Mary the Sharing Fairy

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Poem

  Painting Plans

  Fracturing Friendships

  Magic in a Mop Bucket

  Tennis Trouble

  Goblin in a Spin

  Making Amends

  Teaser

  Copyright

  The Friendship Fairies like big smiles.

  They want to spread good cheer for miles.

  Those pests want people to connect,

  And treat one another with respect.

  I don’t agree! I just don’t care!

  I want them all to feel despair.

  And when their charms belong to me,

  Each friend will be an enemy!

  “I can’t wait to find out what we’ll be doing at the Summer Friends Camp today,” said Kirsty Tate.

  She grinned at her best friend, Rachel Walker, who was bouncing up and down on a hoppity hop. They were inside a brightly colored tent in Rainspell Park, where the vacation day camp was based.

  “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be fun,” said Rachel, her blond curls flying around her head as she bounced. “We’ll be together!”

  Rachel and Kirsty had been friends ever since their first meeting on Rainspell Island. It was an extra-special place for them because they had also become friends with the fairies during that first visit.

  This time they were staying at the Sunny Days Bed & Breakfast with their parents. They had attended the Summer Friends Camp on their first day, and were excited to learn that the teenage girls who ran it, Ginny and Jen, were also best friends. Today was their second day of vacation, and they were both looking forward to finding out what Ginny and Jen had planned.

  The tent was already ringing with laughter. Oscar and Lara, who they had met the previous day, were practicing one-handed cartwheels. When they collapsed to the ground, out of breath and giggling, Rachel and Kirsty came over to join them.

  “Good morning!” said Lara in a cheerful voice. “It’s great to see you here again. We’re really looking forward to today.”

  “We are, too,” said Kirsty. “We were just wondering what we’ll be doing.”

  “Wonder no more!” said Ginny’s friendly voice behind them. “We have something really awesome planned for today.”

  The children looked around and saw Ginny and Jen standing in the tent entrance, arm in arm. Several other children crowded around them.

  “We’re going to paint a mural on the tennis clubhouse,” said Jen, giving a little hop of excitement. “I’m so thrilled that we have the chance to do this. I know you’re all super-creative, and we’re going to make the best mural ever.”

  Chattering and giggling, Rachel and Kirsty headed across the park with the others. The clubhouse stood at the entrance to the tennis courts, and Jen and Ginny led everyone around to the back. They saw a small picnic area on a wooden deck, and Jen pointed at the long side wall of the clubhouse.

  “This is the wall we’re going to paint,” she said. “They want us to brighten up the picnic area.”

  “What are we going to paint?” asked Oscar.

  “The theme of the mural is friendship,” said Ginny. “We thought that we could start by painting the word friendship on the wall. Then we can decorate it.”

  Jen took out a big book filled with letters and patterns.

  “This book has tons of ideas for lettering styles and decorations for the mural,” she said.

  She handed the book to Oscar while Ginny passed out painting aprons. Kirsty and Rachel exchanged a big smile.

  “A friendship mural,” said Rachel in a low voice. “That’s perfect.”

  “I can’t wait to get started,” said Kirsty.

  Ginny and Jen went to get the paints and brushes from a shed at the side of the picnic area, and Rachel and Kirsty put on their painting aprons.

  But suddenly, Kirsty felt someone tugging at her apron. She turned and saw a girl named Amy frowning at her.

  “You got the best apron,” said Amy. “It’s not fair!”

  Kirsty looked down at her apron in confusion.

  “But mine’s exactly the same as yours,” she said.

  “I want the one you’re wearing!” said Amy.

  Shrugging, and wanting to keep the peace, Kirsty handed her apron to Amy and picked up another one. Amy glared at her.

  “You’re keeping all the best ones for yourself!” she exclaimed. “That’s mean.”

  “Kirsty is not mean!” Rachel cried, stepping forward to defend her friend.

  But Amy had already turned away to argue about aprons with someone else.

  Rachel and Kirsty went over to the picnic table, where Oscar was poring over the book of ideas.

  “Could we have a look, too?” asked Rachel.

  “Wait your turn,” muttered Oscar.

  Rachel and Kirsty looked at each other. Why were the other children suddenly being so selfish?

  Suddenly, Oscar cried out. A boy named Eric had snatched the book from him.

  “Give it back!” Oscar yelled.

  “You’re not sharing!” Eric retorted. “It’s my turn now.”

  Just then, Jen and Ginny came back, their arms filled with paintbrushes and cans of paint.

  “Now we can get started with the best part: painting!” said Kirsty.

  But no one heard her—they were too busy arguing.

  “Stop taking all the good brushes!” Amy was saying at the top of her voice. “I should get the best ones.”

  “I want the green paint,” said Lara.

  “No, I want it!” Eric yelled, grabbing the can of paint and trying to wrestle it away from Lara.

  Meanwhile, Oscar had already started painting and had almost finished the f of the word friendship in red.

  “Wait!” Amy wailed. “That’s not fair! Everyone was supposed to help write the word. I wanted to write the f. I wanted to do it in purple!”

  “Sorry,” said Oscar. “You can all help me finish it.”

  Kirsty and Rachel joined him and started to paint.

  “Hey!” said Lara. “Oscar is my best friend, so he should paint with me, not you!”

  She glared at Kirsty and Rachel and dragged Oscar away from them. The girls looked at Ginny and Jen, hoping that they would break the fighting up. But the teenagers weren’t looking at the children. They were each holding on tight to one end of a tennis racket, and they were both red in the face.

  “I should have the racket,” said Ginny. “The Rainspell Park Committee gave it as a thank-you for painting the wall, and painting it was my idea.”

  “No, it wasn’t!” Jen exclaimed. “I thought of it first, and I was the one who got permission from the Park Committee, so I should get the tennis racket.”

  “But I organized getting all the paints and supplies,” Ginny said through gritted teeth. “This racket should be mine.”

  Kirsty and Rachel exchanged a worried glance.

  “I can’t believe that they’re fighting like this,” said Rachel. “They’re supposed to be best friends.”

  Kirsty looked around at the other children. They were all arguing now. Even Oscar and Lara were snatching paintbrushes out of each other’s hands.

  “Nobody wants to share anything,” Kirsty said. “This is all because of Jack Frost and his troublesome goblins. None of them understands what true friendship is.”

  Jack Frost’s troublemaking ways were fresh in their memories. Just the day before, the Friendship Fairies had invited Rachel and Kirsty to a tea party in Fairyland. The girls had been having a lovely time with Esther the Kindness Fairy, Mary the Sharing Fairy, Mimi the Laughter Fairy, and Clare the Caring Fairy—until Jack Frost and the goblins had snuck into the garde
n and stolen their magical objects!

  Jack Frost had taken the magical objects so that he could be super-powerful and have lots of friends to boss around. He had ordered the goblins to take the magical objects to the human world and find some friends for him.

  Remembering the shocked faces of the Friendship Fairies, Rachel felt more determined than ever to get the magical objects back.

  “All these friendships should be strong and happy,” she said, looking around at the other children. “Without the magical objects, they’re all going to be ruined. We have to help all the Friendship Fairies get their objects back.”

  Watching Ginny and Jen, Kirsty felt tears of sympathy prickling her eyes. She thought about how horrible it would feel to argue with Rachel like that. Luckily, their old friend Florence the Friendship Fairy had cast a “Friends through Thick and Thin” spell on their bracelets, so their friendship wouldn’t be affected. But Florence’s spell wouldn’t last forever. If the fairies didn’t get their magical objects back soon, even Rachel and Kirsty would turn against each other.

  Rachel guessed what Kirsty was thinking and squeezed her hand.

  “We helped Esther the Kindness Fairy get her magical heart brooch back from the goblins yesterday,” she said. “We can do this—don’t worry.”

  “It just seems like such a huge task,” said Kirsty. “If we don’t find the three remaining missing magical objects, all friendships will be ruined. People can’t fight about every little thing and then still end up best friends.”

  Suddenly, there was a yell from the children beside the picnic table. Amy and Eric were covered in orange paint, which was also spilling all over the deck.

  “That was your fault!” Amy snapped.

  “No, you spilled it,” Eric replied.

  “Things are getting worse,” said Rachel with a groan. “This is awful!”

  Jen and Ginny were so involved in their argument over the tennis racket that they hadn’t noticed the paint spills.

  “Let’s go get a mop and bucket,” said Rachel. “I don’t think anyone else is going to clean it up. They’re too busy arguing.”

  The girls made their way over to the shed and stepped inside. It took their eyes a few moments to adjust to being out of the bright sunshine. Then Rachel pointed to a far corner.

  “There’s a bucket,” she said. “And there’s a mop sticking out of it.”

  Kirsty stepped forward and picked up the mop. Suddenly, there was a tiny burst of sparkles, and Mary the Sharing Fairy fluttered out of the mop bucket.

  Mary was wearing white skinny jeans, sparkly gold sandals, and a ruffly pink T-shirt with a patterned edge. The charm bracelets around her wrist rattled as she waved at the girls, but they knew that the most important charm of all was missing.

  “Hello, Rachel and Kirsty!” Mary said eagerly. “I’m so happy that you came in here. I’m determined to find my magical yin-yang charm today, and I’m hoping that you might be able to help me.”

  “Of course we’ll help you,” said Kirsty. “We’ve just seen how horrible things are when friends don’t share. It’s spoiling everything that Jen and Ginny had planned.”

  Mary shook back her loose blond hair and her eyes sparkled behind her glasses.

  “I’m sure that by working together, we’ll be able to get the charm back,” she said. “I believe that sharing really matters—and that means sharing trouble as well as sharing fun. With you two to help me, how can we fail?”

  Rachel was remembering the tiny black-and-white charm that she had seen dangling from Mary’s wrist when they first met.

  “What does the yin and yang symbol mean?” she asked.

  “Yin and yang are two opposite halves that make a whole when you put them together,” said Mary.

  “Just like friends,” said Kirsty with a smile. “When two people work together, they can make a whole, true friendship.”

  “Exactly right,” Mary replied. “Now, all three of us need to work together to find the missing charm and help people be able to share again. Let’s go!”

  Mary flew into the pocket of Kirsty’s painting apron, and then the girls left the shed, carrying the mop and bucket.

  There was no one on the deck now—the children were all crowded around the mural.

  As Rachel and Kirsty cleaned up the spilled paint, they saw that a new group of boys was standing among the other children in the Summer Friends Camp. They were all wearing green aprons and matching hats.

  “Look,” said Rachel, standing up on tiptoe to see what the new boys were doing. “They’re painting the f of friendship in different shades of green.”

  As they watched, one of the boys climbed up a stepladder to paint the top of the f in bright green.

  “That’s odd,” said Kirsty. “Amy hasn’t wanted to share with anyone else, but now she’s offering to share her purple paint with that boy on the ladder. The others are holding up their paints, too.”

  Rachel and Kirsty walked closer to the others, just as the boy on the ladder blew a raspberry at Amy.

  “We only like using green paint,” he snapped. “Take that yucky purple away.”

  Rachel drew in her breath sharply. Under the boy’s green hat, she caught a glimpse of a long green nose.

  “Those aren’t boys,” she said to Kirsty in a low voice. “They’re goblins! They must have Mary’s magical object.”

  “But which one of them has it?” Kirsty asked.

  “It must be the one on the ladder,” said Rachel. “Everyone wants to share with him.”

  Just then, Jen handed the goblin another can of green paint.

  “How about painting the rest of the mural in a different color?” she suggested.

  The goblin simply grunted at her. Jen sent the other children to work farther down the wall on the rest of the mural. They all still seemed more interested in arguing than in painting, but for now they weren’t paying attention to the goblins.

  “I have an idea!” said Rachel.

  Rachel leaned down to whisper into the pocket of Kirsty’s apron. “Mary, could you use your magic to change the color of the paint in the goblins’ cans?” she asked.

  She couldn’t even see the little fairy, but then Mary poked out of the top of the pocket, and the girls heard her silvery voice speaking the words of a spell.

  “Rainbow Fairies, hear my plea,

  Lend your color spells to me.

  Change the paint before their eyes

  To a color they despise.”

  Mary’s wand tip waved, a flash of rainbow sparkles burst from it, and in an instant the green paint that the goblins were using turned bright pink!

  “Argh!” shouted the goblin on the ladder. “Disgusting! Give me a new can of paint!”

  One of the goblins opened another green can, but the paint inside was also bright pink.

  “This is ridiculous!” the goblin on the ladder squawked. “What’s wrong with this paint?”

  Kirsty and Rachel stepped forward.

  “Nothing’s wrong with it,” said Kirsty. “You can have the green paint back as soon as you return Mary’s magical charm. All you have to do is give back something that doesn’t belong to you in the first place.”

  “It’s the right thing to do,” Rachel added seriously.

  But the goblins curled their lips, narrowed their eyes, and wrinkled up their noses as if they had smelled something bad.

  “There’s no way you’re getting this back,” said the goblin on the ladder. He held up his arm and jingled the bracelet he was wearing. Mary’s yin-yang charm was dangling from it.

  “It’s mine now, and I’m keeping it,” he added. “Now leave us alone!”

  With that, the goblin jumped down from the ladder and raced off toward the tennis courts, closely followed by the other goblins.

  “It’ll be easier to follow them as fairies,” said Rachel. “Mary, will you use your magic to transform us both?”

  “Of course!” said Mary.

  The girls da
rted around the corner of the clubhouse, out of sight of the other children. Then Mary popped out of Kirsty’s apron pocket and hovered in front of them, holding her wand high above her head.

  “We have to save my yin-yang charm

  Before more friendships suffer harm.

  Untie these painting apron strings,

  And lend my friends their fairy wings!”

  Rachel and Kirsty felt something magically pulling at them, and then the aprons they were wearing were whisked away. In the twinkling of an eye they had shrunk into tiny fairies, their wings shimmering like mother-of-pearl as they rose into the air beside Mary.

  “They’re heading toward the tennis courts,” said Kirsty. “Come on, let’s follow them.”

  Two people were playing a tennis match when the goblins ran onto the court. One of the players was distracted by them and hit the ball out-of-bounds, but she didn’t seem to mind. Instead, she jogged over to the goblin with the yin-yang charm and handed him her racket.

  “Would you like to play now?” she asked him. “It only seems fair that we share so that you get a turn, too.”

  The goblin snatched the racket from her without saying thank you, while the other goblins argued over the second player’s racket. The two players walked off toward the clubhouse.

  The goblin with the charm picked up a tennis ball and threw it into the air a couple of times, catching it as it came down. He looked around and saw the fairies hovering beside the net. A mean smile flickered around his mouth. Then he hit the ball at the fairies as hard as he could. Rachel, Kirsty, and Mary dove in opposite directions. Quick as a flash, he launched another ball at them, and another, and another. The fairies dodged left and right—it was all they could do to stay safe and keep away from the speeding tennis balls.