Makayla butts in. “Principal Conehurst? Do you really think we can get the field trips back if the carnival makes a lot of money?”
He nods. “With a little luck.”
Makayla’s eyes shine. “I can go to the Online News Association banquet!”
All of a sudden, I realize something: going to the banquet really, really means a lot to her. I always thought Makayla was just a mean girl, but she has her dreams, too.
Makayla pushes down Taylor’s camera. “Stop filming! We’ve got to get people here to buy tickets!” Makayla types something into her phone, and, a second later, every other phone in the parking lot, including mine, chirps with a text from her: Carnival tonight! Spread the word!
Makayla and Taylor scurry away, ready to tell the world.
The principal looks around and asks me, “Where’s Martin’s epic carnival ride?”
“He should be here anytime now,” I say.
Then there’s a shout from a megaphone: “Hey, everybody! Hey! Hey!”
We all turn and see Martin, dressed in the same gray cover-alls he wore when he zip-lined off the water tower. The yellow bicycle helmet is back on his head, and he pulls a wagon that’s covered with a tarp.
I run up to him, suddenly feeling very, very nervous. “Martin! What are you doing?” I whisper.
He whispers back, “I had a jetpack breakthrough. You helped me, actually.”
“How?”
“When we flew to Abner’s, I analyzed how they worked.”
“That was magic!”
“But the aerodynamic concepts were correct! I’ve made a working prototype—and with only three leaf blowers!”
As more and more kids gather around, he whips the tarp off the wagon to reveal three leaf blowers strapped together with shiny silver duct tape. He picks up the megaphone. “The future of transportation is here, now. Tonight you can take a ride on a real, live jetpack! Kids only—grown-ups are too heavy! Five dollars a ride!”
Principal Conehurst pushes through the crowd. “Martin, that’s way too dangerous!”
Martin quickly buckles on his homemade jetpack. “It’s not dangerous at all. Everybody—WATCH THIS.”
He flips a switch, and the leaf blowers on his back turn on with a roar. Blue exhaust smoke streams out toward the ground…
…and Martin rises into the air. Just a couple of feet, but he is floating above the ground.
This is amazing! He’s really, really done it! He’s not using tricks, he’s not using magic. He’s using something he invented himself!
The kids all applaud and cheer, and Martin gives a big wave. This is probably the best moment of his life.
As Martin hovers, he starts to turn around in a circle faster and faster. At first I think he’s just showing off for the crowd—and then I notice that Martin looks queasy, like he’s getting dizzy from spinning.
“Martin! It’s time to come down!” I shout.
“I’m trying!” he shouts back.
Principal Conehurst makes a grab for him, but it’s too late. Martin spins away like a wobbly, out-of-control top.
He whirls over the food tables, his feet knocking into everything. Sweets go flying, and kids have to duck so they don’t get hit by flying caramel apples.
Next, spinning even faster, he hurtles through the pyramid of prizes. (Is spurtles a word? If it isn’t, it should be.) Stuffed bears, tigers, and rabbits go flying, too.
Martin spurtles toward the row of cardboard carnival booths, and kids dive out of the way. This is going to be horrible! I’ve got to stop this now! I pull my wand out of my pocket, ready to toss a spell—and then I see Makayla and Taylor standing right in front of me, filming everything.
If I use magic on Martin, it’ll be uploaded to YouTube before you can say “end of fairy godmothering as we know it.”
I put my wand back in my pocket and watch in horror as Martin plows through the cardboard carnival booths like a bowling ball knocking down pins. And if this were bowling, he just got a strike.
When the last carnival booth is flattened, Martin whirls out of control toward the still-standing legs of the water tower.
WHUMP! He knocks into the spindly legs. CRASH! The legs collapse onto the school parking lot.
With a final blast of smelly blue smoke, the jetpack turns off and Martin drops to the ground.
Sunny, Paige, and I are the first ones to reach him. “Martin! Are you all right?” I say.
He sits up. “I’m fine! I’m fine!” He stands up, staggering and dizzy from all the spinning. He looks over at the carnival, which is now just a flattened pile of cardboard. “We can fix this!” he says. “We just all need to pitch in, and it’ll be good as new!”
There’s a rumble of thunder in the distance, as if somebody up there’s laughing at him, and then it starts to rain. Not gentle, little drops, either. It’s a cloudburst, with water pouring out of the sky in broad, wet sheets.
The kids run for cover, trampling the cardboard underfoot. The food melts into sugary sludge, and the bright paint washes away into the gutters.
Along with all our hopes.
I walk into the Hungry Moose, wet and cold from the rain. I could have gone straight home, but I’m depressed enough already without getting yelled at for being a total failure as a fairy godmother.
Which I am.
In the kitchen, Dad has six sauté pans going at once on the range, and Madison is sitting at the table playing her Sparkle Pony game. Dad sees me and says, “Why aren’t you at the carnival?”
“It got rained out.”
Dad gives me a sympathetic look. “Bummer. Get that wet coat off and come stand by the oven.”
When I walk over and stand with my back to the heat, Dad says, “You can try again tomorrow.”
“Everything got knocked over and ruined.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Maybe you guys can try it again next month.”
I can’t tell Dad that I’ll be at the South Pole, so I just say, “Yeah, maybe.”
Mom comes in carrying an empty tray. “Lacey! Why—”
“The rain wiped out the carnival,” Dad says.
“Oh, honey,” Mom says. She puts down the tray and gives me a big hug. “After all your hard work, too. Sometimes life just isn’t fair.”
Dad puts down his spatula and adds a hug of his own. Madison runs over to us. “I want to hug, too!” She wriggles in and hugs me tight.
A family hug is the best, and I wish this moment would never end.
But moments always end, and so does this one. While we’re still hugging, the vegetables on the stove start splattering, and the bell that means somebody came in through the front door chimes, and the Sparkle Ponies start neighing on Madison’s iPad, wanting her to pay attention to the game.
I hang on to everybody tight, but they all pull away. Dad goes back to the stove, Mom rushes into the dining room, and Madison runs back over to the table and starts tapping the iPad.
I bet I’m not going to be getting many hugs at the South Pole.
When we all get home from the restaurant, I go to my room and open the door…
…and find a blizzard inside my room.
I’m not talking about a snowstorm like the bad one we had last winter.
Or a fun, animated blizzard like the one in Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
I’m talking about a BLIZZARD, capital B, capital everything. There’s so much snow that it looks like a swirling mass of white.
It takes all my might, and a couple of tries, to finally slam the door shut.
Oops. Shutting the door might have been a mistake. Because now I’m lost in a snowy, freezing wilderness. I pull out my wand, but what should I do? Make a torch? A tent? A toboggan? Suddenly, through the spiraling snow, I hear barking sounds and Katarina shouting, “Get away from me, you brutes!”
I stumble toward the sounds—and find Katarina surrounded by five big, angry leopard seals, which must have come in through the portal just like the penguin di
d. Only they aren’t cute like Prince Cornelius Sebastian; they’re scary-mean-looking. Hungry-looking, too. One of them has even taken a gigantic bite out of the top of her ig-mansion.
“Katarina! I’m here!”
“Do something! My wand’s still in the igloo and my wings have iced up! Do anything! But do it now!”
The hungry leopard seals notice I’m standing here, and now a couple of them start waddling toward me. Eek! I raise my wand and chant, “Before we become meals, make toys out of seals!” I toss the spell, and there are five bright flashes of light. Instead of five live seals, there are five fluffy seal toys sitting in the snow. They’d be really cute, except they still have mean, angry expressions on their fuzzy embroidered faces.
Katarina is so cold that she’s turned icy pale. I reach down and pick her up, very gently so I don’t break her frozen wings.
I fight my way through the blizzard into my closet and shut the door behind me. It’s icy even in here, but at least there’s no wind.
I raise my wand and chant, “Cozy warmth we desire; make a magic campfire!” After I toss the spell, a small, crackling campfire appears on the snowy floor of my closet. I put Katarina down next to it, and she stretches out her shivering hands. It takes a few moments for her to go back to her normal pink. Finally, she turns to me and says, “That’s what our lives are going to be like every day. So please tell me the carnival went well.”
“Uh…actually…Martin smashed it. Then it got wrecked in the rain. It’s canceled.”
Katarina frowns for a minute; then she calls, “Seals! Come eat me now and put me out of my misery!” She sounds like she means it.
“We still have one day left, Katarina! There must be something we can do!”
Katarina takes a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m your teacher, and this is a teachable moment.”
“That’s better. So what do you want to teach me?”
“We’re DOOOOOOOMED!!!”
“This is so unfair! I never asked to be a fairy godmother! I just wanted to be a normal kid! Normal kids don’t get sent to Antarctica when they fail at something—they get sent to their rooms. Their blizzard-free rooms! I would love to be sent to my room!”
“Oh, poor you. Boo-hoo-hoo. Life is so unfair. I’ve spent my whole life helping people get their dreams, and what do I get? An igloo. Will any of them care that I’m banished? No! They don’t even send me cards on my birthday. At least your friends and your family will miss you when you’re gone. Me? Who cares?”
That’s super depressing. No wonder Katarina’s so cranky all the time. If we ever get out of this, I’m going to have to remember to do something nice for her. But first we have to get out this! “Katarina, you’ve got to help me! Tell me what to do! You’re my teacher!”
“I’m a fairy godmother teacher. We don’t help. We don’t tell you what to do. We don’t even give gold stars!”
“So what do fairy godmother teachers do?” I ask.
“My old teacher, Terrifica Fata, believed in the three Rs. Rant, roar, and ridicule.”
“Well, your old teacher sounds horrible.”
Katarina looks around the closet nervously. “Shhh!! Terrifica has very big ears. Wherever she is, she’s probably listening!”
“Wait a minute,” I say. “Her name is Terrifica? That means terrifying in Latin.”
Katarina stares at me. “How do you know that?”
“Abner told me! He’s got a mini carnival at his house, and he named the mini roller coaster The Terrifica because it’s so scary.”
Katarina stares at me. “You’re sure? He really, truly used the word Terrifica?’”
I nod.
Then she says something I never, ever thought I’d hear coming out of her mouth: “OMG!”
Splurch! Splurch! Splurch!
Katarina and I are inside a giant pumpkin, and it’s rolling.
Ew! It’s so gross in here. Stringy orange pumpkin innards and seeds tumble all around us. “Why didn’t you let me make us jetpacks?” I ask Katarina.
“Pumpkin carriages are the traditional way to travel—only you’re supposed to transform the pumpkin into an actual carriage, you numbskull!” And then a giant pumpkin seed hits her on the head and she goes flying.
THWUNK! The pumpkin hits something, hard, and splits open.
We’re right at Abner’s front door, completely covered in pumpkin goo. Katarina is so buried in gunk that I can’t even see her.
Abner opens the door a moment later, and his mouth drops open when he sees the mess on his porch.
I figure I have about thirty seconds before he closes the door and calls the cops (or his psychiatrist), so I start talking, loud and fast. “Abner, you said nobody was going to give me and Martin a handout. But somebody gave you a handout.”
Right then, Katarina digs her way out of the orange slime. “And her name was Terrifica Fata! Your very own fairy godmother! That’s right, isn’t it? Right? Right?”
“And that’s why you named the little roller coaster after her,” I add.
Abner leans against the door frame like he’s feeling a little unsteady on his feet. After a long, long pause, he nods yes. “I’ve been keeping Terrifica Fata a secret for fifty-four years. She made my dream come true.”
“Your dream was about pickles?” I ask.
“No, no! My dream was to get away from my uncle’s horrible cucumber farm. She showed up one night, screeching at me about what an idiot I was.” (Hmm…she sounds a lot like Katarina.) “She didn’t stop screeching until I invented the recipe for the best darn pickles that anyone had ever tasted. It changed my life, not to mention making me rich. I couldn’t have done it without her help.”
I say, “And now Martin Shembly needs help! Big, big help! And he needs it before the full moon on Sunday morning!”
Abner looks at Katarina and says, “But he’s got a fairy godmother. How much more help does he need?”
I tell him, “She’s not his fairy godmother, I am!” Right then I slip in the pumpkin ooze and fall on my butt.
Abner extends a hand and pulls me up. “You two had better come in and tell me all about it.”
He wipes pumpkin goo off his hand. “And can one of you please do a spell so you don’t track pumpkin all over my nice clean carpet?”
Inside Abner’s office, I take the miniature pickle carnival off the shelf and put it on his desk. I tell him, “Tomorrow morning, I want to use magic to turn this carnival big and real. And I want to tell everybody that the big and real carnival is yours, and that Martin Shembly talked you into donating it.”
“People are supposed to believe that I just happened to have a carnival lying around?”
“We’ll say that it’s part of your collection, and that you had it stored in the barn. All you did was have some workmen wheel it out and set it up.”
“The carnival is going to be here?”
“People would believe it more than if it showed up at the school parking lot in the morning.”
Abner hesitates. “This is kind of a lot to ask.”
Katarina flies over and yanks on his ear as hard as she can.
Which is pretty hard.
Then she yells into it, “A fairy godmother changed your life! Now a fairy godmother needs your help! Give Martin Shembly a break!”
“And besides…” I say, “wouldn’t it be really cool to see your little pickle carnival full-size?”
He looks at me, thinking. Suddenly, he breaks into a smile, and even though he’s old, I think I can see what he looked like when he was a happy little kid on Christmas morning. “It wouldn’t just be cool—it would be really, really, really cool!”
“So you’ll do it?” I ask.
“Yes! And I want to be the very first one to ride on the Terrifica roller coaster.”
Yay! He’ll do it! Before he has a chance to change his mind, I say, “I’ll be back first thing in the morning with Martin and my friends Paige and Sunny.” Then I think of something. “How are
we going to get here? It’s too far to bike, and I’m really bad with pumpkins.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Abner says. Then he asks Katarina, “How is Terrifica?”
“She retired to Disney World in Florida. Next time you’re on ‘It’s a Small World,’ say hello.”
He says, “She lives on the ride? Doesn’t that song drive her crazy?”
“There’s a rumor that she wrote that song,” Katarina says.
Splurch! Splurch! Splurch!
Katarina and I roll our way back home surrounded by seeds and goo again. But we’re not in a pumpkin; we’re in a cantaloupe. (It’s the only thing Abner had in his kitchen.)
And it’s still a stupid way to travel.
Right after dawn, there’s a knock on my front door. When Mom and Dad answer it, they’re very surprised to see Abner on the porch and his long green limousine parked in the driveway.
“Hello there,” he says. “Lacey’s probably told you I’m sponsoring a replacement carnival at my lake house today. I need to borrow your daughter and her friends to help set things up.”
This is the first, scary test of whether our “Abner’s Pickles Carnival” story is going to work. And—it does! Mom and Dad are thrilled that Abner is going to help the school.
And the story works with Dr. Harrington, and Sunny’s mom, too. So that’s why Sunny, Paige, Katarina, and I are now riding in the green limo nervously playing with the automatic windows while Abner is up front driving.
Paige asks Katarina, “Don’t you need to be in Lacey’s room watching the portal?”
Katarina shakes her head, “The portal was frozen solid this morning. Nothing’s getting through without an ice pick.”
Sunny presses a button that makes the glass between us and the limo’s front seat slide down. “Mr. Abner, why are you doing the driving yourself?”
“All this would have been a little hard to explain to my driver, don’t you think? I gave my entire staff the weekend off.”
“Smart,” Sunny says.
We park a block from Martin’s house, and I climb out and walk the rest of the way. I get there just in time to see a car pulling out of Martin’s driveway. His parents are in the front of the car and Martin’s in the back. I’m too late! They’re going to his violin audition! How am I going to stop them?
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