“Where’s the meerkat?” the smallest goblin panted.
“It was there!” The biggest goblin pointed at the hole.
The other goblins frowned.
“That hole’s empty.” The smallest goblin snorted. “I think you’re seeing things! This hot sun can play tricks on your brain, you know.”
“He doesn’t have a brain!” The goblin with huge ears giggled.
“That’s not funny!” the biggest goblin snarled, looking angry.
Then Rachel and Kirsty saw a flash of brown fur inside a different hole very close by. Missy peeked out of it and stared at the goblins. They were right in front of her.
“Oh, no!” Rachel groaned. “The goblins are bound to catch little Missy this time!”
But the goblins were still arguing about whether the biggest goblin had seen a meerkat or not, and they didn’t notice that there was, in fact, one right under their noses! Then, as the girls watched, Missy snuck out of the hole and grabbed Mara’s magic key chain right out of the biggest goblin’s pocket.
The girls could hardly believe their eyes.
“Missy, bring the charm to us!” Kirsty called. But Missy immediately vanished down the hole again.
The biggest goblin shrieked with rage. “Give that back, you naughty meerkat!” he shouted, and he dove headfirst into the hole. He disappeared up to his knees, but then stopped.
“I’m stuck upside down!” the goblin screeched furiously, waving his feet around. “Come and dig me out—and get that meerkat for Jack Frost!”
The two other goblins began digging in the sand with their hands, scooping it away from the hole where their friend was stuck.
“Can you see the meerkat?” the smallest goblin cried.
“No!” the biggest goblin roared. “There are lots and lots of tunnels down here. It’s like a maze. Keep digging!”
Mara flew out from under Kirsty’s hat. “I’ll turn you into fairies, girls, and then we can fly through the tunnels and find Missy,” she told them.
One flick of Mara’s wand sent glittering fairy sparkles spinning all around Rachel and Kirsty, shrinking them to fairy-size. Delicate fairy wings magically appeared on their backs. Then Mara zoomed toward a nearby hole, and Rachel and Kirsty flew after her.
“You know animals love our magic key chains,” Mara reminded the girls as they entered the hole. “So we have to find Missy and persuade her to give it back to me. Come on, girls!”
But the instant Mara, Rachel, and Kirsty flew inside the hole, the walls of the tunnel began to shake with a loud noise. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“What’s that?” Rachel gasped nervously, dodging a clump of dirt that fell from the roof of the tunnel. Another clump tumbled down and almost hit Mara, who managed to fly out of the way just in time.
“I think the goblins must be stomping on the ground, trying to drive the meerkats out of their holes,” Mara exclaimed. “We have to find Missy before the tunnels start collapsing!”
Rachel and Kirsty quickly followed Mara down the tunnel, trying to avoid the chunks of the roof and walls that were now falling around them. Kirsty couldn’t believe how many passageways there were underneath the desert sand. Everywhere she looked, there were more and more tunnels going in lots of different directions.
“How do we know which way to go next?” Kirsty shouted above the noise the goblins were making.
Suddenly, the two meerkat guards came scurrying toward them.
“Have you seen Missy?” Rachel asked, looking worried.
“She went that way,” one of the meerkat guards replied, pointing down a nearby tunnel.
“We’ll deal with the goblins as soon as we’ve found Missy and my magic key chain,” Mara promised the guards, and she and the girls flew off.
Suddenly, a scared little voice floated faintly up the tunnel toward them. “Help! Help!”
“It’s Missy!” Mara cried. She flew faster, Rachel and Kirsty right at her heels. The three friends zoomed around the corner of the tunnel, then came to a dead stop. There in front of them was the upside-down goblin. They’d almost flown straight into his head! It was blocking the tunnel!
Then Rachel yelped in dismay. She’d spotted Missy on the other side of the goblin. The baby meerkat, still clutching Mara’s magic charm, was cowering away from the goblin. Beyond Missy, Rachel could see that the tunnel had collapsed because of the goblins stomping around overhead. Missy couldn’t go forward because of the goblin, and she couldn’t go backward because of the blocked tunnel.
“Missy’s trapped!” Rachel cried. “And so is Mara’s magic key chain!”
The upside-down goblin was staring at Mara and the girls.
“Go away!” he shouted. “You can’t have that magic key chain—it’s mine, and so is this meerkat!”
Missy whimpered in distress.
“Rachel, you help Missy escape,” Mara whispered. “Kirsty and I will try to distract the goblin by tickling him!”
Rachel flew as close to the goblin as she dared. “Missy, don’t be frightened,” she called. “Just come over here to me. I promise you’ll be safe.”
“Don’t you dare move!” the goblin screeched at Missy. “I want that magic key chain, and you’re coming with me to Jack Frost’s zoo!”
“Let’s go, Kirsty!” Mara whispered. The two of them zoomed over to the goblin and, fluttering around him, they began tickling his ribs.
“Stop that!” the goblin yelled. “Ha-ha, hee-hee—no, stop it! Ha-ha-ha!”
Rachel beckoned to Missy, who stepped forward cautiously. There was only a small gap between the goblin and the wall of the tunnel, but Missy bravely began squeezing through the small space. Rachel watched, her heart pounding.
But then, just as Missy climbed over the goblin’s arm to safety, his hand shot out and he yanked the magic charm away from her.
“Your silly plan didn’t work!” The goblin gloated triumphantly as Missy scrambled past him to the other side of the tunnel. “I’ve got the key chain back! Aren’t I smart?”
“You’re not that smart, really,” Kirsty pointed out. “After all, you’re still stuck in the sand!”
“But we’ll help you out of the hole if you give us my meerkat key chain back,” Mara added.
The goblin’s face fell. “So either I go back to Jack Frost’s Ice Castle without a meerkat, or I stay stuck upside down in the desert?” he asked sulkily.
“You decide!” Rachel told him.
The goblin scowled. Then reluctantly he held out the key chain to Mara. “Help me!” he muttered.
Smiling delightedly, Mara touched her magic key chain and it immediately shrank to its Fairyland size. Quickly, Mara clipped it to her belt.
“Come on, girls,” she said. “We’ll have to go outside again to free the goblin.”
The three friends flew back along the tunnels toward the hole, a curious Missy scampering along behind.
“The other goblins have stopped stomping around,” Rachel remarked as they flew out of the hole. “I wonder why?” Then she smiled as she saw the two goblins lying exhausted on the sand.
“Look, there’s a meerkat,” the smallest goblin said wearily, pointing at Missy.
“I don’t care!” the goblin with the big ears wailed. “I’ve never been so hot and tired in my entire life!”
Mara pointed her wand at the biggest goblin’s feet sticking out of the sand. On the count of one, he shot out of the hole backward, like a ball from a cannon. He landed safely near the other two.
“Poor old goblins!” Mara said. “They look really tired, don’t they?”
She waved her wand again, and the girls saw a pool of clear water, surrounded by tall palm trees, appear nearby.
“It’s an oasis!” the biggest goblin exclaimed. “Yay!”
The three goblins raced over to the oasis and began gulping down water in the cool shade. Rachel and Kirsty grinned at each other.
“My magic has repaired all the underground tunnels, too,” Mara explained to
the girls.
Rachel and Kirsty could now see Missy and the other meerkats popping out of all the holes. “Thank you!” the meerkats squeaked. “Thank you for protecting us.”
“And thank you for all your help, girls,” Mara said. “I couldn’t have done it without you. How thrilled they’ll be in Fairyland when I give them the good news! And now it’s time for you to return to Wild Woods.”
“Good-bye, Missy,” Rachel and Kirsty called as Mara lifted her wand for the third time. “Good-bye, Mara!”
A mist of fairy sparkles dazzled the girls for a moment. Then they found themselves in the meadow again, human-size and surrounded by rabbits.
“I have an idea how we can count the rabbits,” Kirsty announced. She checked to make sure no one was around, then she turned to a group of bunnies. “Excuse me,” Kirsty said, “would you mind lining up so we can count you?”
“Of course we don’t mind!” the rabbits agreed, and they hopped to stand together in a tidy line. The girls hurried around the field, asking all the other bunnies to join them. Soon they had a long, long line winding all around the meadow.
“That was a fantastic idea, Kirsty!” Rachel exclaimed as they counted the last few rabbits. “Well, that makes fifty-two in all.”
“Not quite,” Kirsty replied, smiling as a baby bunny scurried over to join the end of the line. “Fifty-three!”
“Thank you, bunnies!” Rachel called, and then the girls saw Becky coming through the woods. The rabbits immediately scattered.
“Just in time!” Kirsty whispered.
“How did things go, girls?” Becky inquired, coming to join them.
“Oh, we counted a total of fifty-three rabbits in this meadow,” Kirsty said confidently, and she and Rachel showed Becky their clipboards.
“Nice work, girls,” Becky said with a smile. “I’m impressed. It was a very tricky task—and I really think you earned your badges!” She handed them a badge each, and the girls were thrilled to see that they had a picture of a rabbit on them.
“Wasn’t Missy adorable?” Kirsty whispered as she and Rachel followed Becky back to the nature center.
“She was cuter than cute!” Rachel whispered back. “And I can’t wait to find out which animals we’ll be meeting tomorrow!”
Rachel and Kirsty found Mae, Kitty, and Mara’s missing magic key chains.
Now it’s time for them to help
Join their next adventure in this special sneak peek …
“I wonder what junior ranger badges we’ll earn today,” said Rachel Walker as she got out of the car at the Wild Woods Nature Reserve.
“I hope we’ll be spending time with the animals again,” said her best friend Kirsty Tate. “Since the fairies gave us the gift of being able to understand what animals say, I want to be with them all the time!”
“Look, there’s Becky,” said Kirsty, seeing the head of the reserve walking toward them. “Come on, let’s find out what she wants us to do today.”
The girls waved good-bye to Mrs. Tate, who had driven them to the nature reserve.
“Good morning, girls!” said Becky. “I’ve got an exciting job for you. I want you to feed our herd of deer. They’re some of the sweetest animals on the reserve, and there’s a baby fawn that’s especially cute. But he’s very shy, so you might not see him.”
The girls could hardly believe their ears. The beautiful deer were one of the main visitor attractions at the reserve.
“Really?” Rachel gasped. “Thank you, Becky!”
“It’s like a dream come true!” said Kirsty.
“Well, let’s get started, then!” said Becky with a laugh.
She led the girls over to where four large buckets were waiting on the ground.
“These are full of deer feed,” said Becky.
“What do the deer eat?” asked Kirsty, looking into the buckets.
“It’s a special mixture of fruit and grasses,” Becky told them.
Carrying two buckets each, the girls followed Becky to a pretty meadow, full of clover and buttercups. On the far side of the meadow was a leafy forest, and a fence surrounded the other three sides. There were lots of people standing beside the fence. They looked excited and hopeful.
“Look, the visitors are gathering already,” said Becky. “I’ll go over and talk to them while you scatter the food around. The deer will be here soon—they know when it’s feeding time!”
She walked over to the fence, and Rachel and Kirsty made their way slowly through the meadow toward the woods, scattering the deer feed as they went.
“My heart’s thumping like crazy,” said Kirsty in a whisper. “We’re actually going to see real-life deer!”
Copyright © 2013 by Rainbow Magic Limited.
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, January 2015
e-ISBN 978-0-545-72306-0
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Mara the Meerkat Fairy Page 2