The Fairy Rebel by Lynne Reid Banks Read Free Book Online Page A

exactly what they’d wanted. She had fat little feet, and rose-petal skin, and almond-shaped fingernails, and as for her hair—
    “Isn’t Tiki clever?” Jan was saying. “She’s got everything just right!”
    But Charlie, who was holding the baby and gently stroking her little brown-bird’s-feather hair, said nothing.
    “Is anything the matter, Charlie?” asked Jan, suddenly worried.
    “Have you noticed this?” Charlie said quietly.
    Jan leaned forward and looked. Charlie had lifted some of the baby’s hair on the crown of her head. Underneath the brown was a tuft of hair of a different color.
    Blue.
    It was only a tiny tuft. Perhaps twenty fine hairs in all. Even with the baby’s very short hair, you wouldn’t have seen it if you hadn’t been looking carefully. But it was there all right. Jan and Charlie looked at each other.
    “It’s her fairy part,” whispered Jan. “Should we do anything … dye it perhaps?”
    “We could,” said Charlie doubtfully, “when she gets a bit older. I don’t think dye is very good for babies’ hair.”
    But in the end they didn’t bother. As Bindi’s hair grew, the blue hairs were easily hidden in the rest of it, and as soon as it was long enough, they made a little ponytail with the blue hairs buried in the middle. But that all came much later.
    Jan half expected Tiki to turn up and look at the baby—after all, she was Bindi’s fairy-mother. But she didn’t. Jan might have been worried, as she had been,months ago, after the business with the wasps. But she had had a message from Tiki and Wijic that put her mind at rest, more or less.
    The message had come while it was still winter, although the snow had thawed. One morning while Jan was cleaning a window, a robin had landed on the sill. It had something in its beak. It cocked its head at Jan to make sure she was watching, and then dropped whatever it was and flew away.
    Jan had picked it up quickly. It was a tiny pink egg. When she touched it to her tongue, she knew at once it came from Tiki, because it was made of sugar. She cracked it open carefully between her front teeth. It was hollow. Out of it fell a little slip of pinkish-brown paper, only it wasn’t paper—it was a dried rose petal.
    It had some writing on it, but so fine it was impossible to read. Jan ran to fetch Charlie’s big magnifying glass from his desk. This is what she read:

    So, as the first months of Bindi’s life went by (and of course they were very busy and full months for Jan), she didn’t think much about Tiki, and little by little she almost forgot about her. Or she would havedone, but for two things. One was the tuft of blue mixed in with Bindi’s brown hair.

    The other was the rose—the one Charlie had picked on Bindi’s birthday. It was still on Jan’s bedside table. And there it stayed. And stayed. And stayed. Another winter came, and another spring, and the roses were nearly ready to bloom again in the garden. And that rose was still sitting there, as fresh and scented and beautiful as the day Charlie had first picked it.
    And then it was time for Bindi’s first birthday.
    Charlie, who was quite a good cook, baked a cake for her, with some rather lumpy pink icing. Jan wrote BINDI on it in silver balls and put a candle in a pink holder in the middle. They invited friends and relations to the party, and at the last moment Jan went upstairs to “put her face on,” as she called making up. When she came down again she was holding a small vase in her hand.
    “Look, Charlie,” she said. “It’s wilted, finally.”
    The bedside rose was drooping its head. As she spoke, a shower of petals fell off.
    “Never mind,” said Charlie. “Time to pick a fresh one.” And he went out into the garden.
    He came in looking puzzled and excited.
    “What is it, Charlie?” asked Jan.
    “You’re not going to believe this,” said Charlie, and held out a rose. At least it looked just like one. But as soon as Jan touched it, she felt