Globusz^® Publishing 

honim, the little blue-eyed fairy, had met his human friend Sarah many times before. But as he watched her from the corner of the dining room, her long hair swishing in an arc down the back of that tall wooden chair, somehow it felt to Shonim just as the first time he had seen her. He watched the summer sun catch the light in her yellow hair and his world was turned to song. Melodies leaped and crashed in his blood and he found himself thinking that his friend was very beautiful.

She was sitting in the dining room with her new teacher. Sarah’s back was turned to Shonim, and she sat very straight on the tall wooden chair. She was talking to a thin woman with a tight brown bun that inspired no music, no symphonic songs. He formed a thought and cast it towards her, one stone of a name, a beam of cornflower blue light. “Sarah”. And he knew that she had heard him.

Sarah did hear her name spoken, softly in her mind, and suddenly thought he was just there, just behind her. Some of it was Shonim’s fairy magic, and some was due to the kiss, or the little star, on Sarah’s wrist that linked them. Sarah felt a prickling at the back of her neck, as if she was being watched. She smiled to think how bored he must be in the house, waiting for the meeting with the new teacher to end. But was he really there?

“So, you like Geometry, do you?” said the woman with the tight brown bun as she leaned across the table, catching Sarah’s smile.

“Geometry? Um, no. No, I don’t like it at all. Do you... like it?” Sarah asked nervously. Geometry was her least favorite subject. She had not been smiling at the prospect of studying mathematics with this firm woman. She had been smiling at something else entirely, and was trying to suppress the urge to turn 180 degrees in her chair, just to see if he was really there.

The woman’s own smile quickly faded back into her pursed-mouth. “Well, Sarah, you will find that maths provides you keys that can open many doors in life. Yes, we must master mathematics to understand the patterns of things, you will see in time just how important it is. I know it can be tedious, but it never hurts, does it, to discipline the mind a bit more?”

Sarah did not answer but looked down at the woman’s hands, which were resting on the table between them. She had two rings, Sarah could see, one smooth golden band that must be a wedding ring, and a thin one with sapphires. She thought that one was very pretty, though nowhere near as pretty as the ring the fairies had given her, safe in her little wooden box in her room. She was about to ask about the ring, but the woman with the bun had not finished.

“I am quite keen to get you started as quickly as possible, as the school term has already begun in your old city. I have spoken to your teachers there and have obtained this year’s course syllabus from Greenhorne. If you moved back to the city in a month, 6 months, or even a year, it is my goal that you should smoothly and effortlessly be able to continue your coursework there, without finding you have fallen behind. In fact, I daresay, you might be ahead.”

At this, Sarah’s heart stopped and then began to skip ahead randomly. “Did you say... if I return to Greenhorne? I mean, I thought my mom and I were staying here...” Sarah’s eyes deepened to a stormy twilight.

“Well, we must always consider the possibilities. Your mum has indeed hired me for the school year, but if I may say, country living is very different from city living, and a person like your mother... It never hurts to keep options open. Don’t you think?”

Sarah shook her head “no”, and then said in a sudden firm voice, surprising herself with her own anger, “I like it here.”

“I see.” The woman with the bun smiled and peered at her, but Sarah did not meet her eyes and focused instead on her pale pink tweed jacket. “You are like my husband, who dislikes the city, says it’s frenetic and exhausting. I myself am more like I imagine your mother to be. Ah the big city, so exciting, so many possibilities! There is nothing like an excellent museum, full of masteries from the past, for me. But, I see we differ in this regard. My sister is also much like you. She finds the city too stimulating, and prefers tea in the garden, watching the birds. Do you like that sort of thing?”

“Listening to the birds?” Now Sarah remembered a certain sunny picnic on the big flat rock in the forest with Shonim and his mother Virella, who could both speak Bird. They had translated what the robins were saying for her. Something about worms, she remembered. She laughed and said, “Oh yes, I enjoy that very much!”

The woman with the bun quickly scribbled on the pad of paper she had been referring to during their discussion. “Ah a naturalist. Tell me, does science strike your fancy? Biology, evolution? Perhaps we shall make a scientist out of you, hmmm?”

The woman leaned forward again, and Sarah felt relieved that the smooth oak table stood between them. The teacher peered at Sarah’s face, scanning her eyes and hair, perhaps looking for evidence of a scientist there, Sarah thought. Then she leaned back, putting the pen and paper she had been making notes on into her bag, then snapped it shut with a satisfied “click”.

“Excellent, Sarah. I feel we shall get along very well. Shall we start tomorrow morning? Two hours in the morning, two in the afternoon, Mon, Wed and Fri with the weekend off. On Tuesdays and Thursdays you will be doing assignments, and your mother will oversee you, and your aunt... your aunt...”

“Maude,” Sarah filled in, referring to her mother’s sister who was the co-owner of the country house and had grown up there.

“Right. Your Aunt Maude. It is important, when being home tutored, to stick to a regular schedule, as you would have done in your old school. Discipline is just as much a part of the curriculum as the coursework. I believe we are finished... pleasure to meet you, and see you at 10 o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Sarah stood up to shake her new teacher’s hand, but then sat back down in the chair when her heels clicked out of the room. Sarah sagged for a moment there with her arms crossed in front of her, but then she felt a pressure on her hair, and looked down.

“Shonim! I knew you were there!”

Shonim, a fairy no bigger than a hair clip, was climbing up her hair to Sarah’s shoulder. He then leapt from her shoulder to the smooth oak table surface, and sat there with his legs crossed, peering up at her. She laughed for a moment to see him reflected in the shiny table surface, but then Sarah slouched down more glumly. Now she was eye-level with him.

“That’s my teacher. It’s awful, Shonim! We won’t have the mornings anymore. Or the afternoons! I have lessons or homework every day! I think I am even meant to study on the days she does not come...”

Shonim chewed his bottom lip for a moment, considering. “I can come with you. Study too.”

Sarah considered this for a moment. It would be wonderful to have Shonim with her, it would make lessons so much more fun. But what if the woman with the bun could see him, what would she do? Some adults could see fairies... Sarah thought it was far too risky, so she said, “Well, it’s in the house, you know, and I know you don’t like that. Also, wouldn’t you be bored? That teacher seemed terribly boring.”

A bird twittered loudly outside the screen door, and Shonim turned, distracted. Then he grabbed Sarah’s nose. “The robin says the sun is strong today. Let’s go?”

Sarah brightened. “Yes, let’s go! We don’t start lessons until tomorrow,” though this came out pinched as Shonim had not let go of her nose.

“Great!” Shonim shot upwards, leaping into the air, startling Sarah so that she jumped in her chair. He then jumped off the table, opened his wings and glided to the floor, then ran towards the screen door that opened directly onto the lawn. He turned at the door, standing in a beam of sunlight, his black curls shining and a wide smile on his face. His silver robes gleamed in the bright light, and his wings stretched out, opening and closing delicately. Sarah got out of her chair, rubbing her nose, which he had pinched rather hard. Before following Shonim she peeked into the living room where Aunt Maude was reading a book in her favorite salmon-colored armchair.

“Aunt Maude. Aunt Maude!

Her aunt was reading so avidly that she did not hear Sarah at first. Finally she looked at Sarah over her book with a blank expression, and blinked.

“I’m going out to play in the forest,” Sarah said.

Her aunt‘s pale blue eyes blinked again through the two thick round lenses of her reading glasses, reminding Sarah of an owl, and she lowered the book to her lap. Sarah noticed that her grey hair was in a bun, like her new teacher’s, but it was escaping in wisps here and there, and there were no pins visible anywhere. “Oh, good morning Sarah. Did you meet your new teacher?” Aunt Maude finally said.

“Yes,” said Sarah, standing in the doorway with one foot swinging back and forth. She wanted to go outside into the sunlight, and was worried Shonim would grow impatient, waiting at the doorway.

“What is her name, dear?”

“Oh... I... um... don’t remember. Mrs. Something.” The name “Mrs. Bun” popped into Sarah’s head, but she did not say it outloud. She suppressed a giggle.

Aunt Maude made a clicking sound with her tongue, but the lines by her eyes crinkled amusedly.

“OK, see you for lunch,” Sarah quickly said and raised her hand to say goodbye, turning to leave.

“Wait!” Aunt Maude’s eyes widened, and she sat up and looked furtively around. “Are you going with... with... him? Is he here?” She began to peer closely at Sarah’s ear.

Sarah took a quick look behind her to make sure her mother or the woman with the bun was not nearby. “No, no, he is outside, he doesn’t like it in the house.”

“Will you tell him, tell him again...” Aunt Maude was now staring at Sarah’s pocket.

“Tell him I would very much like to see him again.”

“OK,” said Sarah, “but I told you, his mom won’t let him meet you. Um... may I go now?”

Aunt Maude nodded and slowly raised the book to her eyes. Sarah now noticed the book cover: a tiny winged man sitting on top of a unicorn’s horn, waving a flag. “Have a nice day,” her aunt mumbled as her nose disappeared into the book.

“You too,” Sarah said and turned on her red shoes with the shiny buckles (they were a “back to school” gift from her mother) and dashed out the door. Shonim was jumping up and down in the beam of sunlight by the door, waiting impatiently. As soon as Sarah approached he ran to her and jumped on her shoe, then climbed up to her hair as they went outside and she skipped across the lawn. The warm, humid summer air enveloped them like a hug.

Aunt Maude had only pretended to continue reading. She knew the little fairy was near, and longed to catch a glimpse of him. As soon as she heard the screen door shut, Aunt Maude put the unicorn book down with a slap on the little table next to her, and hurried to the window. She saw the tiny figure of Shonim swinging back and forth on Sarah’s hair in his silver robes, looking like a hair clip that had gone awry. Shonim saw her standing in the window and gave a mighty wave. Aunt Maude waved back furiously, and tears stung her eyes as she gazed at them. “Amazing,” she murmured to herself. Then they moved out of sight, and she slowly moved back to the armchair. She traced the winged man on the cover of the book with her finger for a moment, then continued reading.