Carnival Chaos
Page 4
Sparkle and Twinkle ran side by side, closer and closer to catching Glitter. Sparkle put her head down, racing as fast as her powerful Golden Retriever paws would take her … until she heard a yelp up ahead. She looked up just in time to see a shadowy figure leap out from behind the crab apple tree!
Glitter, Sparkle, and Twinkle all skidded to a stop, so scared they could hardly bark. Sparkle covered her eyes with one paw.
“Gotcha!” cried a familiar voice.
Sparkle opened her eyes to see the grinning face of a Yorkshire Terrier with a purple horn. “Flash!” she barked. “You scared us out of our fur!” Twinkle grumbled in agreement, and Glitter giggled.
“Sorry!” Flash said, dashing circles around her friends. “When I saw you racing, I just couldn’t help surprising you at the finish line. You should have seen the looks on your snouts!” She leaped into the air. “Plus, I have some puptastic news!”
Sparkle’s ears perked up. She could never stay mad at her mischievous friend for long. “What kind of news?”
Twinkle rolled her eyes, polishing her silvery blue horn with one paw. “This had better not be like that time she said she had a special surprise, and then made us watch for an hour while she moved a bone across the table.”
“That was ter-ruff-ically impressive!” Glitter protested, grinning at Flash. “It was the first time she’d moved anything using just her magic powers.”
They had all played around with their powers a bit—Glitter tried to create a rainbow, and Twinkle once tried to turn her little brother into a toad—but they were just pups, so they hadn’t learned anything official. They wouldn’t really begin mastering their powers until they had their Enchanted Jubilee, a big ceremony to celebrate that they were ready to start using their magic.
Flash’s excited smile grew even bigger. “This is way better than that time!”
“You always say that,” Twinkle said.
“Hear me out,” Flash went on, taking a seat near the trunk of the blooming crab apple tree. The other pups gathered under the canopy of purple flowers, too. “I was just walking through the market—well, I wasn’t walking, it was more like running, because if my mom spotted me she would have made me help with—”
Sparkle cleared her throat.
“Right,” Flash said. “Anyway, when I went by the fountain in the center of the square, I noticed Mrs. Horne talking to some of the other grown-ups. So I tried to be super sneaky. I walked really close to them so I could hear what they were barking about.”
“You were eavesdropping?” Glitter asked, her eyes wide.
Flash thought for a minute. “Maybe,” she said. “But I can’t really help it if I was in the right place at the right time. And that’s beside the point! I heard Mrs. Horne mention the Enchanted Jubilee.”
Sparkle, Twinkle, and Glitter were suddenly all ears. Mrs. Horne was the respected Husky in charge of planning the jubilee for all of the young Cutiecorns. Was this the news they’d been waiting for?
“Did you hear any details?” Sparkle asked, feeling her belly flip-flop with excitement.
Flash jumped to her paws. She couldn’t contain herself anymore. “She said the Enchanted Jubilee would be held on Friday! That’s just three days away!”
Shannon Penney doesn’t have any magical powers, but she has ter-ruff-ic fun writing about them! If she were a Cutiecorn, she’d have a turquoise horn and the ability to turn everything to ice cream. For now, she’ll settle for the ice and snow of New Hampshire, where she writes, edits, and goes on adventures with her husband, two kids, and two non-magical cats.
Heart of Gold
Purrfect Pranksters
Rainy Day Rescue
Carnival Chaos
Text copyright © 2021 by Shannon Decker
Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Addy Rivera Sonda
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First printing 2021
Cover design by Jennifer Rinaldi
Cover art by Addy Rivera Sonda © 2020 Scholastic Inc.
e-ISBN 978-1-338-61277-6
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