Gwen and Phil were both at Aunt Ruth's—Phil was playing in the yard with the twins; they were having a circus and he was their elephant—while Gwen and Aunt Ruth were attempting to bake bread, despite the scorching heat, when Jo burst into the kitchen without ever knocking.

His face was cherry red from running in the heat, and he was gasping for air.

"Jo!" Gwen cried in alarm. Outside, the elephant suddenly stood on his hind legs, displacing two highly indignant riders, and dashed inside.

"Sit down and drink this glass of water," Aunt Ruth ordered sharply, pushing him into a wooden chair and pressing a cool glass into his hands.

Jo mutely obeyed, and slowly his colour began to return to normal.

"Now," Gwen said, kneeling down to be at eye level with him, "What happened?"

Tears filled his eyes, surprising her, for Jo was not usually given to crying. "Bluebell is missing," he said.

"Bluebell?" Aunt Ruth asked.

"His blue bunny," Phil supplied.

"You ran all this way in this heat over a stuffed toy?" Aunt Ruth said, aghast.

Gwen ignored her. She knew, even if her aunt didn't, how important Bluebell was. "When did you last see him, darling?"

"This morning, I left him and Teddy on the shelf above my bed, like always," Jo said, blinking angrily to dispel the tears. "And when I came back upstairs after breakfast, Teddy was still there, but Bluebell was gone."

Gwen turned and met Phil's eyes, and knew they were thinking the same thing. The Fords. One of the twins must have snuck in and stolen Bluebell, knowing how much Jo loved him.

Gwen felt pressure in her stomach as rage started to build, but she ignored it for now. Later on, rage would be appropriate. Right now, she needed to help Jo.

"Don't worry, Jo-Jo," she said with forced cheer. "I'm sure Bluebell is just off having a little adventure on his own. He'll be back in no time."

"Bluebell never goes off on his own," Jo said seriously. "Teddy's the adventurous one. Bluebell only likes adventures if I'm there with him."

"Maybe the fairies borrowed him for a day," Phil said. He came and squatted down next to Gwen, his face perfectly calm. "You know fairies can't resist a blue bunny."

"Really?"

"Absolutely," Gwen chimed in. "Blue bunnies to fairies are like … like … like catnip to cats. And we all know Rainbow Valley is thick with fairies. One of them probably saw you with Bluebell, and couldn't help but borrow him for the day."

Jo's chin wobbled a little bit more. "But … they'll bring him back, won't they? He'll be lonely and scared without me, even with the fairies."

"Don't worry, Jo-Jo," Gwen said, her eyes bright with determination. "I promise you, Bluebell will be back by tonight."

She stood up. "Aunt Ruth, if you'll excuse me, I need to go check some fairy haunts, and explain to them that this particular blue bunny needs to go home."

"Certainly, child," Aunt Ruth said, utterly bewildered.

Jo's face was suddenly radiant. "You'll do that, Gwennie? You'll find the fairies and bring Bluebell back?"

"Of course she will," Phil said, clapping him on the back. "And I'll help her. You stay close to Ingleside, Jo, in case Bluebell comes back on his own. Gwen and I will scour the land for any sign of fairies, and tell them what's what."

"OK," Jo said, using his favourite bit of slang borrowed from Jack. He slid down out of the chair and handed the glass back to Aunt Ruth. "Thank you for the water," he said very politely, and then he was dragging his siblings along by their hands. "Come on," he said. "We haven't got all day!"

Phil and Gwen stood in front of the old Moore house. Aunt Rilla and Uncle Ken were gone visiting friends over-harbour, and the twins and Chloe were out, but Uncle Ken had brought his city habits back to the Island with him, and locked their doors before going.

"Would they have taken Bluebell with them?" Phil asked.

Gwen shook her head. "Where would they have put him? He's not exactly pocket-sized. Besides, could you imagine Isaac trying to explain it away when someone noticed him lugging a blue bunny around everywhere?"

Even in his anger, Phil had to smile at that image. "OK, not with them. Will we have to break a window to look in their rooms?"

Gwen's eyes traveled around the property slowly. "Let's look in all the outbuildings first," she said. "Aunt Rilla usually makes all their beds and tidies up for them." She knew this because Lynde had told her, sniffing over the laziness that encouraged in boys. Chloe was expected to keep her room clean, but Aunt Rilla didn't think boys ought to do that sort of thing. Lynde, naturally, had a different opinion. "They might have put him in Chloe's room, but if they really wanted to keep him hidden, the barns and sheds would be their best choice. None of the grown-ups go there."

Phil was not a prig, but neither was he particularly fond of crawling around dusty, dirty, dark spaces. Unless it was in pursuit of science, of course, in which case he would cheerfully endure all three. For a personal preference, however, he preferred to keep tidy.

"Let's get it over with, then," he said with a sigh.

They went all through the big barn, and the stable, and one of the sheds, before they finally found him. He was shoved in the darkest, dirtiest corner of the equipment shed, head down and blue tail up. When Gwen pulled him out and they took him out into the sunlight, they both gasped.

He was a wreck. His ears were both torn, stuffing falling out of them. One paw was ripped almost entirely off. Dirt covered his entire body, ground in so deeply in places that his blue plush almost looked black.

"Oh, poor Bluebell," Gwen mourned, holding him close, not caring about the fact that she was getting even more dirt on her once-white blouse.

"How are we going to explain this?" Phil asked helplessly. "Jo knows fairies would never do this to Bluebell."

"I don't know," Gwen said. "We'll have to just take him back and hope that Jo's fertile imagination concocts a reasonable explanation."

The explanation Jo came up with was reasonable enough, but it was not one to bring comfort. His entire face crumpled when he saw Bluebell.

"Oh, no!" he cried in horror. "I knew it! It wasn't fairies at all—someone kidnapped him! He was alone and frightened and hurt, and I wasn't there!"

He turned and ran up the stairs, fleeing to his bedroom. Gwen felt as though someone had physically struck her. She turned stricken eyes to Phil.

"What do we do now?"

Lynde took Bluebell from her arms. "I can fix him up in no time" she said. "A little soap and water, a bit of sewing and re-stuffing, and he'll be as good as new."

That wouldn't help Jo, though. He would always remember the suffering Bluebell had endured, and his heart would break again every time he looked at his bunny.

Gwen was suddenly very glad Grandmother and Grandfather had taken Lee and Leigh to Avonlea for a few days. She didn't want anyone else in her family to see what she was about to do.

"You try to talk to Jo," she told Phil tersely. "I'm going to take care of a few things."

With that, Gwen stormed away from Ingleside in a cold fury. This was nothing like Grandmother or Mother's impulsive, red-hot anger that clouded the mind and made one act out of impulse. No, this was the Blake anger—calculated, focused, and icy. Gwen had never been in its grip before, at least not so tightly, but she'd seen it in Jeremy, in Uncle Jeremiah, even in her father that time he found out who the father was of poor, disgraced Mary Winthrop's baby.

Chloe, Gwen thought with grim humour, had perhaps been more right than she realized when she claimed Gwen was "all Blake" instead of Blythe.

She knew where she would find Isaac and Isaiah—down at the Glen pond planning their latest torment. She had overheard their whispers the previous night and not thought much about it beyond a mild impatience that they refused to give up.

Well, they would give it up now.

Sure enough, there they were, whispering together while Jack, Oliver, and Van fished nearby. Gwen noticed the older boys but ignored them. So long as they stayed out of her way, they were irrelevant. As she drew closer she saw that Chloe was sitting on the bridge, too, fluttering her eyelashes at Oliver (who was ignoring her) and giggling with Van (who was not ignoring her).

For a moment, Gwen was tempted to change her plan, to go for Chloe instead of the twins. A lifetime of having boys for friends, though, had ingrained in her the gentlemanly concept that one does not hit girls.

Besides, Chloe wouldn't respond to a physical threat the way the twins would. Gwen clenched her fists and drove straight for Isaac.

He didn't even see her until she was on him, and then it was too late. One well-directed shove, and he was in the pond and out of her way. Isaiah turned on her in a fury himself, but Gwen grabbed the collar of his shirt and lifted him right off his feet, bringing him nose to nose with her.

"Don't ever hurt my brother again," she said in a freezing, biting tone. Isaiah's mouth dropped open in shock.

Isaac, sitting in the shallows, wore the same expression of bewilderment, mixed with a hint of fear. Gwen saw it and rejoiced. Up above, on the bridge, Chloe finally registered what had just happened and gasped in outrage.

"Leave my brother alone!" she shrilled, and started to dart down from the railing. Jack caught her shoulder and held her fast.

"Let them handle it between them," he said calmly, but with a hint of steel in his voice that none of them had ever heard from dreamer Jack before. Chloe shut her mouth with a snap and held still.

Gwen noticed all this peripherally; her attention was still focused on Isaiah. "I don't want to hear of you playing any more tricks on anyone in this family, do you understand? Either of you," flashing a warning glance at Isaac. He had been in the act of lifting himself out of the water, but at the edge in her tone he promptly sat back down in the mud.

"Not on Jo, not on Phil, not on Lee. Nor Owen or Tommy or any of the rest. If you do, you will have me to deal with. Do you understand me?" She shook Isaiah just slightly, just enough to make her point.

He dropped his eyes. "Yes."

"Yes," Isaac added from the water.

Gwen opened her hand, and Isaiah barely caught himself before falling to the ground.

"Good."

With that, and without sparing a glance for the crimson-with-fury Chloe, she spun on her heel and walked away.

That took care of them. Now all she had to do was figure out how to mend Jo's crushed heart, and make sure Chloe stayed out of their way for the rest of the summer.

She wasn't sure which was going to be more difficult.

As had become her habit when she was perplexed, Gwen found herself running along the shore a short while later. She was barefoot, in a skirt and blouse, but she soon found her rhythm and her head started to return to normal. By the time she reached the rocks, and saw the figure there awaiting her, she was her old self again.

"I thought I might see you here," she said by way of greeting.

Oliver smiled. "It wasn't too difficult to guess where you were headed, especially after Phil came along after you left and filled in the details of what had just happened."

Gwen looked around the little cove, with the gulls keening overhead and the salt water misting up at their feet. "I will miss this, even more than Ingleside or Rainbow Valley, when I go back to Kingsport."

Oliver's face changed, just a little. "That was quite impressive, how you handled the twins," he said abruptly.

Gwen blushed, something she had not done around him for many weeks now. Somewhere between Chloe's lies and the twins' theft of Bluebell, her crush on Oliver had faded into the background.

"I think I was a real bully," she said ruefully.

Oliver shook his head. "They deserved it. And you weren't being a bully—you were protecting those you love. I just—well, I never would have guessed you had it in you to be so …"

"Tough?" Gwen scrunched her face up and mock-growled, smacking her fist against the open palm of her other hand. As she hoped, Oliver laughed.

"Well, I always knew you were strong, just not that strong, I guess. I don't think you'll need to worry anymore about the twins."

"No," Gwen agreed, feeling quite certain on that. "Not about them."

"Jack was giving Chloe quite the lecture when I left," Oliver said. "What they did to Jo pushed him too far, too. With everyone else, he figured he would leave you all to sort it out, that it would be better for him not to interfere, but Jo-Jo … they shouldn't have done that to him."

"No," Gwen said again, this time with anger colouring her words once more. "They should not have."

"Anyway, I don't think Chloe will have the heart to pull anything on anyone once Jack has finished with her. For all his poetry, he can be pretty forceful when he wants." Oliver grinned. "Almost as forceful as you."

Gwen breathed in through her nose and tried to release her anger again. One difficulty out of the way. "Now all I have to do is help Jo-Jo," she mused aloud.

"Any ideas on how to make that happen? You know I'll help, if I can."

"Lynde is already sewing Bluebell's war wounds up. He'll have a few scars, but Jo doesn't care about that. It's the thought of Bluebell suffering, of being scared and wondering where Jo was and why he didn't come to the rescue, that's tormenting him now."

Oliver's face was dark. "You know, maybe I should go visit the Ford twins, too, just in case they didn't get the message from you."

At his obvious display of protectiveness and affection for Jo, the last of Gwen's fury melted away. She had been asking herself all through her run what Mother would do for Jo, and now she had an idea.

"I'll write him a story," she said slowly, her eyes on the water as it rolled toward them and back out, ever and inexorably. "That's what Mother would do. She would write him a story about Bluebell, about all the exciting adventures he had while he was kidnapped, how the fairies came and helped him, how he knew that eventually Jo would come after him, and how he was never afraid, because knowing that Jo would find him made him brave. I'll sign it with a fairy's name, so he won't know I wrote it, and include a little note to him from the fairy, about how they wanted him to know what happened, and how lucky Bluebell is to have Jo for a friend. Maybe I'll ever get Leigh to draw some pictures to go along with it."

"Do you think that will work? Will Jo believe it?" Oliver asked hopefully.

Gwen withdrew her gaze from the sea. "Yes," she said positively. "Even if he doesn't believe it, he'll tell himself he does, and that will be just as good."

She came very close to flinging her arms around Oliver in an exuberant hug, in her relief at having thought of a solution, but managed to stop herself in time. She settled for shining her most radiant smile on him, not noticing the way his skin turned a dark red hue.

"Thank you," she said.

"For what? You're the one who handled it all."

"For helping me see clearly. For caring about Jo. For …" she laughed. "For not criticizing me for what I did to Isaac and Isaiah. I'm not guilty about it—but if Lynde ever finds out, she'll have my head!"

Oliver laughed, too. "I doubt it. Lynde adores Jo-Jo just as much as the rest of us do. If you hadn't handled the twins, she might have gone after them with her rolling pin."

The mental image that accompanied those words tickled Gwen so much that she was soon bent over double, clutching her stomach, gasping for air because she was laughing so hard. Her mirth was contagious; soon Oliver was collapsed on the ground in spasms of laughter, too.

"And the boys … running for their lives … with Lynde charging after them, waving the rolling pin above her head," Gwen managed to get out.

"We should … should call her … Boudicca," Oliver snorted.

Eventually, the laughter ran its course, and they were able to walk sedately back to Ingleside. At the gate, Oliver prepared to go on back to his home.

"Thank you," Gwen said. "Again. For everything."

"I still don't think I did much of anything, but … you're welcome, Gwen." His dark eyes were intent on her face, and Gwen felt another blush rise to her cheeks. For one wild moment she thought he might be going to kiss her.

The thought ought to have excited her, but instead she panicked. "I'll see you later," she blurted, and whirled around to fumble her way blindly up the lane to the house, bumping into the occasional tree along the way. By the time she felt safe enough to look back over her shoulder, Oliver had gone.

And then, her inconsistent heart felt disappointed!