Read Online The Fairy Rebel by Lynne Reid Banks - Free Book Online

arrived here? And if it was magic, it must be from Tiki. Or Wijic, getting up to his tricks. It was babyish to be afraid of a twig.
    She reached out her hand and picked it up.
    It lay in her hand, a dull, harmless rose stem with the petals gone and just the green leaf-things at the top, like a star, and a yellow pad half hidden among them.
    She touched the pad. Some yellow stuff came off on her finger. Pollen. Well. That was natural enough. Maybe it was just an ordinary little twig after all.
    She put the twig on her bedside table and got dressed. Then she found that the yellow stuff was still on her finger. She wiped it on the side of her school skirt. It left a long streak that glittered like gold.
    She didn’t say anything about the twig to her parents. She didn’t know why she didn’t, she just didn’t. When her mother asked why she’d poured out a bowlof cereal and not eaten it, she just said, “I found I wasn’t hungry after all.”
    There was something else she didn’t tell them. When she went to the bathroom to clean her teeth, she squeezed a wasp out onto her toothbrush with the paste.
    She went to school with her teeth unbrushed.
    She was early. She found some of her friends in the playground, and almost as soon as she reached them, one of them, a girl called Manda, said, “What’s that hanging out of your pocket?”
    Bindi looked down at the side of her skirt. Dangling from her pocket was something that gleamed. She pulled it out. It was heavy in her hand. She held it out, and Manda gasped, and the others crowded round.
    “Where on earth did you get
that
? Is it your mother’s?”
    It was a gold necklace. Most of it was gold. It had some dark brown gemstones in it too. The gold parts were pointed, like little curved knives, or an animal’s teeth. Or (but that was silly) like big stings.
    “It’s not my mother’s,” said Bindi.
    “Did you get it for your birthday?”
    Bindi didn’t answer. The dark gemstones were shiny. They had a gold stripe across them. They seemed to be staring at her, like round eyes. She hated the necklace—hated it. She wanted to throw it away.
    “Put it on, put it on!” the others were saying.
    She didn’t want to put it on. It was the last thing she wanted to do. But one of the girls snatched it out of her hand and quickly fastened it round Bindi’s neck.
    The moment it was on her, Bindi felt something strange. The necklace seemed to cling to her; the pointy bits stuck into her like little sharp claws, but oddly enough they didn’t hurt. She just had the feeling she couldn’t take it off again even if she tried.
    All the others stood back. They’d gone oddly quiet.
    “You should have worn that when you played the queen,” said one girl. “It shines, like real jewelry.”
    “It wouldn’t have gone with the pink dress,” said Manda. “I think it’s ugly. Take it off, Bindi.”
    Bindi started to put up her hands to take it off, but suddenly she heard a shrill, high voice, not like her own voice at all, saying, “I won’t. I like it. It’s beautiful. I’m going to wear it always.”
    All the other children stared at her. Manda, who was her best friend, took a step backward. A boy called Keith, who normally never stopped teasing and bullying her, said, “Well, you’d better button your blouse right up to cover it or Miss Abbott’ll make you take it off.” And Bindi’s hands, which had felt frozen to her sides a minute ago, moved by themselves up to her neck and hid the necklace under her school blouse.
    All day at school, Bindi felt the necklace clinging to her. But the warmth of her skin didn’t take away its coldness. She couldn’t concentrate on schoolwork at all. All she could think of was the necklace. Part of her longed to tear it off and throw it as far away from her as she could. But another part of her couldn’t and wouldn’t.
    She was told off four times during the day for being lazy and not paying attention. She stared at herreading book