Fidget waved her wand and glitter poured all over him. It tingled and even tickled wherever it landed. He tried to brush it off, but that only rubbed it into his skin.
"Yay!" Fidget exclaimed.
"That's your big surprise?" Elliot asked. Whatever the glitter was for, it had come from the Pixies. Which meant he didn't like it, or trust it, even one bit.
Fidget frowned, clearly disappointed that he was not impressed. "Fine. If you don't care about it now, then maybe this will make you care."
His eyes narrowed. "What will make me care?"
She smiled and then aimed her wand at him. "Bye-bye."
With a slight pop, the branch beneath Elliot disappeared, and he found himself hurtling toward the ground. He knew he'd been high up before, but at the speed he was falling, the hard ground was only seconds away.
"Fid...get!" he yelled. "Help me!"
"Help yourself," she said, calmly flying beside him.
"What?"
"Just think about stopping, and you will."
"I can't!"
"Try it."
He flapped his arms and tried to think about stopping. But mostly all he could think about was panicking. And as everyone who has ever panicked before knows, it's not helpful for any kind of thinking.
Elliot looked down and saw the ground rushing up toward him. "Fidget! Help!"
"Think about stopping!" she insisted. "It's really important for you to do that. Right now!"
Elliot shut his eyes and whispered, "Stop, stop, stop," and then he yelled, "Stop!"
And everything stopped.
Elliot peeked with one eye, just to be sure he hadn't splattered onto the ground. Because if he had, he really didn't want to see what he looked like now.
Nope, he was still in one piece, and, oddly, he wasn't on the ground at all. Using both eyes now, he saw that the ground was in fact an inch or two below him. He had stopped in midair.
He blew out a heavy puff of air and landed on his face. Still lying flat on the ground, Elliot said, "Thank you, Fidget."
She landed gently on the ground beside him and sat on a small rock. "I didn't do that," she said. "You totally did it."
He lifted his head to look at her. A leaf was stuck to his forehead, but he left it there. "I did that? How?"
Fidget smiled. "Our gift to you is Pixie magic. You pro
bably won't know how to use most of it, but you'll figure things out as you go. Totally awesome, right?"
"Totally." Elliot sat up and studied his hands. "I've got magic?" To test it, he raised his burned shoulder and thought the words, Fix it.
Answering his magical call, the threads of the shirt regained their color and wove themselves back together. The paste disappeared too, although Elliot noticed his skin was still a little green.
"Cool!" Elliot said.
"Lame," Fidget said. "I just gave you Pixie magic, and you use it to fix a shirt that doesn't even match my dress!"
"Okay. I can do better." Elliot stood and rubbed his hands together. Then he looked around for something bigger to test his magic on. He spotted Fidget's wand and wondered why she needed one and he didn't. Remembering the old cops-and-robbers games he used to play years ago, he closed one eye and pointed a finger at Fidget. "This is a stickup, so drop it!"