Michael shifted his weight and started scraping the sidewalk with his other foot. “Well, what do you think we can do about it, anyway?”
“I don’t know exactly,” said Ali, “but there has to be something. I want my wish as much as you do. We have to think of a way to help them without breaking any rules. What if we tell our parents?”
The door opened next to Ali, and Mr. Johnson, the vice principal, stuck his head out. “You kids need to get to class,” he barked.
“It won’t work,” said Jennifer. She wiped her eyes with one hand. “Mr. Johnson, our friends have been captured by evil fairies who love hair. What should we do?”
“Well, you should have finished the project before class. Now get inside!” He thrust the door open and waved them in.
“See,” Jennifer whispered, “we can’t tell adults about them.”
That explained the bit about the shampoo.
“That’s why you gave them to me, isn’t it,” said Michael. He loped slowly down the hall behind them, hands in his pockets. “You didn’t want any of your friends to end up like Molly.”
“I’m sorry,” Jennifer whispered.
“You better hope I get my wish.” Michael turned around and stomped back toward the door leading outside.
“Wait! Aren’t you going to help us stop the fairies?” Ali called after him, but he kicked the door open and barreled through. Where was the Michael who’d cared enough to warn Ali about the directions? She’d thought he cared about Mrs. Hopper, too.
“It’s too late for help with your project now,” said Mr. Johnson, waving both girls along. “Let’s get you two to class.”
“Only four shells?” Lockner swatted the girl-slave with his scroll.
“I’m so hungry,” said Molly. The pile of shells reached halfway to the top of Mrs. Hopper’s coat closet.
Tyler heaved his weight against the mousse bottle, sending a spray of white goop into the scrap of cloth that Molly was holding in front of her like a sheet. The force of the spray nearly toppled her over.
“You’ll have your hair when you’ve encrusted your ten shells,” said Lockner. “You!” He pointed to Tyler. “Chop chop!”
“Why do we have to do this?” asked Tyler. “Isn’t mousse supposed to go in girls’ hair?”
“Hair products enhance power,” said Lockner. He rolled his eyes. These children were so ignorant. But their shameful lack of education would come in handy. They’d never guess what the mousse and the shells were for. He smiled to himself.
Tyler picked up one end of the cloth, and the two slaves lugged it over to the next shell, the remains of a particularly large sea snail.
Lockner waited until Molly and Tyler had unloaded the contents of the cloth onto the shell, then slid haughtily under the closet door.
“Hair,” said Molly.
“Hair,” said Tyler.
Eight
“I’ll give you some hair,” said Crista. She was choking Teddy Tux almost as hard as Michael had.
“No, that’s not what I meant. I can get it some other way.” Ali was sitting at her desk, nervously fingering the direction sheet. It was blank again.
“It’ll be fine,” said Crista. “It grows back.”
Crista did have nice long hair. It wasn’t too thick, but it would still feed a fair number of fairies. Ali shook her head. “I don’t know.”
The door burst open, and Hannah stalked into the room. Her hair was a good six inches shorter than before. “Look!” she squealed. “I asked Mrs. Hopper for a little trim and she did this!” Hannah stopped mid-rant and glared at Crista. “We’ll talk about this later.” She turned and stomped out, slamming the door behind her.
Ali sighed. At least “Mrs. Hopper” hadn’t taken Hannah.
“See? You can’t take it from her again,” Crista observed.
“I know, but it’s not fair. I wish you could get something out of it. I’ll still pass them on to you if you want them.”
“If I want them? Ali, are you serious? You can’t pass them on to anyone! You just have to finish growing your flock and get out of this.”
“But the agreement says I have to pass them on,” said Ali. And after all this, I deserve to get my wish, she thought. But she knew better than to say that to Crista.
There was a knock on the closed window.
“What’s that?” Crista set Teddy down and walked over to the window. Her long, straight brown hair swooshed back and forth as she walked. It really was fine, beautiful hair, and the color was deep and pure, not muddled and mousy like Ali’s.
Crista peered out. “Is someone out there?”
“It’s probably Michael,” said Ali. “I don’t know why he can’t call. Just open it.”
Crista pushed the window open as far as it would go and stepped back toward the bed.
Branches rustled, there was a loud crack, and a boy fell into the room. It was definitely not Michael. Michael’s large frame would have made a much louder crash.
“Oof,” said the boy into the carpet.
“Who the heck are you?” Ali asked. She and Crista each took one of his arms and helped him up.
He brushed himself off, sending dirt and twigs floating down. Then he looked straight at them.
“Oh my—” Crista put her hand over her mouth and turned away.
Ali wanted to do the same, but she held herself back. The boy standing in front of them was absolutely the ugliest person she’d ever seen in her entire life. His nose was bulbous, and not just because it was so unthinkably large. It also housed the largest of the many zits that spread out across his face and down his neck. His eyes were crooked, his chin was lopsided, his cheeks were wrinkled, and his hair was thin and wispy, barely covering the flakes that dislodged from his head as he finished brushing the dirt off. Ali didn’t think she’d ever seen him before, but she knew that this level of ugliness wasn’t just an unfortunate combination of bad genes. This boy was the victim of a hex.
“You can tell, can’t you?” said the boy. “I never used to look like this—but no one else remembers. Please, you have to help me!”
Crista had managed to turn back around, and she cautiously removed her hand from her mouth. “What’s wrong with you?”
“It was Jonathan Yeager. Do you know him? He’s my cousin,” the boy said. “He’s in eighth grade. Anyway, he hates me for no reason, and he had me hexed! I saw you with your bun and I thought, that girl knows what’s going on. That girl can tell me how to get my own fairies so I can get my face back!”
“So you’re Jonathan Yeager’s cousin,” Ali said. “I’ve heard about you. You don’t go to our school, do you?”
“No, I live in Harrisburg,” said the boy. “My name’s Jared.” Harrisburg was a tiny town about ten miles away.
“Well, Jared,” said Ali, “I do need someone to give my fairies to, but it’s dangerous.” She told Jared about Mrs. Hopper and Tyler and Molly.
“I don’t care about any of that,” said Jared. “Look at me!”
“Can you even undo a hex?” asked Crista. “I bet you can’t.”
“Well, the list didn’t say anything about that,” said Ali. “They have to put it in the rules.” She picked up the piece of paper again and flipped it over to the side with the grease stain. The last time she had asked for the directions, writing had appeared on the paper. So why wouldn’t it work again? “Can you undo a hex against yourself or not?” she asked.
You must never tell any other child the contents of the directions.
YOU MAY SAY:
Read the directions.
Follow the directions.
Beware the directions.
“Well, what does it say?” asked Jared.
“Nothing,” said Ali. She flipped the paper over.
Improvements may include I’m-rubber-you’re-glue-bounce-off-me-and-stick-to-you-unhex-hex-backsies.
Anyone who would cast a hex deserves one.
The directions had answered Ali’s specific q
uestion. Interesting. But if she couldn’t tell Jared what the contents were, how was she supposed to tell him that he could get himself unhexed?
“Well?” asked Jared.
“You can have my fairies,” said Ali. “If you really don’t want them?” She raised her eyebrows at Crista.
“You can’t be for real.” Crista grabbed the pair of child’s scissors that Ali had rescued from her old school supplies. The scissors had been sitting on Ali’s pillow, waiting for her next foray into Hannah’s room. Crista pulled her hair around and began hacking off the bottom several inches.
“Crista, don’t,” said Ali.
“No, I don’t want the stupid fairies.” She kept cutting. “What kind of fairies hurt people like this? They’re not fairies, they’re little demons.”
“Oh, come on,” said Ali. She’d thought that, too, but she wasn’t going to say it out loud. “Demons don’t exist.”
“If fairies can exist, anything can,” said Jared. He scratched his bulbous nose.
Crista finished cutting, leaving her hair in a pile on the bed. It had been long enough that it didn’t look so different now. “One minute you want to save Tyler and Molly and poor old Mrs. Hopper, and the next you’re talking about passing the fairies on, so there’ll be even more fairies. Don’t you see how ridiculous that is?”
“He wants them,” said Ali. “Look at what Jonathan Yeager did to his face.”
“It’s not just my face,” said Jared.
Crista’s eyes opened wide, bulging almost like a fairy’s. “You’re lucky that’s all that happened to you! They have all these rules that are trying to trick you. You’ll end up as slaves or even worse. But neither of you cares what I think.” She pointed at Ali. “All you want is to be smart? Well, you need it! Maybe you should pass your fairies on. Maybe when you’re this big genius you can figure out a way to clean up this whole mess!” She stormed out of the room, slamming the door exactly like Hannah had.
“She’s probably right,” said Jared, “but I can’t live like this. My mom won’t even look at me.”
“I know,” said Ali. Crista was just trying to protect her. She’d given up all that hair. But she had to pass her fairies on, or Ali herself would end up a slave. And now this poor, hideous kid had come begging for help. By passing her fairies on, she’d be doing him a favor. “Write your phone number down.” She handed Jared her school notebook. “I’ll call you as soon as my flock is ready.”
“Oh, thank you! Thank you so much. I’ll pay you back somehow. I’ll help you with those other people as soon as I have my looks back.”
“You could help us now,” Ali said. “I’m trying to think of a way to rescue them and still get our wishes.”
“No way,” said Jared. “I’m not getting on those fairies’ bad side!” With that, he gave her a big, hideously ugly smile and climbed back out the window.
Great, Ali thought. He’s probably just as bad as Jonathan Yeager. After all, you couldn’t be hexed unless you deserved it. But she’d worry about Jared later. Right now, she had to think of a plan. She picked up the directions again.
“How can I save Tyler and Molly?” she asked.
“That was lovely hair, Pilose,” said Ringlet. They were sitting at the bottom of their second mound, having just made sure that all nineteen of their charges were safely asleep.
“Hmm.” Pilose watched the silent human house. She wished she were inside, not out here in the cold and dirt.
“Oh, come on,” said Ringlet. “It won’t be long now. All this discomfort will be worth it.”
“You think Bunny won’t come up with some other way to make us miserable, once she’s gotten what she wants?”
“Maybe,” said Ringlet, “but think about it! We’ll be the ones in that big house, sleeping in those nice warm beds, eating all sorts of yummy food. They’ll be the ones out here in the cold.”
“We wouldn’t have to eat hair at all if Bunny hadn’t botched that un-enslavement spell,” said Pilose, wrapping her arms around her bony knees. “‘A child’s hair,’ the directions said. Not a whole entire ponytail.”
“Well, would you rather still be a slave to the behavior of dirty little human children?”
“What are we now?” said Pilose. “Sitting here waiting until that urchin feeds us again. Yes, we complained about our lives as Divvy-imps. I complained as much as the next imp. Who wanted to be tied to children, being forced to reward them when they were good and punish them only when they were bad? But that was nature’s way, Ringlet. Children needed us to keep the balance, to divvy out life’s just deserts. And in exchange, we got to live inside with them, where it was warm. We had as much as we wanted to eat, and we never had to eat a strand of hair. We may have had to reward them for being good, but we got to dole out some nice punishments, too, didn’t we? The punishments made it worth it.”
“Hmm, there were some good ones,” said Ringlet.
“Remember when Hannah pulled Alison’s hair in a fight over a stuffed toy?” asked Pilose.
Ringlet chuckled. “We put some good knots in her hair after her next bath, didn’t we?”
“And when Alison hid Hannah’s favorite shoes until Hannah cried like a hyena?”
“Ah,” said Ringlet. “A nice, fat stubbed toe.” Both fairies smiled at the memory of Ali’s pain.
“See?” said Pilose. “There were some good times.”
“A stubbed toe, a bad hair day, a headache. It was all right, but it was minor magic,” said Ringlet. “Bunny can make us all big. Not like Follica, but real.”
“Big,” said Pilose. “I can think of better things to do with all that power.”
Nine
HOW TO RE-SIZE A REDUCED CHILD:
(1) Combine:
One full-sized human
One full can hairspray
(2) Mix ingredients in presence of child to be re-sized.
(3) Apply magic of 10 un-enslaved Divvy-imps.
Un-enslaved Divvy-imps? What on earth were they? Just as Ali was wondering, the entire (3) line disappeared and was replaced by:
Forget you saw that.
Which was replaced by:
(3) Apply magic of 10 fairies.
Hmm. Did that mean fairies and Divvy-imps were the same thing? And was Ali not supposed to know? If so, there had to be some way she could use it. Maybe Divvy-imps had some weakness, something Ali should know or could find out. She would have to think about that. But there was another issue. What would happen to the “full-sized human”? She didn’t want that person getting turned into a fairy slave. Unless, of course, the “full-sized human” was someone who deserved it.
What if she used Jonathan Yeager? That would be in the spirit of the directions about the hex. If anyone deserved to be turned into a fairy—or a Divvy-imp—it was the kid who’d done a hex himself. Still, there had to be a way that didn’t involve putting someone else in danger. And how was she supposed to get ten fairies to use their magic anyway?
Wait a minute, Ali thought. I’ve got a whole bunch of fairies right here in the backyard who need me to feed them hair. All she needed to do was rescue Tyler and Molly, and then she could force Pilose and the others to help them. And Ali knew exactly where Tyler and Molly must be—the “Kingdome,” also known as Mrs. Hopper’s hair salon.
She slammed the paper down on the desk and picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Michael? It’s Ali.”
“Oh.”
“‘Oh’? Don’t ‘Oh’ me. I’m calling because you have to help me. Tyler was your friend, wasn’t he?”
“Not really.”
“Come on. Tomorrow we’re going to get Jennifer and anyone else who can help, and we’re going over to Mrs. Hopper’s hair salon. At least we can take back Tyler and Molly, and then if we want to make them big, the directions said—”
“Don’t tell me!”
Ali cringed. “Right. So I’m going out to feed my fairies before school tomorrow. Meet me out the
re.” She slammed the phone down before he had a chance to say no. She didn’t have time to listen to him argue. She had a few more calls to make.
Meanwhile, at the Kingdome, the Divvy-imps (for that is what they still were, un-enslaved or not) were taking full advantage of their newfound freedom to have something they had always wanted—something they had been forced to watch children having for generation after generation, but that they could never have themselves. The imps were having a birthday party.
“And many more!
On hairy shore!
And hair for you!
For all you do!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”
The imps cheered.
Bunny bowed to the crowd from her perch on top of the salon chair, rustling her wrapping-paper dress. “Thank you, thank you! I’m so proud to celebrate another week as your Grand Miss Coiffure. Let the slumber party begin!”
Chattering noisily, the imps began dragging their beds out of the nooks and crannies where they’d been hidden for the day. Since the imps were super-strong for their size, this didn’t present too much trouble. In a few minutes, they had rows of bunk beds assembled on the salon floor. In Mrs. Hopper’s giant fake body, Follica watched the proceedings sullenly, wishing she could join the party. She would have to sleep upstairs in the real Mrs. Hopper’s apartment. It was all right, but it was very adult and not much fun.
“One, two, three!” cried Bunny. She raised her scepter and the rest of the imps raised their arms, and the bunk beds, which had been quite ordinary and sparse, were now covered with high canopies, light and silky and brightly colored. Orange streamers ran between the beds, and balloons the size of salt shakers rose above the imps’ heads.
Follica carried a bag of hair clippings to the center of the room, where the imps had left a large space. I’ve scrambled all over town to scrape up these clippings, Follica thought, and all without being able to talk. Not that they’d care to notice. She dumped the hair into the empty space.
Evil Fairies Love Hair Page 4
