When I got home, there was jam in my bed. The door had been locked and, in any case, none of my roommates were the type for this.
The fairy was clearly back. Well, if all else failed, I still had the water pistol with iron filings in it. Hrm. Maybe I could put iron stuff at my door and window as a deterrent. Well, the door. The window had iron bars, so the fairy hadn’t come in that way.

Move the bed closer to the window? Nah. It would just think of something else. I removed the dirty sheets and replaced them with my spare set, glad I had the luxury of such a thing. They went in the laundry basket before I wondered who’s jam it was.

Crap.

I hadn’t left any in the kitchen myself. If the beastie started involving other people I was going to use that gun for sure. For right now, I positioned the gun next to my school books. A clear warning. Don’t mess with the books.

Then I went to investigate the kitchen and see who’s jam it had stolen.

Kanesha’s, of course. Well, that was a relief. Kanesha, I could tell the truth to. She’d be annoyed, but she’d laugh it off, ultimately. The rest of the girls I wasn’t so sure of.

Okay. Time to warn Kanesha. I sent her a quick text telling her we had a practical joker around and she was in its sights, I’d tell her more face to face, then decided I wanted to be anywhere but here. Screw my homework.

Anywhere but here, and I wandered the streets aimlessly for a bit. I knew I’d have to be back by curfew, but for right now I had nothing to do and no place to be. Well, nothing to do but think up pranks. This time I wasn’t going to accept help from Otter.

This time I was going to think up a good one all by myself, but I didn’t know enough about what might annoy fairies. Then I thought of one. Fairies supposedly liked milk, right?

I went and bought a small bottle of the horrible soy dairy substitute I’d once accidentally put on my cereal and headed back. I set it out as an appeasement offering – we didn’t have a cat in the house.

I was pretty sure the fairy would yech at the taste of that vile stuff just as much as I did. Satisfied, I ducked out again, this time rather more purposefully. I sometimes wished I could work every night just so I’d have stuff to do, but right now I headed closer to downtown, watching the people move. Rich people, many of them. Some in suits, some more casually. Sometimes the richest people were the ones in jeans and t-shirts. They had nothing to prove.

I had nothing to prove, and did my best to radiate that attitude, stopping to look in windows. Clothes I could never afford. I wondered what it would be like to have that kind of money.

I thought about the modeling thing again. Maybe I should try it. What was the worst thing that could happen? I wasted a bunch of time on auditions, that was the worst thing. But Thea wasn’t the one to talk to about it. I didn’t want to be in that scene.

Okay, so what did I want to do? Other than make money, which was a fair motivation. And I suddenly knew who would have some ideas.

Except that I didn’t have Prue’s phone number. But as fashion-following as she was, she might know something. I stored that up in my head for school the next day and stopped, staring down the street.

Just watching for trouble, I told myself, but it worried me more that I found none.