by Gwyneth Rees
‘Maybe someone will find it and bring it back to you,’ Connie said.
The old lady shook her head. ‘I still think my housekeeper’s son took it, though it’s done me no good to say that. Ella – that was my housekeeper – was with me for ten years and now I never see her, even though she only lives in the village. Can’t blame her, I suppose. Standing up for her boy. But I never trusted him. Stole some money out of his mother’s purse once when he was little – she told me so herself.’
Connie frowned. She wanted to say that she knew Ella’s son hadn’t stolen the ring, but she couldn’t say that without giving away how she knew. ‘My mum says you should never decide that people are guilty unless you have proper proof.’
‘Really? Your mother sounds like my lawyer.’
‘She says you shouldn’t judge people just by their appearance either,’ Connie continued, doggedly.
‘Well, she’s right there! That boy of Ella’s always looked so angelic – blond hair, blue eyes, like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Those are the ones you’ve got to watch out for!’
Connie sighed, seeing that she wasn’t getting anywhere. ‘I’d still really like to find out more about your ring,’ she said. ‘For my story, I mean. Do you know whereabouts your niece went to live at the seaside? Maybe I could write to her and see if your sister told her anything about it.’
‘I don’t have any contact with Annabel’s family any more. All I know about them is what I’ve already told you. Now, why don’t you tell me a bit about your family? That fellow who was here yesterday – with those terrible eyebrows – how is he related to you? I must say that you don’t look anything like him, thank goodness!’
So Connie told Mrs Fitzpatrick about her mum and dad and Aunt Alice and Uncle Maurice. She told her that her mum was an outdoor, sporty person whereas her aunt was an indoor, bookish person. Connie explained how she used to think she was an outdoor person too, but that she was now beginning to think that libraries were more interesting places than she’d first realized. And, to her surprise, she ended up telling her all about Emma and how much she missed her since she had moved to Canada.
‘It sounds as though this Emma was a wonderful friend,’ Mrs Fitzpatrick said. ‘It seems to me that she’s worth missing.’
Connie frowned. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Just that. What you need to do next is to make another friend who you’d miss just as much if they went away. Take Hester, who I only met two months ago. I knew she was my friend the day I realized how much I’d miss her if she popped her clogs before I did.’ She gave a little laugh.
Connie knew what popping your clogs meant and she didn’t think it was anything to joke about. ‘It’s not that easy making new friends,’ she pointed out.
‘What about this Ruby you mentioned just now?’
‘Oh, she’s not a real friend,’ Connie said, quickly. She flushed then, realizing how peculiar that sounded.
But Mrs Fitzpatrick looked like she understood. ‘I see . . . an imaginary one, is she? I used to have imaginary friends when I was a girl. They’re all very well, but it’s true that you do need some real ones too.’
‘And it’s not easy to make real ones when you’re stuck here for the whole school holidays,’ Connie added swiftly, eager to avoid further questions about Ruby.
‘Well, it won’t always be the holidays, will it? There’s bound to be a new boy or girl who’ll need a new friend too when you go back to school.’
‘There might be,’ Connie agreed. ‘But I might not want to be best friends with them. It doesn’t mean I’ll really get on with someone, just because they haven’t got a best friend either, does it?’
‘Well, in that case, you’ll just have to do without a best friend for a bit longer, until you find someone you do really get on with, won’t you?’ Mrs Fitzpatrick replied briskly, and Connie thought she sounded like she was getting a bit bored with the subject of best friends now.
They were drinking tea and munching biscuits and trying to think of other things to talk about when Aunt Alice arrived. Unlike Uncle Maurice, Connie’s aunt was very friendly and polite to Mrs Fitzpatrick, who seemed to take to her immediately. When Aunt Alice mentioned her interest in books, the old lady said that she could borrow the key to Bluebell Hall so that she could have a look at the books before they were auctioned. They eventually left, with Aunt Alice leaving a bag of giant chocolate buttons for Mrs Fitzpatrick and whispering, ‘Don’t worry, Connie. I’ve got the ones you wanted in the car.’
By the time they got home, Aunt Alice was in what she reckoned was a good mood for writing, so Connie offered to put the shopping away while her aunt got straight back to work. When she’d finished, she put her own chocolate buttons in her pocket and headed for the library where she knew Ruby would be waiting to hear how she had got on.
Ruby was reading a book when she arrived. She stopped as soon as Connie climbed in through the window. ‘Well?’ she asked eagerly. ‘What did you find out?’
Connie thought about giving Ruby the chocolate straight away, then decided to wait and use it to cheer her up after she’d told her the bad news.
‘She doesn’t know anything else,’ Connie began gently. ‘Her mother told everything about the ring to her sister, not to her, and her sister’s dead. Her sister had a daughter who she might have told things to, but Mrs Fitzpatrick doesn’t know where she is.’ She stopped and frowned at Ruby. ‘So I don’t know what else we can do.’
Ruby looked appalled. ‘What? She couldn’t tell you anything else about the ring?’
Connie shook her head. ‘Only sad stuff about it. She and her sister fell out over it because her sister was meant to inherit the ring rather than her. And Mrs Fitzpatrick wanted to leave it to her niece in her will – sort of to make things right again – but now that she’s lost it, she can’t. Though I don’t really see how she could have got it to her since she doesn’t know where she lives. All she knows is that her great-niece is a librarian somewhere in London.’
‘A librarian?’ Ruby was staring at her.
‘That’s right.’
‘Did she tell you her name?’
‘No . . . oh, wait a minute . . . she said she was named Eliza after Mrs Fitzpatrick’s mother.’
Ruby was looking excited. ‘We might be able to find her. I’ll get Sapphire and Emerald to ask all the fairy librarians who look after the London libraries if they’ve heard of her.’
‘Fairy librarians?’
‘Yes. They’re fairies who work in your libraries. Their main job is to keep the human librarians from moving the entry-books and to check that they don’t dust all the fairy dust off them. Librarians who like to dust a lot can cause us fairies a lot of problems.’ Ruby flew up to the top shelf and came back with a notepad and a miniature gold-coloured pen. She quickly started to scribble a message in tiny handwriting. ‘I’ll send this to Sapphire and Emerald right now.’
‘How will you send it?’ Connie asked, as she watched Ruby fold up the piece of paper and write the names of her two friends on the front.
‘I’ll post it!’ Ruby flew up to a book on one of the middle shelves.
Connie saw that the book was the one she had seen before sparkling. She had tried really hard to spot it every time she visited the library, but, until now she hadn’t succeeded. Ruby had told her it was because entry-books tended to camouflage themselves by not sparkling very much when they weren’t being used by the fairies. The book was sparkling now as Ruby flew into the gap between it and the shelf above and slipped her letter down between the pages. ‘There!’ she said. ‘They should get that straight away.’
‘But even if they do find out where Mrs Fitzpatrick’s great-niece works, how will that help us?’ Connie asked, having to struggle to tear her eyes away from the book to look at Ruby, who had now flown into the middle of the room.
‘If she’s been told stories about the ring, then she can tell us where to look for it, can’t she?’
&n
bsp; ‘Are Sapphire and Emerald going to ask her then?’
‘Oh no. Even if she’s in the right mind for seeing fairies – and only a few grown-up humans ever are – she won’t react very well to seeing them. Adult humans who see us always think they’re going mad and rush straight off to see their doctor before we’ve even had a chance to open our mouths. It’s most irritating. That’s why—’ Ruby stopped and gave Connie a steady look.
‘What?’ Connie asked.
‘That’s why we need you to go and talk to her.’
‘Me? Don’t be silly! How would I get to London? It’s too far away!’
‘Not if you go there through the books.’
‘What? ’
‘We can take humans through the entry-books with us – just like we can take objects – so long as they want to go. It just isn’t something that fairies do very often. It needs a lot of fairy magic and I’d have to ask the fairy queen’s permission first.’
Ruby broke off as she noticed the bulge in the pocket of Connie’s dress. She flew closer to look, sniffing the air as she went. Fairies had a very good sense of smell, especially when it came to sniffing out chocolate.
‘Here,’ Connie said, quickly pulling out the chocolate buttons and holding them out to her. ‘Ruby, what are you talking about? How could you take me with you? I don’t understand.’
‘I couldn’t take you. I’m not allowed to leave here, remember? But you could go through with Sapphire and Emerald.’ Ruby had already snatched away the bag of buttons and was flying up towards the top shelf with it balanced on her head like a giant sack. ‘I’ll let you know when they send a reply to my letter. You’d better go now. I have to write another letter – a very important one to the fairy queen – so I need to be left alone to concentrate.’
And she disappeared behind the top row of books and didn’t come out again.
Connie waited for the rest of the day for Ruby to send her a sign that she had heard back from her two fairy friends. Just before tea she went to the library window and looked in. The window was closed and there were no fairy lights on inside. Connie knocked and called out Ruby’s name, but there was no response. Connie returned to the flat, feeling frustrated.
Connie’s postcard from Emma, sent on by her mother, had arrived that morning. Connie read it now for the tenth time and remembered what Mrs Fitzpatrick had said about how it was a good thing to miss someone because it showed they really meant a lot to you. That was all very well, Connie thought, but what if they meant so much that you couldn’t imagine anybody else ever taking their place?
Her mother had included a little note of her own:
Dad and I are missing you, darling, but it sounds as though you’re having a nice time with Aunt Alice and Uncle Maurice.
Connie had told her mum on the phone that she was enjoying her holiday at Bluebell Hall, although in the end she hadn’t mentioned anything about Ruby because she knew her mum wouldn’t believe her.
Connie wondered if Mrs Fitzpatrick’s great-niece – Eliza – believed in fairies. She hoped so. It would make it much easier to explain things to her if she did.
After tea, when she had finished helping Aunt Alice with the washing-up, Connie went down to the lake to feed the swans with some old bread that her aunt had been going to throw out. One of the swans swam up to the bread, prodded it a bit with its beak, then swam away again without touching it. The others, one of whom still had its red flower crown sitting lopsidedly on its head, didn’t even bother coming to look.
‘They like fresh bread,’ a voice said from behind her. ‘How would you like to be given mouldy old bread for your tea?’
Connie looked round and saw Ruby. ‘It’s not mouldy. Anyway, the swans in the park at home eat it.’
‘Well, these ones won’t. Mrs Fitzpatrick used to feed them fresh French bread every day. Sometimes she made them salmon and cucumber sandwiches.’
Connie smiled. ‘I suppose she cut off the crusts as well, did she?’
‘Don’t be silly – swans like crusts! Now listen, I’ve come to tell you that Sapphire and Emerald have found Mrs Fitzpatrick’s great-niece. They’ve been to have a look at her in her library and they say she looks quite friendly. But she couldn’t see them even though they flew right in front of her nose. So we need you to go and talk to her. You will, won’t you?’
‘Well, yes, if it’ll help, but—’
‘Good! I’ve already sent a message to the fairy queen and she’s going to come to the library to interview you at midnight tonight. You’ll have to wear your best dress. And you’d better tidy your hair. And you can’t wear those.’ She pointed at Connie’s trainers. ‘Haven’t you got some nice sparkly shoes to wear?’
Connie frowned. Ruby could get a bit too bossy sometimes. ‘I haven’t got any sparkly shoes, but I can wear my other trainers – the ones with the flashing lights on the heels. I didn’t realize I was going to have an interview.’
‘Queen Amethyst always has to interview any humans who want to go into fairyland,’ Ruby said. ‘She’s a very important person. You’ll have to curtsy when you meet her. Do you know how to curtsy?’
‘Of course I do,’ Connie replied. She had seen people curtsying to the real Queen on television, usually when they were presenting her with a bouquet of flowers. Thinking of that gave her an idea. ‘Don’t worry,’ she told Ruby. ‘I’ll make sure Queen Amethyst likes me. I’ll be very respectful.’
Ruby still looked nervous. ‘She’s quite a scary fairy, you know. Especially when she’s telling you off about something. Oh dear. I’d better go and dust the library again before she gets here.’ And she zoomed off.
‘See you later,’ Connie called after her, smiling. She guessed that Ruby had probably got told off quite a lot by Queen Amethyst when she’d lived in fairyland. But she still didn’t see why she should feel afraid of her. After all, the fairy queen couldn’t be all that different from any other fairy, could she?
At midnight, Connie was sitting in the library as Ruby fluttered around still checking anxiously for dust. The fairy lights were on and Connie was sitting cross-legged on the rug staring at the entry-book, which had been sparkling for the last few minutes.
‘It’s warming up to transport Queen Amethyst,’ Ruby explained. ‘Sapphire and Emerald are coming as well.’
Connie was holding a bunch of bluebells in her hand, which she had stopped to pick on her way to the library. She had tied some silver ribbon round the stems to make a little bouquet to present to the fairy queen. She had also been practising how to curtsy.
Suddenly Connie saw the entry-book slide off its shelf and open by itself so that it was hovering in the air in front of the bookcase. The page where it had opened began to glow gold and then a beam of light suddenly shot out from the book – as wide as the page itself and as strong as the beam from a very powerful torch.
Then something sparkling and purple was travelling down the beam towards them, getting clearer and clearer and sharper and sharper as it got closer, like a fuzzy picture gradually coming into focus. As Connie scrambled to her feet, a very grand-looking fairy came flying out from the light. She had long snow-white hair and she was wearing a long purple dress made out of several different layers of crêpe and tissue paper, the outer layer of which was decorated with gold full stops. The dress had long sleeves with frilly tissue-paper cuffs and her waistband was made from a velvet bookmark. Her delicate purple shoes were decorated with sparkly gold exclamation marks (because that was Queen Amethyst’s favourite type of punctuation) and on her head she wore a crown made from solid-gold letters of the alphabet all joined together.
‘I am Queen Amethyst, queen of the book fairies,’ the fairy announced, in a haughty voice. ‘You must be Connie.’
Connie stared at her in awe and immediately knew what Ruby meant about her being scary. Her face seemed older than Ruby’s and she had sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin. Her eyes were a violet colour and, as she inspected Connie from head to toe, her
lips remained pressed together sternly. Connie tried to curtsy, but she was so nervous that she stumbled and nearly dropped her flowers.
Queen Amethyst was looking at the flowers in surprise and Connie immediately saw her mistake – the bluebells were as huge as trees compared with the fairy queen. She should have brought some tiny flowers instead, like buttercups or violets.
‘O-oh . . .’ Connie stammered. ‘I forgot they’d be . . . that you’d be . . .’ But as she spoke, Queen Amethyst rubbed her fingertips together and suddenly the bunch of bluebells was showered with golden dust.
‘How splendid,’ the fairy queen said, holding out her hand to take the bouquet that, to Connie’s amazement, had now magically shrunk in size. Queen Amethyst sniffed the flowers politely, then handed them to one of her fairy assistants (just like the real Queen was always doing when she got given flowers on the television).
Connie had been so busy staring at Queen Amethyst that she hadn’t noticed the other two fairies who had emerged from the beam of light behind her. There was one with a blue dress and shiny dark hair, who Connie took to be Sapphire, and one with wavy blonde hair and a green dress, who she guessed must be Emerald, the fairy who was jumpy around humans. Queen Amethyst handed her bouquet to Sapphire, then started to fly around the library inspecting all the books and running her finger along some of them to check for dust. Connie saw that Ruby had been right to do all that extra dusting earlier on.
Finally, the fairy queen landed on the window ledge and told them all to sit. She stretched out her wings and stood there looking down at them. ‘Now,’ she began, ‘Ruby has told me about her plan to return the ring to its rightful owner. I understand that Connie wishes to help and that to do so she must travel through the entry-book. Is that correct?’
Ruby nodded. ‘Yes, your majesty.’
The queen looked at Connie. ‘And you are sure that you want to do this?’
