The Key Read Free Page B

lit on Dietmar’s huge petals and began to pick at the seeds.
    â€œHey, hey, get out of here!” Jarrah waved them off, but they retreated only as far as a low tree branch and from there kept a close eye on Dietmar’s sunflower seeds.
    â€œYou tell the tale, Connie—you tell it best.” Frank indicated one of the female fairies, a dark-haired, dark-eyed, tiny little beauty in a deep-green formfitting outfit.
    â€œHow do you suppose MacGuffin came to be called Blisterthöng?” Connie asked rhetorically in an enchanting fairy voice. She kind of writhed or danced as she spoke. It was a sort of dramatic interpretation: she used sweeping hand gestures, and sometimes lowered her head in sadness, or threw open her arms to show joy. “For many long years after the Romans left, and after the druids faded, and as the new faith was coming to Scotland, the fairies lived in peace. We are a peaceable folk. No fairy has ever raised a hand in violence against another!” She made a very dramatic upraised-fist move on that last line.
    Mack nodded thoughtfully because that seemed like the thing to do.
    â€œExcept for the Seventeen Year War,” Pete the fairy interjected.
    â€œAnd the War of the Sweltering Cave,” Julia added helpfully. “And the Rabid Peace of Kilcannon’s Bluff.”
    â€œWith those few exceptions, no fairy had ever raised a hand in violence against another,” Connie reiterated, again with the upraised fist of forcefulness. “Unless you’re going to count the Battle of the Pretenders.”
    â€œOr the Flaming Disagreement,” Frank said.
    â€œOr the Pantsing of Fain’s Firth.”
    â€œOr the Castle-Whacking Unpleasantness.”
    â€œOr O’Toole’s Tools of Terror.”
    â€œOr the War of the Noses.”
    They went on like this for quite a while. And Mack began to wonder if the fairies were exaggerating their peacefulness.
    â€œOr the Frightful Fruit Fight.” 5
    â€œOr Little Dora’s Comeuppance.”
    Finally, after about ten minutes, they ran out of wars, skirmishes, misunderstandings, slaughters, backstabbings, and murdering peaces, and Connie got back to her main theme, which was, “Aside from those few 6 minor matters, no fairy has ever raised a hand in violence against another.”
    Fist for emphasis.
    â€œUntil …,” Frank interjected with great drama and a dramatic flourish of his wand.
    â€œUntil William MacGuffin stole the Key and used it to take sides with the fairies of clan Gorse against clan Begonia.”
    A strangled sound—much like a high-pitched human voice coming from inside a flower—came from the giant sunflower. Lacking lips, tongue, or teeth, Dietmar had a hard time expressing himself clearly, but it was something like, “See! I told you so. Those are flower names!”
    Mack ignored him and waited for Connie to finish her story.
    The crows looked speculatively, wondering if they could make a quick in-and-out dash. Some seeds, maybe a little eyeball …
    â€œMacGuffin wanted gold, and as you know, fairies have plenty of it,” Connie said. “So for thirty pieces of gold MacGuffin gave the Gorse King new and more dangerous Vargran curses. Curses that gave the Gorse King power over the Begonias and our beloved All-Mother.”
    â€œIs there any way we can hurry this along?” Jarrah complained. “I’m beginning to regret we didn’t eat those ice-cream bars ourselves.”
    â€œMacGuffin helped the Gorse to formulate a terrible, terrible curse.” Connie made an interesting move here, jabbing her hands forward away from her mouth, like stabbing finger-tongues. “It was a curse that caused a hideous rash in the form of rose thorns to grow in the sensitive parts of a fairy body.”
    â€œYeesh,” Mack said, and winced.
    â€œAh,” Xiao said, nodding her head almost as smugly as Dietmar sometimes did. “Hence