S E V E N T E E N

IN THE ROTTING cherry tree, Rani tried to awaken Rani-bat, but Rani-bat was determined to remain asleep. The pinprick that was Rani shouted, Hey, bat! Let me out! Release me! I have to go back to the lagoon and warn Soop about the wand. I have to get out of you. Hey, bat! Wake up!

Rani-bat dreamed of hunting. In the dream, she crunched on a firefly. She swallowed it, but it didn’t go down. Instead, it went up into her brain—a rude, unpleasant insect, whirring and shouting.

Rani felt the bat’s awareness. She thought-shouted harder, louder. Wake up! Let me go! Bat! Bat! It’s important! Set me free!

Rani-bat spoke and understood the fairy-and-Clumsy language, as all bats do. But she refused to listen to bad manners. She burrowed into a deeper sleep.

Rani felt the bat’s awareness recede. How could she break through? She thought-screamed. She thought-shrieked. She thought-blasted.

Rani-bat slept on.

Prilla and Tink flew to Rani’s room to fetch something for Rani to wear when—and if—she turned back into a fairy. Tink found the leafkerchief she’d given her, the one with a frying pan embroidered onto every corner. Prilla picked out Rani’s six-pocket dress and selected five more leafkerchiefs. Tink nailed a tabletop across the hole Vidia had made in the ceiling, while Prilla fed Minnie, who had survived both the flood and the rain of plaster.

Beck waited outside with a balloon carrier that held a coconut shell and a sack of fairy dust. When Tink and Prilla arrived, they took the carrier cord and followed Beck toward the only two caves along the Wough River. The golden hawk tried to fly with them, but he couldn’t keep up, so Beck stopped and let him perch on her head.

As they flew, Tink pictured Terence repairing a pumpkin canister. She was sure he was the best pumpkin-canister-repair fairy-dust talent in Never Land.

But Peter intruded on her thoughts. She imagined him reciting love songs to his clamshell.

“My guess,” Beck said, “is that Rani is a nocturnal insectivorous Never bat.”

“What’s that?” Tink asked.

“It’s an insect-eating night bat.”

“Insect-eating?” Prilla cried.

“Yes.” Beck half wished she herself had turned into a bat. It would be such an experience to be an animal.

“Why couldn’t she be a pear-eating bat?” Prilla asked.

“Partly because there aren’t as many fruit bats.”

Prilla persisted. “Why else?”

“Just because.” Beck had a hunch.

“Do we have to wait until dark to look for her?” Tink asked.

“We can’t wait. At night she’ll be out hunting. We have to hurry.” The afternoon was half over.

“What if she isn’t acting like a bat?” Tink asked.

Prilla said, “Then she’d have gone to Mother Dove.”

“Or she might be wandering around somewhere, dazed,” Beck said.

They hated to think about that.

While Pah seethed with hidden wand madness, Soop wanded up riches beyond the dreams of an ordinary mermaid, half for her and half for Pah: golden tail rings, rare combs, pirate plunder. Soop’s concealment forest was so full of treasures that it glittered.

The two were lying back on Soop’s sponge cushions, munching on kelp-jelly candies. Soop had never felt so much affection for her friend. She popped a jelly in Pah’s mouth and one in her own. “Would you like to be queen? I could make you queen.”

Pah didn’t want to be queen. Too much work was involved. But she said, “I could make myself queen, if yooo’d let me wave the wand. Or I could make yooo queen.”

Soop stroked the wand in her lap, wand madness rising in her, too. She dodged the issue. “I don’t want to be queen.”

“Then let me wave it for something else.”

“I’ll wave it for whatever you want. Tell me what you want.”

“A wand.”

Soop waved the wand. “Give Pah her own wand.”

Nothing happened. A wand can’t create another wand.

“Let me borrow yours. Please, Sooop. I just want tooo borrow it. I gave yooo my best scarf.”

“I’ll give you anything else. Tell me what you want.”

Pah’s anger bubbled up. She sprang off the cushions. “I want yooo tooo give yourself a tail rash.”

Soop grew angry, too. “I’ll give yooo—I mean you—a tail rash.” Without noticing, she jiggled the wand. Luckily, her wording wasn’t quite right. The wand didn’t hear a command.

“I say tail rash,” Pah sang nastily, “yooo say tail rash.” She stopped singing. “Yooo can’t even think of something different tooo give me.”

“I’ll give you…I’ll give you…” Soop waved the wand, but she couldn’t think of anything terrible enough.

“You’re selfish and you’re stooopid.”

“You can’t talk right.” Soop was close to tears. “Yooo sound like a foool.”

“Stooopid.” Pah was close to tears, too.

“And you jerk your tail when you swim.”

“I hate yooo.” Pah regretted the words as soon as she said them. She’d never said anything so harsh before.

Soop felt as if Pah had slapped her. She put her hands over her ears, still holding the wand. “I wish not to be able to hear you ever again.”

Pah swooped down on Soop’s arm.

Soop hung onto the wand and finished the wish. “I wish no one else can hear you, either, no matter how loud you yell, ever again.” With Pah clinging to her, Soop waved the wand.