“Me too,” the others chorused.
“Well, half the time I can't pay attention because I'm thinking about Wendy,” Clayton admitted. If he only knew what Wendy was thinking, his worries would be over and he'd be feeling pretty good about himself.
“Are you ever going to ask Wendy to come out here? I'll ask her for you,” Penny offered.
“I'll handle it myself, thanks.”
“Here's some of that real world stuff,” Karl proclaimed as he unrolled a drawing on the table. It was a sketch of a wood burner. The burner consisted of a small, steel oil drum the twins had in the back of their barn. It balanced on a short, steel table Karl located behind his garage, and was topped with a stovepipe from an old wood burner discarded by Clayton's parents.
“That looks like something the fairies would make if they were human,” Brian commented.
After some discussion, the group decided only to make use of the old, discarded wood burner if they could find a way to get the heavy thing up into the tree house. Of course, the spiral stairway would have to be built first.
“Yes!” Clayton proclaimed. “This is exactly the kind of real world stuff that we have to do to get our lives back from the fairies.”
“You make it sound like a horror movie,” Penny complained.
“Hey! Maybe it really is,” Brian asserted with enthusiasm. “The fairies start out being real nice to us. They get us to go to the bottom of the tree where we're really small. Then they trick us into going into a jail cell and lock the door behind us. That's when we become food for a horrible monster.”
“Cool movie!” Paul agreed.
“Get real,” Clayton admonished.
“I can't. The fairies have control of my life,” Brian sarcastically lamented.
They fell silent after that, each trying to figure out how much control the fairies really had over them. Rain hitting the roof had its usual soothing, lulling effect, and they listened to its patter before anyone spoke again.
“What do you think the Old Ones will do about the warnings we gave them?” Brian finally asked.
“Whatever they do, I hope they don't take a hundred years to decide,” Clayton answered with a bite of sarcasm. “They don't seem to grasp the concept of running out of time, or even of time itself.”
“Except for right now,” Karl reminded him. “Living for six thousand years could do that to you, I guess.”
“Speaking of time, it's too bad you forgot the watches,” Phil said.
“I can probably figure out how long we were at the fairy tree. We got home at quarter after ten,” Karl began. “It took us about forty-five minutes to walk the trail. So, we probably left the tree at nine thirty. We probably got there around seven thirty. I figure we were actually in the tree for about two hours.”
“It felt more like four or five hours to me,” Ron said.
“So does two hours in a dentist's chair,” Brian argued. “I'm getting tired of time warp talk. Dealing with the size warp was hard enough.”
“It took forever to walk to the lake and back,” Penny added.
“We must have explored fifty pieces of furniture and spent five or ten minutes looking at each one,” Paul reminded everyone, slightly exaggerating.
“We spent a lot of time with the carved panels and SeeLee's history lesson,” Ron contributed.
“Then there were the stories that SanDroMonEnLor told,” Phil added.
“Together, with everything else we did on the branches,” Clayton joined in, “it must equal a time warp.”
Silence fell over the tree house. The beating rain and the getting-no-where-fast banter stopped at the same time. Everyone was lost in thought, trying to figure out whether they had spent only two hours as Karl claimed, or if it had been much longer.
Finally, Karl broke the quiet. “SanDroMonEnLor told me that the more attention put on something that's moving, the more it appears to slow down. Maybe the excitement of being with the fairies gave us the energy to pay more attention to everything, so even time slowed down. Or maybe we just paid four hours' worth of attention in two hours.”
“That almost makes sense,” Clayton mused before they all fell silent again to consider this latest theory.
Clayton knew what four hours of passing time felt like, and he knew he felt four hours' worth of panic in just a few minutes when he couldn't find Penny. He was sure they wouldn't get home until one in the morning, and he was really surprised to find that it was only a little after ten. He was almost convinced the time warp existed, and he definitely knew the fairies gave the passing of time little consideration. He also knew he and his friends must save the fairies from the modern-day dangers and threats of which the fairies knew little. Even as he tried to envision how many fairies it would take to levitate a bulldozer, he spoke up.
“We're going to have to save the fairies ourselves.” Clayton's voice sliced through the peaceful and contemplative silence filling the tree house. Everyone was lost in their own world, and his grating words jerked them back to reality.
“Oh, yeah?” Karl inquired. “Are we going to build a booby trap for a bulldozer?”
“If we have to,” Clayton shot back. “And we have to stop Mike and Farmer Hawkins, too,” he insisted.
“Hey! I know how we can stop Mike at least,” Penny said, her eyes lighting up.
“Okay,” Karl said hesitantly. “How?”
“We make a movie. We take all my dolls and put wings on them,” she started.
“Yeah!” Ron interrupted, his eyes catching the sparkle.
The others also figured it out in the next instant.
“We get him to follow us…” Clayton started.
“After he overhears us…” Paul interrupted.
“We bring a video camera…” Phil added for his brother.
“And let the news crew Mike hopefully brings…” Brian started.
“Catch us filming a movie about fairies!” they all finished together.
“We are so good!” Ron declared.
“Yeah!” they all agreed with a cheer.
“What do you mean, we? It was my idea!” Penny blurted.
“Okay, okay!” Ron relented. “Oh wonderful Penny, Queen of the Universe,” he whispered with feigned awe while deeply bowing in her direction.
“If we're that good, how are we going to stop a developer?” Clayton asked, being less enthusiastic than the rest as he clearly recalled his bulldozer nightmare.
“We know what to do about developers,” Brian said confidently, then looked at Ron.
“Yeah, we do!” Ron quickly agreed. “In the city, there were on-going battles between developers and neighborhood groups that didn't want them changing the area. The neighborhood committee would get part of the land declared as a protected wetland. Or they would find an animal, bird, or plant on the endangered species list and get the land designated as a protected habitat. Sometimes they would boycott or picket the company, and things got really nasty.”
“Half the land this developer wants is already a wetland,” Karl said. “He's going to leave it as such or make it even wetter with a man-made bigger lake, so we can't stop him that way.”
“I guess we'll just have to find a species to save,” Clayton concluded.
“That sounds like another real-world, time-consuming project. We're going to have to comb the whole area day and night until we find one,” Karl proclaimed with little hope in his voice.
“What about those neon-bright, bluish-green dragonflies that make a heart shape with their bodies when they land next to each other?' Brian suggested. “You know, the ones we saw when we were building the trail.”
“Oh, I love those dragonflies. They're so pretty,” Penny gushed. “Let's protect the dragonflies. They're so cute when they make heart shapes with each other. Their bodies curl up to make half of the heart, and when they touch they make a complete heart.”
“I've never seen them downstate, on TV, or in a book,” Brian finished.
“I wonder why they do that,” Ron thought.
“It means they are boyfriend and girlfriend forever,” Penny decided confidently.
“Hey!” Phil piped up, “let's ask our biology teacher.”
“And go online at the city library,” Karl added. The library was one sure place the Internet worked in the area.
They all felt a sense of relief with an action plan developing and another problem practically solved. The kids began to feel smug about protecting the fairies and whatever else they could find that needed protecting.
“What are we going to do about Farmer Hawkins?” Ron queried, ending the smug-fest.
After a brief silence, Penny bravely offered the simplest solution, “Let's go talk to him.”
“You go talk to him,” Brian said quickly. “For all we know, he's part of the horror movie, and he's going to kill us all with his pitchfork or chainsaw.”
“Penny, Karl, and I will go talk to him,” Clayton said hesitantly after the kids considered being stabbed with a pitchfork in a PG13-rated horror movie. The expressions on Brian, Ron, and the twins' faces changed to relief.
“He can't be as mean as people say. We only see him when he's chasing us,” Clayton added halfheartedly.
Another silence filled the room. Knowing about fairies was indeed taking its toll on all of them.
“That was so weird how we were just standing on the air,” Karl mused after a few minutes of silence.
“It's even weirder in my dreams,” Clayton added. “At least when it was actually happening, there was no falling involved.”
“I wonder if I could jump up and down on the air,” Karl mused again.
“I almost jumped up and down laughing when I saw Mike's face in school today,” Ron said.
“Yeah,” Paul agreed. “Did you see the bump on his lip? There were two other lumps on his face. He must have gotten stung a half-dozen times. To make Mike's day worse, Wendy gave him a smack down in the hall, telling him to stop calling her his girlfriend. She insisted she never was and never would be.”
With this bit of news, an invisible burden seemed to lift from Clayton's shoulders. He would have to hurry and invite her to the tree house before some other guy moved in on her.
“I saw lumps on his friends, too, but at least nobody died,” Clayton added.
“Good. Maybe Mike won't go into the woods so much anymore,” Penny said hopefully.
“Well, we need him to make the trip at least one more time,” Clayton reminded her.
The kids kept busy the rest of the week with school, autumn chores, and creating the “movie star” fairies. Penny gathered thirty dolls to use as actors, many borrowed from friends. She even tried to convince her friend Rose to come to the tree house, but Rose wouldn't go. While Penny loved hanging out with the boys, it would be nice to have another girl around. So, by herself, she fashioned tunic costumes of green and yellow fabric for the dolls to wear. They were nothing more than ponchos tied at the waist, but she decorated them with beads and glitter to make the dolls resemble the Hollywood version of fairies.
It took Clayton, the twins, and Karl all their free time to make fairy wings. Pipe cleaners were used for the wing outline, with yellow paint and gold glitter added to make them look real. Fuzz was scraped from pipe cleaners, and the wires were used to attach the dolls to tree branches. Transparent and colored plastic pieces were glued to the wing frame to craft the wing membrane. The more wings they made, the better they got at gluing colors together in swirling patterns.
Each night the guys tied their creations to a tree branch close to Clayton's house to stage a rehearsal for the big show. They took turns shining a flashlight through the wings. From a distance, the manufactured wings were quite impressive and almost looked like the real fairy wings. But, while some were very pretty, they were nothing like the real fairies. By Friday, the doll actors were ready for their big movie debut. For the first time, the kids enjoyed their respite from visiting the fairy tree, as more normal activities filled their days.
At school, the guys worked on their other movie-related task. They plotted ways for Mike to overhear talk of a big fairy-celebration event scheduled for Saturday afternoon. When the boys knew Mike was listening to their conversation and caught just enough to get interested, they lowered their voices or quickly changed the subject. They took great pride in their award-winning acting talents, which improved each day as they mastered the fine art of embellishment.
The boys tasted success when Mike started strutting around like he knew everything. They could tell by his attitude that Mike was buying their story. He heard what they wanted him to hear, and he had taken the bait. Every day at school they gloated as they shared the latest “Mike took the bait” episode. Hopefully, Mike would talk his TV-reporter cousin and a camera crew into scooping the story for their station.
By Friday afternoon, the kids were convinced Mike had not only taken the bait, but he was already boasting to his friends about his cousin wanting to get the story. Now all they needed to do was wire the fairies in place in the morning. With preparations complete, it was the first chance the kids had to visit the real fairies. But, of course, the skies opened and a hard rain pelted the earth. They met at the tree house for a final planning session. They didn't want anything to go wrong with their production the next day.
“Did you see the way Mike was busting at the seams today?” Clayton gloated. “He's definitely planning something. He can't wait for tomorrow.”
“I can't wait for tomorrow!” Penny said. “We planned everything, so can we go home now?”
“Penny's right, we should all go to sleep early so we can get an early start. Besides, Ron and I have an extra-long walk to get to our houses,” Brian complained.
They went their separate ways, walking through a thick, misty fog that hinted an end to the rain.
Saturday morning came quickly, and everyone was up early to complete their never-ending chores. Fortunately, the rain stopped, and everyone hurried through their chores so they could set up things at the elaborately fake fairy tree. By the time they met at the tree house, they were already tired and wet from sweat, and the mist still moistened the morning air. After a brief rest, they gathered up the fairy dolls and headed to the tree at a brisk pace. They were glad Penny wasn't along to slow them down.
The trail was so muddy and puddled that they frequently slipped and slid on their way. Between trying to keep their balance and mud sucking their shoes, they were tiring quickly. After a while they slowed down, relaxed, and enjoyed walking the trail as the mid-morning sun shone through wherever the tree branches allowed. The woods were quiet, except for birds singing and the occasional scurrying noises of animals as they trekked along. Deer were increasing in number as the summer was ending. The kids looked at these animals differently after experiencing their full attention at the fairy tree. It was as if deer were now magical woodland creatures worthy of wonder.
When they approached the area where they had first heard the old farmer's chainsaw, all was quiet there, too. After a few minutes, they arrived at the field just before the firefly field.
“We need to make a new path,” Clayton ordered after looking at the original path across the field.
“Oh, no, not another one,” everyone moaned in unison. “We're going to get all wet again.”
“The path in this field goes into the woods leading to the firefly field. We don't want Mike and the TV people near that, so we need to flatten a wider path across this field to the tallest tree near the lake. There are many big bushes in this field, so we have to make as straight a path as possible through them. Let's get all wet again,” Clayton said, already walking through the tall grass and flowers.
Although grumbling, the others quickly joined him, and a new path was trampled across the field. After arriving at the big tree, but seeing its lowest branches were almost twenty feet above the ground, they searched for a shorter tree to fit their scene-setting needs. The third tree closest to the la
ke was just perfect.
Soon they were busy wiring the dolls to the lower branches. The tree was dead, so they had no problem finding places to wire the first dozen dolls so they could be easily seen.
After they stood back and looked at the higher collection of branches, Karl said, “We should have brought ladders with us.”
“Well, we didn't,” Clayton replied. “So Paul and I will climb the tree, and you guys can toss the dolls to us when we need them,” he added, starting his climb up the tree.
“We will?” Paul dissented.
“I'll climb too,” Brian offered.
When they scrambled far enough out on the branches, Clayton called for the dolls. It was difficult to balance and catch at the same time, so this plan took much longer than they thought. Each boy came close to falling several times, but managed to grab a branch and hang on for dear life. Finally, all the dolls were wired to the tree, and the boys descended quickly to the ground where they all stood to admire their work.
The fairy scene looked almost real. Some fake fairies were gathered in groups, as if talking to each other. Others looked like they were walking along the branches. A few were hung from branches to give the impression of flying.
“It looks very fairy-like to me,” Phil said in a satisfied tone.
“It will have to do,” Clayton said with finality. “Let's go. We have to finish chores so we can get back here early this evening. We have to make sure Mike and the TV crews are gone before the start of the firefly show. Some of their light might be seen flickering through the woods.”
“Maybe we should let them see that show,” Ron suggested. “All by itself, the thousands of firefly lights would make a good news story, and they would leave satisfied.”
“But they might catch a glimpse of the real fairies. It's too risky. Like I said, let's go so we can get back here early.”
“It's supposed to rain again tonight, so I hope we can get this show over with before it pours,” Karl said with a shrug.
“It's always raining,” Brian complained.
Beyond the Firefly Field Page 20
