by Kiki Thorpe
Copyright © 2014 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House Companies, in conjunction with Disney Enterprises, Inc. Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thorpe, Kiki.
Wedding wings / written by Kiki Thorpe ; illustrated by Jana Christy.
pages cm. — (Disney fairies) (The Never girls ; 5)
“A Stepping Stone book.”
Summary: “The Never girls are going to a wedding, and Gabby is the flower girl. When the fairies hear about it, they wish they could go, too. One little fairy hiding in Gabby’s basket couldn’t cause too much trouble—right?”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-7364-3077-7 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-0-7364-8141-0 (lib. bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-7364-3220-7 (ebook)
[1. Fairies—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Weddings—Fiction. 4. Flower girls—Fiction.]
I. Christy, Jana, illustrator. II. Title.
PZ7.T3974We 2014
[Fic]—dc23
randomhouse.com/kids/disney
v3.1
For Sienna and Audrey
—K.T.
For Johnny
—J.C.
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Never Land
Map of Never Land
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Sneak Peek of The Woods Beyond
About the Author
Far away from the world we know, on the distant seas of dreams, lies an island called Never Land. It is a place full of magic, where mermaids sing, fairies play, and children never grow up. Adventures happen every day, and anything is possible.
There are two ways to reach Never Land. One is to find the island yourself. The other is for it to find you. Finding Never Land on your own takes a lot of luck and a pinch of fairy dust. Even then, you will only find the island if it wants to be found.
Every once in a while, Never Land drifts close to our world … so close a fairy’s laugh slips through. And every once in an even longer while, Never Land opens its doors to a special few. Believing in magic and fairies from the bottom of your heart can make the extraordinary happen. If you suddenly hear tiny bells or feel a sea breeze where there is no sea, pay careful attention. Never Land may be close by. You could find yourself there in the blink of an eye.
Gabby Vasquez hurried up the stairs to her room. She had news—the kind of fizzy, exciting news that wouldn’t stay bottled up inside. She just had to tell someone about it!
In her bedroom, Gabby raced to the closet. She threw the door open wide, shouting, “Guess what, everyone?”
She stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind her. The closet was very dark, but it was a friendly sort of darkness. She could smell the sweet scent of orange blossoms and hear water trickling over rocks.
Gabby shuffled forward. Soon she saw a window of light. A moment later, she emerged into the sunshine of Pixie Hollow.
Hop-two-three. Gabby skipped from rock to rock, crossing Havendish Stream. She wriggled between two wild rosebushes on the far bank. Her costume fairy wings caught on a thorn. Gabby quickly checked to make sure the fabric hadn’t ripped. Then she plunged ahead, stumbling a little in her hurry.
As she came over a small rise, she could see the Home Tree, the great maple where the Never fairies worked and lived. The fairies’ golden glows shone among the leaves, making it seem as if the branches were filled with stars.
“Tink! Prilla! Everybody! Guess what?” Gabby shouted as she raced toward the tree.
On a high branch, the art-talent fairy Bess looked up from her painting. Prilla, the clapping-talent fairy, awoke from her doze in a cozy magnolia blossom. The pots-and-pans fairy Tinker Bell stuck her head out of her teakettle workshop. The garden fairy Rosetta set down her miniature gourd watering can. And Dulcie, a baking-talent fairy, dusted the flour from her hands. They all flew to the courtyard.
“What’s going on?” Prilla asked as Gabby ran up to them, breathless.
Gabby bounced on her toes with excitement. “There’s going to be a wedding,” she announced. “And I’m the star!”
“A wedding?” cried Dulcie, wringing her apron. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? I haven’t baked a thing!”
“Not here, silly,” Gabby said. “At home. Our babysitter Julia is getting married, and I’m going to be the flower girl!”
“Is that anything like being a flower-talent fairy?” Rosetta asked.
“Kind of,” said Gabby. “I’m in charge of all the flower magic. And I get to wear this special dress.” She did a twirl so the fairies could admire her brand-new, pretty pink flower girl dress.
“It’s lovely!” exclaimed Rosetta, who adored dresses of all kinds.
“I have this basket, too.” Gabby held up a little basket with a bow tied around the handle. “And I throw flower petals. Like this.” Gabby pretended to pull a handful of petals from the basket and throw them.
“Hmm.” Rosetta frowned.
Gabby stopped. “What’s the matter?”
“Why not practice with some real flowers?” Rosetta suggested. She plucked a bundle of daisies that were growing nearby and shook the petals into Gabby’s basket.
Gabby threw a few of the petals. They plopped to the ground.
“Well, that’s not very interesting,” said Tink.
“Wouldn’t it be nicer if the petals moved around a little?” suggested Bess. She dove into the basket and came up with an armful of petals. When she threw them into the air, they swirled like snowflakes.
Gabby gasped. “How did you do that?”
“It’s easy. You just need a bit of fairy magic.” Bess shook her wings over the basket. A sprinkle of fairy dust rained down on the petals. “Try it again.”
This time the petals almost leaped from Gabby’s hand. They fluttered in the air before drifting to the ground.
The fairies nodded happily.
“Oh yes!”
“Much nicer!”
“Just lovely.”
Gabby smiled and threw another handful just to watch the petals swirl. “Can I have some fairy dust to take with me to the wedding tomorrow? Please?”
“I don’t see why not,” Tink said. She darted away. In a moment she was back with a little thimble bucket. It had a tight-fitting silver lid. “I made the lid myself,” Tink said proudly. “You won’t lose a speck of dust.”
Gabby peeked inside and saw the shimmery fairy dust. “Thank you,” she said, tucking the thimble into the pocket of her dress.
“I’ve heard of weddings, but I’ve never seen one,” said Prilla. She traveled to the world of Clumsies—or humans—more than most fairies. “What are they like?”
“A wedding is when two people get married,” Gabby told her. “They say ‘I love you.’ Then they give each other rings and everybody claps. And then …” Here, Gabby’s knowledge of weddings became somewhat murky, but she continued, “Then they float away on a cloud and live happily ever after!”
“Very dramatic,” Bess said approvingly.
“Will there be food at the wedding?” Dulcie asked.
“Yes! Really fancy food, like onion rings. And a cake this big!” Gabby stretched her hands up over her head. To the fairies, the cake seemed enormous.
“My!” Dulcie ex
claimed.
“Will there be music and dancing?” Tinker Bell asked. “At fairy parties there’s always dancing.”
Gabby had no idea if there was dancing at a wedding. But her imagination had taken over now. “Everybody dances! And there are butterflies everywhere! And a chocolate waterfall!” Gabby spun on her toes, inspired by her own vision of how wonderful the wedding would be.
Prilla’s freckled face took on a dreamy look. “It sounds marvelous. I wish I could see it.”
“You could come with me!” Gabby suggested.
“Gabby! Gabby?” a voice called out from the direction of Havendish Stream.
Everyone turned as Gabby’s older sister, Mia, came into view. As soon as she spotted Gabby, her face darkened.
“Uh-oh,” murmured Gabby.
“I knew it!” Mia said, charging over. “Gabby, you’re not supposed to come here by yourself. Remember what happened last time?”
Gabby remembered. She’d gone to Never Land alone and gotten stuck there when the hole between their two worlds had briefly closed. After that, Gabby, Mia, and their friends Kate McCrady and Lainey Winters had made a rule that they would always go to Never Land together—a rule that Gabby, in her excitement, had forgotten.
“It was just for a minute,” she said. “I was going to come right back.”
“She was telling us about the wedding,” said Prilla, trying to be helpful.
Mia rolled her eyes. “Gabby hasn’t stopped talking about it all week. It is exciting, though,” she added. “It’s our first wedding ever.”
“But I’m the only flower girl,” Gabby pointed out.
“That’s just because you’re the littlest. Flower girls are supposed to be little. I don’t know why,” Mia said. A tiny wrinkle formed between her eyebrows, but it was gone a moment later. “I wish we could stay,” she told the fairies. “But it’s bath time for Gabby, and Mami’s looking for her. We’ll be back soon, though. I promise.”
Taking Gabby’s hand, Mia began to walk toward the passage that led back to their world. “I can’t believe you,” she whispered to Gabby. “We only have one rule about Never Land and you’ve already broken it. And you made me break it, too. What will we tell Kate and Lainey?”
“We don’t have to tell them,” Gabby said quickly. She was sorry she’d forgotten their agreement. She didn’t want Kate and Lainey to be upset. “You won’t tell them, will you?”
“We’ll see,” said Mia.
They had almost reached Havendish Stream when Gabby stopped so suddenly she yanked her sister backward. “I almost forgot,” she said. “I have to tell the fairies how to get to the wedding.”
She started to turn around, but Mia stopped her. “The fairies can’t come to the wedding,” she said.
“But I want them to see me be a flower girl!” Gabby cried.
“There will be lots of people there tomorrow,” Mia said. “What if someone sees them? No one can know about Pixie Hollow. It’s our secret.”
Mia let go of Gabby’s hand as they crossed the stepping-stones in Havendish Stream. But at the foot of the hollow fig tree, Mia stopped. She knelt down so she was looking Gabby in the eye. “You can’t say a word about fairies or magic to anyone tomorrow. Promise?”
Gabby gazed back into her sister’s brown eyes. “Okay,” she said. “I promise.”
After the girls left, the fairies went back to what they’d been doing. Rosetta flew off to water the lilies. Tinker Bell returned to her workshop. Dulcie, inspired by Gabby’s description, headed to the kitchen to try her hand at a seven-layer thimble cake.
Bess flew back to her matchstick easel. She had been working on a painting of a dew-covered spiderweb. The dewdrops were so plump and glistening they seemed about to roll right off the canvas.
Bess had been proud of her painting. But now, as she picked up her paintbrush, it struck her as boring. So ordinary, she thought. So … fairyish.
Her thoughts strayed to Gabby’s description of the wedding. “Now, that would be an exciting painting,” Bess said to herself.
“What’s that?” asked Prilla as she flew by.
“I was just thinking about Gabby’s wedding,” said Bess.
“That’s funny. So was I,” said Prilla.
“I was thinking I might make a painting of it,” Bess said.
“Oh, Bess, you should. That would be almost as good as being there,” Prilla said. Bess’s paintings were magical that way.
Bess took out the pencil she kept tucked behind her ear. She began to make a sketch on a little piece of birch bark. She drew two Clumsies as tall as palm trees—all Clumsies looked like giants to Bess. But then her imagination failed her.
“What are their clothes made from? The Clumsies, I mean,” Bess wondered. “A fairy gown would be sewn from lily petals, or maybe a rose. But that would never fit a Clumsy.”
“I don’t know,” Prilla replied. “I’ve never thought about where Clumsies get their clothes.”
“Speaking of flowers, what do the Clumsies do with them?” Bess asked. “Clumsies are too big to rest in a magnolia when they get tired of dancing. And how do they dance without wings, anyway? Their feet would never leave the ground! What kind of dancing is that?”
“They must look very silly,” Prilla agreed.
Bess glanced at her sketch and frowned. “You’re lucky, Prilla,” she said. “You could just blink over to the mainland and see the wedding for yourself.” Prilla had the special ability to travel to the world of Clumsies by blinking. She was the only fairy in Pixie Hollow with that talent.
“I guess I could,” Prilla said. “But we haven’t been properly invited.”
“Oh, right,” said Bess.
“You could go, too. You could fly through the hole in the old fig tree to get to the girls’ world,” Prilla pointed out.
“I could,” said Bess. “But like you said, we haven’t been invited. Besides, I wouldn’t know where to go when I got there.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Prilla said.
The two were quiet for a moment, thinking their own thoughts.
“It would be fun to be a gnat on the wall, though, wouldn’t it?” Bess murmured. “Just to see the wedding, without anyone knowing you’re there?”
Prilla said something in reply, but Bess wasn’t listening. She was gazing off in the direction of Havendish Stream—and the old fig tree.
The next morning, Gabby stood in the doorway of her bedroom. Her pink flower girl dress was zipped up and buttoned. Her hair was brushed, her shoes were buckled, and her wings were on straight. She was ready for her big day.
But where was everyone else?
Gabby tiptoed across the hall to Mia’s room and peeked in. Mia stood before the mirror, brushing her long hair. Lainey sat on the bed, and Kate was fidgeting with her skirt.
“I still don’t understand why I have to dress up,” Kate grumbled. “Julia’s the one getting married. Not me.”
Mia turned from the mirror. “You just don’t like wearing dresses because they show your knees,” she pointed out.
Kate looked down at her knees. They were covered with scrapes from soccer and softball and many adventures in Never Land. She frowned and tugged the hem of her skirt lower. “I don’t like wearing dresses, period. You can’t climb trees in a dress.”
“You could,” Lainey pointed out. “But someone might see your underwear.”
“Exactly!” cried Kate.
“No one is going to be climbing trees today,” said Mia. “It’s a wedding! Anyway, I like getting dressed up.” She picked up a flowered barrette and clipped it in her hair.
As she admired herself in the mirror, Mia caught sight of Gabby peeping in the door. Mia sighed. “Will you ever learn to knock?” she asked.
Gabby knocked, then stepped into the room.
“Gabby, you look very nice,” said Lainey.
“Just like a flower fairy,” Kate agreed. “Too bad the fairies can’t see you.”
Gabby ca
st a worried glance at her sister. Would she tell Kate and Lainey about her visit to Pixie Hollow?
Mia frowned but didn’t say anything.
“Are we leaving soon?” Gabby asked.
“I don’t know,” Mia replied. “Go find Mami and ask her.”
Gabby sighed and wandered down the hall to her parents’ room. She stood in the doorway. Her parents were rushing around getting ready.
“Have you seen my green tie?” Gabby’s father called. He still had a blob of shaving cream under his chin.
“Look in the closet,” Gabby’s mother said. “Now, where did I leave my purse?” She brushed past Gabby, trailing perfume.
“When are we leaving?” Gabby asked.
“Soon,” her mother promised.
Gabby went back down the hall, scuffing her feet. She hated waiting. It seemed as if they would never get to the wedding!
At the end of the hall was a small window that overlooked the backyard. Gabby pressed her nose to the glass, gazing at the garden below. She could see the flower bed where she’d first met Prilla.
Was something moving among the marigolds? Gabby squinted. She thought she saw a flash of golden light among the orange and red flowers.
“All ready to go?” asked her father.
Gabby whirled around. Her parents, along with Mia, Kate, and Lainey, were in the hallway. “What are you looking at?” her father asked, coming to stand by her.
“Nothing, Papi. Just Bingo,” Gabby said, referring to the family cat. Quickly, she stepped away from the window.
“Oh, sweetie,” said her mother, looking at her closely for the first time. “You can’t wear those to the wedding.”
Gabby glanced down at her clothes. She wondered what her mother meant. Was there something wrong with her dress or her shoes?
“Julia is expecting a flower girl, not a fairy. You’ll have to leave your wings at home,” said her mother.
She might as well have asked Gabby to leave her arms at home. “Mami, no!” Gabby cried, clutching the straps on her shoulders.