Free Fairy Bad Day by Amanda Ashby

to notice her confusion.
    “With hairspray?” he asked in a perplexed voice. “What did they put in your manual?”
    Emma took a patient breath. “There is no manual for slaying fairies. Sir Francis’s book only gave about three sentences, one of which basically said, ‘Approach with caution.’ Which is one of the many, many reasons why I want to become a dragon slayer. All of this stuff is what I’ve picked up as I’ve gone along. Hairspray totally screws up the oil in their wings and means they can’t fly for at least a week. Oh, and apparently it makes them look ugly to the opposite sex as well.”
    Curtis handed her the can.
    “It doesn’t matter what you do to me.” Rupert folded his tiny arms in a stubborn gesture. “I’m not going to tell you anything about the darkhel. Not a single—”
    “Rupert. Zip it.” Gilbert lifted his hand and made a slashing action across his throat, and the injured fairy let out an annoyed groan.
    “What’s a darkhel?” Curtis demanded.
    “Darkhel?” Rupert fluttered his little fairy eyes in a blank expression. “I didn’t say ‘darkhel.’ What I said was ‘dark hell.’ Dark. Dark. Dark hell. Which is exactly where you’ll both be heading very soon. You know, you should really get your ears checked out. ”
    “You said ‘darkhel,’” Emma corrected him.
    “No, I didn’t.” Rupert shook his head.
    “Yes, you did.”
    “No, no, no. I most definitely did not.”
    Emma, who found it hard enough to put up with Loni and Tyler’s constant bickering, certainly wasn’t going to bother with this for too long, and she finally arched an eyebrow and pointed to the tiny creature’s shirt. “So the fact your T-shirt says ‘Darkhels Rule the World’ is a complete coincidence?”
    “Man, Rupert, you had to wear that shirt?” Gilbert growled.
    “Darkhel?” Curtis frowned as he turned to Emma. “I’ve never heard of it. I wonder if it’s a new breed of dragon? Or maybe European?”
    “Dragons?” Gilbert spat a crushed Skittle out of his mouth in disgust. “You insult us. The darkhels aren’t dragons, they’re fairies.”
    “That thing was a fairy?” Emma dropped the hairspray in shock. “But that’s impossible. I mean, it was so big. And evillooking. And the size of its talons was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. There’s no way it was a fairy.”
    The fairies all puckered in annoyance. “Size isn’t everything, you know,” Trevor growled. “And you should see Gilbert when he’s in the middle of a job. You don’t get more evil than that.”
    “Thanks, brother.” Gilbert puffed his chest in pride. “I do like to bring a certain level of dastardliness to my work.”
    “I still don’t understand.” Emma scratched her head. “I mean, it looked just like a dragon.”
    Rupert growled in disgust, which was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was still squirming on the floor with a nail file poked through his wing and his T-shirt covered in Skittle stains. “Darkhels have more grace and evil in their little talon than a dragon has in its entire body. In fact, how dare you even mention them in the same sentence? It’s sacrilege. Still, I guess it doesn’t matter that you know, since there is nothing you can do to stop our glorious dark brother from regaining the Pure One. It has been foreseen.”
    “The Pure One?” Emma rolled her eyes. “Oh please, you’ve got to be—”
    “Can I help you folks at all?” Someone coughed and Emma and Curtis both swung around to where a salesclerk was now standing with a helpful smile on her face.
    “Er, no thanks, we’re good.” Emma jumped to her feet and tried to hide as many of the crushed Skittles as possible. Next to her, Curtis manfully scooped up the hairspray and thrust it behind his back.
    “Are you sure?” The woman beamed at them. “We’ve got some great celebrity biographies here, and there’s a special on right now that gives you twenty percent off your second purchase. I know.