Free Philippa Fisher and the Fairy's Promise by Liz Kessler Page B

said with a slight blush. “If we’re friends, that is.”
    I smiled genuinely for the first time since Daisy had left. “Of course we are,” I said. “So tell me, Tabby, what else have you heard?”
    “Well, I heard something about you finding a fairy who’s broken a whole bunch of FGC rules.”
    “Mm-hmm,” I said, biting my tongue to stop myself from shouting, “That’s my friend you’re talking about, and she did it for a good reason, you know!” Tabby obviously hadn’t even realized that the fairy who was on her way back to ATC to be punished was the same one who’d brought me up here only yesterday.
    Tabby leaned in closer. “And I heard something else,” she whispered, her eyes shining with the excitement of her news. With a quick look around to check that no one was listening, she went on. “I heard that there’s a human up here!”
    “A — a —” I couldn’t find any more words. What was I supposed to say to that ?
    “I know. Isn’t it the most outrageous thing you’ve ever heard? Imagine a human getting into ATC! No one knows how it happened, or even where the human is — but some of the systems have registered its presence.”
    “Its?” I asked before I could stop myself.
    “The human’s! They’ll find it soon enough and dispose of it somehow — but what a scandal, right?”
    “Yeah!” I said. “Ha! What a scandal!” I couldn’t really say anything else for a while. All I could think about was the phrase “dispose of it somehow.”
    What would she think if she knew it was me she was talking about?
    Tabby shook her head and went on. “You know, it’s hard to even imagine it now, isn’t it? I mean, fairies and humans having the kind of friendships we used to have back in the old days.”
    I didn’t get it. It was their job to try and make sure things went smoothly for us. Why did they do it when so many of them didn’t seem to like us? I wanted to ask her — but I knew I couldn’t.
    “Um . . . yeah,” I said, wishing I had a clue what she was talking about.
    She looked indignant. “But it’s not our fault it changed, is it? After all, it’s the humans who let us down, who forgot about us, stopped believing in us, forgot about the symbols of friendship that we’d built together. It’s not the fairies who moved on and left them behind. And yet we’re still the ones who keep doing everything we can for them. We’ve never gone back on our side of the bargain, and we never will. Honestly, it’s not surprising if every now and then we get a bit touchy about it!”
    I paused to take in what she’d said. Her answer had half answered the question I’d wanted to ask — but in the process it had opened up about fifty more! What bargain? If only I could ask her more about it — but how could I, without making her suspicious?
    “Yes, I suppose I see what you’re saying,” I said eventually. “And of course, I feel that way too, quite often.” I really couldn’t think of anything more convincing to say. But I was intrigued. Fairies and humans had once been friends? If it had been that way in the past, maybe sometime in the future it could be like that again. Perhaps one day, fairies wouldn’t get into enormous trouble just for trying to help a human out.
    The last thought brought me back down to my current reality.
    As if on cue, the supervisor appeared at the end of the corridor — and she was heading our way.
    “Now then, my little gem,” she said, straightening her already impeccable suit and flicking a nonexistent bit of fluff from her shoulder. I looked around to see who she was calling a gem. A second later, she was at my desk. “You’re to come with me,” she said — to me! “You’re wanted at High Command.”
    I got up from my desk and followed her, trying to ignore the looks I got from the other fairies all the way down the aisle, and trying to stop my legs from giving way beneath me. We reached the wall, and the supervisor nodded briefly at it.