The Blue Girl by Charles De Lint

fronting the school and onto the sidewalk running along Grasso Street.
    Why was it that whatever I did was the act of the village idiot?
    “Had your first tiff?”
    Turning, I found Tommery perched on the garbage can across the hall. He lounged like a cat, utterly at ease, as though he’d been there for hours, though I knew there’d been no one on the garbage can a moment ago. There was a big grin on his face, the kind that makes me uneasy around the fairies because I never know if it’s them being friendly, or laughing at me. It’s hard to tell with them. Fairies really are impossible to read. They can laugh at a joke, just like you or I would, but they’ll laugh just as heartily when they’re doing something horribly mean.
    So I did what I always did around them and tried to ignore the uneasy feeling that I was the brunt of some joke rather than in on it.
    “I guess,” I said. “It just bugs me that she won’t believe me about you—that you’re real. It’s so ridiculous. She’s talking to a ghost, but she still can’t accept the idea that fairies exist as well.”
    “Perhaps I could convince her.”
    “I don’t know” I was remembering what Imogene had said when I’d told her about how I’d fallen from the school’s rooftop. “You’re not thinking of teaching her how to fly, are you?”
    Tommery got this serious, sad look.
    “Of course not, Addy. I’d teach her how to see.”
    That was exactly what was needed. Once she saw the fairies with her own eyes, like I had, how could she not accept them?
    “How will you do it?” I asked.
    “It’s a matter of catching her when her minds not so calm. Humans are more open to the hidden world when they’re in a higher emotional state.” I must have looked a little blank. “When they’re very sad,” he went on to explain, “or very happy. Also, when they’ve been drinking or doing drugs— particularly some of the more potent chemical concoctions.”
    I tried to get my head around the idea of fairies talking knowledgeably about drugs—it made me wonder: Were there crack fairies? Heroin hobgoblins?—but Tommery was forever surprising me with the depth of his knowledge concerning the human world.
    “When it comes to your girlfriend  ...” Tommery began.
    “Girlfriend! I wish.”
    “Yes, well, when it comes to her, I’ve never seen a human with such a level emotional state.”
    “She seems animated to me.”
    Tommery nodded. “But there’s no inner turmoil. No cracks in the calmness that magic can slip into.”
    “So what can you do?”
    “Keep an eye on her until the opportunity does appear.”
    “I don’t know if she’ll like being followed around.”
    Tommery smiled. “But she won’t know, will she? She can’t see us.”
    Except I’d know. And I wasn’t sure I liked the idea. I knew for sure that Imogene wouldn’t, considering her remarks about me stalking her. And where would Tommery draw the line? I imagined him checking her out while she was getting undressed or having a shower. Or worse, what if he assigned the job to horny little Quinty?
    “Oh, don’t worry, Addy,” Tommery said, as though he could read my mind. “We’re not going to invade her precious privacy. We have our own lives to live and, trust me, they’re far more appealing than the twenty-four-hour surveillance of any human could be. We’ll simply keep an eye on her, check in on her emotional state from time to time. Perhaps send her a dream or two to get her thinking the right way.”
    “What about the stuff that Oshtin was saying?” I asked. “He told me that this sight business is something that comes to you naturally, or it’s a gift that needs to be earned. How does that fit in with what you’re planning to do?”
    “Both are true. But the ability for us to be seen by humans is also discretionary.”
    That took me a moment to work through.
    “So you can just appear to her if you want to?” I asked. Tommery nodded. “But it’s better that she