“What are you going to do to it?” asked Tinn.
“You’re not shooting it,” said Fable, squaring off between Jim and the front door of the shop. “No guns.”
“Of course I ain’t shooting it.” Old Jim snorted. “Do I look like a crazy person to you, kid?”
“I don’t know,” said Fable soberly. “What does a crazy person look like?”
“Not like me,” said Old Jim. “For example, I am not about to go firing a rifle in the middle of a busy town to try and hit a moving target the size of a golf ball. I do, however, have this trap”—he plopped the wire cage down on the step—“and a secret weapon.” He gave Evie a wink.
Faces peered over shoulders to see the old man’s secret weapon. Evie pulled a dented tin can out of the pocket of her dress. The label read SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK.
“Give it here, kiddo,” said Old Jim.
He handed the rifle to Mr. Zervos, who pointed it cautiously at the dirt while Old Jim got to work. He pulled a penknife from his back pocket and popped open the can, then poured a spoonful of sweetened milk into a shallow metal cup at the back of the trap. He gently positioned the mechanism, and when he was done, he picked the whole thing up with one hand and cracked open the door with the other. He slid the cage inside, ever so gently so as not to trip the spring, and then shut the door with a click.
“And now, we wait.” He peered into the broad picture window. Mr. Zervos and all of the others stared into the window, too. Nothing moved. A muffled clatter issued from somewhere in the back storage room, then all was still again.
“Come on,” whispered Cole. “Let’s go around back and see if we can see anything.” Tinn, Fable, and Evie followed him to the rear of the building. They scooted past the trash bins and clambered up onto the loading dock. There was a single dusty window, and the four of them crowded around it. Evie stepped up on a wooden milk crate to get a better look.
“I don’t see a pixie,” said Cole. “Man. It got flour everywhere, though.”
“Hang on,” said Tinn. “Look at the window.”
“Where do you think we’re looking?” said Cole.
“No, not inside it. I mean look at it. The window frame is all scratched and cracked, and the latch is broken. It looks like somebody broke in.”
“You think this is how the pixie got in there in the first place?” said Evie.
“We don’t even know for sure it’s a pixie,” whispered Fable.
THWAP!
All four of them jumped as a miniature blue woman thudded against the window. She was only about three inches tall, with a wingspan twice as broad. She bonked her shoulder against the window a few times, looking confused and agitated, her delicate wings fluttering like a moth’s, tiny fists pinging uselessly against the glass. And then, as quickly as she had appeared, she was gone again into the depths of the shop.
“Definitely a pixie,” said Fable. “Angry, angry pixie.”
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” Evie nearly tottered backward off of her milk crate.
“She’s stuck in there,” said Cole.
“If she was strong enough to break the frame to get in, then why doesn’t she just bust back out again?” said Tinn.
Fable leaned forward and sniffed the glass. “Guys. I smell pixies all the time. I mean . . . not on purpose—they don’t like it when you smell them on purpose—but I know their scent. This window does not smell like pixies.” She regarded the pixie-shaped imprint the creature had left in the thin layer of flour on the inside of the glass. “At least not on the outside. I imagine the inside probably does now.”
“If she didn’t break in, then someone must have let her in there,” said Cole.
There was a muffled snap, and voices cheered from the front of the building.
The kids vaulted off the loading dock and raced around to the other side of the shop just in time to see Old Jim step out the door with the rattling cage in his hand. The noise coming from the trap was something between the drone of an insect and the piteous mewl of a cat.
“And that, boys and girls,” Old Jim said, “is how you catch a pixie.”
The creature’s wail grew louder and louder until she slammed herself against the wires with a shriek. A boy a few years younger than the twins jumped and fell over backward. Even the adults in the crowd gasped. One woman held tight to the cross hanging from her neck and mumbled a prayer. Mr. Zervos looked pale.
“We hear you, you little pest,” Old Jim said, giving the cage a rattle that sent the pixie stumbling off her feet.
“She’s frightened,” said Fable. “Stop shaking her!”
“Kid, this critter might be small, but she just went through that store like a tornado,” said Old Jim. “She’s no wilting flower. Don’t let that pretty face fool you. She would bite your nose clean off given half a chance. And she wouldn’t feel bad about it. Trust me. She can handle a jiggle.” The pixie snarled at Old Jim, and he chuckled.
“She doesn’t want to bite noses off. She just wants to go home,” said Fable. “Can’t you see that?”
“I know what I’m dealing with,” Old Jim grunted. “I’ve been dealing with nonsense out of that forest my whole life.”
Fable’s lips tightened. All around them, anxious murmurs were making their way through the crowd.
“Did you see its teeth?” someone whispered.
“Lord Almighty.”
“Not so close, Timothy! Stay away from it!”
Jim set the cage down on the step and signaled for Mr. Zervos to hand him his rifle back. “I guess I’ll take our unwanted guest back home with me and decide what to do with her there. I bet my Evie can get some real nice drawings out of—hey!” Old Jim spun around
