Faerie Wars 01 - Faerie Wars by Herbie Brennan

it's pitch or volume I can rig something. Won't be pretty, but it'll do the job. Now you can do this the hard way or the easy way. You can try running off or flying off or whatever it is you do, but you aren't going to get far. I won't use a fly swatter. That was just a joke -- you're far too valuable. But I can catch you, easy as pie, in a butterfly net and when I do, you're going back into that jar. So what's it to be? You going to be good?'

    The fairy nodded.

    'OK,' Fogarty said. 'This shouldn't take long.'

    The fairy sat down with his back against the jamjar and watched while Fogarty took down an old shoebox from a top shelf. It was full of tangled wiring and dusty electrical components. Fogarty scrabbled through them, laying out bits and pieces on the kitchen table. Henry noticed they included a tiny speaker from an old transistor radio. He found a half-used tube of instant solder and unscrewed the top to inspect it. 'Nobody uses this stuff any more,' he remarked. 'All bloody microchips and circuit boards.'

    Henry watched, fascinated, as Fogarty began to assemble something with the speaker at one end. His old hands were flecked with liver spots but amazingly deft, as if he was well used to intricate machinery.

    Halfway through, the fairy got up and walked across to hand things to Fogarty as he needed them. The little creature appeared to have an instinctive grasp of how the contraption was going to work.

    When the last piece was in place, Fogarty said to Henry, 'See if there's a battery in the drawer under the sink. Nine volt. Little square thing.'

    The drawer seemed to hold nothing but string, but Henry eventually found a battery in the bottom. 'This do?'

    Fogarty was making some finishing touches and barely glanced across. 'Yes, that's the ticket.' He took the battery from Henry and wrapped wires round the terminals. 'Talk into that,' he told the fairy, pointing to a button mike larger than its head.

    The fairy crouched down at the mike, looked at Fogarty, then at Henry. Lips moved and a tinny voice crackled from the speaker. 'You were very rough on that cat.'

    Henry blinked. 'That cat was trying to eat you!' he protested. 'That cat thought you were a butterfly.' All the same he grinned a little. He rather liked cats himself, even great podging cats like Hodge.

    'I could have handled it,' the tinny voice told him.

    'Never mind the cat,' Fogarty cut in. 'We've got more important things to talk about. You can understand what I'm saying to you?'

    'Certainly.'

    'So you speak English?'

    'If that's what you're speaking.'

    'Of course it's what I'm speaking. Where did you learn it?'

    'Didn't have to,' the fairy said.

    Fogarty frowned. 'So it's your native language?'

    'Wouldn't think so,' said the fairy.

    'You trying to be clever with me?' Fogarty asked.

    The fairy gave him a look that would have done justice to a sphinx. 'I don't know why you're going on about the language. You can understand me, I can understand you. I need you to help me.'

    'We're not talking spying here, are we, because -- '

    Henry interrupted, 'Help you how?' Maybe the fairy would do something in return. He kept thinking about his parents. He kept thinking of the three wishes business. But he couldn't ask about three wishes in front of Mr Fogarty. Or talk about his parents.

    'Get back to where I came from.'

    Henry hesitated. 'Like ... Fairyland?'

    'If that's what you call it.'

    'What do you call it?' Fogarty asked aggressively.

    They both saw the fairy shrug. 'I don't call it anything much. The realm, I suppose. Or the world.'

    'But it's not this world?'

    'It's some sort of parallel dimension, right?'

    'Yes.'

    Fogarty looked at Henry. 'Told you. We're dealing with an alien.'

    Henry said, 'What's your name?'

    'Pyrgus,' said the fairy. 'Pyrgus Malvae.'

    Mr Fogarty went back to the language business, which he seemed determined to worry like a bone. Pyrgus the fairy sighed audibly through the little speaker. 'Look,' he said,