Read Online Fairytales for Wilde Girls by Allyse Near - Free Book Online Page B

clad in cottony russet, most of the tinsel strips fluttered loose from the plum tree, and leaves had browned and dropped. The tree looked as though it was undressing; a sad old stripper unveiling her bones to an apathetic crowd.
    Clutching the Pardieu fables, Isola went to settle herself at the roots. Her usual spot, however, was taken.
    Something furry was lumped there, wheezing slightly. She leaned over the creature, its eyes shuttered tight. Purple stained its mouth, and there were soured plums clutched in its paws.
    â€˜Are you the little fellow who’s been eating all of Mum’s thyme?’ Isola asked the woozy black rabbit. She picked up a nibbled plum, all shrivelled on the inside. ‘Sorry, little bunny, but it’s bad fruit.’ Isola stretched her fingers to stroke its floppy ears.
    Two things happened instantaneously. The rabbit bolted awake at her touch, bared its teeth at her – a horror-mouthful of black fangs – and hissed venomously. Then a scream echoed around the court, as bright and high as stars.
    Isola sprang to her feet. The scream had come from across the road. The black rabbit darted through a scrub of dandelion clocks, whooshes of white ballooning up in his wake as he tore off towards the woods.
    More screams. Her imagination sprouted feathers and flew – flew to the forest where the corpse had hung, to the window where the girl ghost had threatened her. Stay out of the woods .
    Isola ran across to Number Thirty-seven; the shouts were coming from the backyard. Holding tightly to her fairytale book, a knight’s shield, she crept around the side of the house, squeezing close to the wire fence, leaning forward so as not to catch her hair.
    Yet another scream swirled with secondary flavour now. Laughter. It sounded like children – the littlest Poes. She exhaled with relief and turned to make good her escape.
    â€˜Who are you ?’
    Isola looked down in surprise at the owner of the grumpy voice. A sandy-haired boy blocked her path and glared up at her from under an obviously mother-cut fringe.
    â€˜I’m Isola,’ she replied, as cheerfully as she could. She had never been good with children; she found it difficult faking the constant sunniness. ‘Is everything all right here?’
    â€˜It was just fine until you started snooping around,’ said the po-faced little Poe. ‘Who invited you, anyway?’
    â€˜I did, you creep.’
    Isola spun around. Edgar Allan Poe had joined them in the narrow channel beside the house.
    â€˜C’mon, Annabel Lee,’ said Edgar cheerfully, and it wasn’t faked at all.
    â€˜She said her name’s Isola , retard,’ intoned the boy, with an exaggerated rolling of eyes.
    She paused at the sight of the spacious backyard, also scattered with kids’ toys and half-built furniture. Garden tools and an upended tree sapling circled a great crater in the middle of the yard.
    â€˜Move it!’ snapped the boy, shoving his way past her. ‘Dumb blonde!’
    â€˜Hey!’ Edgar made a snatch for his shoulder as the boy ran past. ‘Little brat. . .’ He turned back to Isola, and that remarkably natural smile was still there. ‘Come to complain about the noise, hey, neighbour?’
    She crossed her arms. ‘I thought you were being murdered.’
    â€˜And you were dashing over to save us? Mighty brave of you. And you didn’t even bring a weapon!’ He wiped his dirt-smeared hands on his jeans, peering at the gilded French title on her storybook. ‘Unless that brick counts? Less fables –’
    â€˜ Les Fables et les Contes de Fées de Pardieu . It means, “The Pardieu Fables and Fairytales”.’’
    â€˜Oh, cool.’
    â€˜You know them?’
    â€˜Never heard of ’em.’
    â€˜You’re kidding! You don’t know Lileo Pardieu? Any of her stories?’ Isola rattled off a few titles to his increasingly bewildered