Philippa Fisher and the Fairy's Promise by Liz Kessler Read Free Book Online

the computer screen: I’m OK, I’m OK! But even if I could have done that without attracting the attention of an office full of fairy godmothers, it wouldn’t have made any difference. They wouldn’t have been able to hear me.
    The screen went blank as soon as the phone call ended. “Why’s it stopped?” I asked.
    “I timed it for two minutes,” Daisy said. “Any more than that is too risky.”
    “What d’you mean?”
    “Those pictures were only for SRB to see. They have access to relevant scenes — people, places, conversations, anything that can help them do their job.”
    “So it’s only SRB who should have been able to watch what we’ve just seen with Mom and Robyn?”
    “Exactly. Breaking into their work like this is one of the easiest ways to get caught. A couple of minutes will usually go unnoticed but any more than that and they could trace us.”
    “Could we at least try watching Robyn?” I asked.
    Daisy shook her head. “It’s too risky.”
    “Please! Just a few seconds.”
    Daisy bit her lip and looked around. “Right, OK, I’ll see what I can do. I may still have some access to her from my last assignment.”
    She shut her eyes and faced the screen. Nothing happened.
    “It’s not working,” I said.
    “Wait. Give it a chance.”
    I stared and stared at the blank screen. A moment later, something started to happen. A picture was forming — blurry around the edges, but I could see two people. It was Robyn and her dad!
    Robyn was talking. Her voice was as faint as the picture, so it was hard to tell what she was saying. But I caught a couple of snatches of their conversation.
    “Where she was last,” I heard. “I’ll be able to find her again. Let me go out. . . . I’ll be right back.”
    And then the picture disappeared.
    “What happened?” I asked.
    “That’s all I could get, and even that was more of a risk than we should be taking.”
    “So what do we do now?”
    “I don’t know,” Daisy said. “Let me think a minute.”
    She glanced around the office, then lowered her voice. “There’s only one way.” She took out her MagiCell and pressed a few buttons.
    As it whirred into action, I hunched down in my seat and leaned in closer. I lowered my voice, too. “What are you doing?” I asked in a whisper.
    “Hacking into SRB. I’m going to try to find the exact time when the assignment is due to start. If it’s tomorrow, at least we’ll have the night to think it through.”

    A moment later, Daisy’s MagiCell bleeped and flashed with a bunch of numbers and signs. Daisy pressed a few more buttons. Then she stared at the small screen. And then she slumped in her chair.
    “I’m guessing it’s tonight, then,” I said.
    Daisy nodded.
    “Did the MagiCell show anything else?”
    Daisy looked away.
    “Daisy, tell me. I need to know.”
    She turned toward me but wouldn’t meet my eyes. “The team is getting ready to go,” she said. “And they’re dressed as an ambulance crew. They’ve got stretchers and everything.”
    I fell back in my seat, almost as though I’d been hit. Stretchers. For my mom?
    “Your mom’s already gone looking for you, and I think she’s going to have some kind of accident on the way.”
    I sat in silence for a moment. My mom was going to have a terrible accident — and it was all my fault. No! I wouldn’t let it happen — I couldn’t ! Come on, think. Think!
    If Mom had already left the house, it was too late to stop her from going.
    And since Robyn had told her I’d gone missing at the stone circle, I figured that’s where she would be headed. But she’d never been there before, and it would be completely dark soon. She’d never find her way.
    Then I remembered something. The path on the way to the stone circle. The flood last year. The place where if you went off the path, the ground became a sheer cliff. Mom would have to take the same path! It was the main one up from the road. But she wouldn’t know about the floods or the