Ronan looked very pleased with himself.
“But where is it?” Rani asked. “I’ve never been there.”
Ronan grinned. He knew exactly where it was. “Follow me, Hawk,” he told Cousin Dove. Rani climbed onto the bird’s back and off they went.
Well, we’ve gotten such a slow start we’re certainly not going to win, Rani thought. But maybe we still have a chance at beating Vidia.…
Hawk was a smooth and gentle flier. When they got to the Throne, it was obvious that they were one of the last teams to arrive. Most of the fairies (except for the ones who were examining the broken chair in the library, or those trying to make their way into Queen Clarion’s quarters to look at her armchairs) had already come and gone.
Rani and Ronan landed on the arm of the chair. Below them was Captain Hook’s ship, the Jolly Roger. Rani could picture the crusty old pirate himself pacing the deck. He was probably planning his next skirmish with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys!
The clue was written on the chair in Neverberry ink. It was beginning to fade from the many fairy fingers that had already traced the words.
Rani and Ronan read the words, puzzled. The same message was repeated over and over: Clue #2! Clue #2! Clue #2! Clue #2!
Ronan and Rani looked at each other blankly.
“I have an idea,” Ronan said.
“What is it?” Rani asked eagerly.
“Let’s sit here for a moment or two and talk about something completely different! Clear our minds! We’re thinking too hard right now.”
Another picture filled Rani’s mind. She saw herself as Vidia’s servant, dusting her petrified dragonfly collection. Rani shivered. There was no time for this—they had to keep moving!
Rani stood up. “Let’s head to…Second Stone Pass,” she said, thinking quickly. “That’s a good a guess as any. Let’s give it a try.”
Ronan shook his head but got up without argument. “After you,” he said to Rani.
“Second Stone Pass,” Rani said to Hawk. “And hurry!” The little bird took off with a sudden lurch. Rani threw her arms around his neck to keep from falling.
Second Stone Pass was deserted. After a thorough search, it was clear that no clue was to be found there.
Rani stamped her foot. Now Vidia was sure to beat her!
“Clue Number Two! Clue Number Two! Clue Number Two!” Ronan started chanting.
Rani turned toward him. “Ronan, I don’t see how this is helping,” she said.
“Clue Number Two! Clue Number Two! Clue Number Two!” he repeated.
Rani gritted her teeth. She was certain she would scream if he said it one more time.
“Clue Number Two!” he exclaimed.
“Ronan…,” Rani said in a warning tone. But then she had a sudden realization. “Say it again!”
“Are you sure?” asked Ronan. “It’s not getting on your nerves?”
“No, say it again!” Rani insisted.
“Okay,” said Ronan. “Clue Number Two! Clue Number Two! Clue Number Two!”
Rani’s eyes widened. “That’s it!” she blurted out. “It’s an echo!”
“An echo?” asked Ronan.
“Yes, an echo!” Rani cried. “Echo Cavern, to be exact!” She jumped up, ready to go.
“Well, aren’t you clever,” Ronan said. He gave Rani an admiring look.
Rani smiled, but her grin faded at Ronan’s next words. “Now let’s pause for a minute and figure out the quickest way to get there,” he suggested.
Rani groaned.
WHEN A FAIRY HAD a secret she was bursting to tell, she went to Echo Cavern. She shouted the secret into the air. It echoed over and over again until it finally faded away. Once it did, the fairy always felt much better.
Taking a shortcut through Brambleberry Patch, Ronan and Rani were at Echo Cavern in no time. “We’ll be back soon, Hawk,” Rani told the little bird.
Just then, two dairy-talent fairies landed nearby. Rani was pleased as Neverberry punch to discover that she and Ronan had finally caught up to some of the others. We’re not so far behind! she thought.
Rani and Ronan fell into step and entered the cavern after the two fairies. It was large and sprawling, with passages that led to caves of different shapes and sizes. A fairy could get lost inside for days if she wasn’t careful!
Rani pulled a lantern out of her pack. “Good thinking!” said Ronan.
“How will we know which is the right echo?” Rani whispered to him.
“I’m not sure,” he replied—rather unhelpfully, Rani thought.
“I lost Bess’s favorite paintbrush…paintbrush…paintbrush…,” a voice whispered at the entryway.
Ronan tapped Rani on the shoulder and shook his head. That wasn’t the clue.
“I think I’m the prettiest fairy in all of Pixie Hollow…Pixie Hollow…Pixie Hollow…,” the next message echoed.
“Hmph! Everyone knows I’m the prettiest,” one of the dairy-talent fairies said. Ronan stifled a chuckle.
They came to the end of the passage. The dairy talent and her partner headed one way. Rani and Ronan chose to go to the left.
“I’m jealous of Lily’s buttercups…buttercups…buttercups…,” came the next echo. That wasn’t it, either.
Ronan and Rani passed several side caves. Without asking each other, they both kept going in the same direction—straight ahead.
Rani practically chortled when she heard Vidia’s voice ring out from a cave to their right. “No, precious, I don’t want another maple-nut muffin! What I do want is to find the next clue!” They were wing to wing with Vidia! Maybe Rani would beat her after all!
Rani and Ronan walked until they came to another part of the cave where the passageway branched off in two directions. Should they go left or right? Rani raised her lantern and spotted a crack in the wall next to them. Or was it an entrance to a side cave?
Rani leaned forward to take a better look. She stuck her hand out—and it passed deep into the crack. It was a cave!
“Should we give it a try?” she asked Ronan. He nodded.
The opening was narrow. It was a tight fit, but Rani slid through. Ronan squeezed through as well.
They found themselves in a tiny stone room. The walls dripped with an eerie glowing moss. Rani looked at Ronan. Were they in the right place?
Then a voice began to speak. This message seemed different from the others. The voice sounded like little bells. It was the queen! “You’ll find the next clue deep in the currents…currents…currents…,” her voice said.
Rani and Ronan grinned at each other. What a stroke of luck! They could have wandered around the cavern for hours, but they had stumbled upon the clue right away! They rushed out of the cave, nearly tripping over their feet in their hurry.
Soon they reached the mouth of the cave and stepped outside. They blinked in the sudden sunlight.
Rani grabbed Ronan’s arm. “We don’t have a moment to lose!” she said. All in a rush, she told Ronan about the bet with Vidia.
He gave a low whistle. “I’m not sure if that’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said, “or the silliest.”
Rani smiled. “A little of both?” she said.
Ronan chuckled. “A little of both,” he agreed. “And now I know how high the stakes are. We have to be careful. We don’t want to end up in the wrong place again. We need to take things slow.”
What? Rani didn’t understand Ronan. Shouldn’t they speed things up instead?
“Maybe we can take the next clue slow,” she said. “This one is pretty easy. The voice said ‘in the currants.’ There’s only one place it can mean—Currant Grove!”
Currant Grove was where cherries, cranberries, and currants were grown. “Let’s go there before Vidia finds the clue!” She whistled to Hawk and climbed onto his back.
“It could mean currant, as in Currant Grove,” Ronan said slowly, “or it could mean current, as in right now. Or it could mean—”
Rani gasped. Of cour
se! How had she overlooked that meaning? “Current Pass!” she exclaimed. She slapped her palm against her forehead. “Hawk, to Current Pass, as fast as you can!”
As Hawk took off like a hawk, Rani held on for dear life. Ronan’s wings beat double-time to keep up with the eager young bird.
How embarrassing! Rani had confused current with currant! She could have understood that mistake if she’d been a harvesting or a baking talent, but she was a water-talent fairy!
Rani stole a glance at Ronan. He must think she was an idiot! But Ronan only seemed concerned about keeping up with Hawk.
Several fairy pairs flew by Rani and Ronan, clearly coming back from Current Pass. They were on their way to the next clue. But Rani took comfort in this. It meant she and Ronan were headed in the right direction!
Hawk landed rather bumpily on the grass beside the river. Rani climbed off his back and began searching for the next clue. “Where can it be?” she asked.
Ronan touched her hand. “We’ll find it, Rani. We just need to take our time.” Rani took a deep breath. She cupped her hand to shield her eyes. And there, in the middle of the water, she could see a message written on a rock that poked above the surface.
“I’ll fly out to read it,” Ronan offered.
“Nonsense,” said Rani. “We’ll both go.” She hopped onto Hawk’s back and they all took off.
But as they were about to read the clue, a piercing scream tore through the air. Ronan and Rani looked up. A hawk was headed straight for them!
With a terrified squawk, Hawk twisted away from the dive-bombing bird. And Rani was suddenly airborne, a fairy without wings, tumbling toward the earth.
SPLASH! RANI FELL INTO the water. The currents at Current Pass, as you would imagine, were strong, but Rani was a good swimmer. She bobbed up to the surface and, to her shock, saw Ronan, about to jump into the water to save her!
“No, Ronan!” she shouted. “I can swim! And,” Rani added as she pulled herself onto a big rock, “you can’t.”
In the excitement, Rani had forgotten about the hawk. But the hawk hadn’t forgotten about them. It swooped down for a second time.
Despite her panic, Rani’s instincts took over. She dove into the water, narrowly escaping the hawk’s sharp claws. In an instant, she came back up. Ronan was flattened against the rock. The hawk kept dive-bombing him.
How could Rani help Ronan? Even animal talents were afraid of hawks. What could a water talent do against such a huge bird?
Suddenly, she remembered one of the water tricks she had practiced. It wasn’t perfect yet, but it would do. With a flick of her hands, a large water snake reared its angry head out of the swirling currents. The hawk swooped down again. Its claws caught Ronan’s jacket.
At that moment, Rani used all her powers to make the water snake jump out of the water. The snake lashed its fangs at the hawk. The hawk pulled back, and Ronan wriggled free. The screaming hawk took off, the tattered jacket in its claws.
Rani climbed out of the water and sat on the rock next to Ronan. “You saved my life,” Ronan said.
Rani wrung out the hem of her dress, pleased at the compliment. “Not so bad for a fairy without wings,” she said.
Ronan looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
Rani turned away. She couldn’t meet Ronan’s eyes. “Yesterday in the entryway,” she reminded him. “You said that it must be hard to be the only fairy without wings.”
Ronan’s brow wrinkled as he tried to remember. Then he smiled. “Rani, you said that. You finished my sentence for me. I wasn’t going to say that at all. I was going to say that it must be hard to be a water talent during a dry spell.”
“Oh.” Rani’s cheeks got warm. “Oh, I see.” She paused. “But weren’t you disappointed to be paired up with me?”
Ronan looked at Rani as if she had three heads. “Rani,” he said, “I thought I was lucky. You are the bravest, most generous fairy in all of Pixie Hollow. I admire you.”
Rani could feel her glow getting very orange indeed. The bravest fairy in all of Pixie Hollow! That was the nicest thing anyone had ever said about her.
“But what about you? Were you disappointed?” Ronan asked.
Rani took a deep breath. “At first I was. But you make me stop and think things through. Queen Clarion is right. We are a good team.”
“Friends?” asked Ronan.
“Good friends,” said Rani.
They grinned at each other.
Just then, Rani jumped up. “The clue!” she shouted. She had been sitting right on top of it! “‘Unscramble me and you will see,’” she read, “‘the name of a well-known tree.’”
“The Home Tree!” Rani cried.
Ronan shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Home Tree has only eight letters. And this has”—he counted off the letters on the rock—“twelve.”
“Oh.” Rani sat back down.
Ronan read the letters out loud. “O-R-A-B-I-K-H-Y-E-R-Z-C.”
Rani’s mind whirled to unscramble the letters. “Oak biz cherry!” she yelled. But neither she nor Ronan had ever heard of a tree with that name.
“Is there such a thing as a yak birch?” Rani asked.
Ronan looked at her blankly for a moment. “No,” he said slowly. “But there is the Zebra Hickory. A table in the entryway is carved from one of its branches. And I know where it is, too!”
Rani sprang to her feet. They were back in the game! Once they had made it to land—Rani swimming and Ronan flying—Rani whistled for Hawk. They waited. And waited.
“Um, Rani, I don’t think Hawk is coming back,” Ronan finally said.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “That must be what Beck was trying to tell me. Hawk is terrified of…hawks.”
The two fairies looked at each other. What were they going to do? Suddenly, Rani’s shoulders started shaking. Ronan let out a loud guffaw. They laughed and laughed. After several minutes, their giggles tapered off. Rani felt happier than she had in days.
“I guess we could eat our lunch,” she suggested. And that was when they realized that their special box lunches were now at the bottom of Current Pass. For some reason, this made them laugh even harder.
So the two fairies set out for the Zebra Hickory on foot. It didn’t matter anymore whether they won or lost. They had solved all the clues so far. They had successfully battled a hawk. And they were a great team, no matter what.
“ARE WE THERE yet?” Ronan asked, only half jokingly.
Rani smiled. It was funny for Ronan to be impatient. But then again, most fairies were not used to walking long distances, as she was. She had suggested that Ronan fly to the tree on his own, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
“We’re a team,” he had said. “We’ll see this through together, every step of the way.”
Ronan was limping by the time they reached the Zebra Hickory. Rani stopped short when she saw the tree. Its wood was striped brown and tan. But even more unusually, Tootles, a Lost Boy, stood by it. He looked thoroughly annoyed.
“It’s about time!” he said. “Peter and the rest of the Lost Boys made me stay behind. They’re having a huge slingshot battle—without me!”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wrinkled clue. He cleared his throat. “‘Go straight to the Fairy Circle,’” he read. “‘And when you see me, please stand on your head and oink like a pig. Sincerely, Queen Clarion.’”
Normally, Rani would have raced off now and asked questions later. But she had learned a valuable lesson from Ronan. She stopped and thought for a moment, and in that moment, she realized that something wasn’t quite right.
“‘Oink like a pig’?” she asked. “Queen Clarion wants us to oink like pigs? That’s strange.”
“Can I see that clue?” Ronan asked Tootles.
The Lost Boy scowled and held the clue high above the fairies’ heads so they could take a quick glance. “You see with your eyes and not with your hands,” he said. He shoved the clue back into his pocket. But
when he bent over to pick up his slingshot, the clue slipped out of his pocket and fluttered to the ground.
“Bye, fairies,” Tootles said. “Good luck with your treasure hunt. Oink, oink!” He ran off.
Once he was gone, Rani and Ronan raced to the fallen clue. They unfolded it and took a close look.
Go strait to the Fairy Circul. And when you see me pleese stand on your head and oink like a pig.
Sinceerly,
Queen Claryon
Rani shook her head. “Queen Clarion has beautiful handwriting,” she said.
“And she also knows how to—” Ronan started.
“—spell,” Rani broke in.
Rani looked at the note again. “Especially her own name,” she added.
“It’s a fake clue!” Ronan exclaimed.
Rani shook her head. That Peter! He was such a trickster, and loved to play practical jokes. He probably hadn’t been able to resist pulling a prank on his friend Tinker Bell. And the rest of the fairies got caught in the joke as well.
Now all Rani and Ronan needed was to find the real clue. They looked around in dismay. The ground was littered with pinecones, dead bugs, and rocks. After sorting through piles of leaves, walnut shells, and several mean drawings of Captain Hook, Rani spotted a piece of paper crumpled into a ball. She smoothed it out. It was the clue! And it was written in the queen’s elegant handwriting.
“‘You’re almost there! Meet me at the Fairy Circle and say “I would happily…”’” Rani’s voice trailed off.
It was impossible to read the rest of the clue. It had obviously gotten wet. The rest of the message was a black, inky blur.
They stared at the clue in dismay. “Let’s just head back,” Ronan finally said. “At least we’ll enjoy the moonlight picnic tonight.”
Rani sadly agreed. It was disappointing. They had worked so hard and come so close. But it was time to call it a day.
“I WISH WE HAD a balloon carrier, Ronan said for the third time. “Then we could get back in no time.”
Disney Fairies: Four Clues for Rani Page 3