Free Megan Button and the Brim-Tree by M. T. Boulton

Chapter One
Fete
    Megan Button patted an unruly ringlet, munched some more of the chocolate muffin then started to stroll around her school fete.
    The mugginess of early summer had surpassed itself as it shined down on her mum and dad, who were rooted on the slope near the cake stall, fixedly watching her sister and her gaggle of friends
all hopping like hares over the funny-shaped bouncy castle; there was terrific bouts of boisterous laughter as they were trying to bounce over the clowns bowler hat!
    A chuffing train, less than a mile away, just clapped out a belch of steam, which was curdling in the sky like a flock of crows. The whistling
choo-choo
chugged on to its next station
stop, and yawning back the mid-morning with a drawn stretch, Megan meandered into puddles of strobed lights spilling from the noisy carousel, then passing a wooden helter-skelter, she found herself
face-to-face with a fluting banner.
    In her jeans, she had the last dregs of her pocket money and checking the coast was clear, sidled alongside the toy stall, where she spotted something peeping from under a raggedly battered
teddy bear. It was a figure of a Fairy, perched on a branch, wearing a lemon-yellow dress, which flowed down to its ankles.
    It looked pleasantly lovely!
    Megan couldn’t peel her eyes off the figurine: she had a vast collection of Fairies and yet, in her estimation, none looked as real as this one, and her grandmother, knowing how much she
highly prized these, would give her one on every birthday and Christmas.
    Her new teacher came over and saw her holding the model. ‘Hello, Megan, isn’t she beautiful?’ she remarked pleasingly, both admiring the light reflecting through the
Fairy’s pale purple wings.
    ‘Yes, she is. How much is she, Mrs. Penny?’
    ‘She’s supposed to be two pounds.’
    ‘Oh.’
    She bit her lip, and fidgeted with the tog on her long-sleeved sequined cardigan.
    ‘Good gracious, girl, you oughtn’t look so ghastly,’ Mrs. Penny said somewhat concernedly.
    Megan smiled thinly.
    Mrs. Penny, seeing her disappointment, tapped a finger on the mottled cover of the leather-bound book she was cradling in the crook of her arm, and enquired. ‘How much do you have to
spend?’
    ‘Erm, only one pound,’ she told her weakly.
    ‘Then that’s how much you can buy her for,’ Mrs. Penny winked with a knowing smile.
    This was certainly more than Megan had bargained for.
    She perked up, and with a beaming grin, that displayed the cute-as-pie dimples in her cheeks, she cried in delight, ‘Thank you, Mrs. Penny!’
    Excitedly, she sprinted and showed her parents, but had too wait to see her sister, because apparently she was having her face plastered in paint, in orange, black-and-white stripes.
    She eventually decided to grace them with her presence, and came skipping over to Megan. ‘Grrrr. Raaaa’ she growled. ‘Ooh, that’s a nice Fairy.’
    ‘I-I know,’ replied Megan hesitantly, now fully fearing what might come next.
    And sure enough, she stropped in a rather dramatic huff, ‘Have
I
got one?’ then promptly flicked a poor ladybird off her thumb.
    With a sinking heart because she knew she’d be cross, Megan muttered wearily, ‘No, sorry. I only saw this one.’
    Spitefully, she started to poke and prod at Megan. ‘That’s not fair. I
want
one,’ she bleated shrilly, ‘why should
you
have it? Just because you’re a
year older than
me!
’
    After bickering for a few minutes their Mum, who was beginning to look terribly harassed, picked at an imaginary thread on her pashmina, and turning to the whirlwind of commotion, warningly,
scolded quietly. ‘Lucy Dinah Button, you’re eight-years-old for goodness sake, and if you do not stop creating such a fuss, you will go straight home to bed and
not
have any
ice-cream later,
not
go to ballet practice,
nor
get that new dress you want.’
    As the Button’s regimentally roamed round the parallel stalls laden with flagged bunting, (buying a