The Fairy Godmother Part 48

“Did you enjoy your lunch?” I asked Enid as she walked out of the canteen.

“As always the canteen puts on a good spread,” Enid replied.

“Despite your efforts,” said Violet.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Enid replied, doing her best to sound like the injured party.

“You don’t know enough about modern technology to hide your tracks,” said Violet.

“How dare you check through my phone records,” Enid blustered.

“So, it’s all on your phone records,” said one of the Council Officials, taking the phone before Enid could try to either loose it or delete the records.

“How could you do this to me!” shouted Enid.

“If you would come with me,” said the Council Official.

“Do you know who you are talking to?” Enid snapped at him.

“The currant Head of the Fairy Council,” the Official replied.

“The currant,” I smiled. “He’s got your number there.”

“You shall regret this day,” Enid said to him.

“Not nearly as much as you will regret threatening me,” the Official replied, handcuffing Enid and escorting her off to the Head of Security.

“I don’t suppose we’ve heard the last of this,” I said.

“No, but at least she shouldn’t be able to do anything else today,” said Violet. “Not without her phone.”

“She wont’ be as lost without it as most,” I warned Violet.

“I know,” Violet said, looking somewhat worried. “We need to find out what she has on her computer, that may give some clues.”

“Ethel may be able to help us with that,” I said. “She is the go to person as far as computers go and Enid is more likely to ask her than try and work it out for herself.”

“I’ll give her a ring,” said Violet, pulling our her mobile phone. “She’s not answering my calls,” Violet muttered after a couple of minutes trying.”

“She could be busy,” I said.

“This is not a busy signal, this is a I don’t want to talk to you tone,” said Violet holding up her phone for me to listen to.

“She’ll talk to me,” I said, ringing Ethel on my phone, but I got the same tone as Violet. I waved my wand and we were standing next to Ethel, she had just finished getting dressed and was about to start work for the day.

“Couldn’t you have rung first!” snapped Ethel, jumping at least two feet in the air.

“That may have been what we were doing,” I replied. “But you rejected our calls.”

“I didn’t think you would do this,” said Ethel, looking round as if she should be doing something, but didn’t know what.

“You always answer your calls,” I replied. “You may have been hurt or something.”

“I,” Ethel stuttered, looking from me to Violet.

“We wanted to know what Enid has been up to,” said Violet.

“Why would I know?” asked Ethel. “She doesn’t confide in me.”

“No,” I said. “But if she wants any help with her computer you are the first stop. So I want to know what she’s been trying to do.”

“What time frame are we talking about?” asked Ethel, sounding somewhat cagey, I looked at Violet.

“Lets start with the last week,” said Violet.

“I’ve got work to do,” said Ethel looking at her laptop and then at the door. Violet picked the laptop up.

“Please, don’t take that!” Ethel wailed.

“Then answer our questions,” I replied.

“Enid said that if I didn’t help her I would regret it,” said Ethel, her gaze not moving from the laptop.

“Enid has been arrested by the Court Officials,” I told her.

“But she is the Head of the Fairy Council, they can’t do that,” Ethel replied.

“They know exactly who she is and that no one is above the law,” said Violet. “And they also know who she would go to for computer help.” Ethel wailed loudly and sat down on the floor with a bump.

“You’ll hurt yourself doing things like that,” I said pulling her back to her feet.

“I told her it wasn’t a good idea,” Ethel sobbed. “But she wouldn’t have any of it.”

“I think you need to come with us to the Court Officials,” I said.

“But,” Ethel replied sobbing even more.

“If they have to come for you, then it will be harder for you,” said Violet. “We know that you were just doing what she told you to do, but they wont think that, they will think that you were plotting with Enid.”

“Nobody works with Enid, well, apart from you,” she added looking at me. “The rest of us just do as we are told.”

“So what is it she was planning to do?” I asked.

“She thought that if you did the job long enough, you would forget the idea of it being temporary and take on the job full time,” said Ethel.

“So why all this sabotage?” asked Violet.

“When you said you wanted to be Head of the Fairy Godmothers,” said Ethel. “She decided that the best thing to do would be to make you look stupid, prove that you couldn’t do the job, that the Fairy Godmother was the only one who could do it.”

“Instead Enid proved the opposite,” I said. “Because everything that has been throw at her, she’s found a solution to.”

“Enid was quite proud of the solution to the laundry,” said Ethel. “She admired the fact that you anticipated the problem and set the solution in place. She also liked the discount you negotiated, though I doubt she’ll ever admit to that.”

“What about the solution to the canteen?” I asked.

“She hasn’t got back to me on that one,” said Ethel.

“Probably because the Court Officials arrested her,” I said.

“A more important question is, what was she planning next?” said Violet.

“She said I wasn’t to tell anyone,” said Ethel.

“Enid is in deep trouble now,” I explained to Ethel. “We need to know what she has planned so that we can stop it, because if anything else does happen she is going to be in even worse trouble. What she has done so far could be explained away, misunderstandings, delayed reaction to her sister’s death that sort of thing. We could get her out of this on the condition that she stops trying to sabotage Violet becoming Head of the Fairy Godmothers, anything else and it will have gone too far.”

“I promised,” said Ethel looking really unhappy.

“Can you prevent what Enid planed from happening?” asked Violet.

“Yes,” said Ethel.

“Will you?” I asked.

“If it will help Enid,” Ethel replied.

“Then do so,” I said, trying to be patient.

“Enid will be very angry with me,” Ethel.

“Well,” said Violet. “Don’t do it and with luck you may get to share a prison cell and you can spend all your time discussing whether you did the right thing.”

Ethel burst into floods of tears.

“Thanks,” I muttered fishing a box of tissues from thin air and handing them over to Ethel.

“So, do you want to go to jail or not?” asked Violet.

“No,” said Ethel.

“So?” said Violet.

“Will this take long?” I asked as Ethel pressed the button to start the machine.

“No, it only takes a couple of minutes to fire up,” said Ethel.

“I meant will it take long to stop whatever it is that Enid had planned?” I said, trying hard to keep control.

“No,” said Ethel. “I just need to delete this program,” she added pressing a button. The computer asked if she was sure and she pressed the button that said “Yes”.

“So, it’s done?” asked Violet. “All the other things she had planned wont happen.”

“Yes,” said Ethel.

“And there is no way she can start them up again, get them to happen on another day?” I asked.

“You might be able to, but there is no way that she would be able to,” Ethel assured us. “She doesn’t have the computer skills.”

“And you wont tell her how to?” Violet asked. “We can protect you from her, if you think it’s necessary.”

“I wont tell her,” said Ethel. “Not unless you tell me to.”

“That’s OK by me,” I said, looking at Violet.

“It’s OK by me,” said Violet.

“I suppose we’d better get Enid out of the mess she’s gotten herself into,” I sighed.

“Not that she’ll be grateful,” said Violet.

“She doesn’t know the meaning of the word,” I replied.

“Please,” said Ethel. “I will be grateful.”

I waved my wand and we vanished.

By Janice Nye © 2020