I-I can’t really say what there was exactly,’ the boy said.

  At that moment Dad appeared in the doorway, looking a little more like his usual self. He was pulling some keys out of his pocket. ‘We’re closed, I’m afraid,’ he said to the boy.

  ‘He’s reporting something missing,’ said Edie, but Dad was firm.

  ‘I’ve had quite enough today, Edie. Someone else on the team will have to deal with it. You and I won’t be here for a while.’

  ‘But, Dad!’

  ‘No buts, Edie. Sorry, young man. You’re too late. You’ll have to come back another time.’ He opened the door and ushered the boy out.

  ‘Did you say your name was Charlie?’ Edie called after him.

  The boy turned back and looked at her strangely. ‘I didn’t say anything about my name, but yes my name is Charlie. Charlie Spring.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Alexandra Park Road

  D

  ad sat like a crumpled dishcloth at the breakfast table. His shoulders sagged as he scraped his burnt toast. Edie had got up first thing to mop the kitchen floor and lay out breakfast and to walk Bilbo round the block. Her maths homework was laid out on the table. She was trying to make amends.

  ‘I’ll be late back from school today, Dad,’ she said.

  ‘Edie, you are forbidden from going to the Lost Property Office for the rest of the week.’

  ‘I know, Dad, but it’s trampoline club today.’

  It wasn’t altogether a fib, as trampolining club was on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but she wasn’t actually going. She couldn’t let another day go by with Jot and Flum missing and Impy and Speckle stuck with Juniper. She had to prove to Nid that she wasn’t giving up on them and the one thing she could do was ask Charlie Spring for his help. She knew now that he cared as much about the flits as she did, because he had come all the way to the Lost Property Office to find them.

  ‘All right,’ said Dad. ‘But be home by six.’

  He fondled Bilbo’s ears and looked out of the window. Edie knew he was wondering what he was going to do all day.

  *

  The school day was dragging on and on. At break time Edie sat on her usual bench over by the science block and watched a knot of Year Nines play basketball. Nid was in the front of her bag but had kept his promise to stay hidden.

  In the distance she could see Linny and one of the other Year Seven girls. Linny was pretending to walk up and down as if she were on a fashion catwalk. She swung her ponytail from side to side. Edie noticed that it looked shorter than before and wondered if the chewing gum had anything to do with it.

  The bench creaked slightly as someone sat down beside her. It was Naz, and she was slightly out of breath.

  ‘Hi, Edie. Do you always sit here?’

  Edie immediately felt defensive. ‘Not always,’ she said.

  ‘Did you like the chocolate spider?’

  ‘It was OK,’ Edie said, and half smiled.

  There was an awkward pause. Edie remembered how she had felt on the bus and was about to say something else when she noticed Linny and the other girl walking across the playground towards them. Linny began to exaggerate her footsteps and sashay her hips.

  ‘Did you tell them I was here?’ Edie said. She felt cross and prickly as once again she doubted Naz.

  ‘No. I promise I didn’t, Edie. I left my jumper in the science block and I saw you through the window. I’d been wondering where you go during break.’

  Now both Linny and her friend were doing the fashion catwalk and then they waved their feet at Edie as if they were making fun of her shoes again.

  ‘What do you want?’ Edie said.

  ‘I just wanted to say –’ Naz waved her hand towards Linny – ‘that she’s not as great as she thinks she is.’ There was a pause and then she continued. ‘Please can we do something together? Maybe on Saturday morning?’

  Edie looked at Naz. ‘With Linny?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Naz. ‘She’s going to the high street with some of the girls. It’s a bit boring. We could go to the pool. You know, like we used to?’

  For a moment Edie wanted to say yes. She longed to go swimming with Naz and forget all about Juniper, to do backflips off the edge and make face
s at each other underwater, but then she thought of how the term had begun. Naz had been part of all that.

  She felt uncomfortable and confused, but her real friends were in trouble. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’m doing something else.’

  For a moment Naz looked hurt but then she shrugged her shoulders. ‘All right. Another time maybe?’

  Edie said nothing. It was easier that way.

  ‘See you.’

  As Naz left Edie looked down at her phone. @JunipBerry’s Instagram account was active again. She lifted Nid out of her bag and together they looked at the posts. Speckle was wearing the pixie suit and sitting on a toadstool and Impy looked furious in a strange tutu dress. The caption read: Be ready, believers. Not long until my big fairy show.

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Nid.

  ‘The big fairy show.’ Edie felt panic grip her chest. What did it mean? Maybe Impy and Speckle were going to be sold to a collector? Only two more lessons to go and they could go to High Barnet again. Edie felt sure that if she could find Charlie Spring he would help them.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  High Barnet

  I

  t was dusk by the time they reached High Barnet and the lights were on all over Charlie’s house. She rang the doorbell and Ivan answered. He took one look at Edie and her school uniform.

  ‘You again. You want Charlie, I suppose,’ he said in a bored voice and called up the stairs.

  The boy who had come to the Lost Property Office jumped down the last three steps and came to the door. He had taken off his school jacket and shoes and Edie could see his odd socks. He looked at her strangely as if he knew he had met her somewhere before but couldn’t place her.

  ‘My name’s Edie Winter,’ Edie blurted out. ‘My dad works at the Lost Property Office and it was me who you spoke to last night. My dad told you to come back?’

  He nodded quickly. ‘Yes . . . I remember,’ he said. ‘I went early this morning before school, but they said the box they had listed had gone missing. Have you found it?’

  ‘Sort of . . .’ said Edie. She was beginning to shiver in the damp night air. ‘Is there somewhere we could go . . . to talk?’

  Charlie looked over his shoulder. His mum was in the kitchen and Ivan was draped over a sofa in the sitting room watching TV.

  ‘What about your shed?’ Edie said.

  ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘Because I know that’s where you kept the flits,’ Edie said quietly.

  Charlie looked startled and stared at her. Then, for the first time, he grinned. ‘Come on then.’

  Picking up his shoes and a torch, he led her down the side gate to the garden shed. The shed was quite large. It smelt of pine and was dry and warm, if a bit cobwebby. Rows of flowerpots filled two shelves. Edie jumped at a huge bird with frozen staring eyes and pointed ears that was looking at her from the back of the shed. Charlie shone the torch at it. Its body was like a windsock with feathers painted on it, and its wings lifted slightly in a draught from the window.

  ‘That’s Mum’s Prowler Owl. It’s not real. It scares the pigeons in the garden. Look.’ Charlie picked up the Prowler Owl by its pole handle and, pumping it up and down, he made the wings flap convincingly. It was so real that Edie drew back, banging her elbow on a pile of flowerpots. Charlie put it down and pulled out two old garden chairs. He sat in one of them, looking up at her expectantly.

  Edie sat down and unzipped the front pocket of her bag. ‘Nid? You can come out.’

  Nid scrambled out of the pocket and cartwheeled across Edie’s lap. He leapt onto Charlie’s knee and did a star jump.

  Charlie gasped. ‘You found them!’

  ‘Well, not quite,’ said Edie, but Charlie wasn’t listening.

  He was holding out his hand for Nid to jump onto. ‘When I got home and heard that Mum had cleared out the shed and given the box to Ivan I thought I would never see them again,’ he said. ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ said Edie, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘I-I’ve lost them.’

  Edie told Charlie everything from the moment she saw the box on the Tube train with Impy inside it to Juniper and the fairy show, and Vera Creech, the spy bird and the strange invasion of magpins at the Lost Property Office. The story tumbled out of her and she felt almost light-headed with the relief of being able to tell someone else.

  ‘I’ve ruined everything,’ said Edie. She showed Charlie the Instagram picture of Speckle and Impy with Juniper’s latest caption about the fairy show.

  ‘No, you haven’t,’ said Charlie matter-of-factly. ‘We’ll get them back. Let’s send Juniper a message asking where the “fairy show” is.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Edie. ‘She’d guess it was me. I don’t want her to know that I’m even looking at these pictures.’

  ‘Yeah, but she doesn’t know who I am,’ said Charlie. He pulled his own phone out of his pocket and posted a message.

  I’m a believer, @JunipBerry. Where’s the show? @CSpring

  Charlie placed his phone face up on the shelf, and for a few minutes there was nothing. Charlie picked up his skateboard and pushed Nid around on it and Edie tried to avoid looking at the Prowler Owl in case it had moved. The phone lit up and gave a light ping. Juniper had posted a slightly fuzzy image of an advert.

  Winter Fair

  Frederick Hall, Crystal Palace

  Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 November 10 a.m.

  Come and marvel

  Small Worlds and Magical Places

  Bring all the family

  At the bottom Juniper had posted the caption: My mum’s friend runs it and she’s given me MY OWN ‘fairy show’. See you there @CSpring.

  ‘So that’s what she means by the “fairy show”,’ said Edie. ‘And it’s this weekend.’

  ‘And that’s how we’ll get them back,’ said Charlie.

  Chapter Thirty

  High Barnet

  I

  t was Nid who reminded them there was something else they could do now.

  ‘We could see if Jot’s left a message?’

  They ran together down the pathway with Nid clinging to the seam of Charlie’s pocket. It was nearly dark and the station was almost deserted. Edie checked her watch. Four forty-five. She would easily be home by six. One train sat at the platform with its doors open, waiting to go, as Edie showed Charlie Jot’s name. The sugar was still there, uneaten.

  The train driver stuck his head out of the cab. ‘You comin’?’ he shouted.

  ‘No thanks,’ said Charlie.

  The train doors clattered shut and it pulled out of the station. Rain started to fall in big sloshy drops.

  ‘I’ll keep checking,’ Charlie said. ‘I can come every day.’

  Nid clambered down onto the bench, and pointed to some faint scratchy writing just above it. It looked as if it was written by the stub of a pencil. Charlie flicked on his torch and they crowded round the wall.

  Jot is a prisoner. Magpins got him. He is at Wilde Street Station.

  They scoured the wall, looking for other messages or some other sign. Who had written this?

  ‘Where’s Wilde Street?’ said Charlie.

  There was an Underground map further up the platform and Charlie and Nid began tracing the different coloured lines to find Wilde Street Station. Edie thought she knew the names of almost every station, but this one confused her.

  She noticed a forgotten umbrella lying on the bench and picked it up, thinking how it might please Dad if she found something for the Lost Property Office. The rain was now heavy and sliding down the back of her neck, so she slid the umbrella out of its cover and tried to open it. It jammed slightly so she ran her hands down the spokes, and her fingers caught on something. Curled round a spoke and fast asleep was another flit.

  ‘Charlie! Nid!’ she called out.

  The umbrella swung in front of her like an empty teacup. A drop of rain fell on the flit and it woke up. It was a girl flit not much
older than Impy. Her hair was sculpted into spikes and there was a smear of dirt across her cheek. When Charlie loomed into view the flit pulled out a needle from her backpack and pointed it at them.

  ‘It’s OK!’ said Edie. ‘We’re not going to hurt you. We were looking for Jot.’

  ‘Jot?’ said the flit. The needle wavered slightly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Edie. ‘Was it you who wrote on the wall?’

  ‘Might have been,’ said the flit. On her chest Edie could see an F7 badge.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘It’s Edie.’

  The flit said nothing, so Nid slid into the bowl of the umbrella and stood up beside her.

  ‘This is Jot’s brother,’ said Edie.

  The rain was getting heavy and drenching the flits.

  ‘Shall we go somewhere dry?’ suggested Charlie.

  The flit gave a tiny nod, so Edie carefully folded up the umbrella with the new flit and Nid inside and they returned to Charlie’s shed.

  *

  ‘I’m hungry,’ the new flit said as she settled cross-legged on a flower pot. ‘Got any fried chicken scraps?’

  ‘Didn’t you eat the sugar we left for Jot?’ Nid said.

  ‘Nope. Don’t like sugar.’

  Nid looked at her, amazed.

  Charlie dug in his pockets, pulling out string, a head torch, a spanner and a packet of mini cheese biscuits. He offered one to the new flit and she stuffed one in her mouth, filling her cheeks like hamster pouches.

  ‘Can you tell us your name now?’ asked Edie.

  ‘It’s Elfin,’ she said between mouthfuls. ‘I live in the vaults at Waterloo Station.’

  She took another biscuit from the packet. ‘Jot told me about you,’ she said, pointing at Nid. ‘He said he had a sister too and a twin brother.’

  ‘Where did you meet him?’ Edie asked before Elfin could say anything else.