Evil Fairies Love Hair

by Mary G. Thompson

  “No, the mound exploded because we overfed the babies and they’re multiplying out of control. There are only supposed to be ten imps per mound. Pilose! How many babies do we have now?”

  Pilose whispered something to the babies surrounding her and pushed through the crowd to stand by Ringlet. “We have one hundred.”

  “One hundred?” asked Michael. He burst into a grin. “Well, that’s great! Make me the best foot—no, basketball player in the world.” He closed his eyes and waited.

  Ringlet and Pilose exchanged a glance. “It doesn’t work like that,” said Pilose. “We have to get them integrated into the Kingdome. And we’d better do it fast.”

  Michael opened his eyes. “What? After all this, you’re going to make me wait to get my wish? You lying—” He dropped to his knees and made a grab for Ringlet and Pilose, but they jumped back.

  “Alison, stop him!” Pilose squealed.

  Ali reached down and grabbed the back of Michael’s shirt. She pulled him up, spun him around, and pushed him away from the mounds. She still had some of that imp strength.

  He turned and glared at her. “Why are you helping them? I deserve my wish!”

  Why was she? Her tuft of hair itched. “I’m trying to help you. If they have to be integrated into the Kingdome, then they have to. Let’s just get them to Mrs. Hopper’s and get it over with. Then you can get your wish and I can pass on the flock starters to that poor ugly kid.”

  “Hair!”

  “Hair!”

  The babies were shouting it.

  “Ali!”

  Ali turned around. Crista was standing at her feet, waving and pointing toward Hannah and Deacon. Imps were climbing up Hannah’s back. One grabbed onto her hair and swung from it like a vine.

  “I thought they couldn’t touch it!” Ali rushed over and knocked the fairies off Hannah’s back.

  “Careful!” Crista yelled. “You’ll hurt them.”

  “They were about to eat my sister’s hair!”

  Hannah calmly looked up at her. “Are we done?”

  “How did it touch her hair?” Ali demanded. Her own tuft of hair felt like it was burning up. The baby imps crowded around Ali’s feet, jumping and squealing, but they couldn’t get past her.

  “I don’t know!” said Pilose. “Everything is out of whack. Three flock children, eating a child’s own hair, and now the overfeeding. They need to be integrated into the Kingdome before they gorge themselves again!”

  “That’s what you’re worried about? Them gorging themselves?” Ali asked. However she was holding the babies back, she could feel it getting more difficult. Her hair was standing straight up.

  “If they eat too much, they’ll die!” Pilose shouted. Her voice got squeaky, and she jumped from the ground onto Ali’s stomach, climbing up her shirt until she reached the neck. “I can’t let my babies die! We have to gather them up and take them to the Kingdome!”

  “All right, all right,” said Ali. She didn’t want the babies to die, and she wanted to stop them from eating her sister. But she wasn’t going to lose this advantage. “You’d better turn me back all the way, then. And Michael, too. And you have to promise not to make us tiny again or anything like that.”

  “Fine,” said Pilose. “Just help me!”

  Michael took off his sweatshirt and laid it on the grass. Pilose, Ringlet, and Crista ran around corralling the babies, while Ali stood watch in front of Hannah and Deacon, who obliviously pretended to garden.

  The babies were so confused that within ten minutes, they were all on the sweatshirt.

  Ali rubbed her head. “Hair,” she whispered.

  A large clump fell out of nowhere, right on top of the babies.

  “Now, Michael!” Ali yelled.

  Michael quickly closed up the sweatshirt. “I don’t know if I can keep them all in.”

  “We’ll do it together,” said Ali. “I’ll concentrate on my hair, and you concentrate on your fairy eye.” She grabbed the bundle just underneath where Michael held it. “Jump on, guys. Let’s get to the salon before anything else happens.”

  Pilose turned around on Ali’s shoulder.

  The teenage girl and boy were wiping their hands off on their clothes and laughing together. Holding hands, they began slowly following Ali and Michael away from the house and toward the salon.

  Pilose smiled to herself.

  Twenty-Two

  Jared peered out from behind the Butlers’ car. There they were, Alison Butler—who had somehow gotten big again—and her friends, walking away with the fairies. Jared wasn’t stupid. He knew they had a hundred. Why else would they be gathering them all up? And was Alison calling him to tell him to come get the fairies she promised him? Nope. She was just walking away. She was probably going to give the fairies to that kid she was walking with.

  Jared headed out behind them, making sure to stay far enough back that they wouldn’t see him. Well, if that was the way they wanted to play it, fine. He’d just take the fairies. He’d grow his hundred and pass on his fairies and bide his time and get his wish. And then, just when they thought they’d won, he’d stomp all over them. He’d crush the hundred he’d grown and all the rest of them.

  Hexing him. Making him the ugliest kid in four states. And then making him grow their flock just to get his looks back. He’d show them. He’d really make them pay. He should have squashed those stupid fairies when they’d first shown up in his bedroom . . .

  “Jared Yeager?” said a tiny voice. Several tiny creatures with bald heads and giant eyes stared up at him.

  “What are you supposed to be?”

  “I am Frizzcontrol, this is Thickener, and we are the Fairies of Retribution—Thickener, stop giggling—and we are here to exact the revenge duly sought by Jonathan Yeager and approved by the Fairy Council of Doom.” Frizzcontrol elbowed Thickener, who was shaking and covering his mouth.

  “The Fairy Council of Doom?” Jared picked up a convenient comic book and rolled it into swatting shape.

  “As the rules allow hexing only when the victim deserves it,” continued Frizzcontrol, “Grand Miss Coiffure Bunniumpton has reviewed the evidence and found that you, indeed, deserve the requested punishment—ugliness (four state radius superlative).”

  “Wait a minute,” said Jared. “I don’t know who this Bunniumpton is, and I don’t even believe in fairies.” He swatted at the group of little creatures but somehow managed to miss.

  Frizzcontrol was unfazed. “However, the rules require us to present the evidence against you.”

  “What evidence?” Jared scoffed. He’d never done anything to hurt anyone.

  Suddenly, Frizzcontrol was holding a tiny scroll. “Imp—er—fairies!” he cried.

  At once the other fairies (there must have been at least fifteen of them) jumped forward and grabbed onto the edges of the scroll. As they all pulled on it, the scroll expanded until it was the size of a normal piece of paper.

  “Reverse!” Frizzcontrol cried.

  The fairies flipped the scroll around so that it was facing Jared. In large, scrawled letters, it blared:

  JARED YEAGER’S CRIMES

  Pollywogs in sister’s soup.

  Persistent ridicule of fat children, esp. Alfred Tompkins and Pat Greaney.

  Beat up said Pat Greaney.

  Beat up own cousin, complainant Jonathan Yeager.

  Stole personal possessions of Jonathan Yeager, most egregiously said Jonathan’s BB gun.

  Shot Jonathan with his own BB gun.

  Threatens to beat up children for lunch money.

  Cheats on tests.

  Lies.

  Bra snapping.

  Et cetera.

  The fairies waited for Jared to read the charges, staring at him with their proportionally giant eyes.

  “I didn’t do any of those things,” said Jared. “Pat Greaney attacked me.” He swung the comic book at the scroll but came up an inch short.

  “Do you have anything else to say?” asked Fri
zzcontrol.

  “Get out of my room!” Jared yelled, swinging his comic book this way and that. He didn’t hit anything, but the fairies scattered. In less than a minute, they were all gone.

  He’d managed to convince himself it was all some kind of crazy dream—until he’d looked in the mirror . . .

  He deserved it? Jared fumed now, keeping his eyes on Ali’s group. He wasn’t the one who went around hexing people. What had he ever done to anyone? All they had was a bunch of lies, misstatements, and insinuations. Besides, if he had known what was going to happen, he might not have done any of it. But never mind that. These fairies and the kids who grew them were going to pay. Especially Jonathan and Ali Butler.

  Twenty-Three

  Michael took a deep breath in. “Something smells different.”

  Ali concentrated. Michael was right, and she knew exactly what it was. “It smells like the ocean.”

  “Fresh and salty,” said Pilose. Her voice had a smile in it.

  Ali’s foot crunched through the sidewalk and landed on sand. As she looked down, the concrete disappeared as if in a mist and was replaced by rolling waves of sand melding into the hard-packed, wet sand of the shoreline. Ali could hear the ocean beyond the sand, but there was a mist so thick that the water was completely hidden. The whole scene was obviously lit by streetlights, even though the light posts themselves were gone.

  “It isn’t real,” Ali said. “They use their magic to make things look the way they want.”

  “This water I just stepped in sure feels real,” said Michael, holding up a wet, sand-covered shoe.

  Ali had to admit that this felt more real than the inside of the fairy mound. She didn’t remember the mound smelling like anything but dirt. But this air was unmistakably fresh and salty. The wind was blowing, too, although it was gentler than she remembered from visiting the real ocean. The only thing missing was the actual ocean. Maybe fairy magic wasn’t powerful enough to conjure that up.

  “Stop!” Hannah giggled. Ali hadn’t seen them walk past her, but now she saw Hannah and Deacon off to their right, down on the strip of hard-packed wet sand. Hannah threw a clump of sand at Deacon, and he ducked.

  “Missed me!” Deacon started running slowly, and Hannah followed him. Her bare feet dug into the sand just like they would on a real beach.

  “All right,” said Ali. “Where are the rest of the fairies? I want to get this over with.” She took another step forward.

  A car drove in front of her, no more than a foot away.

  “Aaah!” Ali jumped backward.

  The car sped on down the beach as if it were on asphalt, leaving no tracks.

  “So that’s the road,” said Michael. “The Kingdome must be up there.” He pointed to some large rocks off to their left. “That’s where the salon is supposed to be.”

  Ali got her breathing under control. “Okay, you’re right. Let’s go that way.”

  As they approached the rocks, the air grew less salty, heavier with the smell of rainwater.

  All of a sudden, a large group of fairies appeared in front of them. Two fairies perched on a big rock above the rest. One was carrying a hairpin. Bunny. As Ali watched, she poked the other fairy with it.

  “Welcome to the Kingdome,” said the pokee. “I am Lockner, chancellor to the Grand Miss Coiffure. You may release your one hundred for counting.”

  Michael set the sweatshirt on the rocky ground.

  So they aren’t going to apologize, Ali fumed to herself. No “Oh, I see you’re big again.” They think they have everything under control. Her tuft of hair burned.

  The baby fairies huddled together on the sweatshirt. Ali tried in vain to catch a glimpse of Crista’s pink shirt.

  One of the fairies from the group on the ground walked among the babies, counting. “One hundred,” he declared.

  “Very well,” said Lockner. “Improvement or hex?”

  “Wait a minute,” said Ali. “You have a hundred and one, right? One hundred plus Crista?”

  “Crista?” asked Lockner. “Who is that? A child? Frizzcontrol, did you count any en-smalled children?”

  “No, Chancellor,” said the fairy who had counted. “One hundred newborn Divvy-imps . . . er . . . fairies.”

  “There are no children,” said Lockner. “Now what will it be, boy?”

  “Wait!” Ali cried. “Crista!”

  “I’m sorry, Ali,” said Crista from inside the mob of babies. She managed to push enough babies away so that Ali could just barely see her. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I think I really am an imp.”

  “Well, then we’ll undo it,” Ali said. “If there aren’t a hundred others, we’ll just wait another night until they’re grown.” She knelt and laid down her hand for Crista.

  “No!” Pilose said loudly into Ali’s ear. “You can’t separate a flock once they’ve grown together. They must be integrated together into the Kingdome or they’ll all disappear into thin air, just as if they were never here.”

  “All of them, including Crista?” Ali hoped she was loud enough to make the little demon deaf. “You’re counting Crista?”

  “It’s not me counting, Alison,” said Pilose, shrinking back toward Ali’s shoulder. “It just happened that way. I’m not responsible for the consequences. She fed us her own hair.”

  “You let her!” Ali cried.

  “It’s all right, Ali,” said Crista. “I can’t let them die. They’re my brothers and sisters now.”

  “Maybe you can’t, but I can.” Ali got down on her knees and reached for Crista, but her hand was unable to touch any of the fairies. Magic. Ali concentrated on her tuft of hair. She could break through this. “Come on, Michael, help me.”

  Michael sighed heavily and kneeled down next to her. “I’m never getting my wish, am I?”

  “Indeed you are,” said Lockner. “The flock is complete, and there’s nothing in the rules about who must be in it. A transformed child is good enough.”

  “Don’t, Ali,” said Crista. “It will kill me, too. I can’t leave now.”

  Ali sat back on her heels. What if they were lying? What if she could take Crista and everyone would be fine? But what if it were true? Crista would rather be an imp than be dead.

  “It’s all right, Ali,” said Crista. “Really.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ali whispered. “I never should have gotten you into this. I knew it was dangerous, and I didn’t care. I shouldn’t have been so greedy.”

  “So touching,” said Bunny, waving her scepter. “But the boy must answer. We don’t have all night before the tide comes in.”

  Ali rolled her eyes. Who did this imp think she was fooling with her fake beach?

  “Improvement,” said Michael, standing up again.

  Ali scrambled to her feet, too.

  “Which one?” asked Bunny.

  “I’d like to be the world’s greatest basketball star. And while you’re at it, you’d better make me normal again,” said Michael. “You can’t be a big star if you’re short and have a giant eye.”

  “World’s greatest is greedy,” said Bunny. “You can be in the NBA when you get older if you work hard and practice. We can only give you talent.”

  “Fine. Whatever,” said Michael, rolling his eyes.

  “Hold still.” Bunny waved her scepter.

  Fairies climbed up Michael’s clothes. At the same time, the huddle of the one hundred newborn fairies began to glow. The fairies began to chant.

  “On all their heads

  In all their beds

  On all their floors

  Through all their doors

  Yum! It comes from children

  Yum!”

  The fairies danced on Michael’s head and body, and the glowing of Ali’s flock grew brighter.

  “Hair!”

  “Hair!”

  “Hair!”

  “Hair!”

  “HAIR!” Lockner and Bunny shouted.

  Michael’s scalp began to glow, too. His
large eye twisted and suddenly popped back into his face. He began to grow, all his body parts at once. He grew past Ali’s head and up until he was as tall as he had been before, and then he kept growing and growing until he was nearly seven feet tall. His scalp grew even brighter, and hair burst out of it.

  Michael winced, but a big grin spread across his face. When the hair stopped growing a few inches below his chin, he tossed it aside with one hand and laughed.

  “And now it is time!” said Bunny, pulling herself to her full two and a quarter inches.

  All of a sudden the scene changed. Ali and Michael had been standing at the edge of the rocks with their backs to the fake beach. Now they were all inside a rocky cave. Ali couldn’t see any exit. They were completely closed in.

  “Come on, Michael.” She grabbed his arm and turned around. She seemed to be facing a cave wall that was covered in wet moss and undoubtedly solid. But Ali knew better than that. “We’re just going to walk back through.” She led the way and bumped up against a solid wall. She rubbed her head. “Let me out,” she whispered, and tried again.

  “You can’t get out now,” said Pilose.

  “You promised nothing funny!” Ali yelled.

  “I promised not to make you small,” said Pilose. “You won’t be harmed.”

  “Get off me, you little devil,” Ali said. She tried to flick Pilose off her shoulder, but the imp jumped before her fingers could connect. Ringlet had already escaped and was now on the ground with the rest of his flock. There did seem to be something different about them now. They had stopped glowing, but they had an energy from inside. Their eyes were sharper, more intelligent. They were truly alive. Ali felt a surge of pride but shook it off.

  “We must be in the hair salon,” said Ali. “The door is here somewhere.”