CHAPTER 2

Frightened, dull blue eyes gaped at Margaret in mute terror. His clothes hung in shreds and the coat draped over the emaciated body appeared to be a large woman's duster.

Margaret gazed into the hollow, panic-stricken eyes and gradually understood what she was seeing. Her heart raced like a heat-seeking missile against her rib cage as she watched the creature struggling to its feet.

Although her interest concerning the welfare of the fairies was genuine, they were only theory and hypothesis after all, something to debate in class or among friends. She could not abide cruelty to anyone or anything.

She had seen them on viewvision and in magazines, but until this moment she had never had real contact with them. It was the boy's whiteness that unnerved her. But as she stared back into his dull, blue eyes, she saw that his terror went much deeper than did hers.

"Are you all right?" she ventured. Her mouth felt like dried leaves and her words sounded as though they were coming from a deep cistern.

The wretch rose to its feet. His knees wobbled and his arms dangled at his sides. He was only a boy. Filthy hair hung below sloping shoulders, rope-like and heavy, the heady north wind having little effect on it.

A moronic grin spread over his face as he raced past Margaret with more agility than she thought possible in one so emancipated. She assumed he was fleeing, but he began snatching up papers which had fallen from her notebooks.

After policing the area he shoved the papers toward her with two unbelievably grimy hands, the witless grin remaining on his equally soiled face.

Gingerly she accepted the crumpled sheets, shoving them inside her notebooks, then depositing everything inside the Bandolier.

"Are you okay?" she asked again, her fears blending into compassion as she moved upwind from the boy's odor. "What are you doing here?"

"Got myself lost," he blurted breathlessly. "I be Zane and I got myself lost and they chased me." His grin grew wider, showcasing small, yellow, decaying teeth. "But I got away."

"Who chased you?" Margaret said, knowing the answer even as she asked the question. Fairies outside the confines of Fairytown were hunted down and arrested unless they had special work permits.

"Bad men," he said, "but I got away."

Margaret heard distant shouting and it was getting closer. "Where'd the little bastard go?" a voice wafted through the crisp winter air.

Peering around the Bandolier she saw a group of students running in a dead heat toward them. She glanced at the boy and saw that he heard them also.

His grin immediately went into tight-lipped panic and his sunken eyes had the look of someone who has just stepped into a camouflaged pit, knows it, but it's too late to stop the next step. Instinctively, he turned to flee from his tormentors. Without conscious thought, Margaret grabbed his arm and put an index finger to her mouth.

"Don't run," she whispered, "here," she swung the Bandolier's door open, "get in behind the seats. Hurry!"

The waif seemed puzzled only for a moment before diving willy-nilly into the storage space between the seats and the rear of the Bandolier. Margaret shed her coat, threw it over him and hastily shut the door.

She would have to send the coat to the cleaners, she thought, as another whiff of his odor reached her nose.

"Momma!" one bellowed, flashing gleaming white teeth, one of which was inlaid in gold with the Islamic Star and Crescent. He clenched a weighty, wooden stick. "You seen a little fairy running 'round here?"

"What's he done?" She did not intend to harbor a criminal.

"Ain't done nothin' 'cept get born white." Everybody except her, laughed as she sneaked a furtive glance at the Bandolier. Allah's Praise, the ragamuffin was peeking out the window.

"I heard shouting though," she improvised. "Just as I left the Elijah Mohammed Wing. It sounded like it was coming from behind the auditorium."

"Let's go!" the leader shouted, brandishing his truncheon in the air and pointing it toward the auditorium. "Somebody else must've seen him." The raced away, cursing and shouting.

Margaret instantly got in the Bandolier and ignited the engine. She reached behind her and uncovered the trembling boy, then propelled the craft up about eight feet, allowing it to hover as she tried to collect her thoughts.

"Get up here and strap yourself in," she ordered, cracking a window. The stench was oppressive as he climbed over the seat and sat stonily, looking at her wit sad, unblinking shallow-blue eyes.

"Buckle up," she repeated, securing her own seat belt.

He stared at her, speechless. Realizing that he didn't have the slightest idea what she meant, she leaned over and secured him in the harness, holding her breath as she did. Since fairies were not allowed to own or drive any type of mechanized transportation, how could he know about seat belts?

"Where do you live?" She turned back to the controls, gently raised the Bandolier's nose and pressed down on the accelerator. The sky commuter soared over the tops of the buildings as it picked up speed.

The ragamuffin was staring out the window, mouth drooped in fascination. She shook him. "I'll take you home, where do you live?"

He looked at her queerly, then, "fairytown."

"I know that," she voiced her frustration. "Where in fairytown?"

"The cathedral, I show you. You take me home?"

"Yes," she said wearily. Why are you doing this, girl? she asked herself. If her father found out he would have a stroke. Never mind him, if The Guard caught her she would be arrested. She sighed, thinking of her boyfriend Hakeem and the problems he would incur within The Guard for associating with the likes of her.

She allowed herself a tight smile. Fairies' rights and mistreatment had become her cause célèbre. She guessed she was caught up in an entanglement of her own weaving. Shrugging, she banked the Bandolier north, in the direction of Fairytown.

The ambivalence she had about the young, mesmerized boy sitting beside her was exciting. It was, at the same time very, very scary. She shrugged again, grinned mischievously and leveled the Bandolier out of its bank and applied her foot to the accelerator.