It was impossible. She’d never pass. She didn’t want to do the set dance and the character work now. Wild ideas filled her head. Maybe she should just say she was sick and leave. She just wanted to run out of the room.
Asha finished the dance and Rebecca began.
Suddenly Rosa’s feet started to tingle. She glanced down at her shoes. They were glowing! She caught her breath. She must be about to go to Enchantia! Luckily she knew that not even a second would pass in the real world while she was away in the magic land, so no one in the room would notice she had gone.
A rainbow of bright colours started to swirl around her and the next minute she felt herself lifted into the air and whisked away.
Rosa spun round and round until the magic gently lowered her down. She blinked as the swirl of colours faded. She was sitting in an empty theatre. It was dark and the heavy curtains were drawn across the stage.
She rubbed a couple of half-dry tears from her cheeks, trying to get her head round the fact that she wasn’t in the exam room any more. Where was she? She knew she must be in Enchantia, but she’d landed in the wood before, never in this theatre.
Just then the air filled with music and the curtains started to open, revealing a brightly-lit stage. A girl in a nightdress danced on. Maybe it’s Clara from The Nutcracker, thought Rosa, wondering what was happening. But then she saw that the girl wasn’t holding a nutcracker doll, she was holding a pumpkin! She was followed by a group of soldiers who looked like they were also from The Nutcracker. They were fighting a group of dancing giant sweets. But in the ballet they fight an army of mice, thought Rosa.
Before she had time to say anything, the soldiers had danced off the stage and a girl in rags had come on. Cinderella! thought Rosa. A beautiful fairy spun on after her. But it wasn’t Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother, it was Sugar, the Sugar Plum Fairy! Two more people followed them. They were dancing a pas de deux. One of them was a beautiful girl with long dark hair who looked like Sleeping Beauty. Rosa stared. Sleeping Beauty wasn’t dancing with her handsome prince, though, instead she was dancing with a surprised-looking Puss in Boots!
What’s going on? Rosa wondered. All the ballets seem to be completely mixed up!
The curtain started to close. Rosa jumped to her feet. “Wait!” she called. She hurried out of the row of seats. But the curtains had shut.
Rosa hesitated, trying to decide what she should do when suddenly there was a tinkling of music and a fairy with dark hair wearing a pale brown and pink tutu danced on to the stage, travelling and turning with every step.
“Nutmeg!” cried Rosa, recognising her friend. She ran down the aisle to the stage. “Nutmeg! It’s you!”
“Oh, Rosa!” the fairy stopped in perfect balance, her arms out to the sides. “I’m so glad you’re here! We’re in trouble again.”
Rosa knew the red shoes only brought her to Enchantia when there was a problem to be solved. “Why?”
Nutmeg took a deep breath. “It’s a long story. Come and sit down and I’ll explain…”
Rosa and Nutmeg sat down on the edge of the stage. “So, what’s happening, Nutmeg?” asked Rosa.
“King Tristan’s magical moonstone ring has been stolen,” replied Nutmeg. “It’s a very special ring. It was given to him by the First Fairy of Enchantia, the fairy who was here when all the ballets were created. The moonstone keeps all the stories in order and makes them work as they should. Since it’s been missing none of the ballets have been right.”
“I saw everything going wrong,” said Rosa. “I couldn’t work out what was happening.”
“It’s awful,” said Nutmeg. “Everything’s all mixed up.”
“Why don’t you just get the ring back?” asked Rosa. “Then everything would be all right again.”
“It’s not that simple,” Nutmeg sighed. “We don’t know who stole it, you see. Someone pretending to be a magical jeweller tricked the ring from the King. He said he had been sent by the First Fairy to clean it. As soon as he had the ring in his hands he vanished. Look. I can show you.”
Nutmeg stood up and touched her wand to the ground. A pale pink mist appeared.
Rosa gasped as she saw a picture start to form inside it! It showed King Tristan in the courtyard of the Royal Palace. He was talking to a figure wrapped in a black cloak. As Rosa watched, the King took a gold ring with a sparkling white stone off his finger. He handed it to the cloaked figure. Then the figure spun round and vanished in a bright flash of light.
Rosa frowned when she caught sight of something poking out from underneath the black cloak – a long thin tail. It was only there for a second before it vanished.
“Did you see that?” she cried as Nutmeg touched the mist and it cleared.
“What?” asked Nutmeg.
“There was a tail sticking out from under the cloak!”
“Let me see.” Nutmeg tapped the floor again and the mist reappeared. Within seconds she and Rosa were watching the vision repeating itself. This time Nutmeg gasped too. “You’re right!”
They looked at each other.
“There’s only one person that can be,” said Rosa. “It must be King Rat! He must have taken the ring!”
“But why?” said Nutmeg.
“There’s only one way to find out,” replied Rosa bravely. “Let’s go to his castle and see.”
“But the mouse guards are so scary, and what if King Rat finds us,” Nutmeg protested. “You know how much he hates people who dance and he doesn’t like us at all after we stopped his last wicked plan.”
“It doesn’t matter. We have to get the ring back.” Rosa took her friend’s hand and looked into her brown eyes. “We can do this, Nutmeg. We’ve stopped King Rat before and we can do it again. I know we can!”
Nutmeg took a deep breath. “OK, then, let’s go!”
Nutmeg used her magic to take her and Rosa to the woods outside King Rat’s castle. King Rat’s magic was very powerful and he had placed enchantments on his castle grounds so that no one else could use strong magic there.
Rosa peered through the trees at the foreboding castle. King Rat had an army of human-sized mice who worked for him. They had pointed teeth and sharp swords.
“I can’t see anyone—” She broke off as suddenly, the castle doors opened and the mouse guards came out. But they didn’t look frightening at all. They came skipping out like school children – some were throwing balls at each other, others started to play hopscotch, three of them sat down to play a game of marbles, while another group played with some shiny trains and one played with a baby doll.
Rosa and Nutmeg exchanged astonished looks.
“What’s going on?” whispered Nutmeg.
“They must have been caught up in the magical mix-up too,” said Rosa.
“Of course! They’re acting as if they’re the children in The Nutcracker!” said Nutmeg.
Suddenly there was a loud burst of music. The door flew open and two figures came dancing out of the castle. One was the Nutcracker Soldier, dressed in his red and gold finery and the other…
Rosa stared at the person being twirled round and round, his expression outraged.
It was King Rat!
The Nutcracker Soldier swung round in a joyful dance. King Rat’s crown was now slipping to the side of his head and his cloak was hanging off one shoulder. “Get off me! GET OFF!” he was shouting, trying to pull himself free. But the Nutcracker simply twirled him faster across the grass.
Rosa started to giggle. “It looks like King Rat’s been caught in the mix-up too!”
The Nutcracker let go of King Rat and leaped dramatically into the air with a grand jeté before dancing away.
King Rat shook his fist at him. Then he straightened his crown and looked round at his usually fierce mice. Seeing them all playing games, he buried his head in his paws.
“It doesn’t look like he’s having much fun,” Rosa whispered quickly to Nutmeg. “Maybe he’ll decide he wants to give the ring back.”
/> “But how do we find out?” the fairy asked.
Rosa hesitated and then made a brave decision. She walked out of the trees!
She heard Nutmeg gasp. “What are you doing?”
Rosa ignored her.
King Rat saw Rosa and pointed in astonishment. “It’s you! The dratted girl with the ballet shoes! And you’ve got that annoying fairy with you,” he said as Nutmeg ran to join Rosa. “How dare you both come to my castle uninvited!”
“I hope you’ve got a plan, Rosa!” Nutmeg whispered in a quavering voice as King Rat strode towards them. His fur was a greasy black and he had a long pointed nose and red eyes.
“Guards, get them!” he yelled. But the guards were too busy playing with their toys.
Rosa’s heart pounded in her chest as she stared bravely at the rodent. “We know you’ve got the King’s ring and we want it back.” She thought about the look of horror on King Rat’s face as the Nutcracker had danced with him. “You don’t want the ballets mixed up any more than anyone else does. Give us the ring and then when it’s returned to the King, everything will be all right again.”
King Rat glared back at her. “Idiot girl! If it was that simple, don’t you think I’d have given it back already?” He shook his head. “I can’t give it back. It’s broken.”
“Broken!” Nutmeg exclaimed in horror.
King Rat’s shoulders slumped. “That’s why everything has gone wrong. If I still had it and it was all in one piece everything would be fine. But it’s smashed to smithereens.”
“How?” demanded Rosa.
“I dropped it,” admitted King Rat. “It broke and then from that moment on, everything started going wrong.” He reached into the pocket of his cloak and took out a small bag before shaking out a gold ring. It had a sparkling white stone that had obviously been glued together. There was one piece missing. “I couldn’t find the last fragment.”
“This is awful!” said Nutmeg. “If the stone is broken, everything’s going to stay mixed up forever!”
“I know,” agreed King Rat gloomily. “I wish I’d never taken it. I only wanted it because it was so bright and shiny. Now life in Enchantia is never going to be the same again.”
“There’s nothing we can do,” said Nutmeg, starting to cry.
Rosa put her arm around her friend and gave her a hug. “We can’t give up that easily. Maybe we can find the missing piece of the ring.” She looked at King Rat. “Where did you drop it?”
“Over there,” he said, pointing back to the steps by the front door.
“Well, let’s get looking!” said Rosa.
Rosa, Nutmeg and King Rat hunted around. The mouse guards nearby were arguing. “You must have taken my train! It was here a minute ago,” said one. “You just wanted it because it was so shiny!”
“I didn’t take it! I didn’t!” said the second mouse.
“Did too!” whinged the first.
“Did not!”
Rosa began to think she preferred the guards when they were scary!
“Oh, this is useless! We’ve looked everywhere,” King Rat said grumpily after ten minutes. He sat down in the shade of a nearby tree with massive leaves and took off his shoes with a groan. “My feet are killing me from all the dancing that the Nutcracker keeps making me do. I’m going to have a rest.” He leaned against the tree trunk and closed his eyes.
“Maybe we should just give up,” Nutmeg said to Rosa.
“No! The missing bit of stone can’t have just disappeared,” said Rosa as King Rat started to snore loudly. “Let’s keep looking.”
Nutmeg laid her wand down on the ground and crouched on her hands and knees, examining every inch of the grass. Rosa joined in too, but no matter how much they hunted, they couldn’t find the missing piece.
Nutmeg sighed. “It’s no use, Rosa,” she said, getting to her feet at last. “We’re not going to find it. We—” she broke off. “Where’s my wand? I left it here!” She pointed at the ground. “It’s gone!”
“It can’t have gone,” said Rosa.
Nutmeg turned on King Rat, who was just waking up. “Have you taken my wand?” she demanded.
“What would I want with your stupid sparkly wand!” snorted King Rat. He got to his feet and reached for his boots. He gave a yell. “Hey! Someone’s stolen the buckle off my boot!” He swung round to Nutmeg. “Give it back!”
“It wasn’t me. I haven’t touched your smelly boot!” said Nutmeg. “You’re just saying that because you took my wand.”
“I didn’t take it!”
“You must have!”
“Stop it, both of you!” Rosa broke in. “Nutmeg hasn’t taken the buckle off your boot,” she said to King Rat. “She’s been with me, looking for the missing piece of the moonstone all the time you’ve been asleep. And King Rat can’t have taken your wand,” she said to the fairy. “He’s been snoring away like anything.”
“I do not snore!” said King Rat indignantly.
Rosa ignored him. “There has to be another explanation.”
Just then there was a shout from the guards and a flash of black and white as a bird swooped across the courtyard and flew up into the tree with the big green leaves.
“My marble! My best shiny marble! That bird took it!” shouted one of the mice.
Of course! A magpie!
Rosa grinned at Nutmeg and King Rat. “You know, I think we might just have found the thief!”
“Magpies often steal shiny things,” Rosa explained to King Rat and Nutmeg. She looked up into the branches of the tree with the big leaves. “I bet he’s got a nest in that tree. If we could get up to it, we’d probably find your wand and the buckle and all kinds of other things.”
Nutmeg turned to King Rat. “If you lift that spell of yours that stops me using magic, I could fly up there and see,” she said, fluttering her wings.
King Rat hesitated.
“You want your buckle back, don’t you?” Rosa said to him.
“Oh, all right. What harm can it do?” King Rat held up his paws and muttered a spell under his breath.
Nutmeg spun round and rose into the air. She flew up into the tree. The magpie squawked from one of the branches.
“There is a nest up here but these leaves are so big I can hardly see it!” Nutmeg called down to Rosa and King Rat. She had to pull a few of the leaves off to get to the nest. They floated down to the ground.
“Can you see anything yet?” called Rosa.
“Yes! Here’s my wand, and King Rat’s buckle, marbles and a train and—” Nutmeg broke off with a gasp. “Oh, goodness! Wait until you see this!”
She flew down and landed lightly on her pointes, her arms full of the things she had found. She quickly handed back the buckle, the train and the marble, slipped her wand into a pocket in her tutu and then held out her hand. “Look!” Slowly, she opened her fingers.
Rosa held her breath. Could it be…was it really…? “It’s the missing piece of moonstone!” she gasped.
Nutmeg beamed. “The magpie must have taken it as well!”
“Where’s the ring?” Rosa quickly asked King Rat.
“Here.” He held it out.
Rosa took it and quickly added the missing piece. It fitted perfectly! The ring was complete again.
She glanced round, expecting something to happen – some music or some magic. But everything stayed exactly the same. The guards kept playing as if they were children.
“Maybe we need some glue!” King Rat hurried inside and came back with a tube. He carefully stuck the piece of stone into the ring, but still nothing happened.
“Why’s it not working?” said Rosa.
Nutmeg bit her lip. “I think I might know. I remember when I was little, people said that if the ring was ever broken it could only be mended by the First Fairy coming back to Enchantia. I thought it was just a story, but maybe it is real.”
“Well, how can we get her to come here?” Rosa asked.
“The only way to do it is
to get at least one person from every ballet to join in a dance,” Nutmeg answered.
“We can’t do that,” said King Rat. “There are too many ballets.”
Even Rosa felt stumped. How could they possibly get one person from every ballet together? “Oh,” she said, her heart sinking. “That’s going to be impossible, isn’t it? We’d have to travel round for days and days.”
“Hang on!” Nutmeg said, suddenly seizing her hands, her eyes shining. “It’s not impossible at all! In Enchantia we can summon anyone by doing a bit of their dance from the ballet they come from.”
Rosa stared. “Really?”
“Yes! So I could dance and summon some people and then they could dance too and help us summon more people.” Nutmeg twirled round in excitement. “Soon we’d have everyone we need!”
“But…but that means there would be lots of people dancing!” King Rat exclaimed. “Here! Outside my castle!”
Nutmeg nodded.
“NO!” yelled King Rat, burying his head in his hands. “I’ll never live this down!”
Ignoring King Rat, Rosa and Nutmeg hurried away. “I’ll do the dancing to summon the first few people and as they arrive, you can explain what’s happening and get them to dance too,” said Nutmeg.
She waved her wand. Music flowed through the air. Rosa recognised it immediately. It was the Sugar Plum Fairy’s music from The Nutcracker. Nutmeg began to dance. Rosa couldn’t help herself, she had to join in. She couldn’t go up on her pointes like Nutmeg but she moved lightly across the grass, copying as best she could. Nutmeg caught her eyes and grinned at her.
A minute later there was a lilac flash, and Nutmeg’s sister, the beautiful Sugar Plum Fairy, appeared. She was wearing a lilac tutu and had a sparkling tiara in her hair.
Magic Ballerina 7-12 Page 6