Baby, You're a Rich Man

by FountainPenguin

H.P. pulled up with a harsh flap. I slammed into his wings. He turned around. "Flappy Bob," he repeated. A faint red began to creep over his neck. "Every name in the wide reachings of the universe exists, and they go with Flappy Bob." "Sir, my first name is Mister. You gave all of us the first name Mister." (Written March - June 2016)

6. Anti-Cosma v Adelinda von Strangle

Anti-Cosma v. Adelinda von Strangle: Neither the Keeper of the Delegating Administrative Rules of the Known Universe nor any Angel Guardian (as determined by the annual renewal of the truce following the War of the Angels) holds any jurisdiction over instances of non-Guardian members of either the Seelie or Unseelie Courts interacting among the Angels on Earth and, on Earth, may neither forbid nor interfere with such interactions on the grounds that non-Guardians are by default considered neutral parties until any deliberate antagonistic intent can be proven (to be determined by the Head Keeper of the Rules and with the approval of the Fairy Council or Anti-Fairy Council, respectively, as relates to the year's Guardians).

---

My sweat-splashed palms squeaked across glass. I looked about the bare lizard tank for something I could use to force up the lid, textbooks on top of it or not, but I had only my hands, and regardless of whether pushing pens for two hundred and fifty thousand years had blessed me with decent finger muscles, they were too weak to shove the books off. My shoulders and legs fared no better. Even when I threw myself against the side so it wobbled.

I didn't try very hard to knock the tank from the table. Every time I heard Thomas's voice through the ceiling, he was begging to be excused from this or that chore and return downstairs. If I could pick up on that, he almost certainly could pick up on the sound of glass shattering on the unfinished basement floor. He might move me to something that would be even more difficult to escape. Boxers made of smoof, maybe. No, no. I needed to wait for him to leave the house. But he didn't go.

After three or possibly four hours of my aimless pressing and slapping, staring at the green moose quilt around me and listening to feet cross the floor over my head, someone returned to the bedroom. They sounded like they passed between the studs in the open wall. Neither of us spoke. I flattened myself to the base of the tank, assuming it was Thomas but unwilling to risk drawing Jake's attention, should it chance to be him.

"Do you want me to bring you a toothbrush, Sanderson?"

Thomas's voice. I closed my eyes without replying. After several seconds had flickered by, he lifted the edge of the quilt and tapped against the glass.

I am dead, I am dead, I am dead, I thought. Humans left solid bodies when they shed their mortal skins, and if this one couldn't tell a pixie from a fairy or a genie, perhaps he didn't know that magical beings turned to dust when their lines withered away.

"Sorry," he mumbled, drawing back again. "I'll let you sleep."

I cracked my right eyelid as the blanket fluttered back down. "The Head Pixie will come for me, and he'll wreak his vengeance upon you and everyone else in this household."

"If he had magic, he would have killed me when I trapped you in that sack. And if he comes back and does, then I don't care. Being dead can't be that bad, especially if I bring Jake down with me."

As Thomas rustled about the room, perhaps changing from his clothes into his pajamas, his toes slapping and scraping over concrete, I had to dwell on that. Then, after what I guessed was about six minutes of him lying in his bed after having clicked off his lamp, I began to pound my fists. Thomas managed to ignore me for a second six minutes, and then he finally growled, "Would you knock that off?"

"No," I said, "you don't get to sleep. Not as long as I'm locked up."

"Well, I'm not letting you out until I talk to Ronald. Tomorrow is Saturday, so we have soccer together."

"If you make him reveal he has fairies, they're forcibly ripped away from him and he gets all his magical memories shifted or altogether wiped, though the Fairy Council has the decency to let godchildren keep most all of the non-physical things they wished for, and occasionally the physical ones too. If Jorgen von Strangle catches you on the scene, he'll take your memory along with it while he's passing through the neighborhood. You might not remember that I'm here under this blanket, and I'll be trapped here for the remainder of my life. Since I'm immortal, that's forever."

For a few seconds Thomas considered this, and then said, "Well, I'm still going to talk to him first. Good night."

I had no plans for it to be a good night. Taking up the yogurt spoon he'd given me, I began to beat it against the glass. Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Thomas threw back his sheets. "Shh! Jake's not a very heavy sleeper. Are you trying to get us both castrated?"

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

The quilt flipped away. I stopped playing the clanger as Thomas pushed aside the textbooks and shoved the lid of the tank open. Before I could spring upwards, he smacked me across my face with a soft, stuffed tiger. While I was thus out of commission, he plucked the spoon from my hand and slammed the lid back down. Rolling onto my stomach, I crawled over to the bag of Fritos and began crunching the chips with sharp pixie teeth. Thomas put a stop to that real quick, too.

"Maybe I'm nocturnal," I said when he asked.

"You were running around Tam's farm in broad daylight."

"I said 'maybe'." I picked up my orange juice box and unwrapped the straw. He grumbled, "Slurp as loud as you want, Sanderson," and I heard him tucking an 8-track tape into place in his player. Click. Whirr. Whirr. Click click.

The instant the first bar hit my ears, the straw fell from my mouth.

"Don't want a four-leaf clover. Don't want an old horse shoe. Want your kiss, 'cuz I just can't miss, with a good luck charm like you."

Sliding my straw back into place, I joined in the song. Since Thomas was murmur-singing too, it took him a moment to realize I had. He clicked the volume down at Rabbit's foot on a string. "You know Elvis Presley?"

"Know him? I'm a pixie! I inspired him! Hawkins, Wilcox, Caudwell, Bayard and I all combined forces to help him get started for our annual project back in the '50s. It paid off big time. Your love is worth all the gold on Earth; no wonder that I say-"

Thomas stopped the tape and replaced it with a new one. "What about this baby?"

I pricked up my ears, then nodded once. "Can't buy me looove! Looove! Can't buy me looove… I'll buy you a diamond ring, my friend, if it makes you feel all right."

"I'll get you anything, my friend, if it makes you feel all right."

"For I don't care too- much for money, 'cuz money can't buy me love. Paul McCartney put that together just a year or two ago. I was at the hotel in Paris. I watched them move the piano up to their room before he wrote it. You may notice that it has no background vocals. That was my idea. Trust me, I spared us all. Come on, give me a hard one."

My quilt was still over the tank, so I couldn't see what took Thomas so long, but eventually he began to move again. "All right, let me see what my options are. Hmm. Well. Okay. If you're so clever, try this."

I picked up the song at once, and trilled along with it until Thomas joined in with me about midway through: "I might miss her lips and the smile on her face, the touch of her hair and this girl's warm embrace, so if you don't wanna cry like I do, I'd keep away from Runaround Sue. Whoooah, ohhh… DiMucci always was good at those."

"Did you meet him too?"

"Possibly. I meet a lot of people in the music business. Why all the focus on damsels, though- I never understood that." I picked up the stuffed tiger and held it in my lap, singing along until the tape ground itself to a halt after about forty-five minutes. Thomas didn't change it out, so I knocked on the side of the tank with my knuckles and the stuffed tiger's hard eyes to get his attention. He stirred once, but that was it.

Once I realized that he'd fallen asleep, I broke off my noise. Was this my chance? Setting the tiger aside, I again made the attempt to lift the black, wire-mesh lid of the tank. There wasn't really enough room to jump. Doing so only bruised my head. My thoughts were that if I could knock the quilt to the floor, the textbooks would land on it and it might muffle their sound.

A good plan in theory. It still didn't work. Not even the quilt would slip from the lid as I pushed.

I had only one remaining choice. I'd almost enacted it earlier, witnesses notwithstanding, but had bailed from a general sense of self-preservation after taking a few too many knocks on the head. Backing into the corner, I folded my wings. I drew my muscles up beneath me. I closed my eyes. Then, kicking off with all I had, I launched myself at the top corner of the tank, smashing my skull again, whipping my wings, shoving with all my force, sideways rather than upward this time. The tank moved about half an inch. The table below fell back on its four legs, bumping its rear against a few of the studs that made up the wall. I withdrew and gathered myself to spring again. Another quarter inch. Another. Another.

Then, on my lucky thirteenth slam, the entire tank plunged over the lip of the table and shattered across the cement. Glass sliced my fingers, my neck, my wings, my tongue as if each splinter were a stinging mosquito. Thomas flew up in his bed like a cuckoo-clock. Disregarding the sharp shards in my skin, I scampered between two studs of the wall and then broke into a full-on run. My thoughts were bent only on one thing: I needed to find a way outside. Once I made it there, H.P. would take care of the rest of the plan.

Retracing my steps - Thomas's steps - brought me back to the door that led into the backyard. I jumped two or three times, clawing with my fingers, but I could only brush the knob. Then I heard Thomas's footsteps, and I had to flee or risk being cornered in the hall between heaps of tires, desks, and buckets of paint.

So I returned to the larger area, dodging cardboard boxes and weights and punching bags and ping-pong tables as best as I was able to. Thomas was always nearby, but he couldn't see any better than I could in the dark. In fact, I remembered with a trickle of hope, magical beings might even have a bit better night vision than humans did, which would set me at the advantage.

It took three minutes to locate the stairs regardless. I moved by darting from cover to cover, peering around edges in an attempt to spot Thomas's shape before I made my next move. Having glass embedded in my feet through my shoes did not make it more enjoyable. But I reached the stairs and started up them, clamboring on wrists and knees. Thomas heard and raced after me.

"Not one more step, Sanderson-"

We were at the top when I ran across another tall white door. Beating my wings, I sprang. I sprang again. As I came down from the third leap, Thomas snatched me up and held me, one arm across my stomach, the other hand cupping my chin and tilting my neck backwards. I couldn't bite him from that position, but I spit like a selkie and thrashed like an elf and kicked like a lawn gnome.

Thomas took the doorknob between his left shoulder and chin and squeezed through. The laundry room turned out to be immediately across from the basement door, and just as I had him about to submit, he popped the lid of the washing machine and stuffed me in. Water splashed my legs. When I stood up, it leveled out at my knees.

"Don't turn it on," I yelped, wrapping my bleeding hands around my shoulders. "My suit is dry-clean only!"

"Thomas? What was that crashing noise?"

A ring of white appeared around his eyes as he slammed down the lid and seemed to whirl around. Jake. The exchange was warbled through the sides of the washing machine, and I didn't really catch a word of it. But Thomas didn't come back for me that night. Even when I heard them making breakfast, dishes clanging, he left me soaked and shivering.

When he did come, he had bread. He passed it down to me, wiggling it until I finally stopped my pacing circle and took it from his hand.

"You look like you didn't sleep at all."

I glared back over my shades and ripped off a solid chunk of bread in my teeth. "I risk drowning if I so much as sit down."

"Aren't you fairy-pixie people supposed to be immortal or something?"

"I drink magic from the surrounding energy field. It doesn't travel well through things like snowstorms, rain, or sitting water. Not unless the water's already been completely saturated with it. I'd asphyxiate."

Thomas made beckoning motions with both hands. "Well, come on, Mister Sanderson. You can't stay in here anyway. Jake will find you, and that won't be good for either of us."

"Where do you intend to take me?" I asked, keeping against the far wall and out of his reach.

"We're off to soccer practice," he said, still low-voiced. "That's where we'll find Ronald, and his fairies too. Here- come on."

I massaged my chin. After another glance at the water, I stepped forward and allowed Thomas to hoist me up with his hands beneath my armpits. He checked over his shoulder as he set me on the floor. Then, not letting go of my arm even when I twisted, he flipped the cover of his red leather backpack and tilted it towards me.

"I won't get in there. I'm not your stuffed tiger. I'm a living being, equal to your kind, and I expect to be treated as such."

He shook his head with apparent exasperation. "Into the bag," he said, and lifted me in. The inside was empty otherwise. Still chewing on my bread, I made sure to scowl at him as he buckled it closed and put his arms cautiously through the straps. Up I went. Three feet tall as I was, my soft bones folded and allowed me to squeeze into a clump of pointed elbows and sharp knees. I placed my eye to the gap in the upper corner to watch as Thomas moved from the laundry room, into the kitchen, and towards the front of the house.

"'Bye, Mom," he called, his arm flapping as though in a wave of departure, and he hustled out the door. It swung shut faster than any pixie ever could have shoved it. I still had one glass shard in my shoe that I hadn't been able to pry out. When I pushed my thumb against it, I drew a bead of purple blood. This, I stuck out of the pack, just to be sure H.P. realized that I was there and moving, since he had probably been awake all night, waiting and watching for me to come out.

Thomas took a bus to the soccer field. I peered through the window as we went, scanning shops and searching for any sign of fairy godparents or pixies out scouting for humans with glowing potential. Eventually, we unloaded and walked the three last blocks to the field. I heard children and feet connecting with padded balls.

That was poor phrasing. I heard voices in addition to the smacking sound of children's feet connecting with padded balls. It was a shame Snow wasn't here. He'd fallen in love with soccer during the second moulting of his wings. And Newman, Hamilton, and Faust didn't dare to mess with him on the field, even though they were solid and broadly-built and he was a hundred thousand years younger.

"What does Ronald look like?" I asked, still tucked snugly in the backpack.

"Light hair blonder than mine. So blond, it's almost white. And sort of curly. Like George Washington. He even has these sort of buck teeth. And he's tall and kind of awkward. Yes, there he is- just went into the bathrooms. That red building over there." Thomas sucked air between his teeth. "Now, how do I lead into this 'Magical Beings 101' conversation?"

I knit my brows. Then I tapped his shoulder with my pointer finger. "I can help with that. There's something I should talk to them about anyway, if it doesn't terribly bother you. For my job- the reason I was searching Tam's farm for them. Put me down, open the door for me, and stay outside until I give the signal. I'll knock three times."

"Oh, I know. I'll just hide in one of the empty stalls. That way I'll make sure I hear you."

I sighed behind my teeth. But, when the coast was clear, he did dump the backpack and allow me into the bathroom (No sign of H.P. yet. Perhaps it was for the best if he stayed out of Thomas's line of sight).

We were met by the stench of too much stale urine enclosed in too small a building for too long. Only one of the two stall doors was shut, and whoever was behind it was muttering either to himself or to a couple of disguised fairies. At my gesture, Thomas set me on the sink counter before he crept away, moving as softly as he had on Tam's farm before he'd caught me beneath the burlap sack. He didn't even shut the blue door all the way behind him so it wouldn't click.

"Pixie," Ronald said when he came out and saw me. Thomas had nailed his description, minus the part that he had a tufted cowlick which rather resembled mine. Two wristbands on his right forearm - one green, the other red - were almost certainly his fairies, because he lay a defensive hand over them as he stepped backwards. That, and I could feel the energy field tugging in their direction. I swung my legs.

"Pixie is correct. I am Mister Sanderson. H.P. sent me down because according to our records, you have two fairies with automatic checks that just bounced."

That got their attention. Two poofs later, I found myself facing a pair of puzzled, vaguely-irritated godparents. To my relief, I recognized one of them- the red-haired drake with the mustache and the striped elfish hat was Aric Swenski. The damsel with the green hair and the poodle skirt must be his wife, seeing as they shared the same pattern of notches near the pterostigmata in their wings. I didn't know her off the top of my head, but she certainly knew pixies- she gripped her wand lengthwise as she bobbed, her legs tucked near her chest.

"What's this about?" she demanded. "We had nine thousand in our account weeks ago, and we haven't granted any world-bending wishes since. Nothing big at all, really. There was only one elephant, and we returned her to India before our timezone's sunset for 16% back."

"Nonetheless, our reports show you're under about twenty-two hundred. If you're insistent that the mistake is on our side, I need to be examining the automatic deduction systems in your wands."

Aric buzzed his wings. "I was recertified in the '50s, and everything was in working order then." He passed me his wand, without letting go. "This never happened when we were under Twinkletuft. He actually knew his stuff."

My wings twitched forward. I took off the star cap on the wand and shook the black handle until a purple bundle of threedspiral and wires about the radius of a quarter fell into my palm. "No," I said, displaying it, "the green light is glowing. Everything appears in order on the Pixie side. Until this gets sorted out, I need collateral. You can pick this up in Pixie World once you pay your dues."

"I don't take marching orders from freakish pointy-hatted rejects of nature anymore."

"Excuse me?" I asked, tipping up one eyebrow. His mustache fluttered as he huffed through his nose.

"We Fairies do the real work down here on Earth, running around and shelling out our own hard cash to keep the humans safe and happy, and you Pixies just sit around on your tushes all day spying on us and demanding we pay you for it every month. Well, my square little punk friend, I got news for you. You may have conned Twinkletuft out of his business, and you may be weaseling your way up to a monopoly on Fairy magic that rightfully belongs to us, but what it boils down to is, you're all just a bunch of freakishly-mutated, cone-domed, dry-faced, flat-headed, file-filling, broken-crowned, low-life, pen-pushing drones who have to mate with yourselves since no damsel in her right mind would want you, and I don't have to listen to any of you or your self-righteous, obsessive-compulsive, brownie-kissing, wing-twisting, bribe-slinging, geriatric, egotistical, megalomaniac boss at all. First thing tomorrow, I'm taking my business elsewhere. I know what happened in Las Vegas, and frankly, I'm not happy."

"Aric," murmured Ronald.

"Aric," murmured the green fairy. They both inched forward. I thought I heard even Thomas shift his feet.

Closing my eyes, I slid my shades from my nose, folded them up, and tucked them away so they hung from the collar of my shirt. "Did you just call my boss a brownie-kisser?"

"I'm calling you all brownie-kissers. Your vice president snogging Peridot Swan in the kitchen of Chez Fairee was all over the newspapers back in the Autumn of the Spraying Dolphin, and I've seen too many of your people with star-tipped hats fluttering about the front desks to check the librarians out, thinking no one can see your eyes wandering behind those sunglasses. Once a brownie-kisser, forever a brownie-kisser. You're all genetically identical."

"Aric, love, remember what we agreed on about yelling in front of Ronnie-"

"Buzz off, hon."

"Aric, no. You're better than this. I will count to ten, and I will poof us out of here. We're going to miss soccer drills. One."

I didn't move.

"Two."

He took my chin in his thumb and forefinger, bracing his other hand against the counter, and I still didn't move. I burned in silence and let him touch me as I racked my memory for something he'd waved his wand for that I could use against him (For instating that H.P. went around taking advantage of them and such- I certainly wasn't going to defend Longwood. Wasn't there something about rabbits? Wilcox had mentioned rabbits).

"Three."

Aric said, "I've been looking for a fight for centuries, tiny."

"Four."

"I'll toss aside my wand and we'll settle this here and now like honest drakes. No magic. No tricks. File that in triplicate."

"Five. That's enough, Aric. Be the mature-"

"Let's all just-"

"This isn't any of your business, Ronnie," Aric snarled, and Ronald flinched and backed away, holding his cheek out of reflex. I moved my eyes between him and the green damsel. She held up six of her eight fingers, hovering at her godkid's shoulder with an exasperated look etched across her face that told me this was a regular occurrence for Aric (Was this the one year a century all the elves came into heat? He clearly had an elf or half-elf mother to give him his hat, and perhaps it was pricking at him). Fairies didn't hand over their wands to pixies easily - particularly not when tensions were this high - but if I could…

"Seven."

"Okay, Aric Swenson," I decided, unknotting my tie as he pulled back. "Would you mind if I suggested a way to make this more interesting?"

"Eight."

"If you win, you get the satisfaction of having beaten a lone pixie to a pulp where there are no others around to swarm once the deed is done. I'll back off and we'll drop the charges."

"Nine."

"But if I win, I want a smooch with your wife. Do we have a deal?"

Her wings began to whirr at a higher pitch. "I'm not Aric's to give away. Drakes. And for what it's worth, I'd rather kiss a brownie."

"I can pull off the long brownie nose, kissing bug wings, soft hat, and stereotypical bowtie if that's something you're into. All it takes is a starpiece."

"You-" she sputtered, flushing the precise color of her husband's hair. She lowered the two fingers she'd borrowed from Ronald. "Kick his butt, babe."

Aric held up his hand to silence the both of us. "Pixies do not kiss fairies. The Head Pixie is a businessman in a long line of businessmen. You're a natural servant race, identical and obedient, bred by him to perform his bidding- whatever cute and fuzzy lies about fatherhood he fills your head with. Don't pretend you match or even near us on the social ladder. You're nothing but simple-minded clone drones, washed-up mimics of the original who will eventually run your company into the ground. It would seem every one of us knows it, except for you."

"Ah, like your wife knows about the magazines you poof up once you're certain she's fast asleep in the rabbit hutch beside you?"

"… Aric?"

He lunged forward. I rolled backwards into the sink, kicking out with my feet as my head struck the faucet. My shoe connected with his knee, perhaps, but it didn't really do much. Aric swooped up, wings sawing at the mirror, and banked around for a second pass. Thomas at last gave up waiting for my imaginary signal and streaked out from the stall.

"Oh no," Ronald groaned. His green fairy poofed immediately into a soccer ball, but Aric, who was still wrestling with me over the two halves of his wand and winning easily, was not nearly as quick on the draw. His wife covered for him too late. Thomas's pointer finger flew out.

"You've been lying to everyone for three years! You do have fairies, Ronald!"

I was beaten and sore after the events of the last few days. When we rolled off the counter, Aric-turned-fat-ginger cat pinned me to the damp brown tiles and, with a hind paw between my wings, twisted my arms behind my back. He pulled the star cap and handle from my fists. But before he could finish screwing the cap back on with awkward fuzzy paws, an explosion of pink - searing hot with Fairy magic - poofed its way into the center of the bathroom. Six feet nine inches and almost twelve entire tan pounds of pure von Strangle bloodline, staff not included (Oh, how I loathed those staffs). The force tossed us all like salad, knocking my shades from my collar. They clattered against the wall.

"Ronald Carter," thundered the newcomer. He lowered his staff, the massive star at its tip blazing with yellow-pink. A bleak Ronald and mortified Thomas grabbed one another's hands and pressed themselves between the towel dispenser and garbage bin. The green fairy poofed both Aric and herself back into regular form and took up a sentry position at Ronald's elbow. I smoothed down my tie and brushed the grit from my cowlick as I sat up.

"Hello, Jorgen. I managed to get myself separated from H.P some time ago. Since you're already here, would you mind giving us a lift to Pixie World? My wing's entirely useless and it's still a long walk. We'll compensate you for the trouble."

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, Sanderson, I see you down there. You can stop flailing your puny little pixie hands at me."

Aric's wife dropped her lower jaw. "You didn't just out us for a free ride."

"I walk like an angel, I talk like an angel, but I'm a devil in disguise." That sounded nice, actually. I'd have to write that down. Maybe I could convince someone to write a song about it.

"Jorgen, please- it was him!" Ronald protested, but he took the mind-wiping blast from Jorgen's little yellow forget-a-cin capsule just the same. Those were Da Rules. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed into Thomas's arms. Thomas begged for an explanation and received one, while I clawed at the chokehold Aric had just slotted around my neck. My wings may not be as strong as a fairy's, but I managed to shove him loose as I twisted away. When he crumpled to his knees, Thomas's eyes met mine for a single bleary instant. Then it was over.

"You two," Jorgen said, turning his wand on Ronald's ex-godparents. "You are to be spending the next forty-eight hours on furlough at Wishdocs. Do not be leaving its fun-time swimming party and obligatory luau location for anything. You," he said to me, "tell your Head Pixie that I am wanting to see everything in Carter's drawer by sundown."

"So you're giving us a lift," I confirmed, keeping expressionless as I unfolded my shades.

"Ha! Ha ha!" He grabbed Aric and the wife in his fist and squeezed until their eyes bulged. "After what happened in Las Vegas? I believe it was part of your punishment that you and the Head Pixie find your way home by your own means."

My smirk dropped. "Under Whimsifinado v. Caudwell, you have to take me back to Pixie World. I don't have the Head Pixie's written consent to be out here."

Jorgen got down on one knee, bringing his staff uncomfortably close to my ear. Air hot enough to boil water spewed from his mouth when he said, "If you wish to be throwing around the legalities like that, tiny pixie, then you might be expecting me to ask, are you at least over the age of majority?"

"Yes-"

"Were you present in this bathroom when I was arriving in here?"

"Yes-"

"Along with the two human boys?"

"Well, yes-"

Jorgen scrunched his brows upwards in a triangle. "And did you interact physically or vocally with either one of them?"

"Technically yes, but-"

"Were you causing them harm in doing so?"

"Not directly-"

"Then under Anti-Cosma v. Adelinda von Strangle, I do not hold jurisdiction over you what with you being a neutral party. I trust that you can make it to your Bridge with those puny wings. It is hardly a three-hour trip as the dragonfly skims." He lifted his staff above his head. A whirlwind picked up inside the bathroom- not because it was necessary for the teleportation, but because he was a show-off with money to burn. One by one, he and the fairies vanished in puffs of pink smoke.

"Jorgen!" I hollered as the breeze whipped my cowlick and the tails of my gray suit. My pant legs, still slightly damp from my long night in the washing machine, clung to my skin. Chilly. As the rushing air faded back into stagnant calm, I hugged my shoulders and took a step forward. Searching the ceiling. Once more I shouted his name, but his particles had disappeared into the energy field.

My noise stirred the two humans. It was just as well- I couldn't have pulled the heavy bathroom door open on my own. They mumbled and even laughed as they picked themselves up. Memories of the first minute would be lost, the second and third hazy, and the fourth forgettable. In five, their thoughts would fully knit together again and it would be as though nothing had ever happened.

I clung to the pipes beneath the sink counter as they washed their hands. Then they left. I darted out just before the door could shut and ducked around to the far side of the bathrooms. Away from the prying eyes of the soccer field. At least their voices and the distance would conceal mine. Tucked behind the building, licking my lips, cupping my hands in a funnel around my mouth, I called, "H.P.! Boss! H.P.! I managed to escape from the humans all on my own!"

No reply, even after minutes. I slapped my forehead. He couldn't find me. Of course he couldn't find me! He may not have realized that Thomas had brought me into the bathroom, and in addition to that he'd want to remain out of sight as much as possible. Thinking I was still in the backpack, he'd perhaps retreated until the soccer game's end. But if I could give him another scent trail of pheromones, that might bring him to the yard.

So, drawing back my lips, I turned again to my soft skin. I began at my left shoulder and moved down close to my wrist, nipping and tearing and nipping and tearing. When that was done, I scanned the pale gray sky again. He wasn't coming yet. The right arm, then- he'd definitely find me if the right arm was bleeding too. I bit that one all over. Spitting bright emerald blood, I stood there, shoulders heaving, wings sweeping near the backs of my knees, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I took shelter up in a solitary chestnut tree that still had some orange and gold leaves. The day bled away into night, and then into morning, and I kept raking the stars with my eyes, occasionally nipping my arms again when the blood caked green across my elbow joints and hares. I stopped calling, or maybe I didn't. I couldn't here my own voice anymore. Did that mean the pitch of it was two high?

My lashes fluttered against the branch I'd lane my cheek against. I smacked my ear and my neck. I had to stay awake. Couldn't let H.P. miss me. We had a schedule to keep. Couldn't risk halving a human stumble across me. Probly wouldn't end up in Snack Shack like Eunice's basket.

This wasn't a question. It was my job. H.P. needed me. I simply had to stay waked. I had to stay awake. I had to stay awake. I had to staty awake. I had toi staytfd sEdxzabxvfvfvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvc