Tessa's Lost and Found

by Ahmet Zappa

  Ozziefruit: Sweet plum-sized indigo fruit that grows on pink-leaved trees and is usually eaten raw or cooked in pies.

  Power Crystal: The powerful stone each Star Darling receives once she has granted her first wish.

  Quax: A unit of measurement used in cooking, similar to a cup.

  Radiant Recreation Center: The building at Starling Academy where students take Physical Energy, health, and fitness classes. The rec center has a large gymnasium for exercising, a running track, areas for games, and a sparkling star-pool.

  Serenity Islands: A Starland recreation area. Starlings sometimes take paddleboat rides around it.

  Shimmer-butter: A delectable creamy spread that is often used on baked goods.

  Solar Springs: Tessa and Gemma’s hometown. A hilly and rural small town with few businesses and far-flung farms and ranches.

  Shooting stars: Speeding stars that Starlings can latch on to and ride to Wishworld.

  Sparkleberries: A Starland fruit that is used in baking and often included as an ingredient in comet cakes.

  Sparkle shower: An energy shower Starlings take every day to get clean and refresh their sparkling glow.

  Sparklesugar: An ingredient used to sweeten baked goods.

  Starapple: A large crunchy and sweet Starland fruit that grows on Tessa and Gemma’s farm.

  Star ball: An intramural sport that shares similarities with soccer on Wishworld, but star ball players use energy manipulation to control the ball.

  Starberries: Bright red berries that grow on Starland and are used to create the tails on comet cakes.

  Starcar: The primary mode of transportation for most Starlings. These ultrasafe vehicles drive themselves on cushions of wish energy.

  Star Caves: The caverns underneath Starling Academy where the Star Darlings’ secret Wish-Cavern is located.

  Starf!: A Starling expression of dismay.

  Star flash: News bulletin, often used sarcastically.

  Star Kindness Day: A special Starland holiday that celebrates spreading kindness, compliments, and good cheer.

  Starland City: The largest city on Starland, also its capital.

  Starlicious: Tasty, delicious.

  Starlings: The glowing beings with sparkly skin who live on Starland.

  Star Quad: The center of the Starling Academy campus. The dancing fountain, band shell, and hedge maze are located here.

  Star sack: A Starland tote bag. This container starts about the size of a lunch bag, but it expands to hold whatever is stored inside.

  Star salutations: The Starling way to say “thank you.”

  Staryear: A time period on Starland, the equivalent of a Wishworld year.

  Star-Zap: The ultimate smartphone that Starlings use for all communications. It has myriad features.

  Stellation: The point of a star. Halo Hall has five stellations, each housing a different department.

  Sunflour: A baking ingredient made from ground-up plants. It is a basic ingredient of cakes and breads.

  Supernova: A stellar explosion. Also used colloquially, meaning “really angry,” as in “She went supernova when she found out the bad news.”

  Time of Letting Go: One of the four seasons on Starland. It falls between the warmest season and the coldest, similar to fall on Wishworld.

  Time of Lumiere: The warmest season on Starland, similar to summer on Wishworld.

  Time of New Beginnings: Similar to spring on Wishworld, this is the season that follows the coldest time of year; it’s when plants and trees come into bloom.

  Time of Shadows: The coldest season of the year on Starland, similar to winter on Wishworld.

  Toothlight: A high-tech gadget Starlings use to clean their teeth.

  Twinkelopes: Majestic herd animals. Males have imposing antlers with star-shaped horns, and females have iridescent manes and flowing tails.

  Vertessema: Tessa’s Wish Blossom. A wheel-shaped flower made of golden stars.

  Wish Blossom: The bloom that appears from a Wish Orb after its wish is granted.

  Wish energy: The positive energy that is released when a wish is granted. Wish energy powers everything on Starland.

  Wisher: The Wishling who has made the wish that is being granted.

  Wish-Granters: Starlings whose job is to travel down to Wishworld to help make wishes come true and collect wish energy.

  Wish-House: The place where Wish Orbs are planted and cared for until they sparkle. Once the orb’s wish is granted, it becomes a Wish Blossom.

  Wishlings: The inhabitants of Wishworld.

  Wish Mission: The task a Starling undertakes when she travels to Wishworld to help grant a wish.

  Wish Orb: The form a wish takes on Wishworld before traveling to Starland. There it will grow and sparkle when it’s time to grant the wish.

  Wish Pendant: A gadget that absorbs and transports wish energy, helps Starlings locate their Wishers, and changes a Starling’s appearance. Each Wish Pendant holds a different special power for its Star Darling.

  Wishworld: The planet Starland relies on for wish energy. The beings on Wishworld know it by another name—Earth.

  Wishworld Outfit Selector: A program on each Star-Zap that accesses Wishworld fashions for Starlings to wear to blend in on their Wish Missions.

  Wishworld Surveillance Deck: A platform located high above the campus, where Starling Academy students go to observe Wishlings through high-powered telescopes.

  Zing: A traditional Starling breakfast drink. It can be enjoyed hot or iced.

  Zingspoon: A small unit of measurement often used when baking, roughly equivalent to a Wishworld teaspoon.

  It is impossible to list all of our gratitude, but we will try.

  Our most precious gift and greatest teacher, Halo; we love you more than there are stars in the sky…punashaku. To the rest of our crazy, awesome, unique tribe—thank you for teaching us to go for our dreams. Integrity. Strength. Love. Foundation. Family. Grateful. Mimi Muldoon—from your star doodling to naming our Star Darlings, your artistry, unconditional love, and inspiration is infinite. Didi Muldoon—your belief and support in us is only matched by your fierce protection and massive-hearted guidance. Gail. Queen G. Your business sense and witchy wisdom are legendary. Frank—you are missed and we know you are watching over us all. Along with Tutu, Nana, and Deda, who are always present, gently guiding us in spirit. To our colorful, totally genius, and bananas siblings—Patrick, Moon, Diva, and Dweezil—there is more creativity and humor in those four names than most people experience in a lifetime. Blessed. To our magical nieces—Mathilda, Zola, Ceylon, and Mia—the Star Darlings adore you and so do we. Our witchy cuzzie fairy godmothers—Ane and Gina. Our fairy fashion godfather, Paris. Our sweet Panay. Teeta and Freddy—we love you all so much. And our four-legged fur babies—Sandwich, Luna, Figgy, and Pinky Star.

  The incredible Barry Waldo, our SD partner. Sent to us from above in perfect timing. Your expertise and friendship are beyond words. We love you and Gary to the moon and back. Long live the manifestation room!

  Catherine Daly—the stars shined brightly upon us the day we aligned with you. Your talent and inspiration are otherworldly; our appreciation cannot be expressed in words. Many heartfelt hugs for you and the adorable Oonagh.

  To our beloved Disney family. Thank you for believing in us. Wendy Lefkon, our master guide and friend through this entire journey. Stephanie Lurie, for being the first to believe in Star Darlings. Suzanne Murphy, who helped every step of the way. Jeanne Mosure, we fell in love with you the first time we met, and Star Darlings wouldn’t be what it is without you. Andrew Sugerman, thank you so much for all your support.

  Our team…Devon (pony pants) and our Monsterfoot crew—so grateful. Richard Scheltinga—our angel and protector. Chris Abramson—thank you! Special appreciation to Richard Thompson, John LaViolette, Swanna, Mario, and Sam.

  To our friends old and new—we are so grateful to be on this rad journey that is life with you all. Fay. Jorja. Chandra. Sana
nda. Sandy. Kathryn. Louise. What wisdom and strength you share. Ruth, Mike, and the rest of our magical Wagon Wheel bunch—how lucky we are. How inspiring you are. We love you.

  Last—we have immeasurable gratitude for every person we’ve met along our journey, for all the good and the bad; it is all a gift. From the bottom of our hearts we thank you for touching our lives.

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at Star Darlings: Adora Finds a Friend!

  “Mmmmmm, hmmmm, mmmm, hmmmm.” Adora hummed tunelessly, alone in her dorm room.

  It felt nice to have the room all to herself. Still, it was a little strange that Tessa, her roommate, wasn’t there.

  The two had just come back from a Wish Mission. It was Tessa’s mission; Adora had yet to be chosen for her own mission to Wishworld. But Adora had been sent to help when the situation looked dim. Of course, she’d quickly put in her two starcents. Really, Tessa had been so caught up in her Wisher’s emotions that she couldn’t see the orchard for the ozziefruit trees. Luckily, Adora had set her straight. So, thank the stars, the trip had been successful and really quite exciting.

  After the SD ceremony, where Tessa had gotten her Power Crystal, Adora had expected her to come straight back to their room. Tessa was quite the homebody after all. And there were her virtual galliope, Jewel, to feed and her micro-zap waiting to bake yummy astromuffins.

  But Tessa hadn’t so much as stopped off at the room as far as Adora could tell. Probably, Adora reasoned, she was catching up with her younger sister, Gemma. And Adora planned to take full advantage of her alone time.

  Adora had been right in the middle of an experiment when she’d been called on to help Tessa. She’d been itching to get back to it for over a starday now. It combined her two biggest passions: science and fashion. Specifically, sequins.

  Adora wanted to make sequins—disc-shaped shiny beads—extra twinkly. That alone wouldn’t be so difficult. But she wanted that newfound sparkle to bring out each sequin’s color, too, to make the shades themselves brighter, warmer, more radiant.

  The gold sequins that Leona favored had to become even more brightly golden; Cassie’s silver ones even more silvery; Clover’s an even deeper, more brilliant purple. And Adora’s goal was to do it with just one formula.

  She wanted the formula to work with every shade under the suns, and that was twelve in the Star Darlings group alone. Add in all the different tones at Starling Academy, or furthermore all of Starland itself, and the numbers were star-boggling!

  Adora had already removed natural elements from glittery yellow calliope flowers, fiery red florafierces, and other plants and trees. Now she needed to add twinkle-oxide—with a spark of glowzene for good measure—into each mixture. The combination had to be just right, so the formula would react with any Starling shade.

  Luckily, it was Bopday, the first starday of the weekend, which left her plenty of time to test her ideas. Adora would be logical and methodical as always. But she wanted to get it done sooner rather than later, so the sequins could be sewn onto outfits the Star Darlings band members planned to wear for a big competition.

  “Mmmmm, hmmm, mmmmm.” Adora hummed, pouring 5.6 lumins of twinkle-oxide into a beaker. “Mmmm, hmmmmm.” She turned on her personal bright-burner to 179 degrees Starrius and waited for the mixture to heat. “Mmmm.”

  Alone in the room, Adora felt free to sing to her heart’s content. Her own music skills were nothing to brag about, but Adora wasn’t much into the arts anyway. For her, it was science, science, science—and fashion, fashion, fashion.

  Adora planned to be a style scientist, maybe the first in all of Starland. And she’d show the worlds she was the brightest in both.

  Adora’s parents owned a trendy clothing store in Radiant Hills, the ultraexclusive community in Starland City, where Libby had grown up alongside glimmerous celebrighties and famous Starlandians.

  Adora herself lived in a perfectly nice neighborhood of modest, comfortable homes. She couldn’t complain. She and her parents shared a simple one-level house where they each had their own workspace, creating designs to sell in the store. Even as a wee Starling, she’d had a microscope and a star-sewing machine, creating lustrous new fabrics for her parents to work into clothing designs.

  Concentrating now, Adora pushed back sky blue strands of hair that had fallen out of her loose bun and adjusted her knee-length glittery lab coat and gloves. She checked her pockets, making sure the extra test tubes she always carried around were closed up tight.

  Finally, with great care, she straightened her safety starglasses. She’d realized when she and Tessa were first years that safety came first.

  Back then, Tessa had just mixed a batch of glowrange smoothies. Adora, meanwhile, had been working on fabric that would sparkle extra bright on the dreariest, rainiest days. She’d combined orangey lightning in a bottle with starfuric acid, and was ready to steep the fabric. The mixture did look a bit like the smoothies, Adora had to admit. So it was no wonder Tessa reached for it when a moonberry got caught in her throat. Adora had to make a running dive to knock the liquid out of her hands.

  Right after that, Adora had established rules, including clearly separating food from experiments and wearing safety starglasses. That last part was particularly important, Adora realized a starsec later, when—

  Bang! Her sequins mixture fizzled and sparked, overflowing from the beaker and spilling onto her workspace. Immediately, the smoking liquid disappeared, thanks to the self-cleaning technology featured in all Starland furnishings.

  Adora’s room in particular was squeaky clean and spare—some might say sterile and uninteresting—with a neat desktop and lab space, with carefully arranged beakers and test tubes. Even the “fashion section” had neat cubbies for bolts of fabrics and a carefully polished star-sewing machine.

  She did like an orderly room, with minimal possessions. Tessa, on the other hand, had brought a moonium knickknacks—along with plants and herbs and old holo-cookbooks—from home when they first moved in together.

  Adora didn’t quite understand. She didn’t get attached to things. Out with the old, in with the new, she thought frequently, deleting old experiment notes and equations. She was thinking that now, in fact, as she struck the sequins formula from her holo–lab notes.

  “Starf,” Adora said, eying the now blank screen. She’d have to start over, maybe lowering the bright-burner to 147 degrees. But that was okay. That was what science was all about—trial and error and patience.

  And that was all part of the lightentific method, Adora’s personal approach to experimenting:

  Ask a question based on observation. Come up with a reasonable hypothesis (a guess, really) to answer the question. Create an experiment to see if the guess was correct, and analyze the results. Finally, draw a conclusion: either the experiment worked or it failed.

  But Adora wasn’t one to accept failure.

  “Mmmmmm!” Adora’s voice grew more powerful as she started on a new hypothesis. It was a relief, really, to be loud. She’d talked in a whisper for so long—the effects of that poisonous nail polish—and had been so frustrated when people couldn’t hear her! At least it had been better than giggling nonstop like Sage, though. Or pulling practical jokes like Astra had done. No one likes when drinks are switched at the Celestial Café!

  Adora was carefully carrying fresh batches of mixture to the bright-burner when her Star-Zap buzzed.

  Should she ignore it? Just keep concentrating on her experiment?

  Part of her wanted to do just that. But with all the strange goings-on lately, it could be an important message. Or maybe it was an announcement for the next mission!

  “Oh, moonberries,” she said, using Tessa’s favorite expression as she set down the beakers. She’d just have to check. She reached for her Star-Zap and glanced at the screen.

  A group holo-letter from Cassie? she thought. That was a little bizarre. Why would Cassie write an entire letter when she could just talk to the Star Darlings or send
a brief holo-text?

  Adora tapped the screen and the letter appeared in the air, floating at eye-level. Quickly, she read the note, then read it again just to be sure: Cassie was with Tessa—and Scarlet—and they were trapped in the Star Caves. There Adora was, happily going about her experiment, pleased as sparkle-punch to have the room to herself, while Tessa had been in trouble the whole time.

  Every problem had a solution—scientific, mathematical, or otherwise. It just took a cool, clear mind to figure it out. But Adora had to leave the room, step away from Tessa’s knickknacks and holo-photos from the farm, to think things through. Calmly, she went outside.

  “Adora! Thank the stars you’re here!” Leona shouted, rushing down the hall, her golden curls flying behind her. “Did you see Cassie’s holo-letter?”

  “Shh!” hissed Adora. She glanced pointedly in the other direction, where two other third-years were getting off the Cosmic Transporter and eyeing them curiously.

  “Just the SDs being SDish,” one said with a laugh.

  Ask just about any Starling Academy student and they would say SD stood for Slow Developers, a nickname given to the twelve girls because they all attended a special class for extra help. Little did the students know, however, that SD was also short for Star Darlings. And the “extra help” taught the girls how to travel to Wishworld, help grant wishes, and collect energy—the most advanced skills any Starling could have.

  Adora shrugged off the label and the idea that anyone would think she was a weak student. It just went to show you how dim other Starlings could be, she thought. Particularly those girls still hanging around the hall, trying to eavesdrop on her conversation with Leona.

  “We should all get together to talk about the holo-letter,” she told Leona. “Right now.”

  “Must be an SD assignment,” one of the eavesdropping girls said. “A sloooow assignment.” Happy with their insults, the other girls moved on.

  “Of course,” said Leona in a calmer voice. “I’ll holo-text everyone right away. We should meet in my room. It’s the perfect place. You know I have my own personal stage? So it’s all set for a group discussion. Whoever wants to talk can use the microphone.”