CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Elsie

s soon as Ruth and Grace began to mouth off to the fairy queen, Elsie shook her head. She couldn’t believe that they were being their usual incorrigible selves at a time like this. Didn’t they know that they were only making things worse?

And speaking of things getting worse, any moment now, the bee fairies were going to notice that Adie was gone.

Checking that nobody was looking in her direction, she got to her feet and looked around for something that she could use as a weapon. She wished her legs didn’t feel like jelly, that her heart wasn’t lodged in her throat. That she could take at least one deep breath.

Why couldn’t she be as brave as Adie, just getting up and doing what needed to be done?

She glanced back at the fairy court, then watched in horror as the queen had one of her footmen shoot the fat little man standing by the twins. The queen gave a second order and he notched another arrow and aimed it at Grace.

Elsie’s protective instincts sent a surge of adrenaline through her so that she could move again. There was no time to worry if Adie was in position or not. Now was the time for the diversion. But just as she was trying to decide between running around shrieking like a madwoman or picking up a stick and attacking her captors, Sarah Jane, Laurel, and Bess suddenly came dancing into the glade, paying no attention to the gathering of bee fairies.