As the MagiCell whirred away softly, searching for Daisy’s FG number, Tabitha kept on talking. “It’s a shame I’m going,” she said. “Just when a cool new fairy godsister comes along.”
A cool new fairy godsister? She meant me! For a moment, I was so taken aback, I couldn’t think of anything else. Me — ordinary Philippa Fisher — she saw me as a cool fairy godsister! Despite everything going on with my mom and with Daisy, I couldn’t suppress a smile.
“When do you go?” I asked.
“Couple of days, I think. I haven’t gotten all the details yet.” She glanced around the office to check that no one was listening. “It’s BLC!” she whispered.
“Oh,” I said. I didn’t know what she meant.
“That’s where I’m going,” she explained. BLC must be a fairy godmother department. It sounded more like some kind of sandwich to me!
“Big Life Change,” she explained.
“Oh, yes, of course,” I said, feeling more and more obviously an absolute fraud with every passing moment.
“You haven’t heard of it, then,” she said. She looked disappointed.
“Well, I —”
“It’s OK,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to have heard of it. Hardly anyone has. It’s quite new. We help people who are adjusting to a new life.”
“It sounds good,” I said, meaning it.
“It’ll be the first client assignment I’ve had for ages! I’m really looking forward to it.”
Just then, my MagiCell beeped. “Looks like someone wants you,” Tabitha said. “I’ll leave you alone.”
She disappeared back to her desk, and I looked at the screen. When I saw the words, my heart flipped over and doubled its pace. FG FOUND! it said in big bold letters. Underneath, another word: CONNECT?
I’d done it! I’d found Daisy! My heart beating so rapidly I felt as if it were going to fly out of my chest, I touched the screen. “Yes, connect!”
This was it. I was going to talk to Daisy and find out what had happened to Mom!
“Daisy?” I said uncertainly into the MagiCell. How did you speak into one of these, anyway? I held it like a walkie-talkie, talking into the speaker and then holding it up to my ear.
Nothing happened.
I checked to see that no one was watching me. I didn’t want to look even more like a fool than I already did, with all the other things I’d gotten wrong.
I tried again. “This is Philippa calling Daisy,” I said in a stage whisper. “Do you read me? Come in, Daisy.”
Again, nothing. I was about to switch off the MagiCell and put it away when it suddenly crackled, then hissed, then hummed. And then —“Philippa?”
I gripped the MagiCell with both hands and whispered into it again. “Daisy! Is that really you?”
Daisy laughed. “I can’t believe it’s you,” she said. “How did you —”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ll explain when I see you. What’s happened with my mom?”
“We stopped it!” Daisy said. “The SRB — it’s gone. Your mom’s fine!”
I let out a breath that I felt I’d been holding in since we’d gotten to ATC and tried to reply, but my answer got stuck in my throat.
“Philippa? Did you hear me?”
I swallowed hard and tried again. “Daisy, that’s wonderful!” I said. “That’s so great. Thank you so much!”
“How about you?” she asked. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine. I can’t believe I’m getting away with it, but so far so good. How are you doing there?”
“I love it!” she said. “Well, I mean, it’s fine. It’s OK.”
“What are you doing now?”
“I’m in your room with Robyn.”
A stab of jealousy went through me. Daisy and Robyn hanging out together in my room. Daisy there in the cottage with my mom and dad. Me stuck up here, with no idea what I was doing or how I was ever going to get out of this and return to my normal life. Suddenly, being able to fly around and talk to computers didn’t feel quite so exciting anymore.
“Have you had any ideas about how to get me home yet?” I asked quietly.
There was a long pause at the other end. “I’m still trying to figure something out,” she said eventually. “Listen, get in touch with me again in —”
Just then, a noise behind me snatched my attention away from what Daisy was saying. I looked around. It was Daisy’s supervisor — and she was heading toward me!
“Daisy, I can’t talk anymore,” I whispered into the MagiCell.
“Why? What’s up? Listen, all we need to do is —”
“Who are you talking to?” The supervisor’s voice boomed across my head.
I looked up. “I — it’s — I . . .” I said helpfully.
“Is that FG32561?” she asked. With a shudder of recognition, I realized what she was asking me. FG32561 — that was the number I’d put into my MagiCell. She knew that I was talking to Daisy!
“Um, I —” I began. But it was too late. Before I could even think of anything to say, she had snatched the MagiCell from me and was talking into it. “I knew we would catch you this time,” she snapped into the MagiCell. “FG32561, you have broken numerous FGC rules and you will not escape lightly. Do you hear me?”
The supervisor frowned as she held the MagiCell to her ear.
“Enough of your excuses,” she snapped a moment later. “You are being stripped of your FG powers, with immediate effect. I’m going to speak to my superiors about this. I’ll be sending someone to fetch you. Do you understand?”
Another pause. Another agonizing silence at my end.
“Good. I want you in my office first thing in the morning. First thing, you hear me?” And with that, she switched off the MagiCell and turned to me.
I shut my eyes. I don’t know why. I mean, when you’re really little, you think that if you close your eyes and can’t see anyone, then they can’t see you, either. I’m old enough to know it doesn’t work like that — although I couldn’t help wishing that perhaps it might. I was going to be in the biggest trouble I could imagine. In fact, probably bigger trouble than I could imagine. I wanted to cry. I wanted to go home. I wanted —
“You did very well, my newest young fairy,” a voice was saying. It sounded like the supervisor, and it sounded like she was talking to me.
I half opened one of my eyes. She was still there. Right in front of me. And — wait a minute, what was she doing with her face? I hadn’t seen her do that yet. She was smiling! At me!
What was going on? I opened both eyes and stared at her, still too shocked to speak.
“Modest as well,” she said, nodding approvingly. “I will be sure to inform ATC High Command of that, too.” She turned to leave, and I finally found my tongue.
“Wait!” I said. The supervisor slowly turned around. “I mean, please. If you don’t mind. Thank you,” I burbled.
She smiled another tight little smile at me. “Yes, dear?” she said.
“I — um, I’m not sure what it is exactly that you’ll be telling High Command,” I said, desperately trying to stop my nerves from making my voice come out sounding like a rattlesnake.
“Why, that you found our errant fairy,” she said, “and now we may punish her accordingly.”
Punish her accordingly? What had I done?
“But you — but, I mean, will you —”
The supervisor laughed. “Don’t you worry, my dear,” she said. “I know what you’re trying to ask.”
“You do?” I gulped. She knew I wanted to ask what kind of punishment Daisy was going to get? She knew I was terrified for the pair of us? She knew that I was desperately trying to stop myself from wondering how exactly they punished humans who broke into ATC?
“Of course.” She smiled. “You’re wondering what kind of reward you’ll get.”
“Am I?” I gasped. “I mean — yes. Yes, I am. Ha, ha, how did you guess?”
“And you’ll be pleased to know that I will be highly comme
nding you for your work,” the supervisor went on. “You shall indeed be rewarded — have no worries. Now back to work, dear. I’m off to talk to ATC High Command.”
And with that, she turned and left. And I sat at my desk, staring into space and wondering how I was ever going to get out of this mess.
“Philippa? Philippa!” I shouted at my MagiCell, pressing every button, banging my hand against it, shaking it. Nothing.
“What is it?” Robyn asked. “What’s happened?”
“Look.” I showed her the MagiCell.
Robyn shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Look — the screen.”
“I can’t see anything. Just a blank space.”
“Exactly.” I flumped down on the bed. “It’s shut off. I can’t get reception or anything.”
“Did the battery run out?” Robyn asked.
I shook my head. “MagiCells don’t have batteries. It’s my supervisor — she must have disabled it.”
“Why?” Robyn asked, looking more closely at the MagiCell, turning it over in her hands.
“They’ve taken my FG powers away,” I said. “They just want me safely back at ATC, sitting in front of them — awaiting my punishment.” I shuddered.
“Your punishment?” Robyn asked. “What will they do?”
“You don’t want to know,” I said. “But put it this way — ATC High Command is not known for leniency.”
“Oh, Daisy,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
Robyn shrugged. “I don’t know. I just wish there was something I could do.”
I smiled at her. “I know. It’s OK.” I got up and brushed myself off. “I’ll be fine, honestly. You go. I don’t want you worrying. I’ve already got Philippa caught up in all this.” I shuddered again as I thought of her up there with FGRaincloud74921. What would they do to her? Had they discovered she was a human yet?
“You don’t want me worrying?” Robyn said, shaking her head. “Daisy, we’re in this together, the three of us, OK?”
I met her eyes and saw in them only concern — and friendship. “OK,” I agreed. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” Robyn replied. “You just need to help me figure this out.”
“Figure what out?”
“Think about it,” she said. “Once you’ve left, that’s it. No Philippa, no you. How am I supposed to explain that Philippa’s disappeared again?”
She was right. Once I was gone, there were no guarantees I’d ever be able to get back! And we still had no idea how to get Philippa back, either. Her situation was probably even more bleak than it had been before. Now that she’d been caught in contact with me, who knew what ATC would do?
“What do we do, then?” I asked helplessly.
Robyn thought for a moment, her eyes scrunched up as she concentrated. “I’ve got an idea,” she said a few moments later. “Listen, we need to buy some time, right?”
“Right,” I agreed.
“OK, so tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. There’s always a big party up near Tidehill Rocks with fireworks and a bonfire and stuff. The whole village comes. It’s amazing.”
“OK,” I said uncertainly. I couldn’t exactly see how a great big party fit in with a plan to get us out of trouble with ATC!
“So, try to get some sleep tonight, then I’ll come to get you in the morning. We’ll tell Philippa’s mom and dad that we’re preparing for the party all day tomorrow,” Robyn went on. “My dad’s one of the organizers this year, so we can say we’re helping him. Then we just tell Philippa’s parents you’ll come to the party with us and meet them there. That gives us twenty-four hours from now.” She smiled nervously. “Do you think that’ll be enough time?”
Twenty-four hours? I didn’t know how to respond. Laugh hysterically at the mere suggestion of fixing this mess in the space of a day? Throw myself on the floor and cry like a baby? Give up completely? In the end, I looked at her face, and when I saw the hope in her eyes, I knew there was only one response I could give.
“I think that’s a great idea,” I said.
Robyn responded with a bright, confident smile, and we went downstairs to ask Mr. and Mrs. Fisher if I could spend tomorrow helping out with Robyn. After today’s events, they took some persuading. We had to promise not to go anywhere near that path and to stay near Robyn’s dad all day. In the end, they agreed.
And when it was bedtime and they both gave me enormous hugs and put Philippa’s new pajamas out for me and told me how much they loved me, I got that warm feeling again — and I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps everything just might turn out OK.
The ALD supervisor, FGRaincloud74921, bowed low in front of her superiors. “FG32561 is due in my office first thing in the morning. If I might be permitted to offer an opinion, given this fairy’s previous misdemeanors, I would suggest that she be given the harshest of punishments. And this is my newest recruit, who helped us find the errant fairy,” she said, holding out her MagiCell to show her superiors a picture of the heroic young fairy.
The two night stars looked at the picture on the screen, and then at each other. To an observer, the slight nod which passed between them would most certainly have passed for an agreement with FGRaincloud’s proposal for punishing FG32561.
To them, however, the nod meant something quite different.
“We are delighted with your work,” FGNightstar90034 said with a smile so bright, the room twinkled and sparkled. “But we would like to deal with this fairy ourselves. We will have her brought directly to us in the morning.”
“Would you like me to see her first, so I can give her an indication of the severity of her punishment?” FGRaincloud74921 asked with a lick of her lips, as though thirsty for blood.
FGNightstar27785 shook her head. “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “We’ll take it from here.”
The interview was clearly over, and with a brief nod, an awkward curtsy, and a swift exit, FGRaincloud74921 returned to her post in ALD.
The two senior High Command officials sat in silence for a moment as they waited for the door to close behind the supervisor.
The conversation they were about to have needed absolute privacy.
“It’s a miracle!”
“I’ll say. At the eleventh hour, as well!”
“This could be just what we’ve been looking for.”
“Let’s hope so. It’s our last option.”
“I know. It’s getting hard to put up a normal front. If word gets out about our situation, we’ll have no way of stopping the panic.”
“But can you imagine FGRaincloud74921 not spotting the truth about her new fairy godmother?”
“To be fair, without seeing the picture, we wouldn’t have known ourselves — and even then it’s only because we’ve recently come across her in our research.”
“True. And now the pair of them have been virtually delivered to our door. Let’s get on with it.”
“Wait. The stakes are so high, and we need to be sure they’re up to this. We can’t afford a failure.”
“How about putting them both to the test first, to make sure they are the ones?”
“Good idea. If they don’t pass the highest loyalty test, we don’t go through with it.”
“Let’s hope they pass, then. For all of our sakes. If they don’t . . .”
“No — don’t say it. We can’t even contemplate failure. If this fails, we’re all in more trouble than we could even imagine.”
“You’re right. Let’s do it. First thing in the morning, we get that fairy in here and get this thing going, before it’s too late — for all of us.”
It was eight in the morning and still dark when Robyn called for me. I left a note for Philippa’s parents, since they were both snoring and dead to the world.
Closing the front door softly behind me, I followed Robyn down the driveway and we headed to the woods.
“This is it,” I said when we got
to the stone circle. “You’d better go now, before they get here.”
“Who’s they?” she asked.
I frowned. “I don’t know. They’ll send someone to collect me.”
“Because they took your transportation powers away, along with everything else?”
“Exactly.”
“I hope they send someone nice,” Robyn said.
“Yeah, me too.” Not likely, I added silently.
Robyn pulled her coat close around her. “Will I have any way of knowing what’s going on?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so. I’m really sorry.”
“OK,” Robyn said, doing about as good a job as I was at hiding her feelings. I hated leaving her like this, without knowing what would happen or when she might see me — or Philippa — again. Then she turned to leave. “Hey, maybe I could talk to Annie?” she asked.
“Annie? What for?” Annie had already helped us once when Robyn’s dad had trapped me in a jar.
“I don’t know. Just — well, remember when you left us last time, Annie told you she would always make sure you were all right? Maybe she’ll help us now. I could ask her.”
I let out a breath. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure we should be involving her. I wouldn’t want to get her in trouble with ATC, too.”
“OK, I understand. I won’t do anything now,” she said. “But if things get really bad, if for any reason we really need her . . .”
“Yeah,” I replied, not wanting her to finish her sentence any more than she did. “If worse comes to worst, I’m sure Annie will be there for us. If you get desperate, you could see if she knows anything.”
Robyn nodded. “Good luck,” she said, turning back around to wave.
I waved back, feeling wooden and cold. “You too,” I said, forcing my mouth into a smile. “Go on. I’ll be fine.”
Robyn nodded and then, pulling her coat around her once more, she turned and walked away.
“Wow, look at you!” Tabitha had poked her head over the divide and was grinning at me.
I guessed she was referring to the fact that I looked like someone who’d been up half the night. I should have slept like a baby. I was given a room of my own at ALD with every comfort I could imagine. That was the problem — like everything else up here, you just had to imagine it, and it was there. But I couldn’t imagine anything! All my mind could focus on was the questions and worries swirling around in my head. What were they going to do with Daisy? How long would it be till I was found out? And when I was, what would they do with me?