Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand Page 6

  Eighty-seven bats shifted to make room for the newcomer. Rani-bat flew in. She settled next to another bat, right up against her, fur-to-fur.

  Ugh! Rani wanted to scratch herself all over. She wanted to sneeze a big, wet sneeze.

  Rani-bat wrapped her wings around herself for warmth.

  Rani was roasting, and she couldn’t even sweat.

  Rani-bat fell asleep instantly.

  Rani was wide awake. She was miserable. She’d probably be a bat forever. She’d never use her talent again. She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t even make her nose run.

  She’d delivered the wand, but she hadn’t warned Soop that her wishes couldn’t be undone. Soop might already have wished something she didn’t mean.

  There is little privacy in the mermaids’ castle, where the rooms, except for the wind room, have no walls. Soop went to her bedroom and entered her “concealment forest.” A concealment forest is a grove of tall seaweed that shields a mermaid from prying eyes.

  In her forest, Soop took out the wand. She wondered how much she needed to tell it and how much it understood without being told. She began. “Sir Wand, this command concerns my friend Pah.”

  Soop and Pah often quarreled, but in the past they’d always made up. However, their latest squabble, about a song title, had taken place more than a month ago. Neither had spoken to the other since then.

  Soop continued, “Pah’s a mermaid, like me. Do you know what a mermaid is?

  “Pah has arms and a tail and a head and a mouth with teeth and eyes and eyelids and a nose and lungs and gills.” Soop gave up. “You’ll know her from the others because she talks funny.”

  Soop had been speaking Mermish, but she wasn’t sure the wand spoke it, so she repeated everything in the fairy-and-Clumsy tongue. At the end she said, “Make Pah apologize to me.” She waved the wand.

  Pah was sunning herself on Marooners’ Rock. She sat up. Soop! Why had she waited so long to tell her best friend she was sorry? She dived into the lagoon.

  Soop moved on to her second wish.

  “A nautilus shell is a seashell,” she told the wand. “It’s the house, or maybe the skin, of a nautilus, which is a sea creature. You’re in the sea right now, Sir Wand, a lagoon of the sea.” At last she came to her command: “Make two nautilus shells, exactly the same size, and bring them to me. Make them just a tiny bit smaller than Queen Eewee’s shell.”

  Mermaid rank is determined by the size of a mermaid’s nautilus shell. Both Pah and Soop had medium-sized shells. Soop’s shell was a little bigger than Pah’s, so Soop was allowed to sit a little closer to the queen at dinner.

  With the new shells, Soop and Pah would be equals, and they’d be much more important—duchesses, at least.

  Soop waved the wand. Two enormous nautilus shells appeared at her feet. Before she had time to examine them, she heard Pah.

  “Aaaeeeiiiooouuuyyy!” Trailing her orange scarf, Pah swam through the whalebone arch to Soop’s room.

  Soop swam out of her concealment forest.

  “I’m sorry,” Pah said. “It doesn’t matter what the name of the song is. I can’t tell yooo how sorry I am. I’ve been meaning tooo apologize. I don’t know why I waited so long. Can yooo forgive me, Sooop?”

  Soop hugged her. “I forgive you. Look!” She parted the seaweed in her concealment forest to reveal the shells.

  Pah gasped. Soop thumped her tail in joy.

  The nautilus shells were two-and-a-half feet long and plumply rounded. The center of one, the tightest part of its coil, was pearly with tints of pink and blue. The rest was creamy with emerald green stripes. The other was almond brown, shot through with splashes of pink and yellow.

  “They’re soooperb.” Pah tried to be happy for her friend, but her jealousy leaked out. “Congratyooolations. I guess yooo’ll want me to call yooo Your Mership from now on.”

  Soop was hurt. “Yes. You must. And I can write your name without a capital p whenever I like.”

  “Yooo may, although I don’t know why yooo would write my name at all.” She left Soop’s room, calling over her shoulder, “You’re tooo grand for me now.”

  Soop pulled the wand out of her concealment forest. “Make Pah come back,” she whispered, and waved it. Then she dropped it back into the forest.

  Pah swam backward, doing everything in reverse, until she faced Soop again. “How did I dooo that?”

  “Silly, one shell is for you. Which do you want?”

  “Really?”

  Soop nodded.

  Pah threw her arms around Soop’s neck and thanked her. Then she swam down to the shells on the floor and examined them. The brown one was her favorite. It seemed merry and serious at the same time. It was a shell that knew how to have fun yet was still aware that there were sharks in the water. Pah was sure Soop preferred it, too, since it was the most beautiful shell in the world. Wanting to equal Soop’s kindness, she said, “I’ll take the striped one, unless yooo like it best.”

  Soop did like the striped one best. It was shell poetry, she thought, each color, each stripe, perfectly placed. But she wanted Pah to have her pick. “No,” she said. “I adore the brown one.”

  “Done!” Pah said, swallowing her disappointment. “Sooon we’ll be allowed tooo sing in Queen Eewee’s inner chorus.”

  “Together,” Soop said.

  “Tooogether.”

  They smiled at each other.

  “Where did yooo find the shells?”

  Soop said, “Er…I have a magic wand.”

  A wand! Pah thought. She wondered when Soop had planned to tell her—and when Soop was going to let her use it.

  S I X T E E N

  PRILLA was on the ground near the nest, clearing the fairy circle of the stones that the flood had deposited there. That is, she sometimes cleared stones. More often, she turned cartwheels because the flood had ended and Sara Quirtle was complete.

  After the water had drained away, Mother Dove’s nest and the egg had been returned to their old branch, where Mother Dove was sure the egg was happiest.

  Beck was on Mother Dove’s back, picking out twigs and keeping an eye on the golden hawk. He was teaching himself to hunt mites, although he couldn’t imagine a lowlier occupation.

  Mother Dove saw Tink and Terence and Ree flying toward her. Terence had his arm around Tink, and they were flying one wing apiece, their glows connected.

  He wasn’t smiling, however. Tink wasn’t either. Her face was as tragic as if all the pots in the world had vanished.

  Mother Dove noticed that Ree’s tiara was gone and that Ree seemed as shaken as Tink and Terence. Something terrible had happened.

  Where was Rani?

  Prilla called, “Hello, Tink!” She flew to them, surprised to see Terence, amazed to see them flying doubles. “Is Rani with Soop?”

  Mother Dove moaned as the truth came to her. Rani was trapped inside a bat.

  “I couldn’t do anything,” Ree said, weeping as copiously as Rani would have. “We saw her fly out of the water.”

  “Rani?” Prilla said, wondering why everyone was unhappy.

  “She’s a bat,” Ree said.

  Tink broke down. “We couldn’t catch her. We don’t…”

  A bat! Prilla flew up and down from pure upsetness.

  Beck knew what this meant. The bat would be in charge. Rani would have little influence over the logical bat temperament. Of all fairies, emotional Rani was the least suited for life within a bat.

  “Tink was going to try to wake the wand up,” Ree said, “so we could reverse our wishes. But now the wand is gone.”

  Prilla was glad they didn’t know about Sara Quirtle. She didn’t want that wish reversed.

  “The hawks?” Beck asked Ree. “Did you do it?”

  “She had wand madness,” Terence said. “We all did.”

  “How could you? Look!” Beck pointed at the ground.

  Ree saw the golden hawk. “They’re alive!”

  She sounded so relieved tha
t Beck half forgave her.

  “I might be able to blink to Rani,” Prilla said. She’d blinked only to the mainland and to Fairy Haven, but her imaginary tunnel might take her anywhere.

  “There are thousands of bats,” Beck said. “How would you find Rani?”

  Prilla blinked to a desk in the first row of a mainland classroom. Behind the teacher was a poster of a bat.

  “This is the pear-tree bat,” the teacher said. “It’s our biggest bat.”

  That big? Prilla thought. The poster bat was almost half the size of the Clumsy teacher.

  “Some scientists believe that fruit bats have a common ancestor with people.” He replaced the poster of the pear-tree bat with a poster of a different bat. “This is the tiny masonry-hole bat.”

  It’s just as big! Prilla thought. But it couldn’t be.

  “It’s no bigger than your thumb.”

  A Clumsy’s thumb, Prilla thought.

  “Does anyone know the ancestor of the masonry-hole bat?”

  Prilla raised her hand. “Fairies?”

  On Never Land, Beck asked Tink, “What kind of bat did Rani turn into?”

  “A masonry-hole bat,” Prilla said, half her mind still on the mainland.

  Beck stared at her. “How do you know what a masonry-hole bat looks like? Did you see her?”

  Prilla shook her head. “I just—sorry.”

  “Tink?”

  Tink shrugged. “A bat.”

  “Ree? Terence?”

  Terence shook his head. Ree said she didn’t know.

  “Brown? Gray? Tell me what to look for. Furry? Yellow-eyed? Round-eared? Tail—”

  “A bat. Stop asking.” Tink blamed herself for not noticing.

  “Mother Dove?” Beck said. “Can I go after Rani?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  Beck said, “I’ll need a balloon carrier.”

  The golden hawk flew onto Beck’s shoulder.

  “I can pull the carrier,” Prilla said.

  Tink said, “Terence and I want to come, too.”

  Mother Dove said, “Tink, you may go. Terence…they need you to repair the canisters.”

  Tink pulled her bangs. “Mother—”

  Mother Dove cooed at Tink, who finally nodded.

  Beck said, “Tink, Prilla, let me talk to the bats. You won’t know what should be said.”

  “If we find the right bat,” Prilla said, “how do we turn her back into Rani?”

  No one answered. Even Mother Dove didn’t know.

  S E V E N T E E N

  IN THE ROTTING cherry tree, Rani tried to awaken Rani-bat, but Rani-bat was determined to remain asleep. The pinprick that was Rani shouted, Hey, bat! Let me out! Release me! I have to go back to the lagoon and warn Soop about the wand. I have to get out of you. Hey, bat! Wake up!

  Rani-bat dreamed of hunting. In the dream, she crunched on a firefly. She swallowed it, but it didn’t go down. Instead, it went up into her brain—a rude, unpleasant insect, whirring and shouting.

  Rani felt the bat’s awareness. She thought-shouted harder, louder. Wake up! Let me go! Bat! Bat! It’s important! Set me free!

  Rani-bat spoke and understood the fairy-and-Clumsy language, as all bats do. But she refused to listen to bad manners. She burrowed into a deeper sleep.

  Rani felt the bat’s awareness recede. How could she break through? She thought-screamed. She thought-shrieked. She thought-blasted.

  Rani-bat slept on.

  Prilla and Tink flew to Rani’s room to fetch something for Rani to wear when—and if—she turned back into a fairy. Tink found the leafkerchief she’d given her, the one with a frying pan embroidered onto every corner. Prilla picked out Rani’s six-pocket dress and selected five more leafkerchiefs. Tink nailed a tabletop across the hole Vidia had made in the ceiling, while Prilla fed Minnie, who had survived both the flood and the rain of plaster.

  Beck waited outside with a balloon carrier that held a coconut shell and a sack of fairy dust. When Tink and Prilla arrived, they took the carrier cord and followed Beck toward the only two caves along the Wough River. The golden hawk tried to fly with them, but he couldn’t keep up, so Beck stopped and let him perch on her head.

  As they flew, Tink pictured Terence repairing a pumpkin canister. She was sure he was the best pumpkin-canister-repair fairy-dust talent in Never Land.

  But Peter intruded on her thoughts. She imagined him reciting love songs to his clamshell.

  “My guess,” Beck said, “is that Rani is a nocturnal insectivorous Never bat.”

  “What’s that?” Tink asked.

  “It’s an insect-eating night bat.”

  “Insect-eating?” Prilla cried.

  “Yes.” Beck half wished she herself had turned into a bat. It would be such an experience to be an animal.

  “Why couldn’t she be a pear-eating bat?” Prilla asked.

  “Partly because there aren’t as many fruit bats.”

  Prilla persisted. “Why else?”

  “Just because.” Beck had a hunch.

  “Do we have to wait until dark to look for her?” Tink asked.

  “We can’t wait. At night she’ll be out hunting. We have to hurry.” The afternoon was half over.

  “What if she isn’t acting like a bat?” Tink asked.

  Prilla said, “Then she’d have gone to Mother Dove.”

  “Or she might be wandering around somewhere, dazed,” Beck said.

  They hated to think about that.

  While Pah seethed with hidden wand madness, Soop wanded up riches beyond the dreams of an ordinary mermaid, half for her and half for Pah: golden tail rings, rare combs, pirate plunder. Soop’s concealment forest was so full of treasures that it glittered.

  The two were lying back on Soop’s sponge cushions, munching on kelp-jelly candies. Soop had never felt so much affection for her friend. She popped a jelly in Pah’s mouth and one in her own. “Would you like to be queen? I could make you queen.”

  Pah didn’t want to be queen. Too much work was involved. But she said, “I could make myself queen, if yooo’d let me wave the wand. Or I could make yooo queen.”

  Soop stroked the wand in her lap, wand madness rising in her, too. She dodged the issue. “I don’t want to be queen.”

  “Then let me wave it for something else.”

  “I’ll wave it for whatever you want. Tell me what you want.”

  “A wand.”

  Soop waved the wand. “Give Pah her own wand.”

  Nothing happened. A wand can’t create another wand.

  “Let me borrow yours. Please, Sooop. I just want tooo borrow it. I gave yooo my best scarf.”

  “I’ll give you anything else. Tell me what you want.”

  Pah’s anger bubbled up. She sprang off the cushions. “I want yooo tooo give yourself a tail rash.”

  Soop grew angry, too. “I’ll give yooo—I mean you—a tail rash.” Without noticing, she jiggled the wand. Luckily, her wording wasn’t quite right. The wand didn’t hear a command.

  “I say tail rash,” Pah sang nastily, “yooo say tail rash.” She stopped singing. “Yooo can’t even think of something different tooo give me.”

  “I’ll give you…I’ll give you…” Soop waved the wand, but she couldn’t think of anything terrible enough.

  “You’re selfish and you’re stooopid.”

  “You can’t talk right.” Soop was close to tears. “Yooo sound like a foool.”

  “Stooopid.” Pah was close to tears, too.

  “And you jerk your tail when you swim.”

  “I hate yooo.” Pah regretted the words as soon as she said them. She’d never said anything so harsh before.

  Soop felt as if Pah had slapped her. She put her hands over her ears, still holding the wand. “I wish not to be able to hear you ever again.”

  Pah swooped down on Soop’s arm.

  Soop hung onto the wand and finished the wish. “I wish no one else can hear you, either, no matter how loud you yell, ever
again.” With Pah clinging to her, Soop waved the wand.

  E I G H T E E N

  WHEN THEY reached the first cave at the edge of the Wough River, Beck tied the balloon carrier to a shrub outside. Prilla filled the coconut shell with river water, taking care not to get her wings wet. Tink lightened the shell with fairy dust, sprinkling the dust fondly, thinking of Terence. Then the three of them carried it into the cave.

  The hawk stopped at the cave entrance. He’d been outside, under the sky, his whole life. He feared the cave walls closing in, and he blamed himself for being a coward.

  Inside, Beck sensed a clutch of bats in a niche near the ceiling. “Up there,” she whispered, pointing with her chin.

  The fairies flew into the niche and set down the shell. Beck reveled in the bat smell. Tink and Prilla breathed through their mouths.

  Beck spoke, adopting a flowery style foreign to fairy speech. “Pardon me, esteemed bats. So sorry to disturb your rest. We should have a letter of introduction. We should have made an appointment, but we happened to be nearby, and we wanted to pay our respects. Please accept this water as proof of our good wishes.” She stepped back and gestured to Tink and Prilla that they should, too.

  The matriarch bat unfurled her wings. She blinked in the light of fairy glow. “Welcome, Never fairies. Thank you for your gift.” She flew to the water and sipped it.

  Beck scrutinized the matriarch. She didn’t think Rani could have become a matriarch this quickly. Still, Beck probed the matriarch’s mind, where she sensed only bat thoughts.

  The matriarch returned to her berth and to her sleep.

  Although he was still frightened, the golden hawk flew to Beck. He thought he might detect something the fairies would miss.

  Beck said, “Bats of every rank, please accept our gift. Please honor us by drinking.”

  The other bats awoke and lined up in size order.

  Beck probed their minds and found nothing unbatlike. Still, she might not know. Rani might be jammed in so deep that even an animal talent couldn’t tell.