Chapter 2:

Now that there were no more demon materializations, Section 8 now took on missions too complex for the LEP. Holly listened to Foaly, anxious to be on another mission. As she heard more and more information, she started to get worried.

A recent phone call had contained some People-related words. Only two, but the two were worrying ones.

Since Artemis Fowl had been involved with the LEP in recent years, even acquiring some magic of his own, (though that was all gone, Holly wrongly reasoned) Foaly had added his name to the list of words that would be alerted to the LEP if ever they were spoken on the telephone. In order to cut down the amount of false alarms, Foaly had fixed it so that the words “Artemis Fowl” would only be red-flagged if another People-related word was spoken.

“There are only two red-flagged words,” Foaly said.

“If there are only two words, why is it so urgent?” Holly asked, rightly confused.

“It is so urgent, dear Holly, because the two words are Artemis Fowl and magic. You can probably guess the sentence they were in.” Holly suddenly looked worried, and gave a slight nod to signal Foaly to continue his lecture.

“The other worrying part was the caller, someone we’ve heard of,” Foaly looked at Holly to see if he had her attention; he did, every molecule of it. “The caller,” he continued, “was Nikolas Vassikin.”

Holly paled. “Is he related to the Vassikin that kidnapped Artemis’ father?!”

“Unfortunately, yes. But how would he know what happened in the time tunnel? Holly, I need you to go to the surface and find out. You should go to Fowl Manor first and ask Artemis if he knows anything about it; I think Vassikin might go to Artemis’s school. There’s a flare coming up in five minutes,” Foaly finished his instructions.

“Okay,” Holly said, “I’m on it.” She grabbed a pair of wings and her bag, put the wings in the bag and left the Operations Booth.Holly showed her Section 8 pass and got on board a shuttle to Tara. When she got to the surface, she strapped on her wings and rose to an altitude of 200 feet. It wasn’t that high, but there weren’t any skyscrapers around, and she was far from the path of any airplane, so it didn’t matter.

Holly heard her ring phone ring. Why would Artemis be calling her? she thought. She shrugged and answered the call.

“Hi, Artemis. Why are you calling?” 

“I was wondering if you’d pretend to be my sibling for a day. You see, my school is having a Sibling Day, and I have to do it. I can only invite one sibling, so Myles and Beckett would go crazy. They think that whatever one of them gets, the other twin has to get it, too. Besides, they are no where near as smart as I was at their age. They would embarress me.”                                                                

Holly was surprised, at both Artemis’s long speech and his preposition. “Normally I would say no, as you very well know, but I accept, just this once.”           

“Why?” asked Artemis, surprised at the fact that Holly had actually said yes. “You wouldn’t do something like this without a reason.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t. Actually, Foaly sent me to Fowl Manor to gather information on someone. Apparently he goes to your school. I be there in five minutes, I’ll tell you more about it then. Bye for now,” Holly  said, then hung up.

200 feet down from Holly, Artemis had a sinking feeling who she was talking about.

Five minutes later Holly was hovering over Fowl Manor. She scanned the grounds, knowing Artemis well enough to know that he would probably know to wait outside with her. He was sitting by a fountain, nose buried deep in a very thick book. Holly, against regulations, dived down to meet him.

She tapped  Artemis on the shoulder, still shielded, and said, “Are you so involved in your book that you don’t have time to save the world?” Artemis looked up, startled. “I’m joking!” Holly sobered and added, “Well, I’m joking for now, but if this gets out of hand, we may very well have to.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to the ’saving the world’ situation,” complained Artemis. “I’m having a hard enough time trying to convince my parents that I had gone on a search for a lost painting and that fairies don’t exist.” He looked at Holly hopefully. “After we’re done here could you help me?”

“You mean mesmer them? I don’t know, it’s probably against regulations….” Holly hid behind a bush, unshielded, and looked Artemis straight in the eye and asked, “But I thought you stole magic in the time tunnel?”

“Since I got it illegally, I feel guilty using it for the mesmer. If you think I could mesmerize my parents legally, I will. What do you think?”

“Could Artemis Fowl actually have a conscience???” Holly asked sarcastically, connecting her helmet mike to Foaly (and turning on intercom). “Foaly! Breaking news! Artemis Fowl has a conscience! I wonder why it took him so long?”

Foaly, faking disbelief, said, “It can’t be! Let’s see, he saved his father, helped to stop the goblin revolution, recovred stolen fairy technology, (though Artemis stole it in the first place, so that doesn’t really count) foiled Opal’s plot for revenge, and saved the People from exposure, and saved the demons. How can he actually have a conscience?”

“He did kidnap me,” Holly grumbled jokingly, “It doesn’t take a conscience to do that.” 

“I’ve apologized dozens of times for the kidnapping! I’ve learned my lesson!” Artemis protested.                

“Okay, okay, you’re worthy of a conscience. Let’s solve the problem of you’re parents later. We need to concentrate on the main problem first,” Holly reminded him.

Artemis’s genius kicked in. “I think that we can kill two stinkworms with one stone,” started Artemis, but then Foaly butted in.

“Two stinkworms? What’s the second problem?”

“Artemis asked if I could do him a favor, and I agreed…It might help with my mission, because it’s at Artemis’s school, where Nikolas Vassikin goes.” Foaly nodded.

Artemis continued, “Don’t ridicule me for what I’m asking Holly to do, Foaly. It might actually help Holly with her mission. I asked her to pretend to be my sibling for one day. My school is having a Sibling Day, and Myles and Beckett would embarress me. Holly might too, of course, but only if she wanted to.”

Holly’s face cracked into a mischevious grin. “You just gave me an idea, Mud Boy.”

“Now, Holly, shield and follow me. You might want to turn on the camera for Foaly, I think he might enjoy this.”

“Where are we going?” Holly asked, a bit apprehensively.

“Well, a cute little three-year-old wouldn’t be wearing a black jumpsuit and helmet, would she? We’re going shopping.” Artemis saw the look of horror on Holly’s face, and his mouth twitched in a small smile. He went inside to find Butler. 

Holly shielded and started her wings, silently rising from the bush. She could hear Foaly say to himself, (loud enough for Holly to hear the glee in his voice) “Artemis was right. I am going to enjoy this.”

                 Holly flew to the doors of Fowl Manor to wait for Artemis and Butler. Annoyed at the prospect of having to dress as a little girl, she grumbled, “Of course Artemis is right. What else is new?” 

Some other stories by EvilOpal:

• If We Were a Movie
• Happy New Year! Here's a Present!
• There Were Such Things As Monsters
• Memory
• The Second Midnight (Challenge Entry)

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