Disney Fairies: Fawn and the Mysterious Trickster Read online

  She drifted off to sleep, still thinking about pranks.

  That night, Fawn dreamed that she and Beck were on a beach. They stood side by side at the water’s edge. Beck filled an acorn cup with seawater. She emptied it into a shell bucket at Fawn’s feet. Beck turned to fill the cup again. When Beck wasn’t looking, Fawn dumped the bucket out onto the sand. She put it down before Beck turned around. Beck refilled the bucket. Fawn dumped it out again. Beck kept filling. Fawn kept secretly emptying—turning the bucket over, over, over. Fawn-in-the-dream giggled. At this rate, Beck would never fill the bucket!

  Fawn awoke to sunlight on her pillow. Bits of the dream were still floating around in her mind.

  “Wow!” she said to herself. “I’m even pranking in my sleep!”

  Then she groaned. She still didn’t have a good idea. If only her silly dream prank had been good enough to use in real life!

  FAWN’S BEDROOM DOOR burst open. There stood Beck, hands planted on her hips.

  “Okay,” she said. “I have no idea how you did it—and without waking me up!”

  “Huh?” Fawn said, sitting up in bed.

  “When did you do it?” Beck went on. “Last night after I went to sleep?” She flew to Fawn’s bed and plopped down next to her. “Or did you get up early this morning? I wish I could have seen my own face,” Beck said, laughing. “When I woke up and looked around, I couldn’t figure out what was going on. With everything upside down, I felt like I was upside down!”

  Fawn pinched herself hard. “Ow!” she cried. “Yep, I’m awake. But I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t be silly!” Beck said. “You know, the prank. My stuff…my room…turned upside down!”

  “What?” Fawn cried. She had to see this for herself. She pulled on her tunic and pumpkin colored leggings. Then she flew out of her room ahead of Beck. She was hovering in the open doorway of Beck’s room, her eyes wide, when Beck caught up.

  It was the oddest sight. Every picture and wall hanging was upside down. Every bottle and knickknack on the dressing table stood on its head. Beck’s firefly lanterns, her chestnut water pitcher and cup, even some of the small furniture—all of it was turned wrong way up.

  Fawn darted around the room, getting a closer look. “Wow!” she said at last.

  “When I finally did figure it out, I couldn’t stop laughing,” Beck said. “It’s hilarious!”

  Fawn smiled, then giggled. “It is funny,” she agreed. “I only wish I had thought of it!”

  Beck did a double take. “What?”

  “I didn’t do it!” Fawn insisted. “Really!” Beck still didn’t believe her—Fawn could tell by the look on her face. There was only one way to convince her. “Beck, I swear! I swear on Mother Dove’s egg. It wasn’t me.”

  Beck looked Fawn in the eye. Swearing on Mother Dove’s egg was the most solemn swear a Never fairy could make.

  Beck’s brow wrinkled. She looked around her. She seemed to be seeing the prank in a whole new way. “But Fawn,” she said, “if you didn’t do it…”

  Fawn nodded. “Who did?”

  Fawn and Beck thought about it until it was time for breakfast. They were still puzzling over it as they flew down to the tearoom.

  “I bet it was a friend of ours,” Beck was saying. “Someone who knows what we’ve been up to.”

  At that moment, the garden-talent fairy Rosetta flew into the tearoom. She heard Beck and came over. “Just what have you two been up to?” she asked playfully. “More pranks?”

  Fawn described Beck’s upside-down room to Rosetta. “But I didn’t do it,” Fawn said. “It was a mystery mischief-maker! A secret spooker! Another fairy is getting in on our pranking fun.” She looked at Rosetta. “You don’t know anything about it, do you?”

  “Nope!” was all Rosetta said in reply. Then she flew off to the garden-talent table.

  Beck leaned close to Fawn. “She doesn’t seem like the most likely culprit,” Beck pointed out. “Turning things upside down is hard work. She wouldn’t want to mess up her hair.”

  “But you know what they say,” Fawn replied. “Sometimes it’s the fairy you don’t suspect!”

  Beck nodded thoughtfully.

  The two fairies found seats together at the animal-talent table. Fawn was reaching for a slice of lemon poppy-seed cake when Tinker Bell flew by.

  “Fawn, Beck,” Tink called. “What’s new with the pranking?”

  Fawn spun around in her seat. “Why do you ask?” she replied. She fixed Tink with a questioning stare.

  But Tink didn’t seem to notice. She gave them a little wave and flew on to the pots-and-pans-talent table.

  “Now, Tink…,” Fawn said to Beck. “She’s not one to shy away from mischief. She might have done it!”

  Fawn and Beck had a delicious breakfast of lemon poppy-seed cake and fresh-squeezed berry juice, but Fawn’s thoughts were never far from Beck’s prankster.

  As they were leaving the tearoom, Fira flew in. “Fly with you, Beck” she called, using the traditional fairy greeting. She winked at Fawn as she passed by them.

  Fawn stopped in midair and turned. “Wait!” she called after Fira.

  “What?” Fira said, flying backward.

  “You winked at me!” Fawn said. “Why?”

  Fira gave Fawn a funny look. “Well, you know. The prank the other day. In the barn. I helped Beck trick you,” she reminded Fawn. “I hope there are no hard feelings.”

  Beck studied Fira’s face carefully. “Is that all?”

  Fira nodded. “What else would there be?” she asked. She seemed completely confused.

  “You tell us!” Fawn said.

  For a second, Fira was at a loss for words. Then she laughed. “You two are funny,” she said, and flew on.

  Fawn turned to Beck. “I’ve got it!” she exclaimed. “Fira had fun pranking me. So she decided to prank you, too! You know, just to be fair!”

  Beck looked doubtful. “But she really didn’t seem to know anything about it.”

  Fawn had to admit Beck was right. Fira was probably innocent.

  For the rest of the day, the two fairies were on the lookout for suspects. Was it Terence, a fairy-dust talent? He and Tink kept whispering to each other during the big game of acorn ball.

  Or was it Terra or Finn, two other animal talents? They had been giggling a lot at dinner.

  That evening in Fawn’s room, Fawn and Beck wrote down all their suspects on a leaf. It was a long list. In fact, just about everyone was a suspect! But they had no real leads.

  Fawn flew around the room. She scratched her head and tried to puzzle it out.

  Beck was sitting on Fawn’s bed. She let out a big sigh. “I guess we aren’t any closer to figuring out who our mystery prankster is,” she said.

  They were both silent. The wind picked up outside the Home Tree. It whistled eerily through the hollow spaces of the great old maple. Suddenly, Fawn stopped and stared at Beck. Her eyes widened.

  “What if our prankster isn’t a fairy?” she said.

  Beck’s brow wrinkled. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Maybe it’s not a fairy! Not a sparrow man! Not even…of this world!” Fawn cried. She landed next to Beck. “What if our prankster is…a ghost?”

  Outside the window, lightning flashed. A second later, a clap of thunder boomed.

  Both fairies jumped.

  “Beck,” said Fawn, “what if the Home Tree is haunted?”

  THAT NIGHT, FAWN slept fitfully. She dreamed of ghosts floating through the halls of the Home Tree.

  The next morning, just like every morning, Fawn woke up and threw her legs over the side of her bed. Just like every morning, her feet felt around for her slippers. Just like every morning, her feet found the slippers lined up neatly next to her bed.

  But this morning, unlike every morning, her feet came down on the slippers with a squishy splat.

  With a sinking feeling, Fawn looked down. Her slippers were covered
with a shiny green goo!

  “Eewwww!” Fawn cried, wincing. Her feet had goo all over them! She looked at them more closely. “What in Never Land is this stuff?” She glanced around for something to wipe her feet with. That was when she noticed:

  There was green goo all over her mirror!

  Fawn flew out of bed. Her dresser was covered in goo, too. Her toadstool night table, the foot of her bed—lots of things had little splatters or smears or glops of it. Blobs of green goo dotted her floor. They seemed to form a little trail leading toward the door.

  Just as Fawn was getting dressed, there was a knock. Beck rushed in.

  “I’ve been slimed!” she cried. Then she noticed Fawn’s mirror. “Oh! You’ve been slimed, too!”

  “What?” Fawn exclaimed. “You’ve been slimed? With this stuff?”

  “Well, my room has,” Beck replied. “Come look.”

  Fawn followed Beck down the corridor. Sure enough, when they reached Beck’s room, Fawn saw a slimy mess.

  Beck studied a glob of slime on her doorknob. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Fawn. More slime on the floor outside Beck’s door caught her eye. “But there’s some out here!” Fawn zipped farther down the corridor. “And over here! And down there, too!” She looked back at Beck. “Let’s see where it leads!” Fawn cried.

  Beck hesitated. “Should we?” she said. “We don’t know what this stuff is. Or why it’s here. Or who—or what—might have left it behind.”

  Fawn rubbed her hands excitedly. “You mean like a ghost?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Beck replied. “Or a giant fairy-eating snail or something!”

  “Oooo, even better!” exclaimed Fawn. She grabbed Beck’s hand. “Come on! Let’s go!”

  Leading the way, Fawn followed the trail of slime. It ran down the stairs to the lobby. From there, it wandered into the tearoom.

  Some early-rising fairies already were there having breakfast. Fawn and Beck weaved around the tables. They dodged kitchen-talent fairies carrying baskets of muffins. No one else seemed to notice the slime. It blended in well with the tearoom’s fresh flower carpet. But Fawn and Beck knew what they were looking for.

  They kept their eyes on the trail. It led them through the swinging door of the kitchen. Inside, the kitchen talents were busily preparing breakfast. Some stirred pots on the stove. Others washed dishes. One fairy carried a pan to the top shelf of the floor-to-ceiling pot rack. Fawn and Beck zigged and zagged around them—one eye on the kitchen traffic and one eye on the slime.

  Then, in the pantry, the trail ended. Fawn and Beck stopped. They hovered and looked all around. But there was no more slime to be seen.

  “That’s it?” said Beck, looking down. “That’s the end?”

  “I don’t think so,” Fawn replied. “I think this is the end.” She pointed to the cupboard in front of them. “I’ll bet that whatever made the slime is inside this cupboard.”

  Beck drew back. Fawn held her breath. She flung open the cupboard doors. But all she found were jars, tins, canisters—the usual pantry stuff.

  Fawn let out a sigh of relief…and disappointment. But then—

  “Wait!” she cried. “This jar…” She picked up a jar from a shelf. It was missing its lid. A teaspoon was sticking out. “It’s dripping with slime!” Fawn examined the jar more closely. “It’s filled with slime! No, not slime. It’s…”

  “What? What?” Beck cried.

  Fawn said nothing. Instead, she scooped up some slime with her finger. Then, with a wink at Beck, she ate it!

  “Fawn! No!” Beck grabbed the slimy jar out of her friend’s hand. She stared wide-eyed at Fawn. “What are you doing?”

  Fawn just smiled.

  Beck looked down at the jar. Its label was staring her in the face.

  Beck’s jaw dropped. “Kiwifruit jam?” she exclaimed in disbelief.

  Fawn started to laugh. She laughed so hard she snorted. “Someone really got us, Beck,” she said between guffaws.

  Before long, Beck was doubled over laughing, too. A couple of kitchen talents peeked into the pantry. They threw Fawn and Beck questioning looks, but the two fairies were laughing too hard to explain anything.

  Finally, the laughing fit tapered off. Fawn took deep breaths. She held the laughing cramp in her side.

  “Well, at least we know one thing for sure,” Beck said.

  “What?” Fawn asked.

  “This was the work of our mystery prankster,” said Beck. “And it’s definitely a fairy or a sparrow man.”

  Fawn thought it over for a second. “How do you know?” she asked.

  “Think about it,” said Beck. “What kind of ghost uses green kiwifruit jam to spook fairies?”

  Fawn grinned. “One with a sense of humor?”

  IT TOOK FAWN and Beck hours to clean up all the green jam. And Fawn still felt sticky between her toes. But at least she and Beck were in it together. Fawn listened to Beck fluffing her pillows in the semidarkness. Beck was settling into a little bed she and Fawn had made in Fawn’s room. She hadn’t wanted to sleep alone in her room, not after two nights in a row of unexplained mischief.

  “We’ll have a sleepover!” Fawn had suggested that afternoon. “It’ll be fun.” She’d flown excitedly around Beck. “Maybe we’ll set a trap for our mystery prankster!”

  And so they had. Across Fawn’s doorway, they had tacked a superfine spiderweb. The web was nearly invisible. Then they had tied a row of bells along its edges. They were the tiniest handbells the music-talent fairies had—the ones with the highest pitch.

  They had set up another similar trap across Fawn’s open window.

  As she snuggled in for the night, Fawn felt confident. “No one is getting in here without us knowing about it,” she said.

  “No fairy, you mean,” Beck replied. Fawn could hear the smile in her voice. “Ghosts can float right through spider-webbing.”

  “True!” Fawn replied. “Well, then at least we’ll know for sure. Did you tell our friends about the sleepover?”

  “Yep,” Beck said. “I dropped it into conversations all day long.”

  “Me too,” Fawn said. “If someone wants to pull a prank, she’ll know where to find us both! Then we’ll find her—in the booby trap!” She rolled over. “Sleep well, Beck.”

  “Sleep well, Fawn,” Beck replied.

  But falling asleep wasn’t easy. Fawn found herself straining to hear every little nighttime noise. Her mind replayed the events of the day—slime tracking, slime cleaning, sleepover planning, and trap designing. She noticed a soft sound. It was Beck breathing, sound asleep. Fawn found herself breathing in the same rhythm—in, out, in, out, in…

  The next thing she knew, a strange sound startled Fawn awake. She wasn’t sure how long she had been sleeping. She wasn’t even sure what kind of sound had woken her.

  “Fawn, did you hear that?” asked Beck. She was sitting up on her pile of cushions.

  “I heard something,” Fawn replied. “What was it?”

  There it was again. It was a creepy wail. Beck looked at Fawn with wide eyes.

  “That was it,” she said.

  As animal talents, Fawn and Beck had heard plenty of strange noises. But this noise was different. This didn’t seem like any animal sound—at least, not one Fawn had ever heard. This was eerie and unnatural. It was like a sound from another world.

  “Come on! We’ve got to find out what’s making it!” Fawn said. She leaped out of bed and flew to Beck’s side. She grabbed Beck’s hand to help her up. But Beck held back.

  “We do?” Beck asked nervously. “Why?”

  “Come on, Beck! Are you a fairy or a mouse?” Fawn asked.

  “I’ve known a lot of very brave mice,” Beck pointed out. “Remember Whiskers?”

  “Good point,” Fawn said. “So pretend you’re Whiskers. Now, let’s go! Quick! Before it stops!”

  Fawn paused. “Where is it coming from, anyway?” Without thinking, she flung the door
open and stuck her head out to listen.

  “Fawn, wait!” Beck cried.

  But it was too late.

  BRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIINNNG! Fawn’s head got caught in the trap. All the tiny handbells rang loudly.

  “Aaaah!” Fawn cried in alarm.

  Beck cringed and covered her ears.

  The spiderweb came loose from the doorframe. It stuck to Fawn’s head and shoulders. As she struggled to get it off, the bells continued to ring. Finally, with Beck’s help, Fawn removed the web. She dropped it on the floor.

  “Now we know the trap works!” said Fawn. Her heart was pounding.

  They heard the wail again. “It’s coming from outside the window,” Fawn said. “But that’s booby-trapped, too.” She led the way into the corridor. “We’ll go this way instead!”

  Together Beck and Fawn flew down to the lobby. At the front door, they stopped. Slowly, they stuck their heads outside. They peered out at blackness. It was a cloudy night. No moon, no stars—nothing to see by.

  Even so, Fawn flew out into the darkness. Beck followed.

  “Beck! Look!” Fawn whispered. “Over there!” She pointed to a spot on a branch of the Home Tree. As they stared, something moved ever so slightly.

  There was a faint rustling of leaves. A moment later, they heard the wail again.

  Beck pointed just beyond the end of the branch. “Isn’t that your window, Fawn?” she whispered.

  Fawn nodded. “Whatever it is, it’s sitting right outside my room!”

  Just then, a dark shape darted from the leaves.

  Fawn could barely make it out. It was about the size of a fairy, but she didn’t see any wings. And yet it could fly! The thing hovered in the air, motionless as a statue. While Fawn watched, it moved to one side and hovered motionless again.

  It let out a piercing wail that made Fawn’s hair stand on end.

  “What is it?” Beck whispered in Fawn’s ear.

  “I don’t know. I can’t make it out,” Fawn whispered back. “But I know one thing.”