by Kiki Thorpe
“It’s okay,” Kate said. “I think I have another idea. Come on.”
Kate led them around to the side of Lizzie’s house. A thick hedge grew along the wall. Kate squeezed between the wall and the hedge, then motioned for the other girls to follow.
“What are we doing?” Mia whispered.
“We’ll just look in the window and find out where Spinner is. Then we can figure out how to rescue him,” Kate said. “Come on.”
They edged along the side of the house. The hedge scratched Gabby’s arms and snagged her shirt. When they reached a window, Kate, who was tallest, stood on her tiptoes to look inside. But she could just barely peek over the windowsill.
“I can’t see much. Come here, Gabby. We’ll boost you up,” she said.
Kate grabbed Gabby around the waist. Mia and Lainey helped lift, until Gabby’s head was just above the windowsill. Through the window, Gabby could see Lizzie’s little brother Ollie. He was standing up in his crib, crying. But when he saw Gabby, he stopped.
Gabby waved at him. Then she made a funny face. Ollie stared at her, drooling a little.
“Do you see Spinner?” Kate whispered.
“No,” Gabby said. “It’s just the baby’s room.”
The girls lowered her back to the ground. “Let’s keep looking,” said Mia.
The next window they came to was open slightly. They could hear voices inside. “That sounds like Lizzie,” Gabby said.
This time when the girls lifted her up, she saw Lizzie’s room. Lizzie was sitting on her bed, with her back to the window. She was leaning forward, as if she was talking to something, but Gabby couldn’t see what—or who.
Then Lizzie shifted and Gabby saw a faint circle of light on the bed, like a reverse shadow. It was a fairy’s glow!
“Spinner’s there!” she whispered.
“Are you sure? Did you see him?” Mia asked as they lowered her.
Gabby nodded. “I saw his glow.”
“So Lizzie did take him!” Kate narrowed her eyes. “That little sneak!”
“Listen!” Lainey said suddenly, holding up a hand to quiet Kate. “Spinner’s telling a story.”
Through the open window, they could hear the sparrow man’s voice. “The Clumsies who write books got the story all wrong. Thumbelina was a fairy, though that wasn’t her name. Her real name was Maya.”
“I thought Thumbelina was a girl,” Lizzie said. “A teeny little girl.”
They heard Spinner laugh. “Have you ever heard of a human girl as tiny as that? Now stop interrupting and listen.”
“I have a plan for the rescue,” Kate whispered. “As soon as Lizzie leaves the room, we’ll boost Gabby inside and—”
“Shh, not yet, Kate,” Gabby said. She moved closer to the window. “I want to hear the story.”
“Maya was a fairy, almost like any other,” Spinner began. “The only difference was, she was born without wings. But Maya didn’t mind too much. She liked being close to the ground. She made friends with the tiny animals that lived in the earth. She loved being barefoot in the dirt and walking among the flowers.”
As he spoke, Gabby seemed to feel herself shrinking. The hedge now loomed above her, high as the trees in a forest. She was no taller than a blade of grass.
Spinner went on. “One day, Maya wandered too far from home. She grew tired and fell asleep in a little flower. But a Clumsy woman came along and picked the flower and took it back to her house. When she discovered the tiny fairy inside, the woman decided to keep her. The flower was hers, she reasoned, so the fairy inside must belong to her, too.
“The woman was kind to the fairy—or thought she was, anyway. She sewed her clothes from scraps of silk and made her a bed from a walnut shell. She gave her a new name, too—Thumbelina.”
Gabby looked down and saw that she was wearing an old-fashioned dress. It had a full skirt and tiny glass beads for buttons. Before her sat half a walnut shell, polished to a shine. There was a bit of wool for a pillow. When she climbed inside the shell, she found it made a snug little bed.
“But Maya was unhappy,” Spinner continued. “She longed to be free again and to play among the flowers. Then one day, she met a toad who agreed to help her escape.…”
Spinner’s words faded. Gabby found herself leaping through a night-dark garden on the back of a toad. The toad’s skin was moist and she struggled to hold on. But she clung to him with all her might, her heart beating wildly in her chest for fear that the Clumsy woman would wake up and find her gone.
When they reached a stream, the toad placed her on a lily pad. Three golden fish swam up and gently nudged her out into the current. As the sun rose, Gabby found herself drifting downstream on her lily-pad boat, watching butterflies as big as she was dart in the air above her.
When the lily pad became stuck on a rock, she begged for help from a flying beetle, who carried her to shore. Later, she took shelter from a storm in a mouse’s hole and befriended a sparrow. At every turn, little animals helped her on her way.
All through the journey, Gabby knew she was Gabby. Yet she saw the world through the fairy Maya’s eyes. A mud puddle became a huge lake. A single raindrop soaked her to the skin. A patch of grass was a dense jungle.
Then one day, as Gabby the fairy soared through the air on her sparrow friend’s back, she looked down and saw a field of flowers. Fairies darted among them, their glows twinkling.
“Maya knew she was finally home,” Spinner said. “And that’s the end of the story.”
Gabby blinked. She was sitting on the ground outside Lizzie’s window. Next to her, Kate, Mia, and Lainey looked as if they’d just awakened from a dream.
From inside they heard Lizzie say, “I was a fairy. I was right there in the story!”
Gabby smiled to herself. So Lizzie had also been carried away by Spinner’s magic.
“I liked some parts,” Lizzie went on. “But it was scary, too. I didn’t like it when that lady took me to her house and I couldn’t get home.”
“Sort of like when you took me?” Spinner asked.
Lizzie was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I just wanted to have my own fairy. I didn’t think it would matter. I thought Gabby could just go get another one from that pixie place.”
“Pixie Hollow,” said Spinner.
“Yeah, Pixie Hollow.” Lizzie sniffled, and Gabby thought maybe she was crying. “But now I don’t know what to do. I can’t give you back because Gabby will know I took you and she’ll be mad at me.”
“No, I won’t!” cried Gabby, popping up.
“Gabby, shh!” Mia, Kate, and Lainey hissed in unison.
But it was too late. Lizzie had heard them. She came over to the window and looked out. “Gabby? Why are you in the bushes?”
“Great,” Kate groaned. “There goes my rescue plan.” She put her hands on her hips and barked, “Listen up, Lizzie. Hand over Spinner, or else.”
Lizzie’s eyes went round. Gabby could see she was a little scared. “It’s okay,” she told Lizzie. “Kate’s not really mean.”
“Yes, I am,” said Kate, trying to scowl.
“Just come outside,” Mia said to Lizzie. “I think we can work this all out.”
Moments later, the girls stood on Lizzie’s front steps. Spinner was safely perched on Gabby’s shoulder. And Glorinda was back in Lizzie’s arms.
“It wasn’t very nice that you took Spinner and didn’t tell me,” Gabby said to Lizzie.
“I know,” Lizzie said. “And it wasn’t very nice that you spied on me. So I guess we’re Even Steven.”
“Okay,” said Gabby. “See you later, then.”
She turned and went down the steps. Maybe Mia was right, Gabby thought. Maybe she shouldn’t play with Lizzie. But then there would be no more fairy picnics at recess, or talking at lunch. And she wouldn’t have a school friend who liked fairies as much as she did.
Gabby turned around and went back up the steps. “We can be Even Steven if you want,” she said to Li
zzie. “But I think I’d rather be friends.”
“Me too,” said Lizzie, and held out her hand.
As they shook on it, Gabby heard Spinner sigh in her ear. “What’s the matter?” she asked him.
“Nothing,” Spinner said. “I just like happy endings.”
“And that,” said Spinner, “is the end of the story.”
He was sitting on a toadstool in the Home Tree’s courtyard, back in Pixie Hollow. On the ground at his feet sat a circle of fairies, listening. A healing-talent fairy stood behind him, gently straightening Spinner’s bent wing.
“That was one of your best stories yet, Spinner,” said Iridessa.
“Tell the part again about the Clumsy book,” Beck said. “That was my favorite part.”
“You mean ‘Thumbelina’? The girl a toad wanted to marry?” Spinner asked.
All the fairies rolled with laughter. “Oh, oh!” Beck gasped. “Whoever heard of such a ridiculous story?”
From the direction of Havendish Stream, they heard more laughter—not the bell-like laughter of fairies, but the giggles of girls. A second later, Kate, Mia, Lainey, and Gabby came into view, climbing up the stream bank. Spinner was glad to see that Gabby had her wings on again. She was carrying a piece of paper in one hand.
“We’re back!” Kate cried, throwing her arms wide and tipping her face to the sun. “I missed Pixie Hollow!”
Lainey grinned. “You’d think we’d been gone for a year instead of just one day.”
“It feels like a year when you’re sitting at a desk all day long,” Kate said. Spinner smiled. He knew what Kate meant.
“How was the second day of school?” he asked Gabby.
“Fun!” Gabby said. “Ms. Jesser gave us all classroom jobs—I’m the line leader. And at recess Lizzie and I played Red Rover with a bunch of other kids.”
Mia shook her head. “I can’t believe you still want to play with Lizzie, after everything that happened.”
“I told you,” Gabby said. “I like Lizzie. Anyway, I’d rather have a friend than a not-friend.”
“Lizzie isn’t so bad,” Spinner agreed.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Gabby said. “Ms. Jesser handed these back.” She held up the paper she was carrying. Spinner saw that it was the drawing they’d made together in class.
“What are the two gold stars at the top?” he asked.
“That means Ms. Jesser really liked it,” Gabby said, beaming. “One gold star for each of us. You can keep it, if you want.”
Spinner placed the paper on the ground, and the other fairies gathered around to admire it.
“I guess that means you’re an honorary first grader,” Gabby told him.
“Well, I’ll be jammed and jellied,” Spinner said in a soft voice. Then he blushed so hard his glow turned pink.
“Spinner has been telling us about his adventure on the first day of school,” Beck said to the girls. “But it isn’t really all true, is it?” She turned back to Spinner. “You didn’t really battle a giant lizard in Gabby’s classroom. Or get fairy-napped by red-eyed bandits. Did you?”
Spinner looked at Gabby and winked. “That depends on how you look at it,” he told Beck. “What do you think?”
Whenever she came to Never Land, Lainey found herself looking up at the sky. It was a remarkable color, a deep robin’s-egg blue, and there was always something interesting to see. A flock of flamingos, maybe, or one of the Lost Boys flying by on his way to their hideout.
Today was no different. A swallow darted past. Lainey glimpsed a fairy with a long brown braid riding on its back.
“Fawn!” Lainey called, recognizing her animal-talent fairy friend. She thought she heard Fawn shout something in reply. But a second later, the bird disappeared into the trees.
Lainey turned to her friends. “I’m going to find Fawn and see if she wants to have a deer race. Want to come?”
Kate shook her head. “I want to go flying.”
“I’m going to the meadow,” said Mia.
Gabby waved her envelope. “I have to give out my cards.”
Lainey nodded. “Meet you in a while.” The friends always went to Never Land together—they’d made a rule never to go without one another. But once there, they often followed their own hearts’ desires.
Kate headed to the mill, where she’d get a pinch of fairy dust so she could fly. Mia strolled toward the meadow, where the prettiest flowers grew. And Gabby started for the Home Tree.
Lainey crossed the stream, heading toward the trees where Fawn had disappeared. As she walked, she whistled a Christmas carol.
Deck the halls with boughs of holly…
Lainey stopped. Was it her imagination? Or was there an echo?
She whistled again. A throaty chirp came back, matching her note for note.
Lainey scanned the trees. Since she’d started spending time in Pixie Hollow, her eyes had become much sharper. Now she spied a plump gray bird sitting on a branch. Could that be the one chirping?
She whistled another line of the song. The bird peered at her with beady black eyes. Then it spread its wings and flew away. Lainey sighed. Had it only been her imagination?
She started walking again—and the forest around her burst into birdsong. In a chorus of trills, whistles, and cheeps, dozens of birds sang the song back to her.
As suddenly as they’d begun, the birds fell silent. Lainey had the feeling they were waiting.
Heart pounding, she whistled the next part. Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.
The branches above exploded into song. Lainey’s heart soared. She felt like a conductor with a great feathered orchestra. Lainey and the birds finished the song together.
“Bravo!” shouted a tiny voice. Fawn darted out from her hiding place behind a branch.
Lainey laughed. “Did you tell the birds to copy me?” she asked.
“So what if I did?” Fawn said with an impish grin. “It sounded wonderful. You’re a natural song leader. Can you do any others?”
“You bet I can,” Lainey said. She began to whistle “Jingle Bells,” and the entire bird chorus followed along.
Gabby had been all over Pixie Hollow, delivering Christmas cards to her best fairy friends. She’d left two in a robin’s nest for the animal-talent fairies Fawn and
Beck. She’d dropped one inside a buttercup for the garden fairy Rosetta, and another into Iridessa’s favorite pool of sunlight. She left a card in the water fairy Silvermist’s birch-leaf canoe. She placed one in a spiderweb hammock for Spinner, the story-telling sparrow man, and another on the knothole doorstep of Prilla, the fairy who’d first brought Gabby to Never Land. And for Dulcie, the baking-talent fairy, she placed one in an empty chestnut shell right outside the kitchen door.
Gabby had only one card left to deliver. Tucked between the roots of the Home Tree was a little building made from an old metal teapot. Gabby squatted down and tapped on the metal door.
She heard grumbling inside. Too late, Gabby remembered that Tinker Bell didn’t like to be bothered in her workshop. She was about to leave the card on the pebble doorstep, when the door flew open. The tinkering fairy poked her tiny blond head out.
“What is it?” she asked, frowning.
“Nothing…I just…I have…This is for you,” Gabby stammered. She held out the card.
As Tink took the square of folded paper, her face softened. On the front, Gabby had drawn a snowflake in silver crayon—silver because Tink liked metal things. Inside, the card read:
“It’s a Christmas card,” Gabby explained.
Tink closed the card, then opened it and read it again. She looked pleased. “No one’s ever given me a card before.”
“Never?” Gabby was shocked. “What about for your birthday?”
Tink laughed. The sound was clear and bright, like a tiny bell ringing. “Fairies don’t have birthdays.”
“But then how do you know how old you are?” Gabby asked.
“We don’t get older,” Tink explained.
“We just…are. Until we aren’t.” She admired the card again. “I want to give you something, too.”
Tink darted inside her workshop. She returned holding something shiny, which she placed in Gabby’s hand. It was a silver bell about the size of a gumdrop.
“It’s a fairy bell,” Tink explained. “Long ago, Clumsies hung them on their houses. It was a way of saying that they were friendly to fairies and magic.”
Gabby rang the bell, which gave a high, merry jingle. She thought it sounded just like Tink’s laugh.
“Of course, things have changed,” Tink went on. “No one uses the bells anymore. I’ve kept some just because they’re pretty.”
Gabby rang the bell again, enjoying the sound. “It’s a nice present,” she said, putting it in her pocket. “Thank you very much.”
“It’s nothing,” Tink said, waving off Gabby’s thanks. “I’d better get back to work. I have an idea for a self-ladling soup pot. Haven’t worked out all the kinks yet, though.” She pointed to her pom-pom slippers. They were splattered with soup.
Tink went back into her workshop and closed the door. Before Gabby left, she peeked through the window. Tink was sitting in a chair made from a bent teaspoon. She was reading her card again.
Mia sat at the edge of the meadow, drowsing among the flowers. She knew her friends were off having adventures. In a minute, I’ll go find them, she told herself. But the air was so soft, the flowers so bright and lovely, the little fairy doors and windows in the trees so charming, she just had to stop and soak it all in. Sometimes Pixie Hollow seemed exactly like a dream. A magnificent dream that Mia and her friends could return to again and again.
She’d been sitting for some time when she suddenly noticed a freckle-faced fairy in a green beanie perched on a nearby daisy. “Oh, Prilla!” Mia said, startled. “I didn’t see you there. Why didn’t you say something?”
“I’m just back from a blink,” Prilla said. Mia noticed the fairy had the dazed look she got when she blinked her eyes and went to the mainland. Prilla always visited children on her blinks. That was how she’d met Mia, Gabby, and their friends—she’d accidentally brought them back to Pixie Hollow with her on a blink.
