Rosy and the Secret Friend

by Margaret McNamara

  “Oh, Rosy,” said Louisa. “I’m so sorry about yesterday.”

  “No, I’m sorry!” said Rosy. “Of course you should meet my sisters. You should meet all the fairies. But first we have to get you out of here.”

  “Rosy! Leave her and come home!” Clara called.

  “Go, Rosy,” said Louisa. “Go now before they send you away from Sheepskerry Island. I’ll be okay. I’m sure of it.”

  “Rosy! Now!”

  With heavy tears in her eyes, Rosy turned and left Louisa. She followed Clara home.

  seventeen

  “You are a disgrace,” said Clara as they swiftly flew toward Cathedral Pines. It was the worst thing she had ever said to her sister. “I’m ashamed of you. You’ve betrayed us all. I’m only glad that no one else knows your secret.”

  Rosy scarcely heard her. What if no one realized Louisa was missing, or just thought she was safely curled up in her room with a book? “I’m proud that Lulu is my friend!” she cried.

  “No Summer Child can be your friend!” said Clara.

  “That’s not true!” said Rosy. “Tinker Bell was a good friend to a Summer Child. Lulu’s own grammie gave Tink the pink shell on our mantel, Clara. There was a time when children played with fairies, and fairies were their friends. It can be like that again.”

  “No, it can’t!” cried Clara. “That time has gone!”

  “You’re wrong, Clara. You’re wrong!” Rosy’s voice was hoarse and choked. “I’m going back.”

  “Rosy, no!”

  But Rosy had already flown off, into the teeth of the storm.

  Louisa was not where Rosy had left her. She looked out into the bay, but all she could see were the tails of the mermaids as they played in the wild waves. The mermaids loved storms, for storms brought treasure.

  “Lulu! Lulu!” called Rosy. “Lulu, where are you?”

  She heard a faint voice. “Rosy! You came back!”

  Louisa had taken shelter behind a huge rock. “I’m trying to get my crutch,” she said. “It’s down on the beach.”

  “Don’t go out any farther!” called Rosy. “I’ll get it for you.” Rosy didn’t know how she could do it, though. The crutch was too heavy. And the tide was higher than she’d ever seen it.

  “Let me see if I can drag it up,” said Rosy, as the first hard raindrops began to fall.

  Rosy heaved and hauled, but she could not get the crutch to budge. “I need help, and I’m not going to get any. There’s only one thing for it—I’ll have to fly back to your cottage and show myself to your parents.”

  “But they don’t believe in fairies. Your voice will just sound like a wind chime to them.”

  “I’ll make them understand! I’ll make them understand somehow!” Rosy was crying now. How had things gotten into such a terrible mess? She flew down close to Louisa. “I don’t know what will happen, Lulu. But I’m so glad you are my secret friend.”

  “Me too,” whispered Louisa. “Me too.”

  Just then they heard a sound they could scarcely believe. The sound of beating wings. Many, many beating wings. It couldn’t be the birds—they were hiding from the storm. It couldn’t be the bees—they were safely in their hive. That meant it could only be—

  “Clara! Goldie! Sylva! You’ve come to save us!”

  “Not just us, Rosy!”

  Behind the Bell sisters came an army of fairies. Iris, Susan, and Poppy Flower, the Bakewells, the Blossoms, all the Cobwebs, and the Jellicoes, even Julia. “Where’s Squeakie?” cried Rosy.

  “She’s safe with Daisy Flower,” said Clara.

  “All these fairies have come to help . . . me?” asked Louisa.

  “Yes, and we must make quick work of it,” said Clara. “If we all pull together, we’ll get you back to the cottage before the storm gets worse. Come on, fairies!”

  Like a swarm, the fairies flew down to the beach and landed on Louisa’s crutch. Sylva and Poppy were holding hands.

  “Now, lift! Together!” cried Clara. And together, they heaved up Louisa’s crutch, just moments before it was swept out to sea.

  “Heigh-ho!” sang the mermaids. “A few more laps of the waves and it would have been ours,” they wailed. “We had plans for that crutch. We were going to use it to bargain with a pirate for gold doubloons.” Then they flipped back into the roiling sea.

  The fairies flew Louisa’s crutch back up to her as the rain came down in sheets. It was very hard work. Rain slows a fairy down like nothing else on earth. “Let me help you, fairies. Perch in my pockets and I’ll get you to shelter.”

  The fairies, nervous as they were, knew they had best do as she said.

  “We’ll take refuge in your cottage till the worst of the storm is over,” said Clara. “It’s the only thing we can do now.”

  There’s an expression from the old days, “Safe as houses,” but houses don’t feel so safe in a storm such as this. The trees all but break their backs in the wind. The sea rages and roils. The rain pelts down on the roofs and drowns out every thought. Branches break. Forgotten deck chairs topple over and blow across the lawns.

  “Almost there,” said Goldie, who had taken a place in Louisa’s front pocket. “I, for one, will be happy when this is over.”

  Louisa stopped on the porch of White Rose Cottage.

  “Is that you, Lulu?” called her mother. “I know you’re doing great with your crutches, but don’t go out in this storm.”

  “Oh, I won’t, Mom,” said Louisa. She could feel the fairies shivering in her pockets, and she knew it wasn’t from cold.

  “It’s all right, sweet fairies,” she said. “No harm will come to you here.”

  The fairies huddled together in the tiny storeroom next to the White Rose playroom. They toweled off with washcloths provided by Louisa, and blew on one another’s wings till they were perfectly dry. The storm raged for hours. Only the sound of Louisa’s sure voice reading the story of Tinker Bell and Peter Pan got them through it.

  At last, as the day ended, the setting sun broke through the clouds. The sea sparkled, and the whole island was as green as an emerald. The day, which had started so tumultuously, ended in peace.

  “Fairies, all,” said Clara. “The storm has passed. Time to fly back home.”

  eighteen

  “Our fairy houses,” said Blanche Cobweb. “They’re gone.”

  Cathedral Pines was in ruins, but the houses weren’t quite gone, as Blanche at first thought. In a way, what was left was worse. The Bell sisters’ roof was on top of the Flower sisters’ chimney. The Bakewell sisters’ ovens were a heap of rubble. The Jellicoes’ jars of jam were smashed against the rocks. And the few precious items that did remain were smeared in mud.

  “It will take a long time—all the way till winter—to rebuild,” said Clara as she picked up debris, “but we will get it done.”

  “I wish we had a little bit of magic to help us,” said Goldie.

  “Queen Mab will help,” said Sylva. “Just as soon as she hears what happened.”

  “Do you think Tink would come and bring her magic if we got a message to her?”

  “Maybe,” said Clara. But after hearing the story Louisa read, she was less certain than ever that Tink would come home.

  “I suppose we’ll have to start now.”

  And so the fairies got to work. They heaved branches and dragged leaves. They gathered moss for their lawns and stones for their paths. The younger fairies collected crockery and cutlery that had been swept up by the storm.

  Suddenly they heard a trampling through the woods. It got louder and louder.

  “It’s the Summer People!”

  “You said Louisa wouldn’t tell!”

  “She promised! She promised she wouldn’t say anything to anyone.”

  “Run, fairies, run for your lives!”

  But just as the fairies were about to fly away, Louisa’s voice rang out.

  “Rosy? Rosy! I’ve brought the other children. To help.”

  T
hrough the wet branches emerged the Summer Children. They were all there: six cottages, eighteen children. All looking around eagerly. All very quiet and respectful. All wanting to help.

  “Rosy, you saved my life, so now we can save your houses. We can help you if you’ll let us.”

  “Do you think we should let them?” asked Sylva.

  The children waited, still as statues.

  “I’m just not sure,” said Clara. “There are so many of them.”

  “What if they—”

  “Tsk-tsk!” said Squeak.

  “What did you say, Squeakie?” said Rosy.

  “Tsk-TSK!” cried Squeak.

  Rosy looked at Clara. Clara smiled.

  “You’re right, Squeakie!” Clara said. “Let’s do it!”

  At first the children were not very good at fairy-house building. They had never done it before, and they didn’t know how. A few of them recalled their grandparents (and a few parents) trying to teach them many long years ago, but since they hadn’t believed in fairies at the time, they remembered nothing.

  The Cobwebs and the Blossoms were shy around the Summer Children, but Golden Bell certainly had no trouble bossing them about.

  “Birch bark for the walls, you ninnies, not flaky sycamore,” she said. “Fetch some moss for our floors, please, and you boys, come move the stones into place in the garden.”

  As a result of Goldie’s confident direction, the Bell house was finished first. “Pah-pah!” cried Squeakie as she and her sisters flew back into their house, now sturdy and strong.

  “I am so happy to be snug at home,” said Sylva. “I think I’ll go see what Poppy’s house looks like.” And she flew out the door.

  Clara was just glad to have everything set to rights. Goldie was checking her wardrobe and her dressmaking supplies—all there. Rosy was watching with joy as the children helped the other fairies put their houses back together.

  “It seems the Summer Children are different than we thought they were,” said Clara as dusk fell.

  “I’m sorry I kept such a big secret from you, Clara.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to what you were trying to tell me,” said Clara. “They did believe in fairies after all. I hope we’ll meet more children like that someday.”

  nineteen

  August, which usually dragged by so slowly, hastened to its end. After the storm, the weather was crystal clear, and on Leaving Day the sky was a heartbreaking blue.

  Louisa couldn’t quite run down the boardwalk to the dock, but she moved so fast it was hard to believe she still had a cast on her foot. “You’re so much better!” cried Rosy.

  “I know! And I get this dumb cast off as soon as we get home!” She was smiling broadly. “It’s all thanks to you and your kindness,” she added. “Now I have a wonderful new friend on Sheepskerry Island.”

  “I wonder if you will be able to see us again next year, when you come back,” said Sylva. For all her boldness, she was still a little wary of Louisa and the Summer Children.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” asked Louisa.

  “Sometimes children grow too old to believe in fairies,” said Goldie. “They think the beating of our wings is just sunlight glinting. They think the music of our voices is just wind chimes blowing. Maybe it won’t happen next year, but—”

  “It never happened to my grammie, and it will never happen to me,” said Louisa.

  Clara just smiled.

  “Here, I want you to have this.” Rosy had rescued Tink’s pink shell from the wreckage of the storm. “Your grammie gave this to our family. Now we’re giving it back to you. As a thank-you for rebuilding our houses.”

  “And bringing back the trust between the fairies and the Summer Children.”

  “Next year, we won’t need to have secrets from each other.”

  The fairies lined up on the white railings down by the dock and waved good-bye to the Summer Children. The Summer Children waved back. Their parents just batted at their hair and ears, as if mosquitoes were buzzing.

  The ferry driver started the motor, and the ferry, low in the water with its cargo of Summer People, pulled out from the dock.

  “Good-bye, Rosy!” called Louisa.

  “Don’t you mean, good-bye White Rosy Cottage?” asked her mother.

  Louisa grinned.

  “Bye-bye, Lulu!” called Rosy. “See you next year, I hope!”

  Clara, Golden, and Sylva waved till the ferry was just a speck on the diamond waves of the bay. Clara looked around and allowed herself a contented smile.

  “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live on the mainland,” said Golden.

  “Not me,” said Sylva. “I think it’s terrific to have the island to ourselves again. I can’t wait till Queen Mab comes back so we can tell her all about our adventure.”

  “Somehow,” said Clara, “I think she’ll already know.”

  The Fairy Bell sisters stretched their wings and turned to leave. “Coming, Rosy?”

  Rosy was still watching the open water, though the ferry had all but disappeared. “I’ll just stay a bit longer,” said Rosy. “You go home. I’ll be there soon.”

  Rosy strained her eyes as she looked toward the horizon.

  “Good-bye, my secret friend,” said Rosy quietly as the boat disappeared from view. “I wonder what next summer will bring.”

  fairy secrets

  Squeak’s Words

  Hmm: The beach

  Wuh?: Can’t you do something?

  Dhaah: Dark

  Tsk-tsk!: Do it!

  Lay-lay-lay: They’re coming

  Pah-pah: Amazing

  Odeo: Oh, dear

  Ro-Ro: Rosy

  Squeak!: Oops! or Uh-oh!

  or Yay! or sometimes, Yikes!

  How to Build a Fairy House

  It takes ages and ages for fairies to build their own houses, so oh, how they love it when someone else does all the hard work for them! I’m told that if a child builds a fairy house with thoughtfulness and care, even if it’s in a busy city park or a sleepy backyard, fairies might be bold enough to move right in and stay for a good long time.

  What you’ll need to build a fairy house:

  Some twigs for the walls

  Acorns, chestnuts, shells, or other smooth objects for chairs and tables

  For the roof: birch bark if it’s handy; otherwise, good-looking leaves

  Moss, grass, or sand for a front lawn

  Pretty stones for a garden path

  Flowers for decoration (optional)

  Find a spot that fairies would like. (Usually, it’s the kind of spot that you would like.)

  Place the twigs into the ground in the shape of a house: either a square or a circle or a triangle or a rectangle, or something in between.

  Add furniture in whatever way you think would be most comfortable for fairies.

  Carefully lay the birch bark or leaves on top for a roof.

  Spread grass or moss or sand in front of the house for a lawn. Make a backyard, too, if you have enough space.

  Put the pretty stones in a line or a double line for a garden path. The path can be straight or it can weave around.

  Decorate with flowers, as many as you like.

  Send good thoughts out to the world, go to bed, and in the morning—if luck is with you—you’ll see signs that the fairies have come.

  A word to the wise: This may turn into quite a project, as once you build one fairy house, you might have to build a few more. Fairies are very neighborly and like to have lots of friends and family nearby.

  The Song of Sheepskerry Island

  An excerpt from

  Golden

  at the

  Fancy-Dress Party

  The Fairy Bell Sisters

  Book 3

  Queen Mab smiled. “My beloved fairy family,” she said. “Some exciting news! I’ve had word from my cousin on the mainland, Queen Titania.”

  “I hope it’s not bad news,” whispered Clara.


  Goldie’s wings quivered again. “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “To celebrate the season and to bring joy to the long autumn nights, Queen Titania is hosting a fancy-dress party on the mainland.”

  “The mainland?” said Goldie. Her heart skipped a beat. She had never been to the mainland. None of the Bell sisters ever had—except Tinker Bell, of course. It was three days’ flight from Sheepskerry, too long and too dangerous a journey for young fairies. Goldie kept her wings as still as she could. A fancy-dress party on the mainland? Why, she would give her wings to attend!

  “A fancy-dress party,” whispered Poppy Flower to her best friend, Sylva. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a dress-up party,” said Sylva. “Where you wear costumes.”

  “Ooh!” said Poppy. “I love to dress up!”

  Goldie did not say a word. She was the best at dress-up on the whole island. Everyone knew that.

  “Just one fairy from each island may attend the fancy-dress party,” said Queen Mab. Then she peered out and looked right at the Fairy Bell sisters. Quietly, she said to them, “Queen Titania hasn’t yet learned the lesson you taught us, Sylva, at the Fairy Ball.”

  Sylva blushed.

  Queen Mab’s voice grew loud again. “There will be a prize for the best costume in Fairyland. And Queen Titania has asked us to send one fairy from Sheepskerry to take part.”

  “Ooh, Goldie,” said Rosy. “No wonder your wings were quivering. You should go.”

  Goldie held her breath.

  “I’d like you all to think who would create a costume that will make Sheepskerry proud,” said Queen Mab. “I would rather show pride in our fairy island than win, as I’m sure you know.”

  Fern Stitch flew straight up to Queen Mab. The Fairy Bell sisters could not hear what she was saying, but later they heard about the conversation from Iris Flower, who heard it from Sugar Bakewell. “It’s true we are known far and wide for our tiny stitching and intricate patterns,” Fern had told the queen. “But all three of us think someone else should go to the mainland. Someone else who will make the best costume in the land.”