“I said, I took on attributes of an imp,” Ali repeated, louder. “I still have my fairy hair, and that means I still have at least one attribute, and that attribute is magic.” She reached out a hand to Michael. “Stop shrinking!” she cried.
Michael had shrunk a few more inches while she was figuring it out, but he didn’t shrink any more. He took a deep breath and stared down at his hands, then at Ali. “You’re taller than me!” As he turned his head back, his left eye began to grow.
“Stop!” Ali cried.
But the eye grew and grew until it was as large on his face as hers had been only a minute before. As large as a fairy’s.
He rubbed his eye. “Something itches.”
Ali’s fairy tuft of hair burned. Nothing else happened to Michael. He stood there, now shorter than Ali with one extremely large eye. Ali breathed a sigh of relief. At least she’d stopped him from getting tiny. But Michael didn’t seem relieved.
“No, no way! This can’t be real. It can’t be!” Michael pushed Ali aside and put his nose up to the mirror. “My eye! I’m so short!” He turned back toward the bed.
Pilose and Ringlet were standing on the side of the overturned unicorn. From this distance, Ali couldn’t see their expressions. The imps shrank back and held on to each other.
“What are you afraid of?” asked Ali, leaning over them. “What else is going to happen?”
“She fed us her own hair,” said Pilose. “The consequences are unknown.”
“Well, if it was such a big deal, why didn’t you stop her?” asked Ali.
“It was too late,” said Pilose. “You fed us her hair. We didn’t know she was going to start feeding us herself. Plus, we were hungry.” The fairy’s voice had sounded so grown-up and rational when Ali had been small, too. Now Pilose was sounding just as childish and whiny as she always had.
“Right! You were hungry and the consequences fall on us.”
“Ali.”
Ali spun around.
Crista’s eyes were growing.
Michael stepped back from her, as if it were catching.
“Crista!” Ali grabbed Crista’s shoulders and focused on her tuft of hair. Her head felt like it was on fire. “Hang on. Just . . . think big. You’re going to be—” Ali was holding on to thin air. “No! Crista?” She peered at the ground, but all she saw was carpet. “Crista!” She got down on her knees, careful to make sure that no fairy was in the way. She rubbed her hair, setting free her tiny bun. The tiny crop of hair stuck straight up like the plastic hair on her troll pencil. “Make her big again! Make her big again!”
“Oh my goodness,” said Ringlet.
“I don’t believe it,” said Pilose.
Ali scrambled to her feet. “Is she over there?”
“No,” said Pilose. “She’s . . . back at the mounds.”
“At the mounds?” asked Michael, inching his way over to Ali. “Why?”
Pilose and Ringlet exchanged a glance.
“You see,” said Ringlet, “when a new fairy . . . er . . . imp is born into our flock, we sort of feel this . . . tingle.”
“So?” asked Ali.
“Well . . .” said Ringlet.
“We think your friend has become an imp,” said Pilose.
Twenty
“Crista! Crista!” Ali called. She and Michael were standing over the five mounds. Pilose and Ringlet rode on Ali’s shoulders. Michael had his arms folded, and his giant eye looked like it was positively going to pop out with anger. Ali was none too happy herself. “Crista, are you down there?”
Fairies (no, imps, Ali reminded herself) came pouring out of the mounds. Imp after imp crowded forward onto the grass beneath Ali’s feet.
“Hair!”
“Hair!”
“Hair!”
“Hair!”
“Hold on,” said Ali. “Everyone calm down.”
The imps pushed forward, crawling on top of her feet, hanging on to her pant legs. Fortunately, her clothes had grown back with her.
“No one is getting any hair until I talk to my friend Crista. Now where is she?” Ali stomped her left foot, sending imps flying.
“Alison, stop that!” Pilose exclaimed. “You’ll hurt the babies.” She raised her voice and spoke down to the imps. “Listen to me. We’ll be back with hair very soon. But we need to see this former child, Crista Traynor.”
“Former child?” asked Ali. “You said I took on attributes of an imp when I was small. I was still a child, just like I am now.”
“I believe this is different,” said Pilose. “Ringlet and I felt an addition to our flock. We’ve been feeling them all day, granted. Surprising considering the quality of hair we consumed last night. But we felt a particularly strong ping when your friend Crista disappeared. Becoming a member of the flock is quite different from being reduced in size.”
“Hair!”
“Hair!”
“We don’t have any freaking hair,” said Michael.
The imps shrank back and huddled together in a mass. Slowly, a single imp pressed through the throng of babies and out into the open, just beneath Ali’s feet.
“Ali?” The imp was completely bald and had large, bulging eyes just like the others. But it was wearing a jean skirt and pink T-shirt just like the ones Crista had been wearing only minutes before.
“Crista! Are you all right? Oh, Michael, look, she’s lost her hair. Crista, I’m so sorry. We’re going to figure this out.”
“It’s all right,” said Crista-the-imp. “There’s nothing to figure out.”
“What do you mean, there’s—”
Michael tapped Ali on the shoulder.
She turned around. Ali’s mother was coming toward them. “Ali, what are you doing out here?” she asked. “Michael Landis, I’ve warned you to stay out of our yard.” She looked up as if Michael were still six feet tall, and she spoke to the air above his head. “We don’t need you and your goon of a brother harassing our girls.”
Hannah walked up behind Ali’s mom, followed by Ali’s dad. They’d all come from the car. Ali had been so absorbed in the latest crisis that she hadn’t even heard them drive up.
Michael glared at Hannah. “Me and Deacon haven’t been harassing you, have we?”
Hannah flipped her hair. “Not lately.”
“Hair!”
“Hair!”
The babies seemed to have forgotten about being scared and were now crawling around Ali’s feet.
“There are seventy-six now,” said Ringlet. “We need to feed them soon or they’ll start tearing each other apart.”
“It can’t be later than nine thirty,” said Ali. “We’re supposed to have until midnight.”
“Their growth is out of control,” said Pilose. “Ringlet is right. We need hair now.”
“You are certainly not staying out until midnight,” said Ali’s mom.
“Aren’t I supposed to be at boarding school?” Ali asked. “And don’t you notice anything strange about the way I look?”
“I know it’s been hard on you, having Crista leave,” said Ali’s mom, “but that’s no excuse for losing sleep.”
“So Crista’s at boarding school now,” Ali said, glancing at Michael.
“Never mind that,” said Ringlet. “Just tell her anything. The magic will take care of the rest.”
“I can’t talk now,” said Ali. “I have to get hair for the evil fairies.”
“We’ll plant the tomatoes over the weekend,” said Ali’s mom.
“Tomatoes?” said Hannah. “She said she was growing carrots.”
Oh boy. “If they don’t get their hair soon, I don’t know what will happen.” They were crawling up her pant legs. If only she didn’t know they were babies. If only she hadn’t just been their size.
“You can’t trim a hedge in the dead of night,” said Ali’s dad.
“There’s no hedge!” Ali yelled. “I need some hair! Hair!” She rubbed her tuft.
Something light landed on the
bare part of Ali’s head.
The fairies began jumping around wildly.
Ali looked down. Hair was falling onto the fairies’ heads like rain. They opened their mouths to catch it and reached out their tiny hands. She looked up. It was falling from the sky, starting about fifteen feet above them. It fell around her and Michael and the fairy mounds in a cylinder shape, and it was all kinds of hair. Light, dark, curly, straight, coarse, fine, long pieces and short clips rained down.
“Holy Impoliptus!” said Pilose.
Hair. Ali held out her hands and caught a four-inch-long clump of fine blond hair. Before she could even think about what she was doing, she had stuffed it into her mouth.
Michael was doing the same. “Fried chicken and corn bread!” he exclaimed, grabbing more out of the air.
“Cinnamon bears,” said Ali, grabbing a fistful of clippings that were buoyed up by the wind. The hair she had swallowed stuck in her throat. She gagged and sputtered, but she couldn’t stop herself from pushing in another mouthful. It tasted so good.
“Hair,” said Pilose softly.
“All right then, we’ll see you inside,” said Ali’s mother, and she walked back toward the house.
“Nice of you to trim the hedge, kiddo,” said Ali’s father, following his wife.
“Weff neffer had a hevv,” said Ali, her mouth full of delicious, thick brown hair.
Ali suddenly realized that Hannah was still there. She reached into her mouth and pulled out a few stuck strands, wiped some stray clippings off of her face, and turned around to face her sister. The hair was still falling, but lighter now.
“Something weird is going on,” said Hannah.
“It’s none of your business,” said Ali.
“Why don’t you go find my goon of a brother,” said Michael.
Hannah rolled her eyes.
“You sneak around with him all the time but you can’t even defend him,” Michael said, one eye bulging.
Hannah looked up above his head. “Mom’s not going to change her mind. It’s easier this way.”
“You think you’re better than us,” said Michael.
Deacon’s head popped up over the fence. “Shut up, dumbass. Hi, sweet pea.” He smiled at Hannah.
She smiled back dreamily.
Deacon landed heavily a few inches from one of the fairy mounds. It looked like he was going to step right on it, but his foot stopped short in mid-air. “What the . . .” He pressed his foot against the air, but it stayed stubbornly aloft. He shrugged and walked around the mounds, putting his arm around Hannah. “Mikey’s just mad because your sis gave him the brush-off. Over here all the time like a lovesick puppy, but she thinks he’s just an overgrown pea-brain.”
Michael seemed to shrink even farther.
Ali stared at him. It had never occurred to her that Michael might like her. Sure, she’d wondered why he’d been nice to her even though he was mean to everybody else. Michael had started being nice to Ali just like Deacon had started being nice to Hannah. Suddenly, she couldn’t look at Michael. She looked down at the fairies. They had retreated to the dirt in front of their mounds and were lying in the now lightly falling hair. Their little bellies bulged out.
Pilose lay on Ali’s shoulder. She groaned. “I think we ate too much hair.”
“Better than too little,” Ali snapped. How could Pilose complain after all this?
“The magic is wildly unstable,” said Pilose. She grabbed on to Ali’s neck and pulled herself to standing.
Ali wriggled against the itching. “So I don’t have to worry about feeding you tomorrow morning?”
“We should have stopped them,” Ringlet groaned. He was still lying on Ali’s other shoulder.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
The fat babies jumped up and began running around, screeching.
“What’s happening?” Ali got down on her knees. “Crista? Where are you?”
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
“Eeeiiiyeeeaaaah!” the little imps screamed. Many of them ran for the mounds.
“Crista!”
“Babies are popping out of thin air!” Crista yelled. “I’ve got to calm the others down.” She disappeared again into the melee.
“Babies out of thin air!” said Pilose. “Oh no, oh no.”
“What’s wrong with that?” asked Michael. “So we get to a hundred faster, and I can finally get my wish.” He didn’t look at Ali.
“I can’t believe you’re really gardening at this hour,” said Hannah. “Come on, Deacon, let’s take a walk.”
“No, don’t let them go,” said Pilose.
“Why not?” asked Ali. Hannah and Deacon were nothing but trouble, and the imps didn’t need any more hair.
“Everything’s unstable,” said Pilose. “We might need someone who isn’t going to change size.”
“They don’t even know what’s going on,” said Ali. “Their brains are scrambled by magic.” But she got to her feet and jogged to catch up with Hannah and Deacon, who were almost out of the yard. “Hey, wait.”
“Leave us alone,” said Hannah.
Pop. Pop. Pop. The chaos continued behind them.
“Use your magic,” said Pilose.
Ali rubbed her tiny tuft.
“Concentrate on it,” said Pilose. “Be your hair.”
Be your hair. Ali didn’t know what that was supposed to mean, and she didn’t have time to think about it. Hannah and Deacon were already walking away. She raced after them again. “I need help with my carrots,” she said evenly, rubbing her head at the same time. “I need to grow my carrots.”
Deacon and Hannah stopped and slowly looked at each other.
“Grow carrots,” said Ali, rubbing frantically.
“I really like carrots,” said Deacon.
“We could grow carrots together,” said Hannah.
“All we need is dirt and seeds,” said Deacon. Hand in hand, Deacon and Hannah brushed past Ali and headed for the fairy mounds.
Ali rubbed her head. What on earth was going on up there?
“Another improvement?” Bunny rolled her eyes and sighed. “All right, then, which one?”
“Dreams,” said the girl. Her bald head shone under the electric light.
Bunny smiled up at the child. Finally, one of them had requested something worth having. “A wise choice,” she said.
“Why would I want just one thing when I can have them all for eight hours every night?” the child snapped. “Now give me my wish.”
Rude and ungrateful. Bunny glared at Lockner.
“I’m afraid she’s followed the rules to the letter,” he said.
Bunny sighed again. “Fine.” She sat down while the imps performed the ritual. “HAIR!” she shouted half-heartedly. At least the girl had the courtesy to scream while her hair was growing back in.
When the girl had finally left, Lockner cautiously approached the Grand Miss. “Why are you out of sorts, Miss?” he asked. “We have all but one hundred imps now. Only one more flock until we can perform the Replacement.”
“You’re right, Lockner,” said Bunny, rousing herself. “Children I can’t punish do get me down. Let’s talk ingredients.”
“Well, Miss,” said Lockner, “I suppose we’ll have all five children when you count Alison and Michael.”
“Yes, yes,” said Bunny.
“The imps are assisting the en-smalled children to ensure that the seashells are properly crusted.”
“Good, good.”
“Follica has obtained the binding agent and separated the hairs.”
“Fine,” said Bunny. “What are you looking at?” The chancellor’s eyes were somewhat crossed.
“I have to stress, Miss, that the formula, according to your recitation of the instructions, calls for one hair from each human to be replaced. Not entire ponytails or some such.”
“I’m quite aware,” said Bunny, containing her annoyance. One little mistake. “What about the final ingredient?”
�
�Pilose is taking care of it.”
Bunny smiled. “Only one more wish to grant,” she said. “And then all the wishes will be ours.”
Twenty-One
Hannah and Deacon dug in the ground a few feet away from everyone else, using a strange octagonal shovel that Ali was sure had not been in the yard before. Hannah giggled as she picked up nothing out of the grass and dropped it into a real hole. It was dark enough that they couldn’t have been able to see much of what they were doing.
“Well, they seem happy,” said Michael. “What on earth did you do to them?”
“I don’t know,” said Ali. She rubbed her head. “I obviously have some kind of magic. Maybe you have some, too, in that giant eye.”
“It’s funny,” said Michael, “I don’t have trouble seeing. I think my night vision might be better.” He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. “Hey, you shrank my cigarettes, too, you evil pixies.”
“Aaagh! Don’t light that!” Ringlet shouted, bounding from Ali’s shoulder onto Michael’s.
“You can deal with it,” said Michael. He pulled out his lighter and, with a single motion, lit the cigarette dangling from his mouth. He sucked in—and began to choke. “GKKKkkkk, URRG . . .” Michael dropped the burning cigarette into the dirt. Both eyes bulged.
Ringlet and Pilose jumped to the ground and began shooing the babies away from the cigarette. They scrambled back against the mounds.
Pop, pop. More babies appeared on top of the closest mound. They screeched and disappeared inside.
Pop. Pop. Boom! The mound exploded, sending dirt in all directions. A large clump landed on Ali’s face.
“Michael—” Ali coughed, wiping the dirt off. “Are you all right?”
Michael let out a massive cough and then began to breathe heavily. “I guess,” he gasped. “What happened?”
“Smoking is bad for you!” said Ringlet, who stood at Michael’s feet, covered from head to toe in dirt.
“No kidding,” said Michael. “No one ever told me that.”
“It’s even worse for imps than for humans,” said Ringlet. “And you now have attributes of an imp.”
Michael took another breath.
“Is that why the mound exploded?” asked Ali. She stomped on the cigarette, then picked it up and tossed it out of the yard, onto the sidewalk. She felt guilty about littering, but she’d have to worry about that later. Pilose was rounding up the babies, who stumbled around, dirty and dazed.
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