Free Wolf Notes and Other Musical Mishaps by Lari Don Page A

dust.”
    The Queen smiled. “A bargain.” She picked the water bottle up. “I will take this to him as a sign of good faith.”
    She raised her voice. “Let her past.”
    Helen turned round. The spear-carriers had vanished.
    She looked back to the root cave. The Queen had vanished too. Helen was alone, apart from the fairy on her shoulder.
    Lavender said sharply, “That was extremely foolish, Helen. A bargain with a faery never turns out well.”
    Helen walked towards the edge of the clearing. Lavender kept scolding her. “Why bother taking me if you were going to ignore my advice?”
    “Sorry. There wasn’t any other way to save the boy.”
    “There’s no point saving one human child, at the cost of another. And you’re my friend! I don’t want to lose you to her. Why didn’t you listen to me?”
    “I couldn’t hear you half the time, and the rest of the time, I was actually making my own decisions.”
    “She enchanted you.” The fairy flew around Helen’s head, throwing out angry fizzing light balls.
    “No, she didn’t!”
    “Yes, she did! You may try to bargain and playhard to get, but really you dream of performing for her, because she has enchanted you.”
    “That’s not true!” Helen said indignantly. “She didn’t enchant me! I didn’t agree to perform for her! All I want is to get James back. And all we have to do is get this flag, which isn’t even stealing because it’s the faeries’ flag anyway, then James will be safe and she won’t even expect any music. It’s all under control, Lavender.”
    Lavender harrumphed.
    They had reached the trees where they’d left Lee and Sylvie, but there was no sign of the faery or the wolf girl.
    “Fat lot of good they were,” muttered Helen. “At least you stayed with me.”
    “Not that you listened to a word I said!”
    “Where have they gone?”
    Lavender shrugged. “Maybe they ran off at the first sign of danger.”
    “Wouldn’t Sylvie be more likely to leap at the Faery Queen’s throat than run away?”
    “Whether they leapt or ran, they aren’t here now. I hope you remember the path home, because I didn’t see anything but your ear and your hair on the way here.”
    “I thought Lee would take us home, so I wasn’t trying to memorize it. Can’t you find our way back using a finding spell or something?”
    “I can’t find a forest path, Helen, it doesn’t belong to anyone.”
    “Search for a dragon then, or a centaur.”
    “They don’t belong to anyone either.”
    “Yes they do, they’re our friends.”
    Lavender looked sceptical. “Alright. Ask me to find something of yours.”
    Helen smiled and said in a formal voice, “Dearest Lavender, wisest fairy, please find me my friend Sapphire.” Then she whispered, “She’s bright blue and bigger than Yann. She should be easier to find.”
    Lavender frowned. “This is serious.” But she started to rotate in the air, her eyes closed and her wand searching.
    In the intense stillness surrounding the fairy’s effort, Helen heard a snarl.
    She turned away from the spinning fairy and crept into the forest. Hoping she hadn’t heard another spear-carrying faery, she pressed close to the trunk of a rough-barked tree and slid round it slowly.
    As soon as she saw what lay behind the tree, she ran forward, yelling, “ Stop! ”
    Helen couldn’t tell who was attacking and who was defending. Lee’s sword was aimed at the wolf’s throat. Sylvie was crouched to spring at the faery’s face.
    They didn’t take their eyes off each other, even when Helen shouted again.
    So she stepped between them, forcing Lee to move his sword to one side. She shoved him in the chest and he fell off-balance away from the wolf. The wolf tensed to leap at him but Helen took another half step and stayed between them. Sylvie snarled and sank to the ground.
    Just as Helen was recovering from the fright she had given herself, stepping so recklessly into someone one else’s fight, Lavender flew out of the