Free The Fairy Rebel by Lynne Reid Banks Page B

be proud of that, any more than you can be proud that I’m kneeling on the ground!”
    The wings opened again but now Jan closed her eyes and would not look at them. She made herself go on:
    “You don’t think I respect you, do you? You don’t think your fairies and elves really love you?”
    “How dare you!” The Queen’s voice was like the hiss of a snake. “Of course they love me! They say so every day, every hour! They love and respect and honor me. It is my first command that they love me!”
    Jan opened her eyes and faced the wings, which were quivering strongly, their awful eyes glaring at her.
    “They hate you,” she said.
    The Queen rose to her feet. Her flowing gown shotgleams of greenish light, like sparks. She quivered all over. The wasps that had been flying in the garden stayed still in the air, but the wasps that made the throne began a low, angry buzzing. The tall pillar they had formed seemed to sway as the wasps crawled over each other.
    “They—what?” asked the Queen in a sharp, dangerous voice.
    Jan found she could stand, and she did, though awkwardly because of her lame leg. When she stood up she was level with the Queen. She set her teeth and said, “They hate you. They’re frightened of you. You let them be killed. You make them cry. You shut them up and then you go away and forget them! They would all be much, much happier if you were—if you were
dust
!”
    The Queen stood there on her tall, swaying wasp throne with a look of wild, unbelieving rage on her face.
    “Punishment is necessary,” she hissed. “I do not forget! And I do not forgive! I will show you something before I punish
you
.”
    She raised her arms and clapped her thin hands once above her crowned head.
    Her wings opened. They were like the background of a stage. Two wasps—strange flying figures among all the ones still frozen in the air—flew down. They flew close together as if carrying something invisible between them. They settled at the feet of the queen. She pointed a commanding finger, and the next second a fairy appeared between the carrier wasps.
    She was a poor, thin, ragged little fairy. Her hairwas the pale color of a dead rose petal. She wore a tattered brown dress. Her stumpy wings were shabby and gray, and drooped from her shoulders as if they hadn’t been used for flying for a long time. And she was terribly thin. As Jan peered closer, she could just see the white traces on her cheeks, where her sugary tears had dried.
    It was Tiki. Changed, half-starved, faded and pitiful, but still, without a shadow of doubt, Tiki.

7
The Magic Rings
    “Oh,” whispered Jan. “Tiki darling. What has she done to you?”
    A flicker of a smile crossed poor Tiki’s thin, tear-crusted face.
    “Nothing much,” she said carelessly. “I don’t care.” And her hands made their old movement, up and down her body, back and front, as if she was trying to change her clothes, to make herself less ragged and pathetic so Jan need not feel so sorry for her. But nothing happened.
    So, thought Jan, the Queen, if she really wanted to,
could
stop a fairy changing clothes. She could stop her magic growing. She could fade her natural flower colors and turn her into this poor little creature. And she could stand there smiling at her cruel work.
    But Tiki was smiling too. She was not beaten.
    “I’m fine,” she whispered. “I’m just dressed like this because—because it’s winter and the roses are sleeping. And I always get thin in winter because there’s no honey.”
    “But it’s summer, Tiki,” whispered Jan. “Yesterday was Bindi’s birthday.”
    Tiki looked around her, as if waking up.
    “Summer? It can’t be. Look at the roses; they’re all dead. And if it was Bindi’s birthday, I’d have made her a rose-present, wouldn’t I? I always make her a rose-present.…”
    She looked fearfully over her shoulder and seemed to see the Queen for the first time. She gave a little cry of terror, dropped to her knees