eleven

Before we go any further, I think I’d better tell you how it is that Avery had no fairy sisters, and Goldie had so many. It’s no secret that a fairy is born when a human child laughs for the first time. The Fairy Bell sisters were born of a particularly happy child; Becca was her name, and she had a bright, musical laugh. Baby Becca laughed for the first time one morning in the sunroom of her family’s house as her parents cooed over her. “Ha-hah! Hah! Aaah! Laha-ha-ha! Ho-ho!” There was a pause . . . and then she giggled a last “Hee-hee!” and finally she took a breath. (It was a big laugh for a first timer.)

Becca’s “Ha-hah!” became Tink; the second “Hah!” was Clara. “Aaah!” was Rosy, “Laha-ha-ha!” was Golden, “Ho-ho!” was Sylva, and that last “Hee-hee!” was, of course, baby Squeak.

The Fairy Bell sisters had a happy birth indeed!

But some fairies have a different beginning. Occasionally, a very sullen child manages a first laugh late in life. “Humph! Hamph!” Usually such a child is not laughing in delight, but laughing at another’s misfortune. From that sort of laugh, very unpleasant fairies are born. (Claudine and Amanda were surely the products of a “Humph! Hamph!”)

Avery was born of a very happy human child called Emma, who managed to laugh earlier than all the other babies but didn’t quite recognize what she was doing. Some infants are that way—they laugh before they know what they’re about, and it scares them quite out of their little baby wits. Emma’s first laugh came when she was fingerpainting (with applesauce). It was part “Hah!” and part “Hic!” She was so scared of her own laugh that she didn’t giggle again till she was walking. (Ask your parents sometime what your first laugh sounded like. If you were a “Hah!/Hic!” perhaps your laugh gave birth to a fairy like Avery.)

“Avery’s teachers gave up on her,” said Caraway Cooke in the silent kitchen, “and sent her here to work in the kitchen when she was just a mite. A serving fairy is what she’ll be all her life. For the likes of Claudine and Amanda.” Caraway sniffed.

“They gave up on you?” Golden couldn’t imagine such a thing. She thought of Faith and her fairy school. Faith would never give up on any of her students! Especially not Goldie! “That’s terrible!” she said.

“Isn’t that how it is on Sheepskerry?”

“No!” said Goldie. “On Sheepskerry, the teachers know that every fairy is good at different things. Not every fairy learns the same way.”

“You’d better not let the mainland fairies hear you talk that way,” said Avery.

“And you’d best get upstairs for breakfast,” said Caraway. “The other fairies will be wondering what you’re doing talking to Avery. Get on with you, now. And don’t come back.”