Disclaimer: I acknowledge that Disney Fairies & associated content are owned by Walt Disney Company. I am not interested in profiting from this document. It is for the enjoyment of fans only.
Author's Note: This chapter was originally going to be in "first person" from the constable's point of view, but some other details would have been missed.
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Look, A Flying Girl! - Chapter 2 - PC Pearson's Story
Police Constable Lucas Pearson was glad the rain had stopped. Criminals tended to keep indoors during rain, but it made the workshift pass slowly for him. Some citizens were again moving about the wet streets as he marched briskly along his South Kensington patrol route.
He stopped before a large clothing shop, noting the new garments displayed in the window. Standing with his back to the window, he pulled a pencil and notebook from an inside pocket of his coat. He checked that the street was empty, and began to sketch. Years of police documentation had given him a good eye for detail and a fair hand at drawing. Regular coaching from his seamstress wife had taught him what to look for in competitors' products. With a few glances over his shoulder, and a minute or 2 of pencil work, he had detailed diagrams of the clothing in the shop window.
Satisfied with the results, Pearson tucked away the notebook and consulted his pocket-watch. It was almost 9 PM. He continued his patrol. Turning left at the next corner, he tramped along the left side of a street. There was a hansom cab trotting slowly farther ahead. Pearson's sergeant had mentioned something about a meeting of the Natural History Museum's Board of Trustees. This cabbie was doubtless engaged for the evening, and was simply exercising the horse until he was needed.
As the hansom cab progressed along, it revealed to Pearson something unusual on the other side of the street ahead. "What's this?" thought the constable, "A pair of children, walking the streets alone, at this time of night?" They wore no rain gear or coats. They did not appear to be poor street-urchins, but walked along as if they knew their business. The taller girl seemed to be near the age of his grandson, Owen. The boy, about the age of his granddaughter, Brenda. Pearson decided to follow them at a distance, to see them safely home.
Suddenly, one of those new motor carriages turned the corner behind Pearson, and rushed past him. The constable frowned - the driver was certainly moving much faster than the city-wide 20 MPH speed limit. The motor carriage shuddered to a crawl behind the slower hansom cab, and the driver honked his horn, shouting "Out of the way!"
"The bloomin' ragger!" thought Pearson, "Raising that kind of noise at this hour!" He quickened his pace as the children watched the conflict. The young boy stopped for a moment, his attention behind and up at the rooftops. The motor carriage driver finally found passing space, overtook the hansom on the left, and quickly turned left at the first corner.
The boy pointed up into the air, yelled something, and ran down the street following the motor carriage's route. The girl yelled to him, and ran after.
"Oh, trouble." muttered Pearson, breaking into a run to follow them.
"Tinker Bell, I can't keep up." Lizzy flailed in the air. "He's going too fast."
Tink lept from Lizzy's collar, jingling "I'll take it from here, Lizzy.", and sped off after the motor carriage.
Lizzy fell behind as her father turned left onto Old Brompton Road, heading west. She slowed to a hover, searching the streets below. "I've lost them, fairies. What should I do?" The fairies in her pockets jingled amongst themselves, but had no ideas. Lizzy looked around the cityscape, and spotted the twin towers of the Natural History Museum's facade. "Oh! I know. We'll wait for them near the museum." She began an easy glide.
The children were running shoulder-to-shoulder, changing streets regularly, and watching something at the rooftops. Constable Pearson jogged some distance behind them, but he knew there was a police "fixed point" location straight ahead.
Constable Hall whistled quietly to himself as he rocked on his feet, with his hands behind his back. Some night shifts could be downright dull. The sound of running feet caused him to cease whistling and rocking. He watched with some interest a pair of children running past on the opposite side of the street. As a police officer jogged toward him, he called "Out for an evening stroll, Pearson?"
"Berk." thought Pearson as he approached. Hall was the Division comedian.
"Need a hand?" asked Hall.
"No, I've got it." Pearson puffed as he jogged past.
Lizzy slowed to a stop, hovering over the houses directly across from the museum. She studied the street traffic on Cromwell Road below her with concern. "I hope he's not lost again." she said to the fairies in her pockets.
"Where is that museum?" Dr. Griffiths said to himself as he rumbled along in the motor carriage. Realizing he'd gone too far west, he had turned-about and was returning east on Old Brompton Road. Lizzy's comment of a few days ago came back to him: "Thank goodness we're here, father!" What should have been a half-hour drive to the farmhouse, had inadvertently turned into an hour-and-a-half tour of the Middlesex countryside.
He knew it must be nearly 9 PM, and was starting to get frantic. Suddenly he spotted a flash of the distant museum between buildings. With a shout of recognition, he turned a sharp left onto Queensgate Mews, heading north. "Won't be long, now." he smiled to himself, then the carriage's motor died. Dr. Griffiths looked down at the carriage in horror as the lights went out and it rolled to a stop.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" he shouted in frustration. There was nothing left but to run for it. He grabbed the blue jar from the seat beside him and took to his feet.
From Queensgate Mews, he turned east briefly on Harrington Road, then ran north on Queensberry Place. Once he reached Cromwell Road, the sight of the museum to the east stirred him with new strength.
Lizzy was watching the few motor carriages on Cromwell Road. They all looked the same to her, but she recognized none of the drivers. More hansom cabs and hackney carriages were pulling up at the museum gates, across the street. She turned in her hover over the rooftops, and looked south for her father. She completely missed him as he ran almost underneath her, crossed the street, and ran in through the museum gates.
Constable Pearson was glad the children had finally stopped running. He slowed to a walk as he watched them standing in front of the museum gates, looking at something on the roof across the street. Just then, a man ran past them and through the museum gates. "It's that ragger in the motor carriage." thought Pearson. "I'll have some words with him."
The children recognized the man as well, and followed. The constable groaned and shifted to a jog, to keep up. The running man had reached the top of the museum steps. The children had stopped at the top of the first flight of steps, next to the wall under the left terrace, when Pearson finally dropped his hands on their shoulders.
"Father!" shouted a young girl's voice. "Father stop!" Everyone turned to see Lizzy approaching in the air.
"No." muttered Pearson to himself, "No, no." He pulled the two children closer. He considered himself a man of reason, well removed from the superstitions of his parents and grandparents, yet here clearly was evidence of witchcraft. His mind reeled at the ramifications: Witch-hunts, accusations, riots...
"Don't take her in there!" cried the flying girl. She hovered 8 feet over the top steps. From their vantage point in the shadows farther down the steps, the constable and children could hear every word reflected by the large bowl-shape of the museum's entrance.
"It... it... it... can't be." stuttered the man. He stepped forward. "Lizzy? You're flying."
"Yes, I am."
"But how? How... how... how are you doing that?"
"My friends showed me how." Lizzy answered, as a small glowing creature flew up to her. She opened her pockets, and more of the creatures flew around her.
"Fairies." whispered the girl under Pearson's hand.
"Fairies?" echoed Pearson, "Well, that's much better." he thought. "No, wait..." The constable and two children continued to discretely watch the small drama unfold, less than 40 feet from them. "Ah. He had one trapped in a jar." Pearson realized. Soon the fairy creatures were circling the pair with sparkling gold dust, and the girl was pulling the man into the air.
"Lift your arms, and kick your feet!" Lizzy instructed. The children and Pearson ran up the remaining steps and onto the right terrace to watch.
"I think I'm getting the hang of it. Yes!"
"You're doing it, father! You're doing it!" was the last they heard as the pair drifted into the night with their fairy creatures.
"Well." Pearson looked down at the girl and boy, who were still staring into the dark sky. "That was interesting, but I think we'd better get you home."
As they walked the streets, the children talking excitedly, Pearson was doing some thinking. "How would this look in my police journal?" He could imagine the endless questions from his sergeant and supervisor. "Best to leave some details out." he decided. He smiled as he anticipated his granddaughter's reaction to the night's events.
Another thought occurred to him: "That gentleman must have left a motor carriage behind on the streets somewhere. I can find his name from the number plate and perhaps chat with him..."
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Author's Post Note:
When Dr. Griffiths' car crests the hill, the London before him is terribly compressed & distorted - for artistic purposes. At that point in history, London is the largest city on Earth.
Where exactly is the Griffiths' farmhouse with respect to London? From the scene in TB3, they appear to be west of London, and north of the Thames River. Disregarding the distorted view, draw a line starting just south of the Tower Bridge, passing just north of Big Ben, and extending west away from London. That line goes past the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, continuing through West Kensington, Hammersmith, Chiswick, Brentford, and Heston. In modern times, Lizzy's father could drive the M4 east, then the A4 east, which becomes Cromwell Road, on which the museum's entrance sits.
Dr. Griffiths seems to drive all over London. In TB3, he makes 4 left turns (count 'em!). Sometimes I think Disney deliberately seeds their movies, so fan authors have something to chase.