‘Take me away from here,’ whispered Meggie, ‘please take me away from here.’
She let her finger run along the lines, over the rough, sandy paper, while her eyes followed the letters to another, colder place, in another time, to a house without locked doors and black-jacketed thugs. A moment after the fairy’s entrance the window was blown open, whispered Meggie, hearing the sound of the window creaking as it opened, blown open by the breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in. He had carried Tinker Bell part of the way, and his hand was still messy with the fairy dust. Fairies, thought Meggie. I can see why Dustfinger misses the fairies. No, that was not allowed. She mustn’t think of Dustfinger, only of Tinker Bell and Peter Pan, and Wendy lying in her bed, knowing nothing yet of the strange boy who had flown into her room dressed in leaves and cobwebs. ‘Tinker Bell,’ he called softly, after making sure that the children were asleep. ‘Tink, where are you?’ She was in a jug for the moment, and liking it extremely; she had never been in a jug before. Tinker Bell. Meggie whispered the name twice; she had always liked the sound of it, you clicked your tongue against your teeth, and then there was the soft B sound slipping out of your lips like a kiss. ‘Oh, do come out of that jug, and tell me, do you know where they put my shadow?’ The loveliest tinkle as of golden bells answered him. It is the fairy language. You ordinary children can never hear it, but if you were to hear it you would know that you had heard it once before. If I could fly like Tinker Bell, thought Meggie, I could simply climb out on the windowsill and fly away. I wouldn’t have to worry about the snakes, and I’d find Mo before he gets here. He must have lost the way. Yes, that must be it. But suppose something had happened to him … Meggie shook her head as if to drive away the bad thoughts that had wormed their way into her mind yet again. Tink said that the shadow was in the big box, she whispered. She meant the chest of drawers, and Peter jumped at the drawers, scattering their contents to the ground with both hands …
Meggie stopped. There was something bright in the room. She switched the torch off, but the light was still there, a thousand times brighter than the night-lights … and when it came to rest for a second, whispered Meggie, you saw it was a … She did not speak the word aloud. She just followed the light with her eyes as it flew round the room, very fast, faster than a glow-worm and much larger.
‘Fenoglio!’ She couldn’t hear any sound from the guard outside the door. Perhaps he’d gone to sleep. Meggie leaned over the side of the bunk until she could touch Fenoglio’s shoulder. ‘Fenoglio, look!’ She shook him until he finally opened his eyes. Suppose the little creature flew out of the window?
Meggie slid down from the top bunk, and shut the window so quickly that she almost caught one of the shimmering wings in it. The fairy, alarmed, whirred away. Meggie thought she heard an indignant chirrup.
Fenoglio stared at the shining little creature, his eyes heavy with sleep. ‘What is it?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘A mutated glow-worm?’
Meggie went back to the bed without taking her eyes off the fairy, who was darting faster and faster round the little room like a lost butterfly, up to the ceiling, back to the door, over to the window again. She kept returning to the window. Meggie put the book on Fenoglio’s lap.
‘Peter Pan.’ He looked at the book, then at the fairy, then at the book again.
‘I didn’t mean to do it!’ whispered Meggie. ‘Really I didn’t.’
The fairy kept colliding with the window again and again.
‘No!’ Meggie hurried over to her. ‘You mustn’t go out! You don’t understand.’ It was a fairy, no longer than your hand, but still growing. It was a girl called Tinker Bell, exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf.
‘Someone’s coming!’ Fenoglio sat up in such a hurry that he hit his head on the top bunk. He was right. Out in the corridor footsteps were approaching, rapid, firm footsteps. Meggie retreated to the window. What did it mean? It was the middle of the night. Perhaps Mo’s arrived, she thought, Mo is here. Although she didn’t want to feel glad of it, her heart leaped with joy.