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130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash

124. This Is a Box (Just after the "Evolution Hopeful" Prompt)

Monday November 29th - Tuesday November 30th, 2004

Year of Water, Autumn of the Aligned Raindrops

The Carmichaels did not associate with the Turners around Thanksgiving. Buddy, the Carmichaels barely associated with the Turners, period. And November or not, here in the suburbs, autumn-colored fleece sweaters didn't make the greatest form of camouflage. Not even in the dark. Chloe had figured that out in the worst way possible. Crossing the street? Tried it. No-go. Connie and Clark weren't risking any chance that their daughter might sneak over for a bite of turkey, even when Chloe insisted she faced no such temptation. And they were still acting like this when Thanksgiving had been four days ago, too. Because leftovers. Gotta love 'em. Figured that the one time her parents insisted on sticking around to keep tabs on her would coincide with the most calorie-heavy meal of the year…

In all honesty, it was Timmy, Cosmo, and Wanda who held her interest more than the food. And Poof, who had texted them all last week that he planned to pay a visit. Chloe didn't know all the details, but he'd said it involved "a surprise", and Wanda and Cosmo had expressed all sorts of feelings ranging between streamers and party blowers, and endless sobbing. Needless to say, they had enjoyed a party over there just after dinner today. And she, Chloe Carmichael, practically an honorary member of the Turner family, had not.

Chloe leaned her back against one closed window in her bedroom, taking her hot chocolate in small sips and mouthfuls of marshmallows. Outside was dark and leaf-littered. A crisp chill wafted in through the second window, but it was still warmer than the winters she'd been used to back home. Living in California was a new experience. It hadn't snowed yet this year. Timmy said it rarely did here, especially not recently with Global Warming and all. Usually godkids had to wish for it. She wasn't sure how many children that entailed, but apparently snowy November wishes were largely a thing of the past. They might've gotten bored of it. Maybe she'd get lucky later in the season, but for now, Dimmsdale would just have to make do with pretty leaves and baggy sweaters a little while longer.

Chloe paused mid-chuckle, the lip of the hot chocolate mug resting at her mouth when she noticed movement across the street. Completing her sip, she leaned forward. "What is…"

A bright shape rocketed through the air and smacked against her window. Chloe almost dropped her hot chocolate. As it was, she spat half her swallow back into the cup. Her instant urge was to karate chop the intruder, but the glass between them stopped her hand. She took the chance to breathe instead. The figure was large, at least a foot and a half tall, spread-eagle like an attacking bear. He wore a lightweight, long-sleeved hooded shirt decked out in horizontal stripes. A gap-toothed smile grinned down at her. Pale brown freckles dotted his cheeks and nose. Messy purple curls framed his ears. His right hand clutched a rattle like a wand. A golden crown floated a handspan above his head.

"Wait." Chloe narrowed her eyes. "Poof?"

Poof buzzed his wings and peeled himself away from the window. He tipped his crown, then made a beckoning motion with his hand. Chloe blinked. Setting her mug over on her desk, she took the lower portion of the window and lifted it.

"Wow, Poof. You got a whole lot bigger since I saw you over spring break. You look like you're an actual kid now! No offense."

Poof cleared his throat, dropping his voice into a regal, almost seductive boyish baritone, as though he were welcoming her to a lavish palace banquet. "Ha ha ha! Perish the thought, my dear Lady Chloe of Carmichael. Although I must admit, I could say the same to you, now that I see you doing something besides obsess over rules and funtivities."

"Uh-huh. What are you doing at my house? It's dark, but not that dark. Someone might see you."

Poof shook his head, still hovering outside the window. He magically slicked back his hair to reflect the look of a seemingly British secret agent. Then he saluted, rattle held vertically near his cheek. "I'm afraid I am a man on a mission, Lady C.C. Come over. And do take care not to let my parents know, hm? There's a good lass now."

Chloe glanced over her shoulder at the empty birdcage on the far side of her bed. Cosmo and Wanda hated to be split up. Technically, not even Jorgen could force them to be. They held joint godparenting licenses that allowed them to work together, after all. After several months, she and Timmy had finally worked out a system of sharing fairies that they both agreed on. Cosmo and Wanda usually stayed with her on even days, and they stayed with Timmy on odds. Since they pretty much all hung out together every day that Timmy hadn't promised to spend exploring the town outskirts with Sparky or that Chloe's parents hadn't over-scheduled her for, things were working out okay.

At first, Chloe had expected Timmy to either throw a fit about being separated from Cosmo and Wanda for any length of time, or get himself mauled by some woodland animal. But to her surprise, he'd gravitated naturally into hanging out more with his friends Chester and A.J. Rekindling his back-up friendships with Sanjay and Elmer hadn't been far behind. Lately they'd been hanging out together most nights to play board games, watch movies, or tinker around with A.J.'s dad's old robots. Timmy's friends and back-up friends were nice and all, but Chloe didn't want to intrude on their guys' nights. So, she kept a respectful difference even when Sanjay once mentioned to her in passing that no one would object if she did. It was probably good for Timmy to do things on his own without Cosmo and Wanda hovering over his shoulder for awhile. Plus, this way she had the fairies all to herself. She liked that. Not because she felt possessive of them or anything, but just because this way, Timmy wasn't around to mock her for her wishes, or shoot down her ideas, or wave them off as something he'd already done before.

Pink and green feathers still littered the bottom of the empty birdcage. In a few more hours, it would be the 30th. Even. Cosmo and Wanda should be here to check in for a sleepover in her room. This, however, was a special occasion. Poof had come home today, after all, so both she and Timmy had allowed Cosmo and Wanda to spend the day out and about with their son wherever they wanted. Last Chloe had overheard from the news on TV, a toddler with wavy purple curls had been spotted charging down a pier in pursuit of a seagull who had stolen a beakful of his fries, with his mother and father not far behind. Witnesses swore that his leaps between the posts had been so fast and fluid, he almost looked as though he were flying.

If Cosmo and Wanda weren't here and Poof was alone, they must have returned to Timmy's goldfish bowl even earlier than usual in anticipation of tomorrow's switch. It would have been nice if they'd have wished her goodnight. Oh well. "Okay," she murmured. "But what in the name of hoopla is going on?"

"You'll see," Poof said, switching back to his regular, high-pitched baby voice. He beckoned with his hand again.

Her window didn't have a screen. Too many adventurous parents dropping down from the roof and springing uninvited into her personal space had negated the need for one. It wasn't hard for Chloe to double-check that she was still wearing pants (even if they were pajama pants) and swing her legs over the sill. The last thing Connie and Clark Carmichael would ever expect of their obedient daughter was her sneaking out after being explicitly told not to. And to be fair, a few months ago, just the thought of such an underhanded action would've made Chloe quiver in her sandals. But she was a big girl now. One with absent parents, and friends who filled the resulting gap. She deserved this. Timmy was like a step-brother to her these days, and Poof an extension of that family too. They'd all been separated for a week, and she really wanted to see her other family again. The one that was actually involved in her life.

There wasn't a rain gutter pipe that would let her slide safely from her window to the bushes. Nor a tree with strong branches to climb down. Not even a slanted sort of awning. Chloe took a leap of faith and slipped through her window anyway. She plunged straight into her mother's rose trellis, flattening it with a series of oofs and crunching wood, and crawled out covered in petals and thorns.

Poof flew down to join her. With a whirl of his rattle, he repaired the broken trellis completely. "I could have poofed you across the street if you'd asked."

"Could've, but where's the fun in that?" Automatically, Chloe rubbed her jaw. "Cosmo's dropped me on my face a few too many times lately that I just don't want to risk it."

"If you say so."

Chloe inhaled the scent of rain. Grubby, mottled leaves covered the grass- even on her lawn, perfect as it normally was. It felt rebellious. It felt great. When Chloe walked, she took special care to watch her feet, and not tred on any cracks in the sidewalk. Or worse, on any invertebrate brought up by the rain. And tonight, there were an awful lot of those. Halfway to the road, she crouched low, wrapping her hands around her knees. "Ohhh, just look at them. Poor squishy little guys all washed up without a home."

"They're just worms," Poof said, hovering behind her shoulder.

Chloe scooped one of the worms into her hand and moved it off the sidewalk to what appeared to be a dry patch of dirt. She set it down, then scraped a bit of soil on top of it. "This is the fattest worm."

Poof crossed his arms, tapping his foot in the air. "Can we go now?"

Just as he said that, a light went on in Chloe's living room. Startled, Poof disappeared in a pillar of white dust. He blinked into existence again as a cloud-shaped pin on her pajama shirt. Chloe smothered her giggles and took off across the street as fast as her bare feet could take her. And her parents sure didn't suspect a thing.

Chloe had her own key to the Turner residence. She kept it on the lanyard she always wore under her shirt. Even when she slept. Definitely when she slept (Her parents had "helpfully" moved her things around too many times in the past and then disappeared on week-long trips before she even woke up again). Timmy's Dad had tossed her the key as soon as she'd requested it without asking questions. Probably out of gratitude after she'd slipped him that stock tip that had taken off and made the Turners totally rich. Chloe liked Timmy's Dad all right. At least he was nice, even if he wasn't really the brightest or the most respecting towards the sanctity of nature. And although Timmy's Mom wasn't known for being much of a cook, she always seemed to find the time to bake something special to bring across the street. And she spoke Russian, just like Chloe, so that earned her extra brownie points where her homemade fudge did not.

Humming one of the songs Wanda had taught her during the Autumn Turn celebrations in August, Chloe rifled through the keys and decorative knickknacks on her lanyard for the correct one, and slid it into the lock. She pushed open the door, reached for the light switch, and stopped.

"Whoa. What happened here?"

The lamp from the side table lay on the floor, its cord snaking behind it. One of the family pictures had been knocked from the wall. Cushions were flipped from the couch. A mattress stood, tilted, against the wall. Poof reappeared with another burst of dust, clenching his teeth.

"Yeah. Don't get so worked up about it. It's just that time of year."

"You seem worked up about it."

"Nah, I'm chill. I can handle Thanksgiving weekend."

Chloe walked past the couch to the fireplace, sweeping her gaze over battered pillows and opened board games. A rustle sounded over in the corner. A lone hand snaked out from behind the mattress and jerked her underneath.

"Hey!"

Before she knew it, Chloe found herself squinting directly into the beam of a stuttering flashlight. Behind it, she could make out two over-sized buck teeth, a battered pink hat, and scruffy brown bangs that fell over a pair of grim blue eyes. Was that striped shirt part of his pajamas? He wore his hat even with his pajamas?

"Timmy? Where are Cosmo and Wanda?" As Poof crawled beneath the mattress to join them, she lifted her hand to shield her face. "Hey, can you cut it out? My future self really will need an eye patch at this rate."

Timmy switched the flashlight off. "You've got pupils. You're real. I guess I can tell you."

"What's going on? Why are you sitting here behind a filthy mattress?" Chloe pushed her fingertip down on one of the springs. It bounced back up when she let go with a comedic twaaang! "And why do your eyes look bloodshot like you haven't slept in three days?"

Timmy put a finger to his lips. He crawled to the other side of the mattress, peeked out to stare at the fireplace, then pulled his head back in. "I'm hiding from pixies. My parents wouldn't let me light a fire tonight, so I'm extra edgy. My dad's really gotten into ordering stuff off the digi-stream, or the 'Fairy Internet' lately. I tried to stop him, but I can't just wipe his memory. Who knows what he does when he's supposed to be working? Spend my college fund on super high-tech spy equipment to get back at Mr. Dinkleberg? Fairy technology in his hands would be chaos! We might only have minutes before the pixies bringing it invade!"

"They come down the chimney," Poof said cheerfully.

Chloe squinted. "Isn't that Santa?"

Timmy shook his head. "No, that's common confusion, with the deliveries pixies make today and stuff. Santa does all his magic long-distance. He grants everybody one wish as long as they write him a letter. It's pixies who make house calls to bring you stuff you order on the digi-stream."

"You seem really upset about this. Do we fight them?"

Timmy snorted. "We leave cups of coffee and dry cereal out in the mailbox and hope they go away."

"Well, that's cute. So, pixies?" Chloe brought her hands together so only a few inches of space separated her palms. "I guess they're like… pixies?"

Timmy set the flashlight on the floor. "Okay. Sorry. You know how it was Black Friday this weekend?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, pixies are a lot like fairies, but they don't have godchildren or dress in bright colors or even live in Fairy World. Instead, they fill out paperwork and stuff. They run all the big businesses in the cloudlands, and go to work in boring office buildings in Pixie World. They dress in dull gray suits and they all look identical with square faces and square wings and slick black hair and sunglasses and they all. Talk. Like. This." Timmy turned his voice into a robotic monotone at the end. "And Black Friday weekend is to them what Friday the 13th is to Anti-Fairies."

"Party central," Poof griped. "Imagine a soccer video going viral through South America during FIFA season. Then add how crazy you Americans get over the Super Bowl. That's what it's like in Pixie World right now."

Chloe thought about that for a second. "Well, I guess if Pixies are the spirits of big business and everything goes on sale this time of year, that makes sense."

"Ohh yeah." Timmy patted his flashlight against his hand and rolled his eyes. "We used to only have to deal with them on Black Friday, but ever since they started going digital, we have to deal with them on Cyber Monday too. And Gray Tuesday, which is basically the same thing as Black Friday, but for magical creatures all over the universe."

"Why on a Tuesday?"

"Don't know, don't care. But we have to go to Pixie World tonight. We're running out of time. Do you know whose name I have for the Fairy Reunion gift exchange this year? Jorgen von Strangle's!" Timmy upturned his hands to claws. "If I don't get him an impressive gift, he might grab my throat and crush me into oblivion. Or take my fairies! Or crush me and then take my fairies!" He began to hyperventilate at the thought, twitching his hands and neck about.

"Hang on. There's a Fairy Reunion gift exchange? And I wasn't invited?"

"Not the part of that sentence I need you to focus on right now, Chloe."

"Well, yeah," she muttered, "but I didn't get invited." The realization stung a little more than she wanted to let on. First her parents didn't keep her informed of all their big travel and service project plans more than half a day in advance, and now her fairy godparents hadn't thought to give her the time of day either?

Timmy clapped his hands over his eyes. "Okay, people like you get invited to Fairy Con because that's actually meant for godkids on purpose and it has fun and games and stuff. People like me get invited to the stuffy and pompous Fairy Reunion formal dinner party specifically so Jorgen can keep an eye on me, because the one time I snuck after Cosmo and Wanda, I got framed for the Head Pixie's murder and Remy had to bail me out, but that doesn't really matter right now. We can talk about this later."

"You got framed for mur-"

"We'll talk later. I promise. Hush now."

Poof poked his head out from behind Chloe's knee. "Timmy wants to hop from the frying pan and into the fire today of all days."

"Yep. That's why we've gotta do this while Cosmo and Wanda are asleep." Timmy placed his hands on the floor and leaned in. "Our mission? We're going to Pixies Inc. to score the hottest deals on all the coolest stuff. For Jorgen, obviously. Not because there's a certain limited edition, all-thought-to-have-been-destroyed Red Ninja video game I really want to buy or anything."

Chloe shook her head. "Timmy, did you really wait until the last possible day to pick up a present?"

"I have a short attention span and I put things off to play video games!" he hollered. "And since the reunion is Thursday it's not technically the last day, it's just the last day I have a chance to do this with legitimate fairy magic on my side before Poof has to go back to school!"

Chloe glanced up at the ceiling, but somehow, Timmy's parents remained sound asleep. "Okay, so that's the day after tomorrow. That's still procrastinating."

Poof poofed up a shoe box stuffed with folded paper ballots. "Don't look at me. I suggested we give him a box of coupons and preemptive 'Sorry I caused you so many migraines today' cards and call it good enough. But Timmy said that wasn't kosher."

"He's Jorgen von Strangle!" Timmy made strangling gestures with his hands. "You can't just get him any old gift. You'll die."

"With explosions," Poof added.

"Oh, you'll die in so many explosions."

Chloe shook her head. "Okay, well, what are we going to do about it? We wanna go to Pixie World, right? Let's hurry up and poof there now before our parents find out we're gone."

Timmy made a sound like an incorrect buzzer. "Wrong! You thought wrong! Poof's not allowed to use that much magic outside of school. Especially today because of reasons. And especially if he's not supervised by an adult with a godparenting license, and I'm not sure Cosmo even counts. So the only way we're getting to Pixie World tonight is by jumping one of the pixies at exactly the right moment and forcing him to take us there before he explodes from magical backup into a thousand itty-bitty pieces."

"I… Okay. Uh, this seems like a rocky plan involving a multitude of questionable gray areas."

"It's a great plan," Timmy insisted. "It's gonna work great."

Poof raised his hands and rattle. The shoe box disappeared with a poof. "If Jorgen hadn't destroyed Crocker's portal, we could take that. FYI and FTR, I also told Timmy I could poof us to Alden Bitterroot's well and we could catch the invisible Rainbow Connection Transit bus between Earth and Fairy World. It comes at 21:44."

"There's traffic, buddy."

"Whaaat? But all the wheels go round and round."

Chloe raised her eyebrows. "Have either of you ever tried just talking to them? The pixies, I mean? I'm sure they'd be happy to poof you to where you'll buy things from them if you asked."

"Ha! You can't just talk to them when they're in this state. They're drunk on maxed-out magic. They're like-" Timmy made a grabby motion with his hand.

"What?"

"Hello, I was signing 'cuckoo.' It's that bird on the cuckoo clock."

"How is this" - Chloe mimicked the gesture - "'cuckoo'? Why didn't you just twirl your finger around by your ear to sign 'crazy'? Everyone gets that!"

"Uh, guys?" Poof reached up to tap Timmy on the arm.

"Look, I'm not that great at charades, okay?"

The floor creaked overhead like a snapping twig in the woods.

"Timmy." Chloe shoved her hand over his mouth. "Your parents. They're getting up!"

Even in the dark, she saw his eyes widen. He peeled her fingers away. "I wish we were out in the front yard."

"And I wish the living room looked as nice as Timmy's parents would expect it to."

Poof waved his rattle, and it was so. With a great poof, the young trio reappeared at the end of Timmy's driveway. While Timmy anxiously searched the windows of his house for signs of his parents, Chloe breathed a sigh of relief.

"I guess that's Step 1 complete. So what's the rest of the plan, guys?"

Timmy stared at his house for a second longer, then turned back to face her. He straightened his hat. "One of Poof's roommates at Spellementary is a pixie. He's here in Dimmsdale for a few days. We'll just sneak up and bag him with this butterfly net I wish we suddenly had."

Poof! Timmy gripped its handle and grinned a maniacal sort of grin above the beam of his flashlight, causing his godbrother to back away. "He's basically a kid just like Poof, so it can't be that hard. He can't even do magic. It'll be a snap. Mwahahaha."

Chloe brought her hands together in front of her mouth. "My concerns over the legalities of this situation are clashing immensely with my love of sniffing baby heads."

"That sounds like an 'I'm in' to me. Let's ride." Timmy tucked the flashlight (and, somehow, the long net) away. "I wish we had a jet-propelled double scooter."

"And I wish the scooter was silent and that we had padded helmets to keep us safe."

Obediently, Poof raised his twinkling wand. Poof! "Thanks," Chloe said, strapping the helmet under her chin. "So where's this kid pixie we're hunting anyway?"

Timmy hopped onto the front of the scooter and rang its bell with his thumb. It didn't make a sound. He pulled a face. "His name's Finley. He's staying at the Crocker house this week with Foop."

Chloe pressed her lips together. "Your magical pixie roommate is staying at Crocker's house the night before the biggest shopping day in the entire magical universe."

Poof shrugged. "Yeah, it's weird. People tend to kidnap him and use him as a direct teleport link any year he stays in Fairy World or is hanging out at school. So Foop convinced him to spend his break down here so he could get some peace and quiet. It works out for us."

"And Foop is also at Crocker's place because…?"

Poof made an up and down motion with his hand to indicate the fact that his body wasn't spherical anymore. "Exoskeleton shedding. It's a big deal and he wanted to show off to his only close friends, Mr. Crocker and Dark Laser, before his parents find out he's not a blockhead anymore and drag him through a bunch of boring ceremonies and political stuff like posing for art pieces. He's basically the Anti-Fairy prince, after all, and they'll wanna make a new statue of him for their hallway." Poof thought for another second, then waved a dismissive hand. "Before they find out he physically isn't a big blockhead anymore, I mean. He still kinda is one mentally." He turned his head expectantly towards Timmy's house, as though anticipating an, "I heard that!" to be bellowed back at him. Instead, the only sound was the suspicious thump of someone slipping and falling down the stairs.

"Dark Laser from Space Wars," Chloe clarified.

"Yes. You met him once, remember?"

"And Crocker will be there too? Possibly with Kevin and definitely with his mom?"

Poof shrugged. "Hey, Mr. Crocker's really not so bad once you get to know him… But don't tell my parents I said that."

Chloe still wasn't convinced about the whole 'Two magical children conveniently visiting Dimmsdale several days after an American holiday instead of going home during a Fairy one' thing, and apparently this showed on her face, because Poof sighed. "It's not my fault. I don't write this stuff. Just go with it, okay?"

With that, Timmy kicked the scooter into gear. Chloe had forgotten it was a rocket-propelled scooter until it actually fired down the street. She yelped and threw her arms around his chest. Resisting the urge to raise her voice over the rush of the wind, which wasn't nearly as silent as the scooter, she called back to Poof, "What about your fourth roommate? Do we need to worry about him?"

Poof kept pace with them pretty well for a baby fairy chasing down a gadget that Timmy had wished up. "Sammy is a changeling child. He went home to his foster family in Ohio for the Thanksgiving holidays." He shook his rattle a few times as he thought. "Muddlesomething. Muddipper. Anyway."

"Okay, that's fair."

Crocker and his mother, up one estranged half-nephew and down one kooky grandfather in the last year, lived along the train tracks on the opposite side of Dimmsdale. As far as evil secret lairs went, Crocker's was a pretty good one. Sure, it was disheveled and decrepit and totally looked like their family had held claim to it since 1665. That all made it just the sort of place a couple of young heroes were curious to creep into.

Almost every light on the street was dark, but when they pulled up, they found themselves framed in the yellow glow of a dance party in the front room. Timmy dismounted and pushed the scooter behind a scraggly bush. Poof stared down at the pathetic hiding spot as if he couldn't decide whether to beef it up with magic, or if that would trigger any traps around Crocker's yard. Staring at the cheerful commutation beyond the window, Chloe put a finger to her chin and frowned.

"Gee. I mean, I don't know if I'm really okay with this. Can we go to magical juvenile hall for kidnapping pixie children?"

At that, Timmy grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her back and forth. "Hello? Jorgen? Fairy Reunion?" He flung out his hand. "Risk of totally unfairly losing fairies ringing any bells up in the ol' noggin there?"

"Okay, okay! But we'll have to be pretty sneaky."

Poof floated up to Chloe and half covered his mouth with his hand. "FYI, it's called Wishing Well, and yes, we can get thrown in there. So let's not get caught tonight, because my mama'll kill me if this ends up on my permanent record."

"Roger."

"Poof."

Timmy had already slunk up to the window, his back flattened to the stucco wall, the butterfly net gripped in his fists. They all exchanged nods. Together, the two godkids and the fairy peered inside. Not like it was hard. After all, outside it was dark, and the interior of the Crockers' front room was lit not only with flickering fluorescent bulbs, but also with twinkling strings of ambiguous winter holiday lights and even a spinning disco ball. Poof gasped.

"They've already set up a Christmas tree. And it has candy canes on it!"

"Yeah, I guess. So you like candy canes?"

Poof looked at her like she'd been poofed into a giant piece of broccoli. "Have you even had peppermint before? It's so good. I want to grow it on a farm and guzzle it in my lemonade."

"Poof." Timmy gave him a sideways glance. "Wanda said no more candy canes."

"But it's been a whole year! I'm way older and more mature now."

In the face of that kind of logic, Timmy relented. "One candy cane. If the opportunity arises. But try to have some self-control, for goodness sakes."

"Hey, be grateful that Crocker's portal's out of commission. Otherwise I'd make a run through it, and how would you stop me then?"

Chloe squinted through the front window of Crocker's house, trying to figure out who she recognized. There was Crocker himself by the refreshments table, taking a break from dancing to give Girlfriend the hairless cat a scratch between the ears. She stretched out her paws, wrapping her sleepy tail around the punch bowl. Dark Laser from Space Wars decked out in his full gear, cape and all. Kevin slumped against the wall behind a battered armchair, his pointy knees sticking out at awkward angles and his cell phone in his lap. Even though he wore glow-in-the-dark bracelets and necklaces like everyone else despite the brightness of the room, his mouth was pinned in a flat line of I don't wanna know, I don't wanna know, I don't wanna know. Poor kid. She and Timmy should really coax him to hang out more. Even they, with all their reckless wishes, had to be a better environment for him than the Crocker family.

Speaking of which, Mrs. Crocker was in the room too. She puttered around on her little legs, passing around a tray of lemon poppy seed muffins despite the fact that this completely negated the need for a refreshments table by the other wall. Foop perched on the arm of the chair Kevin sat behind, clutching two cookies in one hand and a blue plastic cup in the other. And just like Poof had promised, he'd likewise shed his old cube form for an adorable, scrawny little body. His wings had gotten so much bigger, and she could make out purple freckles across his cheeks. He wore a blue sweater vest over a long-sleeved black shirt, and shiny shoes on his feet that ended in curls just like the two massive curls between his pointy, bat-like ears. They swiveled around, and so did his eyes, like he could sense he was being watched but couldn't figure out who the culprits were. Ohhhh, Chloe just wanted to grab him and squeeze him until his eyes bulged right out of his head! … But she refrained.

She searched the room again, confirming the identities of all the guests and usual residents. She didn't recognize the last small child dancing in the room as if the party was all his idea and he intended to own it.

Timmy tapped Chloe's shoulder with his whole hand. "See that kid in the red with the pointy hat that doesn't float and the sunglasses pushed up in his hair? That's the pixie. He has this disability called 'tomte', which means he can't fly or do any magic himself. But at exactly midnight, the Head Pixie - he's the boss pixie - is going to flood his veins with Fairy magic. He has control of it today. Don't ask. So we have to grab Finley before he disappears. But not too soon, or else Crocker and those guys will probably try to stop us."

"Santa Claus," Chloe said as she studied the pixie in question, thoroughly taken aback.

Poof yawned. "The red suit's just Fairy magic in physical manifestation. Finley's borrowing it today. All the pixies are. Not mine, of course. I have a training wand. There's too much raw magic for him to absorb, so it turns into a coat brimming with so much power that a human can actually see it without field-sight, which is this magic vision thing. Red magic is the highest frequency in the energy field, so in physical form it looks red. The Rainbow Bridge works the same way. Don't worry, he's harmless until midnight."

"He's glowing blue around the edges."

"He's leaking effervescence."

"That's basically carbon dioxide for Fairies," Timmy cut in.

"No worries, it's chill. We're waiting for midnight, remember? He's probably just getting ready to absorb the power. I guess."

"Mmhm." Chloe scanned Crocker's front room again. Finley had stopped dancing. Instead, he'd crouched down to crawl after a ladybug wandering across the floor. It lifted its wings and buzzed away. As soon as it did, he flung out his hand (which was covered in a white Santa-like mitten) and blasted it with a beam of bright blue energy. The ladybug disintegrated and fell to the floor in a tiny heap of ash. When Crocker cheered, Foop and Dark Laser paused to exchange uneasy glances. Kevin brought his knees closer to his chest.

Her breath hesitated. "Timmy? It sure looks to me like Finley can use magic."

Timmy lowered his chin beneath the windowsill. His hands tightened around the handle of the butterfly net. "Uh… That's not magic. That's just really fancy special party effects?" His eyes rotated around to Poof on his other side. "Hello? Double T to Nebula Zeke, what gives? It sure looks to me like Finley can use magic."

Poof broke into high-pitched laughter, startling both the human children. "What do you know! His tomte-ness is cured! It's a miracle! Hahaha… Ohhh, geez. I totally forgot to account for time zones. Kansas and Pixie World are two hours ahead of us, and we're dead. Who wants to go home and help me write some paper coupons?" He lifted his rattle and gave it the lightest shake. Chloe shoved it down.

"Careful, Poof. Remember, this is Crocker's own house. He might've trapped it with magic-detecting net traps or something."

"Oh yeah. I did barely manage to escape the lobsters last time around."

"Guys. Focus. Or we're never going to find the perfect magical gift for Jorgen, and I'm going to be out one entire fairy godfamily."

Chloe glanced through the window again, watching Finley make a dash for the Christmas tree and fly up to swat at the star. "Can't someone just poof up a cool gift for you?"

"No. It has to be special. Fairies can always poof stuff up, but what they really want is stuff that isn't made of magic. Magic-made stuff dribbles sticky dust everywhere like glitter, and it grows magic weeds everywhere that'll bite your ankles and steal your frozen yogurt." Timmy flapped his hands. "Fairies don't like that. To them, stuff that's NOT made with magic is cool. Mostly they just like taking things apart and pushing buttons."

"Do weeds even grow in the winter?"

"Year-round temperatures in Fairy World. Shh. Don't let them hear us."

Inside, Crocker and Dark Laser had returned to dancing. Mrs. Crocker had paused by Kevin's side in an attempt to pull him to his feet. Foop twirled on the spot, hands in the air like he was doing jumping jacks. "Oh, I think I've finally mastered this step," Chloe heard him say through the window.

Finley laughed and bumped their hips together. "Now you're getting it! Everybody now! You too, Kevin."

Kevin shook his head rapidly, pulling his hand away from Mrs. Crocker's. He was up on his feet now and his phone had returned to his pocket, but he still didn't look ready for a party. "Gee, Fin. I don't think that's such a good idea. I'm worried that I might just send you flying into the wall."

But Finley only urged him closer with a coy upturned finger. "Try me. I can take it."

Making awkward chicken hops, occasionally kicking his foot out to one side, Kevin circled the arm chair and tapped his waist against Finley's side. Finley moved about one degree in the air, and pouted.

"Do I have to come over here and make you all kick this party up another notch?"

Dark Laser clapped his hands, palms pressed together and metal fingers flickering. "Oh, please. Flipsie seems to be finding this night delightful. You don't get this kind of raving in our usually quarter of the galaxy."

The robotic toy dog on the refreshments table did, in fact, seem to be enjoying himself. He wore a tiny pointed party hat on his spotted head. Girlfriend napped between him and a punch bowl that seemed to be filled with sparkling ice water instead of punch or juice. At that precise moment, Flipsie tipped over into a stack of party cups. They cascaded over Girlfriend's back in an avalanche of plastic. She shot into the air with a yowl. Crocker paused his twitchy dancing long enough to look up and hold out his arms. The cat plunged directly into them, shivering, and began to lick her leg with trembling strokes. He lifted her to his shoulder and patted her back as though she were a baby.

"Hmm. You know, I've only hosted one party before that I can remember. Unless you count all those times I've granted detention to lazy slackers who needed a taste of how heartlessly unjust the real world can be. But I'd still like to make an argument that this particular party is lacking a certain pump of juice. If you're in the mood for it, I'd say crank up this gig for all it's worth."

Foop pointed two fingers. "Slam it like a toaster pedal, Fin."

Finley nodded his thanks, sliding back and forth on the spot. He shimmied his shoulders and punched the air with his fists. The music quieted to a murmur. The lights dimmed at the same time, accenting the glowing rings around wrists and necks across the room. Finley's coat glittered with scarlet magic. The wings protruding from its back, very square and tinted lightly orange, began to beat faster. The music picked up once more. Finley spun to one side, jumped, and flipped over. He landed perfectly on one foot, and the others clapped for him politely before they too began to join in.

"Hey," Poof murmured. "That actually looks like fun."

Chloe glanced over to see him floating, bobbing his rear end back and forth in time with the music. He started rising higher in the air. Timmy noticed. Placing his hand on the baby's round head, he pushed him back down.

"Okay, reel it in, trigger. You're going to get us busted."

"He's right, though," Chloe said, her feet moving as though guided by an expert. She swung her limbs gently back and forth, and even lifted one arm gracefully over her head and snapped her fingers. Snap, snap, snap, snap. With her other hand, she beckoned Timmy towards her. "Try it, Timmy!"

Timmy scratched behind his neck. Then he set the butterfly net down behind the bushes. "Well, I'll give it a shot." He took her hands and gave her a spin, smoothly stepping back in time to allow her to pass beneath his arm. His feet bounced in place, ready to move again. Timmy twirled her away and caught her with his other hand. He'd pinned his tongue between his lips with concentration. Even though she tried not to, Chloe couldn't help but snort.

"For our next birthday, I'm signing us both up for dancing lessons."

"You know, surprisingly I don't hate that suggestion as much as I would have a year ago. Hey. I think I'm actually pretty good at this. Almost as if…" His smile faded into concern. And from concern into horror. "Oh no. Guys, we have to stop."

"Why?" Poof protested, cha-chaing in midair.

Chloe dug her toes into the grass. They continued to dance on anyway, twirling her around and kicking up at the heels. "Hey! I can't stop. What's happening?"

"I don't know!"

Of their own free will, Chloe's feet jerked her towards the front door of the Crocker house. She stared at Timmy. Timmy stared at her, equally unable to protest. He was still swinging his hips, sometimes spinning his hands like wheels on the bus and bouncing them to one side. The door opened on its own. No one was there. Yet the two children, with Poof floating helplessly after them, waltzed straight through the entry hall and into the living room to join the dance party. Foop and Dark Laser inhaled at the same time. Kevin set his teeth. Crocker dropped Girlfriend to the floor. When Finley crushed his hand into a fist, all three intruders dropped to their knees with simultaneous "Oof"s.

"Well, well, well. I was trying to invite my stalker roommate to my party, and I caught two nosy little humans along with him. Imagine that." Finley floated over to them and pushed his shades down over his eyes. His voice was chirpy, sort of nasally, and yet very flat and monotone too. It sent the hairs on Chloe's arms rippling with goosebumps. "I can still sense the presence of other magical creatures from the other side of a window, bozo. Even on a night like tonight, when my power's zinging at a million watts higher than yours, ahahaha! Oh, geez." He rubbed his eyes and slid the shades up again. "I'm s-so flipping loaded right now."

"Hi, Mr. Crocker," Poof squeaked.

"Turner! Carmichael! And Fairywinkle, too!"

"We can explain!" they blurted together. Mr. Crocker waved them off with a downwards flap of his hands.

"Getting a head start on that cultural events assignment, I see. Come on, join the party. This is what the cool people in Anti-Fairy World do on Monday nights, or so I've been told."

Timmy and Chloe exchanged a puzzled glance. Now that they were attending middle school, they dealt with multiple teachers a day, and none of them quite so obsessed with magical beings as their fifth grade one. Both of them had also heard that Crocker's last official year of teaching at Dimmsdale Elementary had ended last spring (They'd even walked over there more than once to confirm it). He was supposed to be taking time off - possibly for good - to look after both his mother and his nephew while his estranged half-sister was still in the hospital. Maybe the old man had finally lost it.

Poof shrunk into the stripes of his shirt. Foop, however, broke into a cackle. Kicking his legs and throwing back his head, he almost fell off the arm of the armchair. "Yes, everyone! Do come in. We're just dying to have you join us."

Dark Laser flicked his hand and unleashed his lightstick. It hummed with sizzling red energy that almost rivaled Finley's coat. "Was that the code word to annihilate our enemies?"

"Oh, gross. Put that away before you fry someone, you lunatic. You'll get soot all over my new vest. It's steam-clean only, you know."

Finley cocked a foot on Kevin's shoulder as if he were crouching down. From that position, he sized up his three prisoners, all of whom were wriggling around to the beat of the pulsing music. He kept his clenched fist where they could see it. "I wonder why they chose tonight of all nights to crash my party? I sure hope it wasn't just to s-s-see me, even though I did get my dad's charming good looks."

Timmy blinked the sweat from his eyelashes. "Heh heh… Funny you should ask. We thought maybe… we might be able to get…" His dropped his voice to a whisper. "A lift to Pixie World tonight?"

Chloe tried to give him a reassuring smile, although she wasn't sure how well the pixie could see it in the dark. "Professionally please in a little suit and tie?"

Finley set his fingertips to his chest, digging his heel deeper into Kevin's shoulder. "Do mine ears deceive me? You think you can just waltz in here and demand that I ditch my rave and return to work during my vacation time? That is unspeakably rude."

"Hey, the waltzing was so not our fault!"

"But you did it very well," Chloe assured him. Timmy squirmed around and squinted at her.

"Did I? It's been awhile since I've moved this gracefully. I only took two years of ballet as a kid."

"You shouldn't have quit. You're a natural."

"Do you really think so?"

"Finley," Poof spat, wrestling himself up on his knees, "let us go! We didn't do anything!"

"Let you go?" Finley blinked. His hands went out to either side. "What, so I can get jumped and used as a teleport link again? Not this year. Not this pixie."

Foop raised his plastic cup as though initiating a toast. "For the record, I specifically brought Fin to Crocker's thinking it would be safe from nutso Fairies and he could grab a little me-time, and I would rather not be held accountable for anything that goes on here tonight."

Poof ducked his head. "Look. I'm sorry. I know you hate this, but you're our only hope."

"Please?" Chloe tried again.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you?" Finley jumped off Kevin's shoulder. He spun in a circle in the air, arms above his head. "No one can resist a gyne's waggle dance. If you think I'm going back to Pixie World and working over my Gray Tuesday holiday, you've got a head screwed on too tight. We're gonna rave alllll night. Let me hear you shout woo!"

Nobody "Woo"ed. Finley stared blankly for a second, then shook his head.

"Oh, right. Only works with dancing. Well, put your hands up, put your hands up!"

Obediently, Timmy and Chloe rose to their feet and did as he commanded. Everyone else in the room instantly stopped what they were doing to copy them, even when drinks sloshed out of cups (Chloe confirmed that was ice water in the punch bowl rather than actual punch). Finley gave a nod and flew to the refreshments table. One of his fingers continued to tick like a knowing metronome. "Timmy," Chloe hissed as her step-godbrother's hands went around her waist. "What's a gyne?"

He lifted her, spun her, and plopped her back on the floor. Snapping their fingers, swaying their arms like jellyfish, they both moved back and forth in sync as the music grew faster. "It's a fairy with lots of freckles. They're kind of like the popular kids in Fairy World."

"Why? Just because they have freckles?"

"Well, it's not like Fairies really care about having lots of money. I guess they just found another way to decide who the cool kids are. Fairy culture's weird."

Chloe's eyes darted over his shoulder to the helpless purple-haired fairy bouncing about behind him. "Doesn't Poof have freckles?"

"He absolutely does. Poof!" Timmy struggled to lift his hands towards his mouth, and only succeeded in landing a few classy disco moves with a jabbing finger. "Poof, fight it! You're a gyne too! Take control of this funky mess and get us out of here!"

Poof clenched his eyes and fists together. "I'm trying, buddy! He's too strong!"

Finley made a swirling hand motion in Kevin's direction. "Since there's a cultural events project due pretty soon and all, we're gonna do this the Seelie Courter way. Don't forget to take some notes, everyone. That is, if your hands can find the time. Let me hear a little spice from my friend in the back. I think it's time we set the pecking order straight."

A mortified look splashed across Kevin's face. He pushed himself away from the wall where he'd slumped. Each step as he crossed the floor was either a hop or a twirl. His wrists blurred with purple glows. He raised his hands above his head. "Timmy? Chloe? I am so sorry about this."

"It's okay, dude," Timmy muttered, and Chloe offered a faintly reassuring grimace. Kevin smiled painfully back at her, then took a deep breath.

Clap. Clap. Clap clap clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap clap clap.

As the dancers swayed around him, clapping and stomping, Finley removed his floppy hat and held it to his chest. His neutral expression twisted into a smirk.

"No Fae walks this world alone." His words were soft, thick, chanting. "Never met a one who would. I can give you what you want. Just convince me that I should."

Clap. Clap. Clap clap clap. Clap clap. Clap clap, clap.

Finley thrust both palms towards the ceiling, prompting everyone in the room to mirror his gesture. When he spun his finger in a circle, all the dancers twirled on the spot. "Let me see you shake that thing."

Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.

"Everybody flash your bling."

Clap. Clap. Clap clap clap.

"Never cross a Fairy ring."

Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.

"Don't you let me hear you sing."

Clap. Clap. Clap clap clap. Chloe fought desperately to resist the tug of the dance floor. Timmy and Poof didn't seem to be faring any better. Foop and Dark Laser were totally into it, trying to lean close enough together to snap a selfie, while Mrs. Crocker swung Girlfriend in her arms. The cat let out a pitiful, tired mew.

"Everyone, all eyes up here. I'll sing a song that I hold dear." Finley adjusted his shades in his hair. "And every word we all should know. If you're against it tell me so."

No one seemed able to get the words out of their throat. Kevin looked to be in physical pain, and Crocker's hungry eyes were locked on the fluttering Poof. Chloe didn't like the way her teacher was slinking around, even though the green ring around his neck gave him away. It was dark enough in the room now that if he slipped it off, she wasn't sure she'd be able to see him anymore. Well. At least there were still seven colorful glowing stars on the house arrest monitor around his ankle. That helped.

Finley, rocking his tail end back and forth like a waddling duck, set his hands to his hips. "Let us play an ancient game."

Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.

"Last one standing walks away. All select a partner now. Don't stop grooving or you're out."

"What happens when we're out?" Chloe asked uneasily, bumping hips with Mrs. Crocker. She found that speaking, surprisingly, seemed to drain her of three times as much energy as normal. In answer, Finley spread his hands.

"Bound by oath and love and war."

Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.

"I alone will count the score. Who's the champ I'm facing down? Who will earn the victor's crown?"

When Chloe spun around, she glimpsed the red Santa coat reflected in the dark front window. Finley's hands were still glowing blue through its mittens, like bones showing through an x-ray. "Oh! Timmy, this dance is a game. Last one standing gets to ask him a favor."

His eyes sparked in recognition. "I'll handle Foop. You take Kevin."

"Right. Good luck."

"You too."

"Are you kidding me?" Poof flew between Chloe's legs and above the Christmas tree. "I don't know how to dance! Finley, stop it! You're setting Mr. Crocker off! He can't handle this overexposure!"

Chloe flicked her gaze about in search of Crocker's glowing necklace. Dark Laser and Mrs. Crocker hadn't wasted any time pairing up. Kevin had somehow managed to control his arms long enough to cover his flushing face. Foop and Timmy stood apart, wiggling their fingers towards the ground, legs spread like they were cowboys about to draw. Girlfriend wandered by with Flipsie in her mouth.

Where was Crocker?

"FAIRYWINKLE!"

Crocker lurched from the shadows, arms snapping shut like a gruesome hug. Poof ducked away just in time. As luck would have it, he thought fast enough to kick his glasses off Crocker's face, sending them flying away into the dark. Crocker stumbled, flailing his hands about.

"Fairywinkle? Where are you?"

Finley clapped in delight, his hands crackling with visible energy. Poof flew after Timmy. "Foop, are you just gonna let him do this?"

"Oh, I get it," Chloe said, performing a simple box step in a loop. "'Don't stop grooving or you're out.' We want to stop our partners from dancing and move up to the next round. Clever."

"I think I can manage that," Dark Laser said, with an extremely cheerful edge to his voice. So saying, he swept Mrs. Crocker into the air and kissed her. Or at least, made the attempt to with his creepy metal face. She didn't seem to mind.

"No, Mama, I don't mind being left with Uncle Denzel for another couple months; I'm having a great time," Kevin mumbled to no one in particular. He'd started to swing his hips from one side to the other, but he still didn't seem inclined to remove his hands from underneath his glasses.

Crocker blinked, randomly swinging his arms. "What's going on? What happened to that FAIRY? It should lead me to more FAIRIES! Chloe? I have an A for this cultural events project with your name on it. All you have to do is help me capture a FAIRY!"

"Sorry, Mr. Crocker, but you don't teach me anymore," she called back.

Poof tugged on her arm. "Chloe, c'mon. That better not be the only reason."

Finley placed his hand against his forehead. His arm jittered up and down, and Chloe realized for the first time that his wings weren't flapping. He was just sort of… hovering, his edges outlined in bright blue. "You're not getting into the spirit of this. None of you would qualify to lead the Starshine Cotillion at all."

"You fool." Foop leveled his simmering bottle at the underside of Timmy's chin. The two had started to circle one another like wolves about to lunge. He bared his fangs into a smirking grin. "It seems as though you forgot to show up tonight with a butterfly net, Timmy Turner."

"Oh yeah, well, I bet you weren't expecting this!" Timmy yanked out his flashlight and flared the shaky beam directly in Foop's eyes.

"Ahhhhh!" Foop slapped both hands over his face. "My ridiculously over-sensitive night vision!" Stumbling back, he slipped on the rug and toppled into the Christmas tree. He shouldn't have weighed that much, but his desperate wings sent the tree crashing into the refreshments table and spilled it over- just as Finley made a panicked dive for it. The pixie veered away. He circled the room in a wide arc, fizzing with alarm. Blue wisps of sparkling dust tailed him like streams of white behind a jet.

"You're next," Timmy said, running towards Crocker from behind. Before Crocker could swing around, Timmy kicked the backs of his knees. The old man crumpled to the floor with a muffled yelp. Chloe winced. Poof cringed a little more. Kevin gasped and took half a step closer. It was enough for even Mrs. Crocker and Dark Laser to break apart- for a moment. Timmy turned on the pixie, who still zipped in circles around the living room.

Finley's breath turned to an audible wheeze. Trails of glowing red swirled around his face. He flew up to one window and pounded his fists. Nothing happened. He dodged Crocker's groping hands, kicked off, and flew into the hall.

"And, scene! You're all totally nuts, guys! Peace out! Don't do anything I wouldn't do! Daaaaad, they're gonna stuff me in a butterfly net and use me to jump Planes for no charge and 0% interest for six months again!"

"Follow that holly-jolly pixie!" Timmy shouted to Poof.

"One sec, buddy!" Poof dove into the fallen Christmas tree, grabbing for candy canes.

Chloe looked at her own dance partner, sashaying still. "I hate to do this to you, Kevin."

"No, no, please. I would hate to interrupt." His face fell into total deadpan, brows drawn down. If his feet were skittering about any faster, he'd probably have set them on fire. "Really, I understand. It's the Crocker way. Just get it over with."

Chloe swept her leg behind his and flipped him over onto his back. Kevin crashed to the floor with a grunt, curling his legs like a squashed beetle ready to die. Abandoning him with the blinded Foop, the twitching cat, and the two smooching adults, Chloe took off down the hall on Timmy's and Poof's heels. They stopped halfway through the kitchen. She skidded to a halt behind them.

"Did you guys see Finley? Which way did he go?"

"Uh…" Timmy looked at the garage door on one side. Then at the short hallway on the other. "To Crocker's room, I guess?"

Poof floated over to the hall, his rattle raised. "This way. He was moving fast. I can still sense it." He paused. "And he's… underground?"

"Oh no. The Crocker Cave." Timmy turned on Chloe, mouth agape. "Dimmsdale was built on an eerily precarious system of tunnels and caves carved out by the ocean during high tide ages ago. Crocker's claimed most of it for getting around the city crazy fast and sneakily while hunting Fairies. Who knows what traps he's set up down there? We'll never find him in time."

"Finley isn't used to handling magic, and he could really get himself hurt," Chloe realized.

"I'm gonna lose my fairies for sure!" Timmy cried at exactly the same moment. When Chloe looked at him, he lowered his clenched fists and glanced away. "Aaand there's that."

With a poof and a shower of glittery dust, Poof transformed into a purple puppy with an oversized nose and drooping ears. He placed his snout against the ground and began to walk, sniffing as he went. Watching each other's backs, Timmy and Chloe followed him through the door marked with Keep Out and This means you, Mother! signs. Poof circled the room once, even walking across the keyboard of Crocker's computer, before he dropped to the ground and disappeared under Crocker's bed. He backed out again, clenching a rope between his teeth. Timmy and Chloe ran to join him. With a great yank, they wrenched open a trapdoor.

"Trapdoor," Poof said smugly, letting the rope drop. He turned into a fairy again with a poof.

Timmy dropped to his knees and peered beneath the bed. A spider crawled out from the dingy depths and scurried into a knot in the floorboards. "Yeah, I noticed. Finley really went this way?"

"Yeah. Look, he even started leaking a bit of dust."

"That's not good."

"Why'd he snap and run like that?" Chloe asked, sliding her legs underneath. Her foot patted around for the hole. Finding it, she reached out with her other one. "Well, fly?"

"Duh. He knows we're gonna take him back to work. No one wants to go to work."

Chloe's bare heel bumped against what felt like a giant Plexiglas tube. The kind you'd let a hamster run around in, if hamsters were roughly the size of broad-shouldered pianos. Unease trickled along her spine and continued up the nape of her neck. She could smell sawdust and new paint. "Well, we've come this far. I ain't no quits-a-lot quitter."

"That's the spirit." Timmy wormed his way beneath the bed on his stomach. Together, he and Poof poked their heads through the trapdoor. Then they looked at each other.

"Deep?" Chloe asked, still feeling around with her feet.

"Uh… I'm sure we'll be fine. But just in case, I wish all three of us had an emergency button we could use to poof home."

"I can try," Poof said with a twinge of doubt edging his voice. He gave his rattle a shake. With three consecutive poofs, three buttons attached to three wristbands like watches appeared on three wrists. Timmy inspected his arm, then nodded.

"That works. Although I kind of like it better when it looks like a pen."

"Sorry," Poof grumbled. "I'm hoping they work at all once we leave Dimmsdale. Pixie World is pretty far."

"Well. Let's go."

They plunged.

The fall was a whirl. Chloe took the first turn of the tube slide fast enough to smack her face. Static shocks fired each time she passed a metal bolt, frizzing her hair. Poof was ahead of her, Timmy behind. All three of them cheered and yelled, arms waving as they whipped left and right and even upside down. How long was this secret entrance anyway? And could they ride it again?

"Well," Chloe said, "I guess we're not going back that way."

Finally they broke into empty space. Poof hit the ground first and instantly poofed into a mattress. Chloe bounced on top of him and rolled away. Timmy crashed after her. Sitting up, shaking out their dizziness, they examined their new surroundings.

"Aw…" Poof held up two chunks of striped sugar. "You broke my candy cane."

"Probably for the best, buddy."

"Still. Poofed-up ones don't taste as good as the real thing."

Still a greenhorn to the whole "Crocker actually carved out or at least inherited an underground lair beneath the city" concept, Chloe took a little more time to study some of the weirder details through the dark. The floor the three of them sat on gleamed like cold metal. Crude drawings of stick figures with wands, wings, and floating crowns were pinned to every blue wall, side by side with dozens of photos that she could tell were too blurry to convince anyone of anything even from here.

High-tech-looking desks lined the walls on her left, the enormous computer monitors off but the fans whirring and lights blinking. Random tools lay across the floor- wrenches, glue guns, a sledgehammer, a torn-up pair of headphones, some scuba equipment, and a few items that Chloe couldn't even recognize. Which was alarming, since DIY was sort of her thing.

"Exactly how much was Crocker making teaching us all this time? My parents couldn't even afford half of this stuff." That kind of money always went to exotic and endangered animal conservations in obscure countries on the other side of the globe, or to a pair of tickets for trips around the world, which was, y'know, fine.

Poof raised one finger. "It's an interesting story, actually, that surprisingly has less to do with the frozen timestream than you might expect-"

"Hold that thought." Timmy walked over to a sagging sack of cat food, above which was a handwritten sign that read Power Chower, with an arrow pointing down. He frowned, holding his flashlight close to a mark on the bag itself. "Where have I seen this symbol before?"

"That's the state of Idaho, Timmy."

"Maybe… But you can't be too careful with Crocker."

Chloe turned to scan the wall behind them. Oh. Apparently there was also a staircase that probably led straight upstairs too. Where did that come out? The kitchen? Kevin had invited her and Timmy over for movies and snacks only once, and for some hazy reason, Chloe was having a hard time remembering the layout of the house any more than she could remember Timmy's.

"Which way do you think Finley went?"

Both Poof and Timmy pointed to the wall opposite the stairs. Two narrow openings, not much more than cracks in the wall leaking some dangerous-looking wires, stood on either side of a filing cabinet with its drawers yanked open and overflowing. A trail of sparkling blue dust snaked through the leftmost entryway.

"Ah. Dorky me."

The three of them slipped into the corridor. It widened only a few yards in. Still, they didn't get very far before the metal walls and floor that signified Crocker's domain had morphed into damp brown rock. Timmy swept his flashlight back and forth, checking for small animals and obvious traps. There didn't seem to be any. Just glittery blue dust. Not all of it was on the floor. Bits of it hung in the air, hovering at just the right height for a fleeing pixie. Even so, when their path split into two, Chloe decided to run a test.

"Finley?" Chloe shouted down the tunnel. He took the bait. In response, she got a low, dry scream.

"That's our cue!" Timmy grabbed Chloe's hand and charged. "Don't let him get away!"

"Stay away, you circus freaks! My dad gave me this power because it's my one chance to feel normal! I'm not just your teleport link to a free ride. How many years will it take everyone to realize that?"

After about seven minutes of sorta-jogging sorta-walking in that weird sorta-urgent way, Chloe swore she could make out the sound of rushing water overhead. Their feet began to splash through puddles.

"We're under the beach," Timmy confirmed.

A stone settled in Chloe's gut. "So uh, would a high tide flood us out of this place at the right time of day? Or…"

"I'm sure engineering a way around that problem was Crocker's first order of business. I mean, he wouldn't store all his tech down here and let it just get soaked every day."

"I guess."

Three minutes of walking later, the walls became solid concrete, like those you might find in a sewer system or parking garage. Two minutes after that, they turned to pale, polished stone with veins of glittery purple running through them and tons of chisel marks all around. And only one minute later, they ended up back in the main room again. They'd walked a full loop. They hadn't even come out the second cracked entryway, but instead left from the same entrance they'd gone into. Chloe glanced around, checking the posters and computer monitors again to silently confirm it.

"Huh. That was anticlimactic."

Poof muttered some gibberish and clenched the head of his rattle. "That's not what the path looked like the last time I was here. Geez. The layers of stinky magic buildup in this place are awful. Something magical has definitely been living around here, and for a long time too."

"You mean like, captured Fairies?" Chloe asked.

"Witches. Oodles of them. See, in school-"

Before she could question what he meant by that, Timmy's roaming flashlight beam settled on a lump of red tucked in the corner of the room, between a filing cabinet and something large covered in a tarp or quilt. "There."

Finley screamed immediately. Leaping to his feet, he fled towards the stairs, then tripped over a sledgehammer and landed flat on his face. Apparently, he had forgotten that he could fly.

"Finley!" Chloe started to run after him, only for Timmy to grab her by the wrist and yank her back.

"Hang on."

Finley sat up, wiping his face with his gaping red sleeve. His arms trembled. He didn't try to stand. "It's t-too bright, guys. Turn it down."

"Dude." Poof pointed at his forehead. "You do realize you've got sunglasses. They've gotta be good for something, or else they wouldn't be in the standard Pixie dress code."

Timmy turned off his flashlight even so. They could still see Finley perfectly. He was outlined in blue and sparking with more crimson than a Valentine's Day box of chocolates, after all. The pixie didn't seem particularly, er… stable by this point. He was drooling at the mouth, his neck jerking a bit and fingers twitching up and down as though he were typing three different essays on different laptops at once.

"Ohh. I'm s-s-s-so overloaded on coffee and Fairy magic right now…"

"Fin?" Chloe reached out her hand. Still holding Timmy, she started to walk around one of the worktables towards him. "We don't want to hurt you. We're friends of Poof's. Your roommate."

Finley curled up where he sat, holding his mittens over his ears. They'd grown twice as large as his actual head. His Santa coat had swelled too. It rippled like one of those giant dancing fan monsters you found outside grocery stores and car dealerships. "S-stay away from me!"

His voice came out in a high-pitched rattle, like a deflating balloon darting around a room. "Oh no," Timmy said.

"Finley!" Poof flew forward, waving his arms. "Cast it! You're suffering magical back-up!"

"I don't know how to grant a wish," Finley protested as he swelled even larger.

"It's not technically a wish, or I would have said 'Grant it.' It's a spell and you cast it, but-"

"Hit the deck!" Timmy screamed. He grabbed Poof's hand and yanked him out of the air. He and Chloe dove behind a workbench, and Timmy flipped it over. Then he shoved Chloe's head against the floor and covered his own. His elbows bore into her back. The swelling grew, almost noisy like a rumbling train-

Then there was a thunderclap of rustling paper and party blowers. A wind stormed around them out of nowhere. Blueprints ripped from beneath paperweights on Crocker's desks and posters fluttered on the walls. Chloe clung to Timmy's leg and groped for Poof's tiny hand. He squirmed against her, his wings fluttering like mad. When the whirlwind died down, the three of them poked their heads above the bench again. Finley had disappeared, but the Crocker Cave was now glowing with splatters of sticky blue goop in all directions. Other than the glowing goop, all that remained of Finley were shreds of paper-mâché in a pile on the floor. A tiny pair of smudged shades rested on top of it.

Chloe's hand went to her mouth. "Holy cow! He just exploded!" Slapping her hands along her pajama pants, she shouted, "Poof, what's the Fairy equivalent of 911?"

Poof placed his hand on her shoulder. "Humans don't have the right symbols on their keypads to contact Fairy phones, C.C."

"Wish him back, wish him back!" Chloe fell to her knees and started to hyperventilate. "We're gonna do time in Fairy jail for baby murder! By default, I confess guilty to every charge! It was me, in the Crocker Cave, just before midnight, with all the magic!"

"Chloe-"

"No," she wailed, "go without me! Just let me suffer in peace. I've embraced my fate. I'll hold them off while I still can."

"He's gonna be fine," Timmy reassured her, dumping out a box of tiny screws and nails on the floor. Crouching down, he started to sweep Finley's remains inside. "He's just going through magical backup. Happens to Cosmo and Wanda all the time. Well, not all the time, but sometimes when I give them a break from granting wishes they do this. They absorb magic from the energy field around them and if they don't get rid of it the right way, then they explode."

Chloe wiped her jitters away. "H-how do we help him?"

Timmy stared into the box for a second or two. "Uh. Granting a wish right afterwards usually does the trick, but Finley doesn't even have a wand. So I… I dunno. I think they can pull themselves together if we take them to a place where the energy field isn't too thick and clogged up. Remember how when you were first getting used to magic, your arms were breaking out all the time like you'd just gotten bit by a thousand mosquitoes?" Absently, he scratched his shoulder. "Yeah. That's because Dimmsdale is full of magic. We're right by the Rainbow Bridge and stuff. There are some places where the field isn't this heavy."

"So can we fix him or can't we?"

Poof gave his rattle a sad shake. It wilted in the process. "Sorry. This one's outside my jurisdiction. I'm only authorized to poof back Mom or Dad. Fin isn't covered under our insurance plan. There'd be some problems. I think only pixies know how pixies fit together anyway."

Timmy shrugged. "If he's not better soon, we'll just have to get Cosmo or Wanda to poof him someplace else tomorrow. Maybe Jersey City. I've heard Rio's nice this time of year. Or maybe Cosmo and Wanda can just wish him back to normal. Whatevs. Anyway, I think it helps if we keep all his… parts in one place. So I'm doing that."

Steadying her breathing, Chloe came around the table and joined him in his cleaning, trying not to think so hard about what she was touching. The bits that had been Finley were cold and damp like newspapers coated in glue. Could he feel this? Was he unconscious or awake? Did this count as abusing a minor? She focused instead on what he looked like, all the different shades of gray, purple, violet, lavender, eyeball-

"Eep!" Chloe dropped Finley's eye into the pile of paper-mâché and hastily wiped her fingers clean on her pajamas.

"That's the last of him." Timmy set the box aside and stood up, patting himself down for pockets. Finding his flashlight, he flicked it on and pointed it around the Crocker Cave. It glittered against the blue goo speckling the metal walls. He sniffed. "Man. It's darker down here than I remember. Less dusty and covered in spiders and robot parts, but still dark. Of course, I haven't been down here since a few mishaps with Sparky, so…"

"Wait…" Poof drifted away from them, clenching and unclenching his fists as he followed the beam. "Oh, no way. He still has this?"

"What is it?" Chloe asked, inching away from Finley's mangled parts.

"Duh," Timmy said. "This is a box."

Poof hovered in front of the lumpy mass covered by a pink and white flower-print quilt. With a few mighty tugs, he yanked the sheet away to reveal a huge metal… contraption. It looked sort of like a big animatronic spider fused with a kiddie ride rocket. Like the kind you might find just inside a grocery store. In fact, this rocket looked suspiciously like the one Chloe had been told used to stand in the empty, cluttered spot just inside the grocery store. It had a long dent across its side and an orange splatter logo and everything.

The sheet dropped to the floor. Poof traced his hand up the side of the machine in perfect awe. "Whoa. Dudes, I thought Jorgen destroyed this thing after he fired those goons through the wall of my school. He was so mad. All this time, I thought the fastest way to get to Fairy World if you couldn't poof was taking the bus. My class got to take a field trip down here to see this baby once… But only once."

"You did?" Timmy asked with a jerk of his head. Poof winked at him.

"Hey, you don't know everything about me. We spent a whole two months last semester on famous fairy hunters and the dangers of adults getting their hands on our magic. Oh, wow. This oughta be in a museum after the trouble it got them into. We Fairies call it the Last Grand Hurrah. Guess you can never count ol' Denzel Senior down and out." Spinning around, Poof grinned. "I might not have the magic to get us to Pixie World, but this puppy sure does. This is our ticket. Let's go find us a great gift! We can drop Fin off in H.P.'s lap on the way."

Chloe inspected the buttons, switches, dials, displays, and widgets along the side of the awkward machine. One of them said 'Pixie World', so she rotated the point of the dial until it clicked into place. "How does it work?"

"Like this, I think. Don't stand on that X over there." Poof jammed his thumb into an absolutely massive red button in the cockpit of the kiddie rocket. It didn't descend. He looked at the button in astonishment, then smacked it again with both his fists as hard as he possibly could. That did the trick. Or at least, it did something. The machine shuddered to life. A thin trail of smoke began to leak out from under the button. A blade whirred somewhere and a generator hummed. Thin bolts of blue electricity danced between a pair of twisted spires. Chloe backed away, although Timmy and Poof remained rooted where they were. Poof only grinned like a Fair Bear with a house of cards.

The shoots of electricity grew longer. They sparked at the bottoms of the spires and flowed to the top, leaping back and forth. With a sputter and a flash, a purple vortex of crashing energy appeared on the floor in front of them in a little square door. It wasn't a very tall door, kind of like one you'd find on a kids' playhouse. Except this one was accented with occasional blasts of lightning instead of being made from hollow plastic. Subtle difference.

Chloe couldn't help but be impressed. "Wow. Nice box. So this can really get us to Pixie World? How'd you know that would work, Poof?"

"I guessed," he said cheerfully.

"You do realize that could've been a self-destruct button and you could've just obliterated us all off the face of the earth."

"But I didn't! Sometimes you've just gotta take a crazy, uncalculated risk." Poof pointed to his temple and gave it two taps. "A big dummy uses this head, remember? An absolute dunce."

Timmy hadn't moved a single muscle since Poof had pointed out the portal. Now he glanced down at a sledgehammer by his foot. "Yeah. Yeah, this is… great. You know, we could probably piece something together with all the stuff Crocker's got lying around in here."

"Uh…" Chloe squinted again at the options around the dial she'd moved to Pixie World. "So, should we be concerned that one of these says 'Spellementary School'?"

Poof hesitated. "Nah. Nah, that's… not important. Don't worry about it. And don't tell my parents."

Timmy lifted a finger. "One of these also says 'Fairy Froyo.' Shouldn't we nip this whole operation in the roots before Crocker causes some real damage?"

"And this one says 'Anti-Cosmo's Castle.' Who's Anti-Cosmo?"

At that moment, the sounds of whoops and cheers rocketing down the transport tube echoed down to them like storming hail. "Tiny gray urchin, I hail you with sound advice! Just play dead and the Earth children will run away frothing at the throats!"

"Hammerfall, this is not an approved extracurricular activity! You didn't even ask for a hall pass!"

"For the love of all things smoky, my eyes! They still burn from the savage light rays of that garbage-gobbling trash-head. Never clean! Never pure! I'll be needing transplanted monkey opticals if I ever wish to see again. Weep weep, sobbing loudly!"

Poof glanced over his shoulder, then shoved both Timmy and Chloe towards the swirling portal. "That's our cue. No more questions. Go, go, go! Move, soldiers, move!"

Timmy did not go. Instead, he dug his heels into the floor. Confused, Poof pulled away. Timmy picked up the sledgehammer lying near his foot. He looked at the portal and bit his lip. "Let's, uh… maybe not take any chances with this."

"I'm with you there," Chloe said, looking around for something else to hit it with.

"NO!" Poof lunged forward, ramming Timmy with his tiny shoulder. Timmy fell back. The hammer swung from his hand and dropped against the floor, nearly capsizing Finley's box in the process. "Poof," Chloe cried, "what's gotten into you?"

Timmy wrenched Poof from his face and held him out at arms' length. "Seriously, buddy, I love you, but you've gotta calm down before you start saying just 'Poof poof' again."

"Timmy!" Poof was sobbing now. "Leave it alone!"

"What? Why? Hello?" Timmy bounced the flailing kid (gently) up and down. "Crocker's still got a full-fledged working portal in the Crocker Cave, and you just wanna leave it down here?"

"Yes! Don't tell my parents!"

Timmy's gaze shifted to Chloe, wide and blue. Then it went down again. "I'm not always going to be around to watch your back, buddy…"

"Poof." Chloe tried to keep her voice very calm. "Why does Crocker know your last name?"

Poof's eyes darted to the entry tube overhead. Crocker's, Foop's, and Dark Laser's voices were more distinct now, along with Kevin's high-pitched wail behind them. Then his gaze shot to Timmy again. He squared his wings. "I- I don't wanna say it. It'll make you worry about me. But you really shouldn't worry, because it's okay! I have it under control! I- I made a deal. A good deal."

Timmy's eye began to twitch. He jerked his hands, squirming and struggling and muttering gibberish under his breath. Desperately, Poof spun around to Chloe.

"Don't tell my dad and mama about this. They'll freak out if they find out I've been hanging around with Mr. Crocker. Just please, you have to believe me. Give him a chance! I can change him! I know he's good inside."

Chloe opened her mouth. No words came out. She stammered. She tried.

She couldn't. Crocker was as crafty as he was kooky. Sure, Chloe was all for not judging people before she got to know them too well, but Crocker was one of those people who really came with a convenient disclaimer attached. All she could do was bend down and take Finley's box into her arms.

"Timmy," Poof whimpered. "Please don't. He really needs this. He needs me. I've been getting through."

Quietly, Timmy hugged his godbrother and squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm trusting you on this one, Poof." Before Chloe could make a final decision herself, Timmy grabbed both her and Poof by the backs of their collars and pushed them through the swirling purple vortex. "Let's just get this over with," he muttered. And then he said, "Oh, wow."

Chloe had expected the buildings scraping against the sky. She'd expected the gray and purple color scheme. She'd even expected the crowds. There were no cars in sight, but the whole street was blocked off with fairy-sized roadblocks and the occasionally Santa-dressed pixie. Appropriately, too. Tons of Fairies, Anti-Fairies, and some creatures that Chloe wasn't even sure about hurried around in all directions, their wings whirring and their floating shopping bags zigzagging after them. Their ages ranged from teenagers to some Fairies who actually looked elderly. There were even a few godkids from around the world, some in pajamas and others cheerily darting around in bright and sunny regular clothes. Why did godkids hie to Pixie World and spend their night shopping when they had fairies who were supposed to be able to grant them all the desires of their heart? Was it really that cool to buy nonmagical stuff? Were they after toys and trinkets that Da Rules, for whatever reason, prevented their godparents from wishing up? Huh.

So the crowds weren't much of a surprise. What hadn't she expected? Not the neon lights hanging in almost every window. Not the bridal gowns and prom dresses set out for display on adorable little mannequins. Not the pixie children tearing down the sidewalks, splashing each other with bursts of blue and giggling all the while. And especially not the taste of the air. A bright, bubbly, zippy tang filled her entire mouth from front to back, like fruitcake flambée, or every soft drink from a restaurant dispenser mixed in a single cup. Something with three dozen different flavors that hit her brain all at once.

"Poof," Timmy stuttered out when he found his voice again. "I wish a giant hippopotamus was blocking the portal so no one else from Crocker's house can get through. And make it bright orange and super cranky just for fun."

Poof tapped his rattle against his hand a few times, then gave it a mighty swing. Poof! It was only a few seconds later that they heard the startled shrieks of their pursuers arriving in the Crocker Cave behind them. Chloe stayed at the ready, knowing full well that although Foop couldn't poof (anti-poof?) the hippo away directly, nothing was stopping him from poofing up some yummy hippo treats or something else that might frighten it away.

"I can't see! I'm still bliiiiind!"

"Kevin, hand over your glasses. I'm confiscating them under protocol practices."

"Uncle Denzel, now I can't see."

"Watch where you three flesh bags are pushing. You're making this needlessly difficult for all of us. You almost knocked into Flipsie."

Well. Maybe they had a little bit of time after all.

"So this is Pixie World on holiday," Timmy grunted, shoving his hair back with both hands. He adjusted his hat. "Could've fooled me."

Chloe scanned the city streets around them. She clutched Finley's box to her chest. "Aha! That warehouse over there by the docks where those flying boats are tied up. That's where everyone else is going."

Poof jabbed his finger into the sky at an angle. "And look up there. On the skyscraper."

When Chloe looked up at one of the nearby buildings, she couldn't believe that the Fairies flowing around the warehouse had been the first thing she'd noticed. Three figures stood-slash-floated beneath a massive vortex of bright blue energy that spun overhead like a rip in the sky. The first figure was obviously in charge of the operation. He wore thick, owlish glasses instead of shades, but like Finley, he was clad in a red Santa outfit with white gloves and a big black belt to match his shining boots. But this pixie was much, much bigger than Finley, even from across the street. And he actually had a Santa hat with a dangling tail and a white puffball on the end to match his suit. He stood at the edge of the building, both hands lifted towards the vortex as though in prayer. Crackling energy spiraled from his shoulders to his fingertips and flowed from him into the vortex like a waterslide. Two smaller figures hovered to either side. One had the square head and red suit of a pixie, but Chloe didn't recognize the one who was all blue from pointed ears and floating hat down to the tails of his coat.

"The Head Pixie?" she guessed. Poof nodded.

"Yeah, but we usually just call him H.P. He's Finley's boss, and kind of like his grandpa too, I guess?"

Chloe squinted. "That little soapbox counts as a skyscraper?"

"Hey, we're Fairies. We're short, we already live above the clouds, we don't need much ventilation, and we can build with magical materials instead of steel beams that take up lots of space. To us, that's a skyscraper."

"He's channeling way more Fairy magic than I remember," Timmy murmured. He pressed his hand against his cheek. "Okay. Earth boy who plays for the Fairies' team not liking this. At all."

Poof tapped Chloe on the shoulder. "Fun Fact: You can tell it's Fairy magic because our magic's all round and swirly, but spiky at the edges like a star. Anti-Fairy magic in the visible spectrum looks like lightning, and Pixie magic is more like pixels and blocks that fade in and out in funky patterns, like it's glitched out. Today, the Pixies aren't channeling magic internally like they usually do. There's too much Fairy magic for that. They can't store it inside them, which means they have to keep letting it out even if they'd rather save it for later. So basically it's suuuper unstable in their hands. Sometimes there's so much that they drop it and it engulfs them. Then they explode."

"Kind of like…" Chloe took a moment to think up an appropriate simile. "Like holding a really, really tall stack of clothes in their arms instead of wearing them? If they don't get rid of it and people keep adding more clothes, it'll fall over? And explode?"

"Yeah!" Poof shook his rattle at nothing in particular. "Exactly like that. Basically, we should be worried because the secret little tricks that usually deflect Pixie magic, like turning your clothes inside out, won't save you here. But we don't have to be too worried, because pretty much the only ones who specialize in combat magic are Anti-Fairies. Y'know, with beams and lasers and stuff. Regular Fairy magic is more like poofing stuff up and poofing it away again. In conclusion, we will probably not get shot directly today. Maybe smashed under something heavy that someone poofs up, but not shot."

Chloe shielded her eyes, staring into the whirlwind. Then, before either of the boys could stop her, she took off across the street, waving one arm above her head. "Hey! I have your pixie! Yoo-hoo!"

She screamed it pretty loudly, but still, Chloe wasn't sure that H.P. heard her above the noises of the Gray Tuesday crowds and sparking vortex… until not only did his head swivel towards her, but he lowered one of his hands and held the palm of his mitten in her direction. Automatically, Chloe stopped. Then she had to spring back. A coil of energy whipped around his arm and blasted at her. It shifted from a beam of light into a storm of wrapped packages, gift cards, and packing peanuts, and everything rained down on her head as she tried to scramble away.

Timmy wasn't nearly so lucky. Once he and Poof had yanked her behind a rack of villainous-looking black capes out for display on the sidewalk, he rubbed the back of his neck. "Ow. Who fights with cardboard boxes?"

"He's shooting at us!" she screamed, clutching Finley's box of remains to her chest. "Why the hey's he shooting at us?"

"Duh." Timmy waved vaguely past her head. "The magical overload is making him go bonkers. He's mad with power."

Chloe risked a peek between the capes on the rack, making a mental note to investigate them more closely if they could spare the time, because they were neat and she really wanted one. H.P. had both arms raised above his head again. His legs and wings were shaking more than a little, as though he were holding up the sky and his knees might crumple beneath the pressure any second. The anti-fairy beside him wore a floating blue bowler hat instead of the usual black crown. He stared at the rack with his fangs bared in a glistening grin. In the back of her mind, Chloe thought that with those searing green eyes, he looked a lot like Cosmo.

The anti-fairy aimed his wand at them…

Until the Head Pixie, quite simply, lunged at him, grabbed the wand in his mouth, and flew away along the roof- vortex, apparently, forgotten for now. The other pixie with him didn't even react.

"No!" The anti-fairy dove after him. He caught H.P.'s shoulders and spun him around. Then he wrenched on the wand with all the strength he had, his wings beating like a distressed, well… bat. "Ooh, give over, you lunatic!"

Growling, the Head Pixie yanked backwards, teeth still latched around the wand.

"Look down there, old sport!" The anti-fairy threw out his finger. "It's Timothy Turner, and his little friend too."

"Oh, come on," Timmy complained, ducking behind the rack of capes again. Abruptly, the Head Pixie released the wand. When he turned, his entire face lit up.

"Turner! You made it!"

The anti-fairy pinched his temples with thumb and forefinger. He dangled his wand away from his body. "Here we go."

The Head Pixie landed on their side of a street with a skip in his step. He moved way too fast for Chloe's comfort, like a spark travelling along a wire in a cartoon. "Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh," Timmy warned, backing away and shaking his hands. It didn't matter. H.P. tackled him in a hug. Chloe prepared to enact self-defensive measures, but it didn't seem to be necessary. The worst the Head Pixie seemed inclined to do was nuzzle Timmy's cheek to death.

"Look at us." Once the anti-fairy landed, H.P. threw his other arm around his shoulders and pulled him in. "We're all together, celebrating the holidays for another year. Does it get any better than this?" He withdrew then, sniffling and flapping his mittened hands at his eyes. "I won't cry. I told myself I wouldn't cry."

Poof floated behind Chloe's shoulder with a repulsed look twisting up his pudgy face. "Whoa. What's up with him?"

"Jolly spirits," the anti-fairy grumbled as H.P. caught him in another group hug. This one knocked his monocle out of place. It bobbed on its cord. The anti-fairy rolled his eyes as H.P. mashed their cheeks together. The microphone of H.P.'s headset scraped and stuttered. "He's always like this on Gray Tuesday. One of these years, I shall succeed in reeling him in."

The young fairy tapped his cheek. "I will make a note of that for my fanfics and purposely use this information totally out of context just for a laugh at your expense."

"Aww, you know I can't stay mad at any of you," the Head Pixie cooed, walking his fingers up the anti-fairy's chest. Despite the microphone, there weren't any speakers around to pick up his voice. Then, releasing everyone, he flew in a tight circle around Timmy. "What's your weekend wish, then, Turner? Unlimited soggy graham crackers? A Chia Pet shaped like Elvis Presley's coif? An SUV with all its wheels built into its roof?" Each time he listed off a noun, he flapped his hand and made the object appear in a bubble above his head, only to flicker away again. Chloe did not miss the fact that he didn't need a wand to do it.

Timmy grimaced. He turned to follow H.P. every time the pixie moved behind his back. "Yeah. This year, I'm gonna keep my super wish in my back pocket for awhile. No offense, but you never seem to grasp the idea of 'sensible toys for ten-year-old boys.'"

"Eleven," Chloe reminded him.

"That's what I said."

The Head Pixie frowned. He stopped his crazed spiral. Instead, he stuffed his hands away beneath his armpits, leaning slightly forward. "Oh. Wow. I see how it is. You spend all that time faking my murder a few decades back, and now you don't even want to talk to me."

Timmy rolled his eyes. "I did not murder you! I didn't even fake-murder you."

"Who are you, anyway?" Chloe finally blurted, sick of referring to the anti-fairy as "the extremely good-looking British anti-fairy" in her head.

The anti-fairy glanced first at H.P. as though he expected the pixie to seize the lead. When H.P. didn't, he instead leaned back in the air and waved his hand. The other arm went behind his neck. "I, child, am Anti-Cosmo, High Count of the Anti-Fairies. The name alone ought to drop you to your knees so you may tremble for mercy at your leisure. I am, of course, the far more evil, dastardly, and utterly brilliant counterpart of the man I believe to be your own fairy godfather."

Chloe tried to resist the urge to fangirl squee. "O-oh," she managed. "You're Foop's dad. That's actually incredibly adorable. I always thought he was spawned out of the pits of pain and suffering or something."

"He was," Timmy assured her.

"Well, I see where he gets the accent from now."

Anti-Cosmo's fist clenched in empty air. "Yes. Aha. 'Foop's dad.' What a charming title to be greeted by. Anyhow." He flicked his wand to indicate the Head Pixie, who had crouched down to tie the shoes that Poof hadn't bothered to lace up properly. Poof did not seem to know how to react to this. "You see, child, H.P. and I have a longstanding partnership that stretches back for many millennia. And tonight, we've teamed up to cause the ultimate Friday mayhem! Ooh, Black Friday the 13th never looked so evil before!"

"But it's Gray Tuesday," Timmy said, staring up at him. Chloe lifted a finger.

"And, uh, due to the way the calendar works, Mr. Anti-Cosmo sir, there's no conceivable way Friday the 13th and Black Friday could ever fall on the same day anyway."

"Hmm." Anti-Cosmo studied the back of his hand, then flipped it over to examine his palm. "Must be a leap year."

"That doesn't actually…"

Anti-Cosmo kicked the Head Pixie beneath one of his wings. "Destroy them."

"They're paying customers," H.P. protested, sitting back on his heels.

"I don't care! Timothy always ruins our plans! Stop him! Stop him now!"

H.P. shrugged and turned on them, raising his arms. His mittens sparked with red. On auto-pilot, Chloe lashed out with her bare foot. It connected with his chin in a great karate kick so hard, she legitimately knocked out one of the Head Pixie's teeth. Everybody gasped. The tooth clacked to the sidewalk in a small spray of yellow blood.

"I'm sorry," Chloe blurted. "It was an accident!"

The Head Pixie touched the edge of his mouth. The cowlicked pixie who had followed him from the skyscraper fell into a crouch, his arms aglitter with blue swirls of Fairy magic. Poof floated backwards, covering his mouth too. "Oh no," he said through his fingers. "Chloe. Chloe. Chlo-Chlo, I love you, but you did not just do that. You're new here, but you can't do that. He's the Head Pixie."

"Yeah?"

"So his blood is full of pheromones!" Poof shoved her and Timmy forward by the backs of their heads. "Pixies are like wasps, and they swarm and kill when they smell that their leader is hurt! Run! Run!"

"Ow," the Head Pixie muttered, rubbing his hand against his cheek. "That smarts."

Anti-Cosmo's patience snapped right then. He whipped out his wand. It crackled with sparks, then went limp in his hand. He brandished it nonetheless. "Get them! Quick! They're getting away!"

As Timmy, Chloe, and Poof bolted down the street, pushing and ducking and "Excuse me"-ing around flying Fairies and other magical beings, Timmy made claw motions with his hands. "Why does this seem to happen to me and me alone every single year?"

"It was an accident!" Chloe shouted, clutching Finley's box with both arms. Oops. She'd forgotten about that. Would H.P. even want to talk to her again?

"I know it was, I know! Calm down, shh, shh, don't tell Cosmo and Wanda." As they ran, Timmy caught her elbow. "We'll be fine, but we have to be fast. The swarm instinct won't kick in unless the pixies smell that H.P. is bleeding. We can still get in, buy what we need, and get out before they stop us."

"Why do the Fairies give up their magic on Gray Tuesday to people like that?" Chloe asked, grabbing Poof in one hand and tossing him over a low-flying shopping cart. She caught him in the box, and they raced into the neon sparkly-topia of the massive warehouse. Despite it being not long after midnight, the crowds were in full Gray Tuesday spirit, shouting at one another and pushing each other around.

"They have to. I think it's in Da Rules." Timmy ducked a thrown boot and kept running. His hat flew off his head; Chloe grabbed it and clenched it in her fist. Timmy shot a glance back over his shoulder, arms ablur. His cowlick streamed impressively behind the rest of his hair. "The pixies don't get to participate in the annual bake-off to decide who gets to have the human godchildren, so they get this instead, or something."

"The annual what to determine the fate of who?"

"No time!" Timmy grabbed the rack of postcards and knocked it behind them. Chloe almost skidded in the mess. She hadn't even realized how close the cowlicked pixie was behind her until the shelf caught him in the forehead, and he fell back with a grunt. "Running now! Poof, I wish we were in the analog clock section!"

Tick tock poof! Chloe felt her feet rip themselves away from the ground. In a matter of seconds, they came down again with a solid thud.

"Okay. Okay." Timmy was choking on the cloud of dust that signaled their successful arrival, but he kept talking anyway. "Here's the plan. I'm gonna get Jorgen a really, really big watch that'll actually fit on his giant hand. Fairy clocks are cool because cloudland quartz is magical I guess and these clocks automatically adjust for time zones when you cross over. They're not that great on Earth because they're set to Fairy time zones, but whatever. I have one, but it's small. Jorgen's big, but we can't use magic to make a small watch bigger, because I need him to think I actually put time and effort into this and that I care about how much he likes it. So!" He pointed upwards. "We're gonna pry the face out of a grandfather clock, and use actual tools - not magic - to attach it to a big belt. We'll find one of those somewhere in this place. As soon as we get the stuff and find any pixie floating around here who has the authority to check our payment, we can leave."

Chloe blinked at all the neon lights spinning and pulsing around them. She'd only been here three seconds and the uneven tick, tick sounds were already grating on her nerves. Her fingers itched to tear every clock apart and set them to precisely the right time. In fact, before she could stop herself, she picked a small clock that looked like it would sit on the back of an oven and flipped it over in her palm. "Creative, but are you sure Jorgen will actually like that?"

Timmy pointed finger guns at her and slid them back and forth. "Imagination is kind of my thing waaay more than practicality is. Now, let's hurry and find a-"

"Not so fast, Timmy Turner!" crowed a young British voice. This was followed by the horrifying stomp of a very large animal's heavy feet. Chloe set down the clock. In slow motion, she and Timmy turned towards the other end of the aisle. Then they grabbed each other's arms and screamed.

"Ahhhhh!"

Poof's eyes bulged. "How and when did you get that inside?"

"Yes! Yes!" Cackling like a madder man than he probably actually was, Foop flew above the shelves, heels kicked up behind him and fists thrust in the air. "Bow down to me, you pathetic human idiots! Or else I shall be forced to crush you under the heels of my mighty persimmon amphibious wrecking ball of chaotic doom! Ahahahaha!"

Chloe threw Timmy a jagged look. "You just couldn't resist the giant hippo wish, could you?"

He crossed his arms. "Hey, you didn't argue then. Did you have a better way to block the portal door without destroying it and upsetting Poof?"

"Fingerprint scanners! Always go for the fingerprint scanners!"

"But that's so overplayed."

"Guys." Poof fired a blast of yellow energy with his wand, knocking Foop out of the air. The anti-fairy spun backwards and landed with a plop on top of Dark Laser and Crocker, who were weaving around the hippo's legs. Dark Laser was still decked out in his glowing rave gear, and Crocker was examining the price tag of a very stylish black toupee (Kevin stumbling blindly after them). "Hey, we really don't have time to argue about this."

"Hold my dead pixie. I got this." Chloe shoved Finley's box into Timmy's arms. She took a running start and drove her foot into the nearest grandfather clock. It doubled over in the middle. The clock face popped out and fell into her hands.

Timmy's mouth fell open. "Did you just punch the face straight out of a clock? Is that a thing? Can you actually do that?"

Chloe looked at him and blurted the only words that came to mind: "I was punching out."

"Well, it worked."

"I'd give that showing a hearty A " Crocker shouted from the bottom of the heap. With Dark Laser on top of him, he was effectively stuck- just for now. Dark Laser patted the ground frantically for either Flipsie or his lightstick. Foop's jaw was even more slack than Timmy's.

"Remind me never to end up on the receiving end of your killer hooves."

"Thanks. Let's just get this out of here before-"

"Behind you!" Poof yelped. He shoved Chloe away by the shoulder just as a pixie pounced at her from a higher shelf. Poof went down like a football player. Was that the same pixie they'd seen with H.P. and Anti-Cosmo outside, or had the smell of blood started to spread?

The pixie was easily as big as she was, but Chloe grabbed him around the middle anyway and hoisted him above her head. He was actually a lot lighter than he looked, but then again, that seemed to be a thing with magic people. "Get off him!" she yelled, and bodyslammed the pixie to the floor.

"Chloe!" Poof flung out his hands. "Don't hurt more pixies. That's literally the worst decision you could make in this situation. Pixies swarm to protect other bleeding pixies too, not just their boss. You're cutting the heads off a hydra here!"

When the pixie backflipped to his feet, Chloe grabbed his wrists and forced him away from her. His teeth snapped shut too near her cheek for comfort. She'd expected a creature with a square head and square wings to have square teeth to match, but no. Apparently, pointy corners overrode the square gene in their biology. His teeth were longer than a rat's and as pointed as a piranha's. She knew rats and piranhas. "Can't you just poof him away?"

"Oh yeah. I forgot." Poof waved his rattle, and the pixie disappeared in a swirling cloud of dust.

Timmy shook his head and passed Chloe Finley's box. She handed him the clock face. "Here I thought you were going to say that because he's full of all that Fairy magic, his magic is more powerful than yours and you couldn't do anything about him."

"Well, technically, when Santa's done channeling Fairy magic, it knocks him out for the next eleven and a half months. The Head Pixie doesn't like dealing with that smoof, so what he does is split all the power like 350 ways. That way when the day is over and the Pixies give the power back to the Fairies, it's 350 pixies out for one day instead of one pixie out for 350 days. Or just a few hours if he splits it even more. We learned this at school. Finley made us watch the most boring black and white documentary I have ever had to sit through in my life. He loved it. So basically, the little pixies aren't too strong, and I'm allowed to use magic outside of school unsupervised if I'm protecting myself or my family. Godsiblings count." Still, Poof grimaced. He tapped his rattle head against his palm. It made shaky, jingly noises like it was full of rice and bells. "Don't get comfortable, though. I could only send him one aisle over. He'll be back soon with friends, I'll bet. And I'm not sure I'd be able to do even that much to H.P. himself."

On cue, a second pixie (or even the same one?) tackled Chloe's legs from behind. Poof waved his rattle and sent him away again, but not before she fell against Timmy and knocked his clock.

"No!" Timmy made a heroic dive forward, catching the clock face just before it hit the ground. Chloe sighed in relief. Timmy sprang back to his feet, grinning like a shark. "Haha! Got it!"

BLAM!

Chloe about jumped out of her pajama pants. Timmy glowed bright blue for an instant and promptly disappeared in a puff of dust. The clock face fell to the floor and bounced on its side. So did the wristwatch-like doohickey Timmy had been wearing that was intended to send him back to Dimmsdale. Apparently it worked. Not far behind where Timmy had been standing, Foop hovered with his bottle outstretched, looking just as surprised about hitting the small button as she was. Poof readied his rattle again. Chloe slunk a step backward.

"Uh, hey, Foop. I see your eyes are doing better. Your new body looks great. Your little vest is absolutely, incredibly fitting."

Poof fired a yellow beam. Foop poofed away from it and reappeared behind them. While they spun around, he clubbed Poof in the head with his fist. Poof fell to the floor and bounced, firing into the nearby shelf with a startled, "Poof poof!"

Still brandishing his bottle, liquid magic sloshing around inside it, Foop floated forward and scooped the clock up from the ground. He rubbed it against his own head in the same spot where he'd just hit Poof. "I have no idea why this gaudy rubbish is so interesting to you knuckleheaded morons, but if Timmy Turner wanted it, that means I have to have it first."

"Not so fast, Anti-Cosma!" Crocker crowed, shoving him off to the side. The clock face spun around in midair in the place Foop's hand had just been before Crocker snatched it up and yanked it to his beady eyes. The glasses on his nose were clearly too small for him, and this was proved all the more by the blinded Kevin clinging to the hem of his shirt. Still, Crocker leered over the clock as though it were a treasure he'd long been hunting. "Aha! Whatever magical thingamathing is hidden within this fantastic device is sure to bring in more dough than what I'm making teaching impudent little brats now. If nothing else, I'm sure I can use it for a paperweight that actually WORKS AS ADVERTISED."

Then he had to duck as a humming lightstick swung through the air above his head. "Whoa!" Crocker screamed, fumbling the clock between his hands. It skipped back and forth between them, rebounding like an acorn. "I- I mean, your magical thingamathing, of course. My mistake. Byeee."

The clock face bounced from his grip to Dark Laser. Dark Laser couldn't get his lightstick put away in time. The clock rebounded off his forearm and plopped straight into Kevin's hands. Kevin blinked at it. Then he raised his head again. He looked right at Chloe, even with his squinty eyes. His brows went down. He squared his shoulders.

"Uncle Denzel!" he shouted, "Catch!" Taking the clock face like a frisbee, he flung it down the aisle. Chloe dropped Finley's box on the ground just long enough to jump up and snag it from the air. Her shoulder collided with one of the shelves behind her. Did you know that in Pixie World, they sell alarm clocks with real firecracker action? They do! And for only $29.95 during a Gray Tuesday sale! The firecrackers burst alive for seemingly no reason besides being shaken up. They zoomed off the shelves towards the L.O.S.E.R.S., Kevin, and the pixie who had appeared behind them. Foop flew off, shrieking at a high pitch. Or maybe that was Dark Laser. Hard to tell as they all shoved each other around. The Head Pixie's voice crackled over the speakers throughout the warehouse, but the words were garbled.

In all the commotion, Chloe took the chance to dart away. Hugging both the giant clock face and Finley's remains to her chest (gross as that sounded out of context, or even in context), she raced down the warehouse aisles in the opposite direction and took a left, a right, and then another left into an aisle that seemed to be filled with tires and puffy round clouds. Of course, when you're in a dim warehouse lit mainly by neon lights, sometimes it can be difficult to tell.

What had Timmy said? All the pixies dressed in Santa suits had the authority to approve a purchase on Gray Tuesday or something? Well, as long as she found one that didn't want to tear her head off, she should be in a good position.

"I wish I had super-springy anti-gravity boots," she blurted. Nothing happened. When she glanced over her shoulder, Poof was nowhere to be found. Of course that would totally happen. But she did see Foop dart around the corner after her, flailing his bottle at whomever was following behind.

Chloe had only looked back for a single second, but one second was enough. She slammed straight into some kind of topless floating vehicle and fell headfirst into the passenger's seat. Thank goodness she was wearing pajamas with pants instead of her favorite striped nightgown. Her legs were sticking up like chopsticks, and even though she flipped over quickly, that would have been embarrassing. The blue-haired fairy holding a cloudy tire next to the car looked up in surprise. Chloe threw him a smile and situated herself in the driver's seat. "Can I borrow this? Thanks!"

"Um- That's- mine."

The lever labeled 'Up / Down' was already in the 'Up' position. Chloe clicked her seat belt into place (Anything but safety is the worsty worsty worst!), then rammed her foot down on what seemed to be the gas pedal. She burst into the air so fast, she almost fell over backwards. It took a moment of fumbling with the controls, but she managed to guide the hovercar over to the top of the nearest set of shelf. Just in time, too. With three flashes of blue light and three BLAM BLAM BLAMs, Foop plugged the bottom of the hovercar full of holes. Chloe yelped as it tipped on one side. She unfastened her seat belt and sprang out, landing on the bare top of the shelf in a roll. Several of Finley's pieces spilled on top of her.

"Oh, poopie," Foop said as the car came down with a crash on his head.

Chloe crouched on the shelf, holding her hand to her chest as she fought to steady her nerves. The air felt dry and heavy on her tongue and still tasted way too much like fruitcake. Her hands scrambled to find all of Finley's shreds. As she stood up, she spotted Dark Laser (who could apparently hover?) landing on the far end of the shelf. His red lightstick was bared.

"Oh, you've got to be joshing me."

Dark Laser paused from his menacing arrival long enough to squint up his eyes and offer an apologetic smile. He shrugged. "It's nothing personal, Earth child. Flipsie needs a new timer-operated water dish."

"Yep. Bye." Hefting Finley's box against her hip, clock set gently on top of it, Chloe broke into a run. Good news: She'd left her shoes back home, so at least she didn't have to worry about tripping out of them. And apart from the crowds and the dark, everything was going pretty okay.

"Oh no! A sign that warns me about the pit of dangerous marine predators in the tank right below the end of this shelf!"

Huffing, puffing, Chloe glanced over her shoulder. Dark Laser was gaining on her fast, his lightstick expanding into more of a light-trident somehow at the end. It buzzed and flickered, humming as he swung. She had no choice. So at the end of the shelf, she gathered her strength and pushed off.

In a great arc, Chloe sailed over the tank of growling sharks, reaching for the next shelf with her free hand. She'd only be able to catch it with one. She almost-

-made it.

But she didn't.

Chloe stared in horror at her grasping fingertips, more than a foot away from the shelf she'd been trying to catch. And then she plunged towards the sloshing in-ground tank of sharks, walruses, and polar bears.

"Oh no! I- I wish- I was- Poof! Timmy! Help!"

She landed in a tiny pair of arms. Her descent didn't halt instantly. She pushed her floating hero down in the air quite a bit, and he yelped when one of the polar bears reared up to snap at his toes. But they were hovering. When Chloe turned her head, she found herself nose to nose with a pair of bright purple eyes.

"Foop. You saved me?"

"Um." His gaze slid away, and his cheeks turned a little purple beneath his fur. Beating his wings like crazy, he swooped away from the shark tank and over solid ground. "I-it was an accident, I swear. I'm really not much of a gentleman. I'm more of a smasher than a grabber. We, um, don't have to tell anyone about this, do we?"

"Not if you give me a five-second head start."

"Oh, fair enough. But I must warn you, I won't let you get away!" He let her drop to the floor. Chloe flipped over in midair, landed in a crouch, and took off instantly. With a poof that spread goosebumps up her arm, the clock face disappeared from Finley's box.

"Hey!"

"Hahaha! See you, Blondie!"

As Chloe started to turn, she ran smack into the puffed-out chest of a certain authority figure and plopped down on her rear end. She jerked away, expecting to see a pixie, but the leering figure was no pixie. It was an anti-fairy with a blue bowler hat, his right eye clenched around a monocle.

"Foop Nebula Anti-Cosma-Anti-Fairywinkle!"

All of a sudden, Foop broke off his cackling. He pulled back, drawing into himself. One hand clutched his bottle to his chest. The other touched his cheek. "Oh. H-hi, Father. I didn't know you were going to be in Pixie World tonight. Isn't the climate lovely out here?"

Dark Laser, who had just come up behind him, hid his lightstick behind his back. It made his edges flicker with a pale red glow. "Oh, uh… Yes. Salutations, fellow creature of the night."

Even Crocker had joined them, but he ducked away behind another shelf without saying anything.

Smoke puffed in three rings from Anti-Cosmo's ears. He tightened his fangs. Drifting forward on his stomach, his hands clenched into fists, he snapped, "You shed your exoskeleton long enough ago that you've gotten over the swelling and soreness and can fly perfectly well now? And you didn't even call us?"

Foop shoved the clock face into Dark Laser's hands and made himself scarce with a 'No need to trouble your evil bones, for I shall ground myself on my own' sort of anti-poof of purple smoke. Dark Laser, for his part, looked up at the fuming Anti-Cosmo about ready to unleash his fury on whichever innocent bystander he bumped into first, and set the clock on the ground. He spun on one heel, leg extended in front of him, and jogged away with his arms pumping at rapid speed. Letting out a loud huff, Anti-Cosmo rounded on Chloe.

"U-um. Mr. Foop's dad?" Chloe ignored the way his bat-like ears flicked back when she said it, and pressed on. She held up the box of Finley's shredded, gooey remains. "Okay. Before you decide to annihilate me, can you at least take this to the Head Pixie? I-it's one of his pixies. He exploded." Beat. "I tried to stop him."

Anti-Cosmo sighed. He lifted the box from her arms. "Oh, relax, child. I'm not about to pulverize you. There simply isn't time. Time is money, as you know, and money leads to power, and today of all days it would seem I have neither. We shall meet again another day, this I'm sure, but for now, I must go after my wayward son. Children. One day they're filling your dungeon with giant spiders, the next they think they can do whatsoever they want without even calling home. Cheerio!"

He disappeared in a spiral of smoke, muttering something about the irony of delivering a pixie child to someone when pixies were supposed to be the masters of deliveries.

"Chloe!" Before Anti-Cosmo's smoke cloud had even fully disappeared, Poof flew off a shelf, dragging Timmy behind him by the hand. "Guess what? Guess what? I used Timmy's flashlight as a reverse link to undo my spell! It worked! Mrs. Powers always said it wouldn't, but I proved her wrong! So, so wrong! It's a spell modifier, see, sort of like sniffing him out and then undoing a knot in a sewing project, so I managed to poof him back, even though it took like a lot out of me and I'll probably be in huge trouble for bending the rules, but luckily my dorm's RA is super rad so he'll probably support me in all my dreams-"

"-and now we need to find a belt for our clock and someone who can sign off our purchase? Great! No time to waste." Chloe grabbed both his and Timmy's wrists, determined not to let them slip away from her this time. "Let's go. I think I saw a pixie over here pressing buttons on a singing fish."

"Hey," Timmy yelped, hopping on one foot after her. "What about the ones chasing us? Poof and I saw H.P. running around just a few aisles over, and man, has he got a swarm with him."

"Hang on a sec." Poof waved both godkids behind him. Chloe followed his gaze to Mr. Crocker still behind the other shelf, crouched and ready to run for the clock face lying on the floor. Whipping his rattle into fully-extended mode, he shouted, "Hey, Mr. Crocker! This time, baby got bat!"

When he swung, he released a (very non-lethal) burst of wind, which sent Crocker sailing backwards like a baseball, down the aisle and into a large chair that Poof kindly poofed up for him to land in. He blew on the top of his rattle, then spun it through his fingers.

"I kinda get extra credit in school when I can prove I used my magic for malicious reasons. Long story. Don't ask."

Chloe raised one finger. "Someone remind me why, despite all Da Rules preventing us from wishing up actually interesting, educational, useful, and fun stuff, he's still allowed to use magic inside a shopping center. Shouldn't there be anti-theft wards or something everywhere?"

"But what about the pixies?" Timmy demanded, pushing them forward again. "We're gonna be slaughtered! Death by a thousand paper cuts! H.P. will give me my own cubicle with a stapler and a printer and my own super fast high-tech computer - which actually doesn't sound that bad now that I think about it - but he'll rub me in Jorgen's and Anti-Cosmo's faces until the end of time. I'll have to learn to tie a tie! Do you not understand the horrors this entails? Am I not describing this well enough?"

At this, Poof only grinned. "You know what? You can leave the pixies to me. Timmy, would you do the honors?"

It took Timmy a second to figure out where Poof was going with this, but when he got it, he got it. He pulled Chloe to a halt. She turned. Timmy grinned right back at his godbrother and drew out his flashlight. He shone it on Poof and swept low into a bow. "Ohhhh, yeah. Poof, I wish you had total control of the biggest boombox in all of Pixie World."

POOF!

The ground began to rumble. Chloe looked down at the cracks splitting into existence below her feet. A massive pink, solid structure split apart the warehouse floor and continued forcing its way upward- lifting her, Timmy, and Poof into the air. Well, it lifted her and Timmy. Poof somehow managed to stay floating at about the same distance above the pink mass even as it rose. Chloe held out her arms, trying to keep her legs from stumbling until at last the boombox, mercifully, stopped growing. Timmy let out a long whistle.

"Now this is a box."

Poof poofed a tiny plastic microphone into his hand. It looked totally fake, but he seemed to think it was real, so Chloe didn't question it. "Don't worry," he said, "it's a waggle dance. I got this. Everyone knows this song. It's a classic. Fairy dads use it on their kids to get them into the bath and then to bed and stuff. I'll hold off the ones who are after you. You guys find a pixie who's actually sane enough to ring that purchase up for you, and get out of here."

"Won't we be affected by the dance too?" Chloe asked, staring over the mass of shelves and shoppers below. People had started to look. Understandable. The massive boombox nearly touched the warehouse ceiling and it was glowing bright pink, so it was tough to miss.

"Not if I edit you out of the splash zone in my mind. I can do that."

"Good luck," Timmy called over his shoulder.

"Luck is for Anti-Fairies," Poof said with a chuckle. He raised the microphone to his mouth and waved at the crowd below. "Hellooo, Pixie World! You already know who it is, but I'll tell you anyway just to rub it in. This is Fairy World's favorite boombox personality Nebula Zeke, coming from a big, big stage real close to you."

"Drama queen," Timmy muttered, but with a smile on his face. "Let's hope that boombox is loud enough. I think it's the only way he stands a chance of being dominant against other gynes."

"We'd better go," Chloe said. It was eerily silent in the warehouse.

"Right. Operation Checkout now combobulates. We'll have to jump down to that shelf."

"Commences."

"That's what I said."

Poof cleared his throat into the microphone. It shrieked for just one second. He gave it two taps with his fingers, and began. "Ooooooooohhhh. Here we go. No Fae walks this world alone. Never met a one who would. I can give you what you want. Just convince me that I should."

As they scrambled down the shelves, Chloe threw a glance back up at Poof. He'd started to do that dance Finley had been doing, where he shifted side to side, swaying forward and back. Chloe knew he'd filtered her out of the "splash zone" as he'd called it, but even so, when she looked directly at him, she felt a powerful urge to join in. It looked like a lot of fun, after all. It took a tug on her hand from Timmy to turn her around again. From up here, she could see dozens of swaying pixies lit by neon lights and the glow of their Santa outfits. Even regular Fairies rustled their wings and twirled. They began to clap out a slow, heavy beat.

Poof flung out his arm, stabbing his finger into the air at an angle. "Let me see you shake that thing! Everybody flash your bling. Never cross a fairy ring! Don't you let me hear you sing."

The hand motions seemed to come so naturally to him, as though he'd been born knowing how to do this. Poof lowered the microphone from his mouth while he performed them, grinning when his movements were mimicked perfectly by the crowd below. Someone whooped, and that broke the silence. A dozen other voices jeered and someone else booed. One person cried, "Look, it's Poof!" and someone else went, "He's so cute!" Some muttered to each other, "He's a gyne? Is he? I didn't know that. When did he shed? It's been so long, hasn't it?" People began to shout, and not all the things they said were nice. Chloe cringed, and she could feel Poof's energy waver in the air. Nonetheless, his voice remained steady.

"Everyone, all eyes up here. I'll sing a song that I hold dear. And every word we all should know. If you're against it tell me so."

"So!"

The word blasted through the speakers and nearly tore them all apart. The energy in the room shifted immediately. Chloe felt it ripple across her skin. She fell to her knees, and Timmy went down beside her. Poof actually dropped his microphone. It bounced, clanging hard, and rolled towards the edge of the boombox. Raising her head was a fight all its own, but when she did, Chloe gasped. There, at the other end of the giant boombox platform, was the Head Pixie, pressing the microphone of his headset near his lips. He didn't look so jolly now. Even Anti-Cosmo cowered beside him.

"Uh… Timmy? By any chance, is the Head Pixie a gyne too?"

"No way. He's old. Old people can't have freckles. They just have wrinkles and liver spots. Have you ever seen an old person with freckles? Yeah, that's what I thought."

The Head Pixie floated closer to Poof, forcing Poof to cringe away, wings aflutter. "I like your style, kid. But take two steps back now."

Obediently, Chloe and Timmy sprang up and did as he ordered. They bumped into a shelf of knight and castle toys. A plastic lance dug into the space behind Chloe's ear.

"Classics are for baby nymphs so improvise or I'll call foul."

When Poof picked up his plastic microphone, Chloe could actually hear him shaking. "Um. Uh…"

H.P. plucked the microphone away and threw it over his shoulder. Anti-Cosmo, still crouched back there, caught it accidentally when he flung his hands up to cover his face. "I knew you couldn't do it. Your face is turning red. You're barely out of nymphhood and I think it's time you went to bed."

Clap. Clap. Clap clap clap. This time, all the Fairies around Timmy and Chloe joined them in the dance. Timmy offered her his hand. Unable to resist - literally - Chloe mimed a curtsy, and Timmy bowed.

"No!" Poof forced himself to his feet, giving a great mental shove at the same time. Chloe physically felt the Head Pixie's control lifting away from her. She looked up to see if H.P. would stagger back and topple from the boombox, but as near as she could tell, the only thing he did was raise one unimpressed eyebrow. Poof stepped forward nonetheless.

"You think I'm just a kid; okay, I guess you could be right." He waved his arms about as he forced out the words, then shrugged, planting his hands to either hip. Throwing fear of embarrassment to the wind, he gave his rear end a couple of large shakes. "But my friends are counting on me and I swear we'll make it through the night."

H.P. placed his mitten on Poof's face and pushed him backwards. "You're talking awfully big for someone who will end up mine. Tell me, Fairywinkle: Who gave you all those breathing lines?"

Poof faltered. "I… I mean…"

"What's going on?" Timmy hissed between his teeth as he spun Chloe in a circle. The two of them almost bumped into a Fairy couple who were doing the same twirl in the opposite direction, but somehow, their steps were perfect, and they managed to completely avoid one another.

"He's upset. The Head Pixie's getting into his head."

"We know how this ends up; don't you know your mother's song? 'Don't let your babies grow up Pixies'- Tell me if I'm wrong." Taking Poof's hands, H.P. spun him in a small circle. "You've always been a little 'off' and I know how that feels. Your breathing lines are braided wrong and twist around like eels."

Timmy released Chloe's waist long enough to clap his hands. They stared at each other, mouths pressed in tight lines. "I wish," Timmy whispered, "I could help him."

This wish went unanswered.

"Everyone can sense it." H.P.'s grip slipped from Poof's fingertips up to his forearms. He clenched around the small fairy's wrists. This time when he spun Poof, he actually swung him around, while Poof yelped and kicked his legs. "They laugh behind your back. I hope you love that wisp since she's the best you'll ever catch."

"D-don't tell me what I a'ready know. It's always been my fear. But sometimes songs can just be songs, and I will never end up here."

"What's he talking about?" Chloe whispered, spinning under Timmy's arm. He had to stretch on his toes to make sure she could get under without ducking. "Why would Poof have to work at Pixies Inc.? He's going to be a godparent, right?"

Timmy caught and dipped her when she draped over his arm. "I dunno? I know he and Finley argue about career options a lot."

"I'm not meant for Pixie World! I'll fight it every day! I know that he can change and I don't care what Fairies say!"

"Are you so sure of that, my boy?" H.P. paused to tap his lips. "You helped that man commit a theft. When everyone hears of the truth, what option will be left?"

Clap. Clap. Clap clap clap.

Poof gasped as though he'd just been shot. He struggled against the Head Pixie's grip to no apparent avail. "Jorgen would have killed him! He tried to have him fried. I know he's been a pain, but I couldn't stand there and just watch him die."

"And now your reputation? It's cinders and it's ash. Or if not yet, it will be soon, when they learn of your past."

"I stand by the choice I made! I- I- I…"

H.P. nodded and pulled Poof close against his chest. "You're not a pixie by your blood, but blood is not the end. Can't you see your office now and the papers stacked up in your hands? Don't shake your head so quickly. Your future's on the line. Come find me when you're jobless and you need a way to make a dime."

"I'll never be a Pixie! I'm not at all like that!" Poof tore himself away from H.P., clutching his hands to his ears. "My lines may be a wreck, but I would never, ever join a rat! I'm going my own way. You'll always have to wait. I wanna have a godkid, so I'm never gonna take your bait."

"Not even for a Pixie's wage? Oh, Poof, don't be a fool." Catching Poof's wrists and pinning them behind his head, H.P. leered forward. "Just who would trust a fairy who got Crocker hired at his school?"

Timmy actually dropped Chloe on the floor. "Oh."

"I'm doing what is right!" His voice staggered and it choked. "I know that he can change! He's teaching us, he's happy, and soon you all will see the same! I'd trust him with my life! He spared me once before! And if you disagree with me, let me show you to the door!"

With a superfae effort, Poof shoved the Head Pixie towards the edge of the boombox. Direct contact with all that Fairy magic swirling in his coat turned out to be too much. With a crack and a flutter of the lights, Poof flew backwards, off the boombox, and kept going towards the nearest wall- more than ten shelves away.

"No!" Timmy screamed, shoving himself away from Chloe and the other dancers.

The Head Pixie pressed the microphone of his headset near his mouth again. "Sanderson, I need a cleanup on Aisle 24."

However, the Head Pixie had forgotten one very important detail. This was Poof we were talking about here. Outgrown his ball form or not, he was still a springy fairy child, and after nearly fifty years, he'd had more practice jumping off the walls than most.

He hit the wall. And he bounced. With a screech, hands outstretched. H.P. barely had time to turn around before Poof barreled into him, this time tackling him straight off the edge of the boombox and into the shelf across the way. An explosion of sparks ripped through the air, blowing out every rave light in the vicinity. The world plunged into dark.

"Poof," Chloe yelped, clapping her hands to her forehead. "You can't do that! The guy's like a million years old! We're definitely going to Fairy juvie hall after this."

"No, no, no!" Timmy took off, shoving his way through the now extremely frazzled and dizzy Gray Tuesday crowd. "Poof! Poof!"

"Timmy!" Chloe raced after him. She'd always had excellent night vision, but this was ridiculous even for her. She knew from Wanda that Fairies could sense the presence of other magical beings and navigate around them as naturally in the night as day, but as a human, she was sprinting completely blind. The one guiding light shining through were the few dim sparks shooting up from the place where the Head Pixie had fallen, like a beacon in a storm.

After zig-zagging around a few shelves, Chloe felt her thumping heart sink like iron. Just ahead, occasionally blocked from her vision by Timmy's darting silhouette, she could make out dozens of glowing red shapes running, crawling, and flying towards them over shelves, between shoppers, and around the corners.

Pixies.

"You don't suppose they're here to offer us free gift wrapping, do you?" Timmy asked weakly.

Chloe glanced back and forth, clenching her hands near her chest. Pixies leered at her from the shelves, buzzing and lunging as they made their way closer. "There's too many of them. Poof! You have to waggle!"

There was no singing to be heard from the fallen fairy. Only shaking, choking sobs. And staggered laughter.

"Poof!" Timmy shouted, watching in dismay as pixies filled the way between them like a liquid storm.

"We have no choice." Chloe squared her shoulders and readied her fighting stance. "Timmy, I'll clear a path. You find someone who can ring up that purchase so we can get out of here."

Timmy turned in the dark and looked her up and down. "Yeah… Let's stop hurting the pixies. That never helped anything."

The decision was made for them by a slice of energy down the middle of the pixie forces. It cut their group in half and swept them to either side. Pixies flew left and right as though parted by Moses himself. They smacked into the aisles and each other, knocking products off the shelves with grunts and bursts. When the dust cleared, Poof was floating there with his hands doused in flickering blue light.

"Poof!"

Poof beamed, his mouth aglitter with magic. "They don't call me the Pinball Kid without a good reason why."

Chloe grinned. "I will definitely start calling you that now."

The Head Pixie erupted into the air behind him right then, wings and arms fully extended to either side. He slammed his mittened hands together in a thunderous clap. Streams of red light zoomed upwards from the mass of pixies below as their colors were literally ripped away from them. A hundred pixies instantly burst into paper-mâché. A hundred more followed a few seconds later. The Head Pixie raised his fists above his head, gathering the red energy into a single ball at least five times his size.

"Oh-" Timmy began.

"My-" Chloe squeaked.

"Dust."

"He wouldn't," she protested as Fairies around them ran, flew, and poofed for cover. "Not in here!"

"Hate to burst your bubble, Chloe, but one freakin' huge energy ball says otherwise."

"How do we fight him?"

"We don't!" Timmy grabbed her hand and yanked her down the aisle. "Run for it!"

They didn't get far before they crashed into one pixie who hadn't lost his bright red coat. It was the pixie she'd first seen outside with H.P. and Anti-Cosmo, the curled cowlicks in his hair. He caught Timmy by one shoulder. The clock flew out of his hands. It crashed against the floor. The glass face shattered into triangles.

"No!"

The pixie grabbed Timmy's arms and twisted them behind his back. Chloe skidded to a halt. With the Head Pixie gathering that ticking time-bomb of energy above his head, she couldn't afford more than a split second to think. If pixies were drawn to protect each other… then maybe…

Chloe grabbed the largest shard of glass she could find on the floor and lunged for the pixie. His expression never changed, but he pulled Timmy in front of him as he backed away. That didn't deter Chloe. She landed, kicked off, and performed two flips straight over his head. She clipped against his wings as she came down. Thrown off balance, she hit the ground face-first with a solid smack. No time for lying around on the job now. She flipped over to her back just as the pixie's foot came down where her hand had just been. Springing to her feet, she struck out at the pixie's arms. He twisted away to no avail. She drove the chunk of glass straight into his palm.

"Chloe, no!" Poof yelped, tugging at his hair.

"Chloe did what Chloe does," she shouted back.

The pixie's grip on Timmy loosened. He dropped at once to his knees, clenching his wrist, and made no move to strike out at anyone. That was easier than expected.

A sharp crackle of electricity ripped through the air. Chloe looked up. The Head Pixie hadn't missed what she'd done. With his face aglow in the surrounding dark, she couldn't miss the twisted expression on his face.

Horror.

The energy ball snapped and sputtered. Its lights began to dim. Its particles didn't spin nearly so fast across its globe. The Head Pixie noticed this too. He set his jaw. Winding up for the swing, he twisted in the air and held his hands behind his body. A sizzling stripe of energy took on the solid form of a golf club beneath his hands.

The biggest golf club in the entire world. Purple-red and flinging lightning bolts in all directions.

Timmy grabbed her elbow in one hand, stuffing Poof under his arm. "It's gonna blow!"

"I'm on it!" Chloe slapped her wrist. Then again for good measure, jamming her thumb into the button on her "watch". Crack! went H.P.'s club against the energy burst. It sailed towards them, blazing everything in its path with dancing red flames. Chloe pled and prayed that keeping physical contact with Timmy and Poof would cause her teleporter to poof both of them back to Dimmsdale along with her.

It did, just in the nick of time. Flickers of red still ran up and down their poof cloud, mixing with the dust. Poof, Chloe was grateful to see, had thought ahead. Even though they'd been at Crocker's when he'd poofed the teleporters up, he'd apparently calibrated hers to send her to a safe place across Dimmsdale that Crocker would never suspect: Her own bedroom. The three of them collapsed on the pillows of her bed, shaking as they laughed until they were in tears.

Chloe was the first to sit up. "Wow. You two sure know how to throw a Gray Tuesday party. Tonight was crazy, and I loved every heartbeat of it." She placed her hand to her chest for emphasis and leaned forward to whisper again, "Every. Heartbeat."

Poof grinned back at her. "Yeah, we should do this every year."

"I'd be okay with that. Well, minus the fact that there have to be pixies in Pixie World, anyway." She turned to Timmy, her smile fading as he sat up. "I'm sorry about your clock."

Timmy's smile was weary. The back of his shirt had been scorched, and he'd lost his famous hat. "Chloe, as your best friend, I am obligated to tell you that the best gift I can give Jorgen for the Fairy Reunion is probably blowing up the Pixies' headquarters and causing no end of chaos, all without him having to face H.P. himself and take the blame. After what we did, the Pixies definitely won't be causing us any trouble for years."

Chloe forced herself to smile. "Oh. Well. At least it wasn't a total waste."

"Now that we've got that out of the way…" Timmy brought his hands before his chest as though in prayer, closing his eyes. And then he exploded. "You stabbed a person who was like alive, Chloe! You stabbed H.P.'s best friend, Mr. Sanderson, in the hand! A pixie! Why would you risk that?"

"Hey, you weren't trying to wish for anything. Hurt pixies attract the attention of other pixies, right? I thought maybe…" Chloe trailed off. Now that they were out of danger, she realized how fortunate it was that the events of the night had gone down the way they had. Heck, they'd almost gotten blasted by the biggest fireball she'd probably ever seen. They were lucky to be standing here so unharmed.

"You just shouldn't have gone for his hand is what I'm saying." Timmy pointed his finger at his own. "Fairies kinda breathe through their hands, I think. Pixies too. They can't use magic if their right hand doesn't work. Sanderson's as good a tomte as Finley now for the next, I dunno how long it'll take him to heal, hundred years. Maybe even more than that. H.P.'s gonna be super ticked. We're all gonna be smack on his hit list for the rest of our lives!"

Chloe shrank back beneath his fury, raising her eyebrows. "I didn't know-"

"That's the point! You don't know enough about magic yet to do stuff like this, Chloe! You're still new at this! You didn't know if the Pixies were gonna swarm you, or if H.P. was gonna snap his fingers and stop your heart right then, or anything like that. You could have gotten yourself killed. Or worse, all of us killed." He threw his arms around her, leaning his head against her ear. "I just… I'm just glad you and Poof are both okay. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you guys like that."

"Oh, Timmy." Not wanting to embarrass him too much, and knowing she'd have her chance to rub it in his face later, Chloe gave his back a few quick pats and then held him away by the shoulders. "You can't get rid of me that easily."

He smiled back at her, but almost immediately, his short attention span was distracted by something behind her shoulder. "Wait a minute…" Pushing past her, and after sliding from her bed, Timmy walked over to the sparkling purple goodness that was her vanity. He picked up a pink envelope lying in front of the mirror, beside her nail clippers and hairbrush. Without asking permission, he tore the envelope open. A folded piece of bright yellow paper fell into his hand. He looked over at her. "Seriously? Seriously?"

"Ohh," Chloe said as it dawned on her. "Yeah, I think Cosmo gave me that a few weeks ago, but I kind of forgot about it." She slipped off the bed and took the invitation from him. Congratulations! proclaimed the sparkling silver text. You've been invited to join your godparents at the Fairy Reunion this LA, 78, YotAR9. Huh. She flipped the invitation around, humming the universal question mark sound.

"December 2nd on the Fairy calendar. I'm assuming." Timmy let his hands drop to his sides with a slap. "Guess I'll be seeing you there after all."

"Guess you will. I'm pretty tough to get rid of that easily." Chloe scanned through the rest of the invitation, chewing on her lower lip. "Oh hey, I have your name for the gift exchange. Is there anything cool you have in mind?"

Poof waved his rattle. "Any takers for an instant box of coupons yet?"

"New clock," Timmy said simply. "One of those gimmicky ones that tries too hard to pretend that morning can be fun. I like stuff like that."

"New clock. Got it."

"Or, y'know, there is that ultra-rare Red Ninja video game too. I never got the chance to see if the Pixies still had a copy."

Poof grinned. "I wouldn't complain if you got him one of those. I am the actual Red Ninja of the prophecy, you know. Completely 100% true. Do some behind-the-scenes lore digging and look it up."

Timmy turned on him. "And as for you, smart aleck-! You and I've really gotta talk about what goes on behind the doors of your school."

A switch flipped in the hallway with a click, the light leaking beneath Chloe's bedroom door. This was followed by rustling feet and the sound of Clark and Connie Carmichael whispering together. Timmy backed away. "We'd better go."

Chloe tucked the invitation back into its envelope, surprised and thankful that it hadn't exploded with firecrackers and oodles of noise. "Thanks for the crazy Gray Tuesday adventure. Call me if you get thrown in Wishing Well."

"Haha. Wouldn't be the first time. Poof, I wish we were at my house again. And…" Timmy winced. "Let's hope Cosmo and Wanda aren't waiting there to chew us out."

"Fat chance," Poof said with a cheerful chuckle in his voice. He twirled his rattle through the air. Before Chloe even turned to face the twisting knob on her door, both her godbrothers had disappeared in a simple little poof.

A/N - I'm absolutely in love with the idea Butch Hartman pitched in one of his "10 Years Later" videos about Crocker going on to teach at Spellementary School post-series. Of course, maybe I'm just biased since it happened to align perfectly with… another idea I had planned. But, more on such things another day.