From the Mist (Disney Fairies)
Page 5
“But I want them to see me be a flower girl!” Gabby replied.
“There will be lots of people there tomorrow,” Mia said. “What if someone sees them? No one can know about Pixie Hollow. It’s our secret.”
Mia let go of Gabby’s hand as they crossed the stepping-stones in Havendish Stream. But at the foot of the hollow fig tree that led back home, Mia stopped. She knelt down so she was looking Gabby in the eye. “You can’t say a word about fairies or magic to anyone tomorrow. Promise?”
Gabby gazed back into her sister’s brown eyes. “Okay,” she said. “I promise.”
After the girls left, the fairies went back to what they’d been doing. Rosetta flew off to water the lilies. Tinker Bell returned to her workshop. Dulcie, inspired by Gabby’s description, headed to the kitchen to try her hand at a seven-layer thimble cake.
Bess flew back to her matchstick easel. She had been working on a painting of a dew-covered spiderweb. The dewdrops were so plump and glistening they seemed about to roll right off the canvas.
Bess had been proud of her painting. But now, as she picked up her paintbrush, it struck her as boring. So ordinary, she thought. So … fairyish.
Her thoughts strayed to Gabby’s description of the wedding. “Now, that would be an exciting painting,” Bess said to herself.
“What’s that?” asked Prilla as she flew past.
“I was just thinking about Gabby’s wedding,” said Bess.
“That’s funny. So was I,” said Prilla.
“I was thinking I might make a painting of it,” Bess said.
“Oh, Bess, you should. That would be almost as good as being there,” Prilla said. Bess’s paintings were magical that way.
Bess took out the pencil she kept tucked behind her ear. She began to make a sketch on a little piece of birch bark. She drew two Clumsies as tall as palm trees—all Clumsies looked like giants to Bess. But then her imagination failed her.
“What are their clothes made from? The Clumsies, I mean,” Bess wondered. “A fairy gown would be sewn from lily petals, or maybe a rose. But that would never fit a Clumsy.”
“I don’t know,” Prilla replied. “I’ve never thought about where Clumsies get their clothes.”
“Speaking of flowers, what do the Clumsies do with them?” Bess asked. “Clumsies are too big to rest in a magnolia when they get tired of dancing. And how do they dance without wings, anyway? Their feet would never leave the ground! What kind of dancing is that?”
“They must look very silly,” Prilla agreed.
Bess looked back at her sketch and frowned. “You’re lucky, Prilla,” she said. “You could just blink over to the mainland and see the wedding for yourself.” Prilla had the special ability to travel to the world of Clumsies just by blinking. She was the only fairy in Pixie Hollow with that talent.
“I guess I could,” Prilla said. “But we haven’t been properly invited.”
“Oh, right,” said Bess.
“You could go, too. You could fly through the hole in the old fig tree to get to the girls’ world,” Prilla pointed out.
“I could,” said Bess. “But like you said, we haven’t been invited. Besides, I wouldn’t know where to go when I got there.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Prilla said.
The two were quiet for a moment, thinking their own thoughts.
“It would be fun to be a gnat on the wall, though, wouldn’t it?” Bess murmured. “Just to see the wedding, without anyone knowing you’re there?”
Prilla said something in reply, but Bess wasn’t listening. She was gazing off in the direction of Havendish Stream—and the old fig tree.
KIKI THORPE spent much of her childhood reading, daydreaming, and searching for fairies in the forests of Idaho—pastimes that were good training for writing children’s books. She is the author of several books for young readers, including the New York Times bestseller In a Blink, the first book in the Never Girls series. She lives with her husband, Greg, and their two children in San Francisco.