Fairy Bad Day(63)

“Gouge out his eyes,” yelled Rupert, who was wearing a tiny David Bowie T-shirt and some skinny-legged emo jeans. “That’s right, James, you’re a tough guy, show them who’s the man . . . hey, these seats are . . . oh, it’s you.” He folded his tiny arms and glared at Emma. “Are you here to violate my other wing?”

“Not if you tell me what I need to know,” Emma whispered as she sat down next to him and held the nail file up to his little neck. The other fairies started to head for the ceiling just as Curtis appeared, also holding a nail file in his hand, the ugly white glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose in case the fairies hit him with more glamour powder.

“Not so fast.” He grinned and Trevor and Gilbert muttered a string of expletives before joining their fellow fairy on the seat. Curtis put down his crutches and settled into the chair on the other side of them, nail file still at the ready.

“What do you want?” a sulky Gilbert demanded. “Because whatever it is, make it snappy. We’ve had a very bad week and we’ve been looking forward to this movie for a long time.”

“You’ve had a bad week?” Emma dug the nail file into Rupert’s jugular and felt her voice raise an octave. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I heard you right, because how could your week possibly have been worse than mine?”

“Keep it down,” someone from behind them yelled out, but Emma ignored them.

“So here’s the deal,” Emma started. “I want to know everything about this darkhel and please don’t leave out the important stuff. Like where it keeps its soul box.”

“Like we’re really going to tell you that.” Trevor lifted up his tiny chin in a stubborn gesture as he elevated several inches off the chair. “What do you think we are? Stupid?”

“Curtis. Get the Skittles for Stupid and his friends.” While Emma was gathering the nail files, Curtis had been in charge of getting ten bags of candy. She was going to feed the little beasts so full of sugar that they would sing like hyperactive canaries.

Curtis pulled out a packet and handed it over.

“I don’t believe it. They’re trying to kill us.” Gilbert suddenly burst into noisy sobs and Emma stared at him. “It’s just too much.”

“I warned you that he was a worrier. Now look what you’ve done.” Trevor shot both Emma and Curtis a venomous look before returning his attention to the other fairy. “Hey, don’t let the emotions of the week get to you. Especially not in front of humans.”

“Um, I’m sorry, but am I missing something here?” Emma demanded as she opened up the packet with her teeth and held it out to the fairies. “Because while it’s great to see you three so caring and sharing, we’re on a bit of a timetable, so just take your Skittles and tell me about the soul box.”

The three fairies shrank away from the packet.

Emma blinked before narrowing her eyes at them. “What? You don’t like Skittles now? Let me guess, after lunch you prefer Tic Tacs?”

“Hey, if you’re trying to throw doubt on our Skittle-eating ability, you can forget it. We can eat those perfect little circles of candy goodness twenty-four/seven. But those . . . abominations . . . that you’re trying to give us are not real Skittles.”

“Huh?” Curtis lifted up the packet. “Yes, they are. They’re just sour ones.” At the very mention of the word “sour” the fairies shrank even farther back.

“They hate Sour Skittles,” Emma hissed in a low voice.

“You’re seriously not going to eat those just because they’re sour?” Curtis demanded. “It was all they had left in the store.”

“We would never eat those poison things in a million years. Veronica merely sniffed one once and she was dead before she knew it. I tell you, that candy is the work of the devil,” Gilbert informed them. “Besides, if you wanted help with the soul box you just had to ask, you didn’t need to threaten us.”

“Gilbert—” Rupert started to say, but he was cut off by Trevor, who performed an aerial somersault before hovering in front of the other fairy.

“Rupert, we talked about this, remember? We decided.”

“Fine.” Rupert still didn’t look very happy as he settled back into the seat and pushed out his lower lip in a sulky pout. “But I’m not going to be the one to tell them.”

“Tell us what?” Emma turned to Curtis to see if he was following what was going on, but he looked equally baffled.

“Tell you where the soul box is,” Trevor explained while he ignored the daggers that Rupert seemed to be mentally throwing at him. “We want to help you.”

“Okay, so now I’m really confused.” Curtis lifted up his glasses for a second and rubbed his eyes before lowering them back down onto his nose. “I mean, don’t get me wrong: we want you to help us, but we didn’t think that you would roll over quite so easily. What’s going on?”

The small fairies exchanged a look, and then Gilbert fluttered up so he was right in front of their faces.

“Look, here’s the deal,” the fairy said. “When we first heard our dark brother was going to attempt to open the gate again, we were pretty excited. I mean, it’s always nice to see family, but then he told us how much they were looking forward to destroying the whole world and turning it into another dark realm, and, well... the truth is that we like it here. To begin with, the mall is the best invention in the world except for the Internet. And I just don’t think it would as much fun if we couldn’t go to Starbucks or read pinkisthenewblog every day online.”