“Erin Rodger-Dodger and Fetid Feta. Erin Rodger-Dodger and Fetid Feta. Erin Rodger-Dodger and Fetid Feta, I call you to come to me!”
“You named your baby after me!” Erin cried as she spun in a circle on her toe, right on the armrest of the rocking chair.
Laddin jerked, jostling the baby, who let out a cry of dismay. “It’s okay, baby! You’re going to have a wonderful life of magic!” Erin said as she pulled off her fairy hat and set it on Aaron’s forehead. It slid right off. It was the size of a thumbnail, but that was okay because she caught it and put it back on her head.
Meanwhile, Fetid Feta appeared next to the bathroom, crossed his large arms, and glared at everyone in the room. “I should have a baby named after me! I’m the biggest!”
“We didn’t—” Bruce protested, but Wulfric cut him off.
“Don’t go there.”
Right. “I need to ask you two some questions.”
“Will it get us to Fairyland?” Feta asked.
“I don’t know.” That was a true statement. He focused on his first question. “Why do you appear like that? Like cheese?” he asked Feta.
“It was because of the man like you. The one who created the demon.”
It took a moment for Bruce to follow that, but Laddin was already there. “The one who created the demon? You mean the one who wrote the short story that started this whole thing?”
Feta nodded. “He was like you.” He pointed at Bruce. “He had a lot of magic, and he liked cheese.”
“Like me?” Bruce asked. “He ate a fairy fruit?”
“So he could have a baby.”
“Named after me!” Erin said as she spun around.
“Why do the cheese fairies play Angry Birds, then? Back when you first met Laddin at the tree?” They’d gone over every detail of the past few days, and that was a question he’d asked yesterday too.
“Because everyone likes Angry Birds!” Erin said. Then she launched into the air as if she’d been thrown from a slingshot and crashed on Feta’s chest. He tumbled backward into the bathroom and they rolled around like in the game.
“Can’t argue with that,” Wulfric said. “I love that game.”
So did Bruce, but he didn’t have time to talk about video games. “But can you change your appearance? Can you look like something else?”
Erin sat up. “Why would we want to?”
“To get into Fairyland.” Bruce pointed at Aaron. “Can you look like our baby?”
Both pixies stared at him for a moment. Then, abruptly, there were two more infants in the room—one the size of a handspan on the floor, the other nearly six foot tall as he lay half in and half out of the bathroom.
“No, no!” Bruce said as he jumped onto the bed to avoid getting kicked by Feta. “One baby, and exactly the same size.”
Feta abruptly shrank down to the appropriate size, but Erin sat up as her regular self. “How will this get us into Fairyland?”
“I saw the cheese fairies combine, then split apart. I’ve seen them blow up and then reform. Hell, your guys went through my GI tract and came out as sparkly farts.”
Feta grinned and his baby face said, “That was fun!”
Yeah. For them. “I am going to give a baby to the fairy prince. If you can meld into one baby that looks exactly like Aaron, then I will give you to him and he will take you to Fairy Fairyland.”
Feta and Erin looked at each other, appearing to think hard. Meanwhile, Wulfric rubbed his hand over his face. “You would have to be an exact replica. You would have to feel magically like Aaron, not just look like him. And you would have to help us hide the real baby.”
Bruce turned to Wulfric. “Could you help with that? Would the prince be able to see our child beneath your fairy glamour?”
“If he sees me, he can see the child.”
“But he doesn’t have to see you, right?”
Wulfric nodded. “I will hide your child. Mother can help with that, but this is really risky. If the prince finds out, he will come back for you.”
“And he will find out,” Laddin said. “The pixies can’t keep up the charade forever.”
Everyone looked at the two fairies who were slowly moving toward each other. Feta rolled over, his baby body aging to the size of a six-month- old. Erin dashed forward and back, as if she wanted to do it but then changed her mind.
“Is there a way to end the contract? To declare it done, with no one able to take retribution after it’s over?”
“Maybe,” Wulfric said, but he didn’t look happy about it. “They’ll add ‘the Deceiver’ at the end of your name. It’ll end your dealings with the fairies once and for all. They won’t work with you again.” Bruce guessed that was what they’d done to Wulfric.
“I don’t care,” Laddin said emphatically. “I’ll be happy if I never see them again.”
“That’s mean!” Erin and Feta said together.
“I don’t mean you!” he rushed to say, though from the look on his face, he absolutely did. “Besides, you’ll be in Fairy Fairyland like you want, right?”
“Fairyland,” they both said together, in the same tone they’d use for Nirvana or heaven or triple fudge chocolate cake with sprinkles.
“So?” Bruce pressed the fairies. “Can you do it? Can you merge together to make a baby?”
Erin poked out her lips. “I can do it. You don’t need him.”
“I can do it,” Feta said. It was weird hearing Feta’s voice coming out of a kid. “You don’t need her.”
And right there, he saw the sticking point. Back when they’d first met, the cheese fairies had been fighting with Erin’s fairies. They each believed that the other was preventing them from getting to Fairyland. It wasn’t true, but they’d believed it. And so now they didn’t like each other enough to go together.
Bruce crossed his arms and put on his sternest paternal voice. “You do this together or not at all. Smoked Gouda said that I was
