Screams do wake me up in the night, but not Seth’s. I’m on my feet before I realise it is Pippa screaming. I’m the first to get to her room, and switch the light on before Mum and Seth come bursting in behind me.
“Pippa, what’s wrong?”
“My hair,” she whines. “My hair.”
We all look, and sure enough, Pippa’s long blonde hair is tied around the bedpost. Divided in half at her scalp, tied around the bedpost and finished with a ribbon.
“How on earth have you managed to do this?” Mum asks as she crouches down to untie it.
”I didn’t do it,” Pippa cries.
“Well, how else did it get done? Kait, you didn’t do it, did you?”
“Of course not! I was asleep.”
“Pips, you must’ve done it in your sleep or something. I didn’t even know you were this good at knots.”
“I didn’t do it,” Pippa cries. “Ow! It hurts.”
I sit down on the bed next to her and try to comfort her while Mum tries to undo it.
“You’ve done a bloody good job,” she mutters under her breath as she struggles with it.
“Shall I get the scissors?” Seth asks from the doorway where he is leaning.
“Just cut it off at the scalp,” Seth continues. “It’ll grow back soon enough.”
“Noooooooooo,” Pippa screams.
“Why don’t you go back to bed, Seth?” I ask in my sweetest voice. “You’re not helping.”
Mum fixes me with a glare but I don’t care. He isn’t helping. He’s just upsetting Pippa more.
“Yeah, good idea,” Seth mutters as he slopes off.
Eventually Mum gets Pippa’s hair untied from the bedpost but it’s still a tangled mess. Pippa clings on to me where I’m still hugging her, and when Mum says it’s time to go back to sleep, she clings even tighter.
“Can I sleep with you tonight?” She asks Mum pitifully.
“No, absolutely not.”
“I’ll stay if you want, Pips,” I say instead.
Pippa nods enthusiastically.
“Okay, but no messing around. You both need to get back to sleep. It’s a school night.”
I nod and Mum leaves.
I crawl into Pippa’s bed and get comfy.
“Want to tell me what happened?” I ask after I’m settled and the lights are off again.
“You won’t believe me,” she says quietly.
“You’d be surprised at the things I’ve been believing lately, Pips,” I tell her. “Try me.”
She is quiet for a moment. “I only saw her briefly.”
“Saw her? Who?”
“You won’t believe me.”
“Yes, I will, Pips. I promise.”
“The fairy,” she mumbles eventually. “It was the fairy off the top of the Christmas tree.”
“The one Seth brought in and made us put up?”
She nods. “I woke up and I swear I saw her flying out the door. Then I felt my hair pulled and started screaming.”
I think about this for a moment.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
“I do believe you,” I say. “I promise I do. I was just thinking. It explains a few things.”
“Like what?” She asks.
“Like the tree being on its side in the living room one morning, and that writing on the bathroom mirror. I got the blame for those, even though I didn’t do it.”
“You think the fairy might have done it?”
“Why not? It’s obviously some kind of magical fairy. It probably comes to life when there’s no one around and does naughty things that we get the blame for. And don’t forget that Seth brought it in. Seth is trying to get us in trouble.”
“I thought Seth liked us.”
“Seth is pretending to like us so Mum will like him. You know you can’t trust Seth, don’t you?”
She nods.
The next morning, I climb up on the chair in the living room and get the fairy down. I hide it in the sleeve of my jumper, and when I take Harry for his walk, I chuck it into a dustbin on the next street.