Chapter 2

The New Artemis

Artemis was still lying in bed with his eyes shut, remembering the past. He finally decided he could not lie in bed all day dreaming of the last year. His mother and father had been planning this day for a month. They were going to host a ball at Fowl Manor. Artemis had never been to anything like this before, but, nevertheless, he had promptly asked Holly to accompany him with all the hesitations, mumbling, and general stumbling that occurred when Artemis faced a situation that required regular social grace.

Foaly had just recently had a great breakthrough: a portable Holographer, as he called it. It was a small electronic device that easily could be hid in the fairy's clothing and project a three-dimensional image. For Holly, this meant that it could disguise the fact that she was a fairy by projecting humanoid ears over her own pointed elven variety. She could interact with humans without being discovered as an elf. With this new technology in her possession, Holly had agreed to come and the festivities were to begin that evening.
Artemis could already hear his mother joyfully laughing downstairs. She was talking to Holly who was under the alias of one of Artemis' school friends. Artemis sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and savoring his mother's laugh. He then quickly took a shower and put on one of his favorite dark cotton suits to go join the others in the kitchen eating breakfast.

Artemis had truly changed, and luckily, it was for the better. His criminal drives were no longer the impulses driving him, not with so many people in his life trying to keep him on the straight and narrow. For truth, Artemis had only turned to crime to challenge his intellect and to uphold the family motto "Aurum Est Potestus" or "Gold is Power." But now Artemis had friends, people he trusted nearly as much as himself. He also had two parents now who both simply loved and enjoyed life. However, the biggest reason for his change was Holly Short. Not only had he come to respect the elf and trust her completely, but he had come to need her. She had taught him his faults during his kidnapping stage while still giving him back a sane mother, even after all the stuff he had put her through. Then, she proceeded to put her own life in danger to save his father from the Russian Mafiya in the Artic. Still later, she brought Butler back to life and once again risked her life to help steal the C Cube back from Jon Spiro. And if all this was not enough, Holly had saved Artemis' life when Opal Koboi had planned a rather wicked revenge on the boy. Holly was even now saving Artemis from destroying his life by crime by offering him a way to positively challenge his intellect with her new private eye job. The consulting business meant the boy could look forward to the next case and to seeing Holly again. Now, he was about 90 percent legal in all that he did. Every once and a while, Artemis would pull off another scheme and steal from those that needed stealing from, but in general, Artemis was a new boy and was nearing becoming a man.

Artemis slid down the railing of the stairs on his way to the kitchen. Now there is something he thought he would never be immature enough to do. Even Artemis noted his own change. He was greeted in the Kitchen by his mother, "Arty!" she said, "Come sit down with us. We were just having a bit of breakfast and talking about your school."
At this, Artemis' piercing blue eyes wandered over to Holly's round brown ones. She looked thoroughly interviewed. Holly gave him a smile and said in a teasing voice, "Yeah Arty," enunciating his mother's pet name forcibly and with apparent joy, "remember that time you that teacher Opal Koboi off for believing in fairies, goblins, and trolls and yet not believing in centaurs? You easily out witted her."

Artemis tried to hide an embarrassed smile by mumbling something about logic. What was wrong with him? Since when did he mumble?

Holly could not stop herself, "Come on Arty, tell your mom about your school and all your friends. I'm going to eat some pancakes." With that, Artemis was forced to make up a string of lies about school and friends, all the while watching Holly out of the corner of his eye, who was nearly choking on her pancakes as she tried to stifle her snickers at Artemis' plight.

When his mother seemed satisfied with his account of school, Artemis contented his revenge by stealing a bite of pancake off Holly's plate, the bite with the most syrup of course. As Artemis sat down with his own plate of pancakes, his father came into the kitchen.

Artemis' mother got up a kissed him good morning, "Did we wake you dear?'
His father shook his head as he answered, "No. Why? Do I look tired?"
"Not tired, no. But it looks like somebody robbed you of your beauty sleep," teased

Artemis' mother.

Artemis knew this teasing would continue for a long time more, so he excused Holly and himself from the table as soon as they were both done. They went up to the library where Artemis had spent so much time plotting the crimes of the century. But no plotting did he do today.