Erin the Phoenix Fairy

by Daisy Meadows

  “Are you all right?” Kirsty called. She risked taking a glance at her friend as she kept flying.

  Rachel nodded, but she was concentrating so hard on where she was flying that she didn’t dare speak.

  “We’re almost there,” Erin said. “Giggles is just below us. Oh, no!”

  Kirsty and Rachel glanced down, wondering why Erin had cried out. They looked just in time to see one of the goblins throwing his net over Giggles. The phoenix was trapped!

  Rachel was full of dismay. This was awful! “Gotcha!” she heard one of the mean goblins cheering from below. She felt sick at the thought of beautiful Giggles being caught by them.

  “We need a plan,” Kirsty said, flying to perch on a nearby branch and gesturing for the others to join her. “At least the goblins don’t know we’re here. If we’re quick, we can think of some way to trick them and get Giggles back.”

  The three fairies stared down at the goblins, who were all congratulating each other on a job well done.

  “Impressive work, partner,” one of them said to the goblin with the net, slapping him on the back. “You were so quick — and so sneaky!”

  The goblins were giving each other high-fives and looked really pleased with themselves. “Jack Frost is going to be so happy,” one said. “He might even smile — imagine that!”

  The mention of smiling reminded Rachel of earlier, when she and Kirsty had been smiling and giggling at jokes. Then she remembered how they’d been helpless with laughter at one point . . . and an idea popped into her head.

  “I’ve got it,” she said to Erin and Kirsty, her eyes shining. “What if we can make the goblins laugh — I mean, really laugh, like we were laughing, Kirsty? With Giggles nearby to strengthen their senses of humor, we can tell them some jokes. Hopefully they’ll all be rolling with laughter in no time. And then, with some luck, we’ll be able to rescue Giggles from the net.”

  “I love it!” Kirsty exclaimed. “Great idea, Rachel!”

  Erin didn’t look quite so sure. “It’s a good idea, but we’ll have to hope that Giggles’ magic is working,” she said. “You saw what happened earlier, when he zapped the humor out of my joke — you two didn’t even smile! If the same thing happens again, any joke you tell the goblins will fall flat, and they won’t laugh. Even worse, they’ll be really suspicious of you.”

  “I see what you mean,” Rachel said, “but I still think we should try. I can’t think of any other ideas to help Giggles escape — can you?”

  Kirsty shook her head.

  “It’s definitely worth a try,” Erin said. “Let’s fly down lower, behind those bushes, and I’ll turn you back into girls. Then we’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope that Giggles can pull it off!”

  The three fairies fluttered down behind some bushes where the goblins wouldn’t be able to see them. Erin waved her wand at Kirsty and Rachel again, chanting some magic words as she did. With another swirl of fairy dust, Kirsty and Rachel felt their wings vanish as they grew back to their normal size.

  The two girls came out from behind the bushes and approached the goblins. The goblins didn’t look at all happy to see them. One of them held up a warning hand. “Stop there,” he said. “Keep your distance. We’ve got the phoenix, and there’s nothing you can do about it now.”

  Rachel shrugged as if she wasn’t really interested. “Oh, right,” she said coolly. “Actually, we just came over to tell you a funny joke. We thought you might like a laugh after all your hard work.” She could see that the goblins were about to disagree, so she just went ahead with it. “What does Jack Frost like to eat for breakfast?”

  The goblins looked at each other and shrugged. “I don’t know,” one replied.

  “Frosted flakes!” Rachel cried, grinning.

  Kirsty watched the goblins’ faces eagerly, hoping they would find Rachel’s joke funny. Unfortunately, they didn’t even smile.

  “I don’t get it,” one of the goblins muttered, looking confused.

  “Jack Frost doesn’t even eat breakfast,” another said scornfully.

  Kirsty and Rachel exchanged worried glances. Oh, dear. Giggles’ magic wasn’t working very well at all. They had to make the goblins fall over laughing if they were going to have a chance of rescuing the phoenix — but at this rate, that was never going to happen!

  Kirsty tried next. “How about this one: what do you get if you cross Jack Frost with a vampire?” she asked. “Frost bite!”

  This time, the goblins smiled. One of them even chuckled. “Frost bite, I like that,” he said.

  Feeling encouraged, Rachel gave them another one. “How does Jack Frost travel to work?” she asked. “By icicle!”

  Yes! The goblins all burst out laughing. “Not bicycle — icicle!” one of them giggled, shaking with laughter.

  Kirsty grinned at Rachel. The plan was working! “What did Jack Frost say to Frosty the Snowman?” she asked them. “Have an ice day!”

  “‘Have an ice day!’” one of the goblins repeated, clutching his stomach and cracking up.

  “How do you keep a goblin in suspense?” Rachel asked them next.

  “We don’t know,” the goblins spluttered in reply.

  “We’ll tell you tomorrow!” Rachel and Kirsty chorused.

  At this, the goblins all fell over with laughter. They were rolling around on the ground, shoulders shaking, tears of glee streaming down their cheeks. “I get it!” one chuckled. “We’re goblins, and they’re keeping us in suspense!”

  “Hilarious!” Another gasped, thumping the ground as he laughed.

  Kirsty and Rachel looked at each other, then at the goblins’ net. It was on the ground, with Giggles trapped inside. The goblins were still helpless with laughter.

  “Now!” Kirsty declared.

  Without any hesitation, the girls ran to the net and lifted it up. Erin flew over to them, her arms outstretched. “Giggles! I’m here!” she called.

  Giggles blinked, shook out his feathers, and gave a happy laugh as he saw his fairy friend. He flapped his shimmering wings and flew out of the net toward Erin. He shrank down to fairy-size as he went.

  Giggles looked so sweet as he flew into Erin’s arms. He nestled his head on her shoulder and let out trills of melodic laughter. “Hello, sweetie,” Erin said, stroking him gently. Then she laughed, too. “Oh, it’s so good to have you back again!”

  The goblins, meanwhile, were still rolling with laughter, and Giggles let out an amused chirp as the tears ran down their green cheeks. “We’d better get out of here,” Erin said to Kirsty and Rachel in a low voice. “Once they realize they don’t have the phoenix anymore, they’ll have to go back to Fairyland and tell Jack Frost. Unfortunately, they won’t find that quite as funny.”

  “Good-bye, Erin. Good-bye, Giggles,” Rachel said, patting the little bird’s soft feathers. “Thanks for all the laughs.”

  “Yes, that was the funniest adventure we’ve had in a long time!” Kirsty smiled. “Good-bye!”

  Erin waved and grinned as she and Giggles flew off in a shower of sparkles. Rachel and Kirsty watched until the last magical sparkle had vanished, then turned to each other.

  “We’d better go back to camp,” Kirsty said. “I’m so glad we helped Erin find Giggles, but it’s too bad we weren’t able to find all the birds on our list.”

  The two girls took a few steps away from the goblins. Then Rachel froze, clutching Kirsty’s arm. “Chickadee, dee, dee” they heard.

  Kirsty grinned as she spotted a small white and black bird on the branch of a nearby tree. “A chickadee!” she whispered, fumbling to turn on the camera. She held it out and pressed the button. Click!

  She and Rachel watched the little chickadee as it hopped along the branch, then fluttered away. “We did it!” Rachel cheered, checking it off her list. “Hooray! I
can’t wait to tell everyone about the birds we saw.”

  Kirsty grinned and slipped an arm through Rachel’s as they headed back toward camp. “Me, too,” she said with a wink. “But we won’t tell them about all the birds we saw!”

  Erin the Phoenix Fairy has taken her magical animal back to Fairyland! Now Rachel and Kirsty need to help . . .

  Rihanna

  the Seahorse Fairy!

  Join their next adventure in this special sneak peek. . . .

  “Oh, I’m really looking forward to going canoeing again!” Kirsty Tate said eagerly to her best friend, Rachel Walker. The girls were carrying a lightweight canoe on their shoulders as they walked through the camp toward Adventure Lake. “But I’m going to try to keep my feet dry this time!”

  Rachel laughed. “Yes, it’s a lot of fun, isn’t it?” she agreed. “I’m glad we have some free time this afternoon so that we can have another try.”

  “We’re not just here to have fun though, are we?” Kirsty added, glancing around to check that none of the other campers were close enough to hear. “We’re trying to help our fairy friends, too!”

  On the day the girls arrived at the adventure camp, the king and queen of Fairyland had asked for their help to find seven missing magical animals. These special young animals had amazing powers that helped to spread the kind of magic that humans and fairies could possess — the wonderful gifts of imagination, good luck, humor, friendship, compassion, healing, and courage.

  The seven Magical Animal Fairies spent a whole year training the magic youngsters before the animals returned to their families in Fairyland. At that time, they were ready to use their special talents to help everyone in both the human and the fairy worlds. However, spiteful Jack Frost was determined to put a stop to all this, simply because he wanted everyone to be as lonely and miserable as he was.

  So he and his naughty goblins had kidnapped the magical animals and taken them to his Ice Castle. But the animals had managed to escape, and now they were hiding in the human world. Rachel and Kirsty were determined to find all seven magical animals before Jack Frost and his goblins did, and then the girls planned to return them safely to Fairyland.

  “We’ve done pretty well so far, haven’t we, Kirsty?” Rachel remarked. “We’ve found Ashley’s dragon, Lara’s black cat and Erin’s phoenix.”

  Kirsty nodded. “I just hope we find the others before the end of the week —” she began. But just then Lila, one of the camp counselors, came out of a nearby tent, and Kirsty and Rachel exchanged a warning glance. Both girls knew that no one in the human world could ever find out about the existence of fairies. . . .

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Rainbow Magic Limited c/o HIT Entertainment, 830 South Greenville Avenue, Allen, TX 75002-3320.

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-54917-2

  Copyright © 2009 by Rainbow Magic Limited.

  Previously published as Magical Animals #3: Erin the Firebird Fairy by Orchard U.K. in 2009.

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012, by arrangement with Rainbow Magic Limited.

  SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. RAINBOW MAGIC is a trademark of Rainbow Magic Limited. Reg. U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and other countries. HIT and the HIT logo are trademarks of HIT Entertainment Limited.

  First Scholastic printing, March 2012

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