The Fairy Rebel by Lynne Reid Banks Page B

sense it surrounding her.
    Charlie, white-faced, bruised and panting, flung himself onto the grass beside her.
    “Jan! Bindi—is she all right? Are
you
all right?”
    Bindi was just sitting up, rubbing her eyes and shaking her head.
    “What happened?”
    “I think you fainted, darling,” said Jan. “It’s all right now. Just watch.”
    Sitting there together in the garden, the three of them stared.
    At first they couldn’t see anything. But Tiki flew onto Bindi’s shoulder—Bindi, who had never seen a fairy before, was absolutely pop-eyed at the sight of her—and said, “If you can spare three more of your magic blue hairs, one for each of you, you can see them.”
    “See what?”
    “Something no human has ever seen before.”
    So there were three more “Ow”s from Bindi as Charlie tweaked three more of her blue hairs out, and they each made a ring round their fingers—and suddenly they could see them.
    It was a fantastic sight, never to be forgotten. It was nothing less than a great gathering of fairies, elves and gnomes, coming together to witness the end of the wicked Queen.
    The gnomes, who had no wings, marched on the ground—sturdy little people in drab-colored clothes, carrying spades and pitchforks and other tools and implements. They marched in from all sides, and looking farther away, Jan, Charlie and Bindi could see more and more of them—scrambling over the garden fence, or through holes in it, out from under the roots of the fruit trees, digging themselves out of theground itself. One came out from under Charlie’s shoe.
    And the air was absolutely thick with fairies and elves. It was like being in the heart of a rainbow. There were all kinds and colors, some with clear wings like dragonflies, some with shaped, brilliant wings like butterflies, and others, like Tiki, with furry mothlike wings. Some of them were beautifully dressed. Others, like Tiki and Wijic, looked tattered and faded, as if they, too, had been in prison or had had their magic taken from them.
    The beat of their wings fanned the air. The humans could feel it on their faces as the huge drifts of fairies and elves circled their heads. Some of the fairies hovered in front of them, staring at them, and when they realized that they could be
seen
, they shrieked and shot away with their wings a blur. But Tiki and Wijic flew among them, calling to them in their own language, telling them there was nothing to be afraid of, that Jan and Charlie and Bindi were their friends.
    They must have told them, too, that Bindi was a fairy-child, because hundreds of fairies, elves and gnomes began to show an interest in her, flying around her head, touching her with their tiny hands and lifting her hair to look at the blue hairs. She could hear them chattering in their high voices and feel their tickling fairy touch.
    She didn’t wriggle or giggle. She sat quite still, enchanted—knowing, even at the time, how terribly lucky she was to be a part of this very special happening.
    But it was not for her that this great crowd of fairy people had come together. The cause was still lying on the ground among the dead wasps with two broken wings.
    At last all the gnomes, elves and fairies settled down in a wide, deep circle around the fallen Queen. Many of them perched on Jan, Charlie and Bindi, as if they were grandstands. Charlie found about a thousand fairies sitting on the folds of his shirt, on his arms, his shoulders, even his nose until he politely asked them to move so he could see. Bindi just couldn’t believe it when a dozen gnomes scrambled onto each of her shoes and settled down cross-legged along the wrinkles in her socks.
    Tiki fluttered to Jan’s shoulder and sat down there. She was not wearing her shabby brown dress anymore, but a beautiful pink dress like an Indian sari. Glancing at her, Jan knew she felt the occasion was too solemn for jeans. Or perhaps she’d grown up.
    A silence fell. And then the family noticed that standing in